Planet Money
00:18:51 · Jessica Tisch, Amanda Aronczyk, Michelle Dahl
[00:18:51] S8: it. Using analytics, we can have a safer city and a fairer city too. [00:18:56] S2: Tisch said at the time that the domain awareness system was helping police reduce crime and prevent terrorist attacks. We reached out to the NYPD to see if commissioner Tisch or another rep from the NYPD would speak with us, and they declined to be recorded. But I did talk to a spokesperson, Bradley Weeks, about the details in this story. And he said that the domain awareness system has made New Yorkers safer. In a statement, they said, quote, anyone who has ever called 911 for help, been the victim of a crime, or who cares about their safety has benefited from this system, unquote. Today, New York is considered one of the safest cities in the country. Although sorting out whether that's because of population growth or economics or policing policy is kinda hard to do. When it comes to security cameras more broadly, a meta analysis of forty years worth of studies found that cameras do reduce car theft. But overall, it's not clear that more cameras equal less crime. Do you do... When you walk around, do you just see cameras? [00:20:05] S1: I do. I kind of can't help but spot them. [00:20:09] S2: Recently, I went on a sort of surveillance tech tour with Michelle Dahl, my fellow grand juror. [00:20:14] S1: Right here. There's another one there.
00:20:14 · Michelle Dahl, Amanda Aronczyk
[00:20:14] S1: Right here. There's another one there. [00:20:15] S2: Her group is very opposed to the NYPD's use of the domain awareness system. That's our third camera. Stop, her group, has recently sued a Yeah. City Go to seven there. Saying the system violates our constitutional rights to privacy and free speech. [00:20:28] S1: Yeah. Fourteen fifteen here. [00:20:30] S2: So they have done a lot of research on what the NYPD is using. [00:20:34] S1: If we wanna pause here, there's a really good view of the camera right up there. [00:20:40] S2: Michelle points upwards at a large tan box attached to a streetlight with an NYPD sticker. [00:20:45] S1: And it's got a little dome, so it's also likely a three sixty camera. We know that they can do a three sixty pan tilt zoom and basically one camera could cover an entire block and get good enough resolution to identify somebody's face on the entire city block. [00:21:02] S2: We then continue a couple of blocks and we stop in a park. A cop walks by. [00:21:07] S1: So this police officer is on his phone. Every police officer in the city can access the domain awareness system on their police issued phones. [00:21:15] S2: The NYPD said that not all officers can access video from their phones, but there's lots of other data. [00:21:21] S1: So if he came over here and stopped us, he could look us up and take our IDs and look up our profiles in the domain awareness system, which would show all the information they have about us, things like three one one calls, any past criminal records.
00:21:21 · Michelle Dahl, Amanda Aronczyk
[00:21:21] S1: So if he came over here and stopped us, he could look us up and take our IDs and look up our profiles in the domain awareness system, which would show all the information they have about us, things like three one one calls, any past criminal records. [00:21:36] S2: What are the odds that they have me in there? [00:21:38] S1: I mean, have you lived here for any period of time?
00:21:38 · Michelle Dahl, Amanda Aronczyk, Scott Stringer
[00:21:38] S1: I mean, have you lived here for any period of time? [00:21:41] S2: I asked the NYPD this question if I'm in the domain awareness system or not. And they said that if I had a driver's license or car registered in New York, then, yeah, I'm in there. But they said they would not look me up for, like, no reason. It can only be used for legitimate law enforcement purposes, like criminal investigations or civil litigation. Over the past thirty five years, we have gone from practically no cameras in the streets to practically no streets without cameras. And since 09/11, those cameras have been integrated into this web of tech, tracking our movements and our faces and tying them to our names, birth dates, addresses, phone numbers, and more. So I've told you the story of the rise of this incredibly thorough surveillance system in New York. Now for the story of how a lot of it happened behind our backs, and that is because there has been a kind of technological creep, and a lot of that creep happened in secret. In New York, there was an actual secret agreement to keep this hidden. The NYPD went to the mayor and a handful of city agencies and was like, what if we wanted to buy a lot of new police stuff, but we wanted to keep it on the down low? After the break, the secret agreement that kept thousands of police purchases and tech contracts out [00:23:07] S9: of the [00:23:08] S2: public eye and the fight to expose it all.
00:23:08 · Amanda Aronczyk, S0, S5, S3
[00:23:08] S2: public eye and the fight to expose it all. [00:23:16] S0: This message comes from Ameriprise Financial. Chief market strategist Anthony Saglenbeni shares how Ameriprise financial advisers help clients reach their goals through personalized advice. [00:23:27] S5: It starts by just asking questions, learning their financial well-being, their dreams, and then you can take that and start applying it to creating an investment portfolio that's designed to meet those goals. [00:23:40] S0: For more information and important disclosures, visit ameriprise.com/advice. Securities offered by Ameriprise Financial Services LLC, member FINRA, and SIPC. [00:23:51] S3: This message comes from Apollo. The world's leading companies don't need off the shelf financing solutions. That's where Apollo comes in. Apollo provides access to long duration capital and a broad range of financing capabilities, helping companies develop customized financing solutions designed around their strategic objectives and structured at an efficient cost of capital. Learn more at apollo.com/capital. This message comes from Capital One. Capital One offers checking accounts with no fees or minimums. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com/bankguy for details. Capital One NA, member FDIC.
00:23:51 · S3, S0
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