The New Orleans Police Department recently got access to software that uses predictive algorithms to go through social media patterns and ties to other people to assess the individual\'s risk for committing violence or becoming a victim.
An article from africanamerica.org highlights several systemic issues as I see it:
1) The software was put in play without the knowledge of the city council and the public.
2) The software is gathering data without notifying the person targeted of their legal rights. No social media equivalent to reading the person their Miranda Rights n.
3) The Intelligence community getting too comfortable with the idea of putting far-right leaning people ( people who should probably be under scrutiny actually ) in positions where they or organizations under their control are actually being fed data by government.
4) A police department under scrutiny for high levels of corruption and abuse, now develops new relationships with an organization controlled by someone who was fond of apartheid and thought it worked well.
We need to be aware of what\'s going on in New Orleans, and be watchful for similar patterns in all of our communities.
From africanamerica.org
A new investigative article recently published by the Verge offers comprehensive and detailed evidence that a Silicon Valley company, Palantir, has provided software to the New Orleans Police Department since 2012. The technology, ... traces so-called criminals’ ties to other gang members, analyzes their social media, and outlines and predicts the likelihood that individuals might commit violence or become a victim.
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In 2004, the company was co-founded by racist colonizer and venture capitalist Peter Thiel (also the company’s single-largest shareholder), who has raked in millions of dollars with Palantir through contracts with the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services, as well as foreign security services.
...
The Verge reports that Palantir’s partnership with the notorious NOPD (which itself has had serious issues around civil rights abuses) has been extended three times, ...
Read further: http://www.africanamerica.org/topic/new-orleans-police-kept-a-secret-cia-backed-policing-system-for-years-guess-who-it-targets
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