0:00:01.329,0:00:05.717 The shocking police crackdown[br]on protestors in Ferguson, Missouri, 0:00:05.717,0:00:08.729 in the wake of the police [br]shooting of Michael Brown, 0:00:08.729,0:00:12.952 underscored the extent to which advanced[br]military weapons and equipment, 0:00:12.952,0:00:14.684 designed for the battlefield, 0:00:14.684,0:00:15.993 are making their way 0:00:15.993,0:00:19.874 to small-town police departments[br]across the United States. 0:00:20.514,0:00:22.500 Although much tougher to observe, 0:00:22.500,0:00:26.047 this same thing is happening [br]with surveillance equipment. 0:00:26.047,0:00:28.707 NSA-style mass [br]surveillance is enabling 0:00:28.707,0:00:31.665 local police departments [br]to gather vast quantities 0:00:31.665,0:00:35.232 of sensitive information[br]about each and every one of us 0:00:35.232,0:00:39.284 in a way that was[br]never previously possible. 0:00:39.284,0:00:42.760 Location information can [br]be very sensitive. 0:00:42.760,0:00:45.391 If you drive your car around[br]the United States, 0:00:45.391,0:00:47.314 it can reveal if you go [br]to a therapist, 0:00:47.314,0:00:49.782 attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, 0:00:49.782,0:00:52.603 if you go to church [br]or if you don't go to church. 0:00:52.603,0:00:54.329 And when that [br]information about you 0:00:54.329,0:00:57.824 is combined with the same information[br]about everyone else, 0:00:57.824,0:01:00.398 the government can gain [br]a detailed portrait 0:01:00.398,0:01:03.114 of how private citizens interact. 0:01:03.114,0:01:05.589 This information used to be private. 0:01:05.589,0:01:07.282 Thanks to modern technology, 0:01:07.282,0:01:11.610 the government knows far too much[br]about what happens behind closed doors. 0:01:11.610,0:01:15.998 And local police departments make[br]decisions about who they think you are 0:01:15.998,0:01:19.169 based on this information. 0:01:19.169,0:01:23.816 One of the key technologies [br]driving mass location tracking 0:01:23.816,0:01:26.774 is the innocuous-sounding[br]Automatic License Plate Reader. 0:01:26.774,0:01:28.469 If you haven't seen one, 0:01:28.469,0:01:31.657 it's probably because you didn't[br]know what to look for -- 0:01:31.657,0:01:33.032 they're everywhere. 0:01:33.032,0:01:36.104 Mounted on roads or [br]on police cars, 0:01:36.104,0:01:40.533 Automatic License Plate Readers[br]capture images of every passing car 0:01:40.533,0:01:44.148 and convert the license plate[br]into machine-readable text 0:01:44.158,0:01:47.560 so that they can be checked[br]against hot lists 0:01:47.560,0:01:50.845 of cars potentially wanted[br]for wrongdoing. 0:01:50.845,0:01:52.972 But more than that, increasingly, 0:01:52.972,0:01:55.122 local police departments [br]are keeping records 0:01:55.122,0:01:58.282 not just of people wanted for wrongdoing, 0:01:58.282,0:02:01.084 but of every plate that [br]passes them by, 0:02:01.084,0:02:05.053 resulting in the collection[br]of mass quantities of data 0:02:05.053,0:02:07.294 about where Americans have gone. 0:02:07.294,0:02:08.902 Did you know this[br]was happening? 0:02:09.822,0:02:13.228 When Mike Katz-Lacabe asked[br]his local police department 0:02:13.228,0:02:16.657 for information about the plate[br]reader data they had on him, 0:02:16.657,0:02:18.335 this is what they got: 0:02:18.335,0:02:21.477 in addition to the date, [br]time and location, 0:02:21.477,0:02:24.508 the police department had [br]photographs that captured 0:02:24.508,0:02:27.898 where he was going and [br]often who he was with. 0:02:27.898,0:02:31.720 The second photo from the top[br]is a picture of Mike and his two daughters 0:02:31.720,0:02:35.552 getting out of their car[br]in their own driveway. 0:02:35.552,0:02:38.340 The government has [br]hundreds of photos like this 0:02:38.340,0:02:41.111 about Mike going about his daily life. 0:02:41.111,0:02:43.295 And if you drive a car [br]in the United States, 0:02:43.295,0:02:46.028 I would bet money [br]that they have photographs 0:02:46.028,0:02:48.946 like this of you going[br]about your daily life. 0:02:48.946,0:02:50.987 Mike hasn't done anything wrong. 0:02:50.987,0:02:54.942 Why is it okay that the government[br]is keeping all of this information? 0:02:54.942,0:02:56.721 The reason it's happening is because, 0:02:56.721,0:03:00.072 as the cost of storing[br]this data has plummeted, 0:03:00.072,0:03:02.584 the police departments[br]simply hang on to it, 0:03:02.584,0:03:06.366 just in case it could be useful someday. 0:03:06.366,0:03:08.866 The issue is not just that[br]one police department 0:03:08.866,0:03:11.487 is gathering this information in isolation 0:03:11.487,0:03:14.246 or even that multiple police [br]departments are doing it. 0:03:14.246,0:03:16.743 At the same time, the federal government 0:03:16.743,0:03:20.361 is collecting all of these[br]individual pots of data, 0:03:20.361,0:03:23.682 and pooling them together [br]into one vast database 0:03:23.682,0:03:25.338 with hundreds of millions of hits, 0:03:25.338,0:03:27.456 showing where Americans have traveled. 0:03:27.806,0:03:30.964 This document from the [br]Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, 0:03:30.964,0:03:33.729 which is one of the agencies[br]primarily interested in this, 0:03:33.729,0:03:38.166 is one of several that reveal [br]the existence of this database. 0:03:38.166,0:03:40.735 Meanwhile, in New York City, 0:03:40.735,0:03:44.677 the NYPD has driven police cars[br]equipped with license plate readers 0:03:44.677,0:03:48.851 past mosques in order to[br]figure out who is attending. 0:03:48.851,0:03:52.689 The uses and abuses of this technology[br]aren't limited to the United States. 0:03:52.689,0:03:55.724 In the U.K., the police department 0:03:55.724,0:03:59.868 put 80-year-old John Kat[br]on a plate reader watch list 0:03:59.868,0:04:04.145 after he had attended dozens of[br]lawful political demonstrations 0:04:04.145,0:04:08.771 where he liked to sit on a bench[br]and sketch the attendees. 0:04:08.771,0:04:12.293 License plate readers aren't the[br]only mass location tracking technology 0:04:12.293,0:04:14.449 available to law enforcement agents today. 0:04:14.449,0:04:17.461 Through a technique known as[br]a cell tower dump, 0:04:17.461,0:04:20.713 law enforcement agents can[br]uncover who was using 0:04:20.713,0:04:22.998 one or more cell towers[br]at a particular time, 0:04:22.998,0:04:25.030 a technique which has been known to reveal 0:04:25.030,0:04:29.309 the location of tens of thousands[br]and even hundreds of thousands of people. 0:04:29.309,0:04:32.549 Also, using a device known as a StingRay, 0:04:32.549,0:04:35.185 law enforcement agents[br]can send tracking signals 0:04:35.185,0:04:39.550 inside people's houses[br]to identify the cell phones located there. 0:04:39.550,0:04:41.812 And if they don't know[br]which house to target, 0:04:41.812,0:04:43.998 they've been known [br]to drive this technology 0:04:43.998,0:04:47.424 around through whole neighborhoods. 0:04:47.424,0:04:52.060 Just as the police in Ferguson possess[br]high-tech military weapons and equipment, 0:04:52.060,0:04:55.042 so too do police departments across[br]the United States 0:04:55.042,0:04:57.377 possess high-tech surveillance gear. 0:04:57.377,0:04:59.408 Just because you don't see it, 0:04:59.408,0:05:01.793 doesn't mean it's not there. 0:05:01.793,0:05:04.344 The question is, what should[br]we do about this? 0:05:04.344,0:05:07.654 I think this poses a serious[br]civil liberties threat. 0:05:07.654,0:05:12.016 History has shown that once the police [br]have massive quantities of data, 0:05:12.016,0:05:14.095 tracking the movements of innocent people, 0:05:14.095,0:05:18.411 it gets abused, maybe for blackmail,[br]maybe for political advantage, 0:05:18.411,0:05:20.670 or maybe for simple voyeurism. 0:05:20.670,0:05:23.012 Fortunately, there are steps we can take. 0:05:23.012,0:05:26.742 Local police departments can [br]be governed by the city councils, 0:05:26.742,0:05:29.664 which can pass laws requiring the police 0:05:29.664,0:05:32.586 to dispose of the data [br]about innocent people 0:05:32.586,0:05:35.748 while allowing the legitimate[br]uses of the technology to go forward. 0:05:35.748,0:05:37.423 Thank you. 0:05:37.423,0:05:41.424 (Applause).