9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The shocking police[br]crackdown

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
on protestors in Missouri, [br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in the wake of the police [br]shooting of Michael Brown,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
underscored the extent to which advanced[br]military weapons and equipment,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
designed for the battlefield,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
are making their way[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to small town police departments[br]across the United States.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Although much tougher to observe,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this same thing is happening [br]with surveillance equipment.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
NSA-style mass [br]surveillance is enabling

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
local police departments [br]to gather vast quantities

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of sensitive informaiton

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about each and every one of us

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
that was never previously possible.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Location information can [br]be very sensitive.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
If you drive your car around[br]the United States,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it can reveal if you go [br]to a therapist,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if you go to church [br]or if you don't go to church.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And when that [br]information about you

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is combined with the same[br]information

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about everyone else,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the government can gain a[br]detailed portrait

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of how private citizens act.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This information used to be private.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Thanks to modern technology,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the government knows far too much

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about what happens[br]behind closed doors.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And local police departments[br]make decisions

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about who they [br]think you are

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
based on this information.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
One of the key technologies [br]driving mass location tracking

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is the innocuous-sounding[br]automatic license plate reader.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
if you haven't seen one,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it's probably because you didn't[br]know what to look for

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
--they're everywhere.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Mounted on roads or [br]on police cars,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
automatic license plate readers

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
capture images of every passing car[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and convert the license plate

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
into machine-readable text

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so that they can be checked[br]against hot lists

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of cars potentially wanted[br]for wrongdoing.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
But more than that, increasingly,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
local police departments are [br]keeping records not just

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of people wanted [br]for wrongdoing,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
but every plate that [br]passes them by,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
resulting in the collection[br]of mass quantities of data

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
about where Americans have gone.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Did you know this was happening?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
When Mike Katz-Lacabe asked[br]his local police department

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
for information about the plate[br]reader data they had on him.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This is what they got:

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
in addition to the date, [br]time and location,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the police department had [br]photographs that captured

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where he was going and [br]often, who he was with.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The second photo [br]from the top

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is a photo of Mike and[br]his two duaghters

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
getting out of their car[br]in their own driveway.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The government has [br]hundreds of photos like this

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
of Mike going about his[br]daily life.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And if you drive a car [br]in the United States,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
you can bet money [br]that they have photographs[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
like this of you going[br]about your daily life.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Mike hasn't done[br]anything wrong,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Why is it okay that [br]the government

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is keeping all of this information?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The reason it's happening

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is because as the cost of storing[br]this data has plummeted,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the police department [br]simply hangs on to it,[br]

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
just in case it could be [br]useful someday.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The issue is not just that[br]one police department

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is gathering this information[br]in isolation,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
or even that multiple police [br]departments are doing it.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
At the same time, [br]the federal government

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is collecting all of these[br]individual pots of data,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
pooling them together into[br]one vast database

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
with hundreds and [br]millions of hits

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
showing where Americans[br]have traveled.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
This document from the [br]Federal Drug Enforcement Administration,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which is one of the agencies[br]primarily interested in this,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
is one of several that reveal [br]the existence of this database.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Meanwhile, in New York City,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the NYPD has driven police cars

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
equipped with license plate readers

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
past mosques in order to[br]figure out who is attending.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The uses and abuses [br]of this technology

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
aren't limited to the United States.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
In the UK, the police deparmtnet

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
put 80-year-old John Kat[br]on a plate reader watch list

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
after he had attended [br]lawful political demonstrations

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
where he liked to sit on a bench[br]and sketch the attendees/

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
license plate readers aren't the[br]only mass location tracking technology

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
available to law enforcement[br]agents today.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Through a technique known as[br]a cell tower dump,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
law enforcement agents can[br]uncover who was using

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
one or more cellphones[br]at a particular time,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
a technique that is [br]known to reveal

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
their location of [br]tens of thousands

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
and even hundreds [br]of thousands of people.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Also, using a device [br]known as a Sting Ray,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
law enforcement agents[br]can send tracking signals

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
inside people's houses

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to identify the cell phones located there.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
And if they don't know[br]which house to target,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
they've been known to drive

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
this technology through entire[br]neighborhoods.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Just as the police in Ferguson possess [br]high-tech weapons and equipment,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
so too do police departments across[br]the United States possess

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
high-tech surveillance gear.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Just because we don't see it,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
doesn't mean it's not there.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
The question is, what should[br]we do about this?

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
I think this poses a serious[br]civil liberties threat.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
History has shown that once

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
the police have massive [br]quantities of data

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
tracking the movements [br]of innocent people,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
it gets abused, maybe for [br]blackmail,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
maybe for political advantage,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
maybe for simple voyeurism.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Fortunately, there are[br]steps we can take.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Local police departments can [br]be governed by the city councils,

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
which can pass laws[br]requiring the police

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to dispose of the data of[br]innocent people

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
while allowing the legitimate[br]uses of the technology

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
to go forward.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
Thank you.

9:59:59.000,9:59:59.000
(Applause).