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#policing — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #policing, aggregated by home.social.

  1. The #UK government is funding a new National Roads #Policing Coordination Centre (NRPCC) to lead a nationwide crackdown on illegal number plates across #England. Police forces will share intelligence, data and technology to identify offenders and disrupt organised crime groups using the road network.

    The NRPCC will trial #technology including specialised goggles designed to detect plates altered to evade cameras. Illegal plates, including cloned, ‘ghost’ and missing plates, can be used to avoid speeding, parking and clean air zone penalties, as well as conceal vehicles involved in serious crime.

    Drivers using incorrectly displayed number plates can be fined up to £1,000. The initiative forms part of the government’s new Road Safety Strategy, which aims to improve enforcement and save thousands of lives. The DVSA and DVLA are also working with police to tackle businesses supplying illegal plates and support roadside enforcement.
    gov.uk/government/news/crackdo

  2. If you are unable to comment on body cameras over Zoom, it is still valuable to send your thoughts to City Council via email.

    You can email the City Clerk at
    [email protected], and CC the City Council ([email protected]).

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  3. If you are unable to comment on body cameras over Zoom, it is still valuable to send your thoughts to City Council via email.

    You can email the City Clerk at
    [email protected], and CC the City Council ([email protected]).

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  4. If you are unable to comment on body cameras over Zoom, it is still valuable to send your thoughts to City Council via email.

    You can email the City Clerk at
    [email protected], and CC the City Council ([email protected]).

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  5. If you are unable to comment on body cameras over Zoom, it is still valuable to send your thoughts to City Council via email.

    You can email the City Clerk at
    [email protected], and CC the City Council ([email protected]).

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  6. Somerville residents concerned about deployment of police body cameras without civilian oversight, please consider giving public comment at Legislative Matters meeting at 6pm on September 8th:
    us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist

    To provide comment, register for the Zoom meeting, join the call at 6pm, and when the body cameras hearing begins, raises your hand to request to speak.

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  7. Somerville residents concerned about deployment of police body cameras without civilian oversight, please consider giving public comment at Legislative Matters meeting at 6pm on September 8th:
    us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist

    To provide comment, register for the Zoom meeting, join the call at 6pm, and when the body cameras hearing begins, raises your hand to request to speak.

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  8. Somerville residents concerned about deployment of police body cameras without civilian oversight, please consider giving public comment at Legislative Matters meeting at 6pm on September 8th:
    us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist

    To provide comment, register for the Zoom meeting, join the call at 6pm, and when the body cameras hearing begins, raises your hand to request to speak.

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  9. Somerville residents concerned about deployment of police body cameras without civilian oversight, please consider giving public comment at Legislative Matters meeting at 6pm on September 8th:
    us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist

    To provide comment, register for the Zoom meeting, join the call at 6pm, and when the body cameras hearing begins, raises your hand to request to speak.

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #CallToAction #MAPol

  10. The critical importance of good policy on police body cameras is made extremely clear following recent events in #CambridgeMA. On August 21, the Cambridge Police Department, who already have body cameras, fatally shot 64-year-old William Woodworth near Central Square.

    Woodworth's family are fighting hard to get access to the body camera footage, but the District Attorney is insisting that the footage not be released yet.
    bostonglobe.com/2026/08/28/met

    #BodyCameras #surveillance #policing #MAPol

  11. Mayor Wilson would like to believe that Somerville residents are enthusiastically supportive of putting body cameras on police regardless of the policy surrounding use of the cameras.

    This is why it is important not to let the September 8th hearing pass without significant public turnout, emphasizing that policy matters and that we insist on a civilian oversight body with real authority over the police department.

    #SomervilleMA #policing #surveillance #MAPol

  12. It's very frustrating that Somerville is moving forward with an expensive (estimaed $400,000 per year) body cameras program without waiting for the hearing that residents have requested and have a right to.

    As a reminder, Mayor Wilson's justification for urgency was that he didn't want to miss out on a quarter million dollar grant to cover the initial purchase, a sum that will be quickly outpaced by the ongoing costs of the program.

    #SomervilleMA #surveillance #policing #MAPol

  13. It should be noted that the comments at the July 27th meeting against deployment of police body cameras included several activists who have been advocating for police oversight since 2020. Meanwhile, a large fraction of the comments in favor of cameras were members of the city's own past task forces on policing.

    #SomervilleMA #surveillance #policing #MAPol

  14. At the Special Meeting on body cameras that Mayor Wilson called on July 27th, about two thirds of the public comments were in opposition to approval of the policy documents and/or in opposition to initiating an expensive body cameras program at this time.

    Nevertheless, the Council voted to approve the policy and to accept the small federal grant for purchase of the cameras (which required that the cameras be purchased by the end of August).

    #SomervilleMA #MAPol #surveillance #policing

  15. To give comments on police body cameras in Somerville, please use this link to sign up for the Zoom meeting, and raise your hand to request a chance to speak:
    us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regist

    In particular, it's important to emphasize that a civilian oversight body should exist *before* police body cameras are deployed.

    #SomervilleMA #MAPol #policing

  16. There are some important updates on the #SomervilleMA police body cameras situation.

    On Tuesday September 8th, the Legislative Matters Committee will be holding the public hearing on body-worn cameras that 89 residents requested by petition. If you're concerned about the issue, it'd be great if you can sign up to give comment.

    #surveillance #MAPol #policing

  17. @afewbugs

    And maybe stop destroying things you dont understand; ebikes, political protest, trans people

    #uk #theMet #SadiqKhan #HomeOffice #policing #uklabour

  18. hate to say i told ya so, but...

    (when I first mentioned this to my lecturers they all said they couldn't see it happening because of the privacy concerns and data speed issues...lolok)

    _____

    WA police surveillance cameras: AI technology to monitor public spaces

    WA police launch real-time AI camera surveillance to catch criminals

    WA Police will become the first force in the country to use real-time AI-generated facial recognition in public spaces.

    The state government on Friday launched the Overt Live Facial Recognition program with a trial of the cameras at the police academy in Joondalup

    The technology monitors groups of people from police vans and compares faces against a database of targets in real-time.

    nine.com.au/australia-news/wa/

    #AusPol #Australia #WAPol #policing #Criminology #CriminalJustice #tech #technology #surveillance #surveillanceTech #AI #RightToPrivacy

  19. look im gonna need some of you all to start listening to me

    _____

    DHS BUILT A FACE SCANNING APP. YOU MIGHT ALREADY BE IN IT.

    They came to his workplace armed with guns, gas canisters and artificial intelligence. He fought back with his quick wit and street smarts.

    What happened next is a preview of what routine face scans could look like on American streets, in this special France 24–Mother Jones report.

    Abdikafi Abdurahman Abdullahi, known as Kafi, is one of the few people willing to speak publicly about being subjected to the Department of Homeland Security’s new facial recognition tool, Mobile Fortify.

    The Somali-American engineer-turned-Uber driver was waiting for a fare in an airport rideshare lot on January 7th, just hours after Renee Good was shot and killed by federal agents. As he watched a video of her death on his phone, there was a knock on his car door. Outside stood roughly a dozen ICE agents, demanding proof of his citizenship.

    Kafi, who is Black and Muslim, refused to show his ID, arguing he was being racially profiled. Instead, he began filming, and his unflappable, mischievous comebacks transformed his video into a viral sensation.

    The Department of Homeland Security officially acknowledged the existence of Mobile Fortify in January. But by then it had already been used over 100,000 times in American communities, according to recent court filings.

    “This is taking a big and very scary step toward a kind of totalitarian checkpoint society that we have always professed to abhor here in the United States,” warned ACLU attorney Nate Wessler

    youtu.be/fDsYzd4ITq0?si=MuhIis

    #tech #technology #surveillance #surveillanceTech #AI #chatgpt #LLMs #policing #HumanRights #RightToPrivacy

  20. Public Health Experts Sound Alarm as Feds Keep Deploying Tear Gas Near Kids

    “We don’t know the long-term effects. We don’t understand their effects on children,” said a pediatrician.

    murica.website/2026/02/public-

  21. Rep. Velázquez Touts Bill to Unmask ICE Agents During Rally at NYC Field Office

    The bill bars agents from wearing facial coverings during enforcement unless medically necessary or required for safety.

    voices.murica.website/?p=26269

  22. The Data Bill strips back your right to human review of automated decisions that have life-changing impacts.

    It flips the script, forcing you to prove a mistake has been made when AI gets it wrong – the scales of justice further imbalanced.

    Sign our petition ⬇️

    you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions

    #DataBill #DUABill #dataprotection #GDPR #privacy #automateddecisionmaking #AI #policing #police #ukpolitics #ukpol

  23. Even the limitation on automated decision-making using 'special category data' could be sidestepped by relying on the loophole of 'authorised by law' in the UK Data Bill.

    The letter warns that "police will be able to conduct ADM without limitation and to conduct ADM involving sensitive data with very few limitations."

    #DataBill #DUABill #dataprotection #GDPR #privacy #automateddecisionmaking #AI #policing #police #ukpolitics #ukpol

  24. Automated decisions could be made in policing "on the basis of their socioeconomic status, regional or postcode data, inferred emotions, or even regional accents."

    The UK Data Bill puts marginalised groups at risk of opaque and unfair automated decisions that replicate inherent biases in the data.

    #DataBill #DUABill #dataprotection #GDPR #privacy #automateddecisionmaking #AI #policing #police #ukpolitics #ukpol

  25. The UK Data Use and Access Bill strips away your right to not be subjected to life-changing decisions made solely by AI, apart from where special category data is used.

    But, as the letter says, "there are many contexts in which non-special category personal data acts as a proxy for protected characteristics."

    #DataBill #DUABill #dataprotection #GDPR #privacy #automateddecisionmaking #AI #policing #police #ukpolitics #ukpol

  26. The UK Data Bill could unleash unchecked automated decision-making in policing ⚠️👮

    ORG has signed Big Brother Watch's open letter to warn that removing safeguards could greatly expand "possibilities for bias, discrimination and lack of transparency".

    Read more ➡️ bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/press-r

    #DataBill #DUABill #dataprotection #GDPR #privacy #automateddecisionmaking #AI #policing #police #ukpolitics #ukpol

  27. The War on #Masks Has Taken on a New Meaning

    This time, the masks have nothing to do with #COVID19.

    By Henry Grabar
    Feb 05, 20254:57 PM

    "Last month, state legislators in New York introduced a bill that would create a new crime: 'masked harassment.'

    "That, the law explains, is when you wear a mask 'for the primary purpose of menacing or threatening violence against another person' or 'placing another person or group of persons in reasonable fear for their physical safety.'

    "If that seems like a bit of a niche offense—threatening violence is already a crime, after all—it’s because the language has been watered down to attract political support. It’s a sign of New York Democrats’ cautious new approach over masks in public life, and a retreat from last spring, when anti-Israel protests, on top of a widespread urban crime panic, pushed leaders from New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass to consider mask bans.

    "In its original form, the New York bill would have banned masks at public assemblies entirely. But the outcry from #DisabilityRights advocates, #CriminalJustice reformers, #HealthCareWorkers, and #CivilLiberties groups was swift, and so New York wound up with this bill on 'masked harassment' instead.

    "Elsewhere, the pandemic-era leniency on masking in public is over. #NorthCarolina Republicans overrode a gubernatorial veto last summer to once again #BanPublicFaceCoverings, except to stop the spread of contagious diseases. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost dusted off an old law to threaten #StudentProtesters with #felonies. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has asked the state’s Senate to consider a bill to #unmask #protesters this year.

    "For Republicans, it’s a chance to kill two birds with one stone. They can strike back against the perceived overreach of pandemic-era #HealthDirectives and make it easier to arrest #demonstrators at the same time.

    "In #Ohio and North Carolina, the original statutes were written in the 1950s to stop demonstrations by the #KuKluxKlan, but had been ignored or suspended during the #pandemic and the #GeorgeFloydProtests. Many lawmakers have cited the recent demonstrations in defense of #Gaza as a reason to crack down again. Defending the proposed mask ban in New York, Anti-Defamation League [#ADL] president Jonathan Greenblatt said the demonstrators were using '#KKK tactics' to intimidate Jewish New Yorkers.

    "That instinct was bolstered by the sense among many city residents and elected leaders that widespread masking was a factor behind the pandemic-era crime spike. That led to #Philadelphia banning #SkiMasks in parks, on trains, and in public buildings. A more recent, high-profile example came in December with the Midtown Manhattan killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO #BrianThompson by a #MaskedAssassin, which prompted New York Mayor Eric Adams to call for cab drivers and business owners to ask customers to remove their masks. The new New York bill has won over the liberal Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who endorsed the 'tailored' approach. As the police say: #NoFaceNoCase.

    "For what it’s worth, there are too many confounding variables and too little data to be sure if mask-wearing is associated with crime, said Ernesto Lopez at the Council for Criminal Justice, which collects crime reporting statistics from various cities. 'From a theoretical statement it makes sense that could occur, but it has not been demonstrated that’s the case,' he told me.

    "But if all that weighed in favor of more mask bans, there was also widespread resistance. Disability advocates mobilized to defend the right to mask; North Carolina had to write a medical exemption into their bill at the insistence of a GOP House member. #PoliceReformers observed that #MaskBans have often been used for pretextual #policing and racial profiling against #BlackAmericans. (#AtlantaGeorgia tabled a mask ban for that reason.)

    "What looms largest, as the second Trump administration begins, is the role of protest. As Semafor’s Dave Weigel has noted, masks have become a badge of left-wing protest culture. That’s in part an extension of politicized COVID-era concerns about health and civility, but at this point it is mostly a tactic to preserve anonymity in an era of #FacialRecognition, streaming video, and #doxing. Last year, the anonymous #ProIsrael website the #CanaryMission posted photographs of hundreds of students and faculty at campus protests and posted their names and photos online, labeling some as supporters of terrorism.

    "'The concern takes on new urgency as Donald Trump pledges to revoke the visas of pro-Palestine protesters, and the Trump-Musk GOP embraces the naming and shaming of otherwise private citizens. A conservative group called the American Accountability Foundation has begun circulating lists of federal workers, many of them Black, who should be
    'targets' for their alleged involvement in #DEI initiatives at work.

    "Clearly, the masked protest does not always sit well with an older generation, many of whom cut their teeth in the protests of the pre-internet age. As Georgetown professor Michael Kazin told the New York Times last year: 'I do think if you are going to demonstrate, and it’s something you feel deeply about, you should be willing to stand up and be counted.'"

    Source:
    slate.com/business/2025/02/mas
    #Fascism #AuthoritarianRule #BigBrother #BigBrotherIsWatchingYou #SurveillanceState #SilencingDissent

  28. And how much economic damage is from climate change and pollution from #FossilFuels? #BigOil is the real criminal here!

    #ClimateProtesters are taking action against Big Oil. UK courts are handing them prison terms akin to rapists and thieves

    By Kara Fox, CNN
    September 14, 2024

    London CNN — "As #RightWing rioters attacked communities with #racist violence across parts of the UK last month, 22-year-old #ClimateActivist #CressieGethin sat in a prison cell.

    "Her crime? Organizing a disruptive protest against new government-granted licenses to drill for oil — a planet-heating #FossilFuel — in the #NorthSea.

    "In late July, a London court found #Gethin and four other members of the #JustStopOil activist group guilty of 'conspiring intentionally to cause a #PublicNuisance,' after recruiting protesters to climb structures along the M25 — a major ring road around London — bringing traffic to a standstill in parts over four days in November 2022.

    "Prosecutors alleged that the protests, organized over a #ZoomCall, disrupted more than 700,000 drivers, caused economic damage of over £760,000 ($980,000) and racked up £1 million ($1.3m) in policing costs.

    "Now Gethin and three others — Louise Lancaster, #DanielShaw and #LuciaWhittakerDeAbreu, who planned the disruption on the call — are serving four-year jail terms, while Just Stop Oil co-founder #RogerHallam was given five years. All are appealing.

    "The sentences are believed to be the longest in the UK’s history for #nonviolent protest and were delivered under two new controversial laws that supercharged #policing powers to crack down on disruptive protests, even when they are peaceful.

    "They place the act of planning a 'public nuisance' event, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, on a similar footing as #ViolentCrimes like robbery, for which punishments range from community service to 12 years’ jail, or rape, which is four to 19 years.

    "The judge — who in court referred to the activists as '#extremists' — justified the long jail terms because all five activists had previously been convicted of one or more offenses in relation to direct action protest. Each were on bail for another set of proceedings when the Zoom call took place. He also noted people missed important doctor’s visits and funerals because of the protest.

    "But activists like Gethin say their demonstrations are proportionate to the problem at hand — a rapidly warming world that threatens to transform life as we know it, through deadly #ExtremeWeather events and by pushing #ecosystems to their brinks. They are now battling the bolstered powers of the #police and courts to get their point across.

    “'A very harsh sentence like this doesn’t make sense morally or legally — but it does make sense politically,' Gethin told CNN in a handwritten letter from HMP Bronzefield, a women’s prison just south of London’s Heathrow Airport.

    "The laws have drawn criticism from the UN’s special rapporteur on #EnvironmentalDefenders, #MichaelForst, who said not only do they criminalize peaceful protest, but they are being enforced in 'punitive and repressive' ways."

    Read more:
    cnn.com/2024/09/14/climate/uk-

    #BigOilAndGas #ClimateActivists #ClimateProtest #SLAPPs #CorporateColonialism #WaterDefenders
    #ClimateDefenders
    #EnvironmentalActivists
    #SilencingDissent #SLAPPs #ClimateActivists #CorporateColonialism
    #EarthDefenders #CriminalizingDissent #FreeSpeech #RightToProtest #BiodiversityNecessityDefense
    #EarthDefenders
    #SLAPPs #Fascism #CivilDisobedience
    #Activism #ClimateStrike
    #HumanRights #Article20 #2023PublicOrderAct #ClimateNecessityDefense #Corporatocracy #CorporateFascism #ClimateCrisis #ClimateCatastrophe

  29. Related:

    #Racism and #policing have gone hand and hand in the #Canadian context—from the historical #SettlerColonialViolence of the #RCMP through contemporary practices, from carding and surveillance to assaults upon #racialized people and communities. The settler colonial character of the Canadian state continues in the current context in the #disproportionate arrest and incarceration of #Indigenous people and the exertion of violence, often lethal violence, against them.

    Not surprisingly, the Canadian state and its various institutions of criminal justice have stridently denied claims of racism. Commissioner Brenda Lucki—the head of the Canadian state’s ongoing colonial force, the RCMP—recently infamously denied the existence of #SystemicRacism in the RCMP, even suggesting at a federal hearing that she did not know quite what that meant.

    mediacoop.ca/story/policing-vi

    #ACAB #CDNpoli #RCMPareCriminals #CriminalCops #KKKanada #Colonialism #Canada

  30. Colonial and casteist ideas still shape criminalisation and policing in India

    The disproportionate policing and incarceration of Denotified Tribes and other caste-oppressed communities must be understood as a result of colonial and Brahminical power, writes Nikita Sonawane.

    #dalits #adivasis #casteism #CasteistPolicies #DenotifiedTribes #CriminalTribesAct #brahminism #policing #law #CasteDiscrimination #india

    himalmag.com/colonial-brahmini

  31. This week’s Philosophy Unleashed takes a look at disruption. Both the Public Order Act and erosion of the right to protest in England, and also leavers’ pranks at the end of the school year. Check it out here: philosophyunleashed.com/theblo

    #Philosophy #PhilosophyUnleashed #PublicOrderAct #Protest #Disruption #Pranks #Leavers #School #Policing #Dissent