2. Network Effect

"People live out loud and outside, and I do have concerns that public gathering, public music — that the surveillance is going to lead to more policing of public space."

Those are the words of Ursula Price, a racial justice and civil rights advocate in New Orleans who has opposed the city’s expanding connected camera network. She’s one of the many people featured in the second episode of City Surveillance Watch, which takes listeners on a coast-to-coast journey for a glimpse at how surveillance tech is used and how it affects real people.

We’ll dig into how private funding and public-private partnerships are enabling surveillance programs — from growing surveillance camera networks in New Orleans and Detroit that stream data to police monitoring centers, to privately-funded drones and license plate readers in Chula Vista, CA and Kansas City.

We’ll look into how law enforcement in Kansas City and Mt. Juliet, TN combine data from multiple forms of surveillance tech like license plate readers, connected cameras and video from Amazon Ring security cameras. We’ll explore why some urban residents are pushing to deploy more surveillance tech on their streets and in local businesses.

And we’ll ponder a future in which privately-funded surveillance tech moves decision-making — once subject to government accountability and oversight — deeper into the shadows.

Sources featured in this episode: Jacob Becchina, sergeant, Kansas City Missouri Police Department; Ross Bourgeois, New Orleans Real Time Crime Center administrator; Renard Bridgewater, anti-surveillance activist, hip hop band leader and MC and community engagement coordinator for the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans; Tyler Chandler, captain, Mt. Juliet, TN Police Department; Wendy Hood, parking enforcement officer, City of Eugene, OR; John McKinney, president of the Pebble Point Homeowners Association, Lebanon, Tennessee; Jeff Petry, director of administration, planning and development department, City of Eugene; Rayshaun “Raysh” Phillips, member and former fundraising chair for Black Youth Project 100 in Detroit; Jameson Spivack, policy associate, Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law; Lee Tien, legislative director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation