Jake Laerruque

188 Followers
53 Following
37 Posts
Deputy Director of the Security & Surveillance Project at Center for Democracy and Technology. Posting about privacy and tech policy, also movies, memes, baseball and cats
Almost 300,000 “backdoor” searches of 702 data on Americans, including campaign donors and BLM protesters. Wow. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/19/fbi-digital-surveillance-misuse-jan6-blm/
FBI misused surveillance tool on Jan. 6 suspects, BLM arrestees and others

The FBI says it has fixed the source of the problem. But the revelations will add to criticism of an agency already under fire from members of Congress.

The Washington Post
Yesterday FBI Director Wray spoke about FISA 702. Compare the hypothetical target he described (left) to the actual range of targets the law allows (right)
We need to rein in this overbroad authority. For more info check out CDT's issue brief:
https://cdt.org/insights/cdt-issue-brief-properly-narrowing-fisa-section-702-targeting/
CDT Issue Brief: Properly Narrowing FISA Section 702 Targeting

[ PDF version ] FISA Section 702 permits overbroad designation of targets which endangers the privacy of Americans and foreigners and threatens U.S. business interests. This issue brief explains how this problem can be addressed while retaining access to necessary foreign intelligence information. Problem: FISA Section 702 Permits Overbroad Targeting, Endangering Both Americans and Foreigners […]

Center for Democracy and Technology

“Americans’ ability to navigate our communities without constant tracking and surveillance is being chipped away at an alarming pace. ... We cannot stand by as the tentacles of the surveillance state dig deeper into our private lives, treating every one of us like suspects in an unbridled investigation that undermines our rights and freedom.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/07/facial-recognition-fbi-dod-research-aclu/

FBI, Pentagon helped research facial recognition for street cameras, drones

Hundreds of pages of records chronicle the FBI’s years-long attempt to upgrade its facial recognition capabilities to match those deployed in China and Britain.

The Washington Post
In reality, more and more states are actually passing strong rules to limit facial recognition, as I've documented for CDT:
https://cdt.org/insights/limiting-face-recognition-surveillance-progress-and-paths-forward/
Limiting Face Recognition Surveillance: Progress and Paths Forward

Face recognition is a powerful and invasive surveillance technology that continues to grow in use across the United States. Half of all federal agencies with law enforcement officers use face recognition. Clearview AI, just one of many vendors, is used by more than three thousand police departments, about one in every six across the country. […]

Center for Democracy and Technology
These misstatements about facial recognition bans (which have been a recurring problem by media for the past three years) not only muddy and confuse the debate, they're now creating a false narrative that "bans" (that weren't actually bans) being rolled back shows a backslide
I am once again begging media to stop calling facial recognition rules "bans" when they aren't bans. Virginia didn't have a ban - it required local authorization. As long as a city passed an ordinance any use of facial recognition was permitted - its new rules are actually stronger

Despite this one issue, the bill overall is very strong, and would make Montana a national leader in placing effective safeguards on facial recognition surveillance

Hopefully we'll see action on it and similar legislation in other states

The one problem with the bill is an exception to the warrant requirement. It contains a couple reasonable exceptions (IDing incapacitates/deceased individuals, emergencies) but also allows police to use facial recognition to ID witnesses

This could be abused - police might use an act of vandalism at a protest as a pretense to identify and catalog everyone at that protest because they were "witnesses"

Facial recognition is highly invasive and its use should be focused on suspects not bystanders

The bill would
-Set a warrant requirement (with one problematic exception)
-Limit use to serious crimes
-Require notice of use to defendants-
Prohibit matches from being sole basis for PC/arrests
-Ban untargeted facial recognition
That's a really strong set of policies! It covers nearly the whole set of items CDT has identified as key policies lawmakers should focus on for addressing facial recognition surveillance
https://cdt.org/insights/limiting-face-recognition-surveillance-progress-and-paths-forward/
Limiting Face Recognition Surveillance: Progress and Paths Forward

Face recognition is a powerful and invasive surveillance technology that continues to grow in use across the United States. Half of all federal agencies with law enforcement officers use face recognition. Clearview AI, just one of many vendors, is used by more than three thousand police departments, about one in every six across the country. […]

Center for Democracy and Technology
Interest in restricting facial recognition surveillance continues to gain momentum across the country:
Montana bill would set a number of strong limits on the tech. Short thread on its specific policies...
https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/bill-regulating-facial-recognition-technology-debated