[D66] “America Under Watch”

[A.OUT]

wsws.org:

Facial recognition technology and identity politics
By Kevin Reed
17 August 2019

Recently published news reports and legal studies have revealed that the
US government has been violating basic democratic rights by using facial
recognition to monitor and track the public. These reports have also
shown that facial recognition is used widely as a preferred form of
police biometrics, i.e., the science of identification and tracking
through facial signatures and other kinds of unique individual
measurements such as finger, palm and voice prints and dental and DNA
profiles.

Every level of law enforcement—from city and state police departments to
federal border patrol and military-intelligence—has been participating
in the mass collection and analysis of facial images. This includes
photos taken for government-issued ID cards and driver’s licenses and
others captured from hidden surveillance cameras in public places such
as border crossings, highways, parks, sporting events, sidewalks and
airports as well as those scraped from social media accounts.

Georgetown Law published a study on May 19 called “America Under Watch”
which documented the widespread use of facial recognition by the city
governments and police departments of Detroit and Chicago. As part of
its conclusion, the Georgetown report said, “real-time video
surveillance threatens to create a world where, once you set foot
outside, the government can track your every move. For the 3.3 million
Americans residing in Detroit and Chicago, this may already be a reality.”

However, just as public outrage over these revelations had begun to
emerge and several cities have been forced to ban the use of facial
recognition—including San Francisco and Oakland, California as well as
Somerville, Massachusetts—it became clear that the latest media
exposures have a twofold political purpose.

On the one hand, the most conscious sections of the ruling establishment
are concerned about the explosive reaction of millions of people to
unfettered 24/7 state monitoring of their activities and whereabouts.
Therefore, significant political pressure is being applied to force
Congress to adopt as soon as possible a federal regulatory framework for
the expanding biometric surveillance apparatus.

On the other hand, Democratic Party representatives and their supporters
are using identity politics to conceal the serious implications of
secret facial profiling and the trend toward a police state that it
represents. By focusing exclusively on studies indicating race and
gender bias in facial recognition tools, the Democrats are seeking to
divert public anger away from a mass struggle by the working class in
defense of democratic rights and into support for laws that will
legalize the surveillance.

[...]