Law enforcement agencies around the country are experimenting with technologies developed for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These high-tech video recording can track whatever moves in an American city for hours at a time. One of the, called "wide-area surveillance" is like Google Earth with a rewind button: a kind of time machine, allowing police to review a crime and also track what happened before and after. It and other new technologies, including facial recognition, might even lead to stopping crimes in progress. But they're way ahead of the law. Will they increase public safety at the price of eliminating privacy in public places?
Police, Planes, Videotapes and the Constitution
More
- CIR/KQED on use of cutting-edge technology in fighting crime
- Electronic Frontier Foundation's Surveillance Self-Defense Project
- Persistent Surveillance's wide-area aerial surveillance systems
- Schulz on 'Hollywood-style' surveillance technology
- Wadwah on law and ethics trying to keep pace with technology
Credits
Guests:
- G.W. Schulz - Center for Investigative Reporting - @GWSchulzCIR
- Richard Biehl - Dayton Police Department - @DaytonPolice
- Jennifer Lynch - Electronic Frontier Foundation - @lynch_jen
- Vivek Wadhwa - Carnegie Mellon University Engineering at Silicon Valley - @wadhwa