Monthly Archives: September 2023

Technological advancements such as location tracking and DNA testing over the past 20 years have contributed to law enforcements ability to close a criminal investigation. But their use of facial recognition software in recent years has resulted in the wrongful arrests of seven Black people foreshadowing another potential form of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, critics say.

Facial recognition is one of those things that we jumped on too quickly and it kind of just took over before we even knew it, said Thaddeus Johnson, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at Georgia State University who, along with his colleague Natasha Johnson, published the only empirical research on facial recognition last October.

Like any form of technology, facial recognition a form of artificial intelligence likely will improve as it updates and evolves. Law enforcements use of it without thorough empirical research, however, may continue to be a threat against Black people and those with darker skin tones because the technology is unable to accurately distinguish facial features of different races.

Johnson and Safiya Noble, director of the Center on Race and Digital Justice and author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, help us understand why they are sounding the alarm about law enforcements use of facial recognition.

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The first facial recognition technology was developed in the 1960s by Woodrow Wilson Bledsoe, Helen Chan Wolf, and Charles Bisson, who had an idea to have computers programmed to recognize faces. Bledsoe, a mathematician, received funding from the CIA to create the system, Observer reported. They programmed 10 photographs of different people, most likely white, into a database and trained the computer to learn how to divide a face into features, then compare the distances between those features to determine a specific face.

Over the next 60 years, facial recognition became more sophisticated in identifying skin textures and using 3D images. Now, the software has the ability to comb through more than 15 million profiles in the FBIs National DNA Index System, as well as databases created by facial recognition companies that scrub the internet and social media for the faces of billions of people.

Those software upgrades also contributed to todays biometric screenings or fingerprint access to cellphone applications and ATM machines. Home security systems, closed-circuit surveillance, computers any equipment with a built-in camera can have facial recognition software installed.

But when it comes to accurately detecting darker skin tones, the technology hasnt made significant improvements.

The kinds of people who are often making software, making products coming out of tech corridors around the world, have limited worldviews and lack exposure to lots of different kinds of people and we see that in every industry, Noble said.

Johnson said that facial recognition softwares algorithms are more than likely unconsciously biased to recognize features familiar to their programmer, who is most likely a white man. When the program is put to work in real life, it is most likely comparing images to databases that contain more Black and brown faces than the white ones its trained to recognize.

Without cultural education or exposure to different races and ethnicities, Noble said, software programmers will continue to create flawed facial recognition technology that in the long run will do more harm than good.

Facial recognition wasnt tested in the real world until 2001, when federal and local law enforcement in Floridas Tampa Bay area used it during that years Super Bowl. Its unclear why they decided to experiment at this event rather than other largely attended events such as New Years Eve in Times Square.

As the crowd of 71,921 fans entered the stadium, people stood still for their picture to be taken. Without their knowledge, the photographs were entered into a database seeking matches for criminal suspects. During the event, the system detected 19 people with outstanding warrants, but police were not prepared to make those arrests, a detective told The New York Times at the time.

That same year, the city of Tampa accepted a free, one-year trial of the facial recognition software used during the Super Bowl. City officials set up face scanners in their downtown entertainment district but did not find them to be effective because the program didnt have a database to compare images to, and the software couldnt keep up with trying to scan moving images on a public street, Vice reported.

The flaws in facial recognition technologies havent stopped law enforcement and customer-service based industries from continuing to use it.

Airports, businesses, social media, marketing, and cellphone companies use facial recognition technology for a variety of reasons that can be as insignificant as allowing users of an app to apply filters on photographs.

This year, the Transportation Security Administration announced that it will expand its facial recognition program to more than 400 airports across the country in the coming years. The pilot program, which is currently in 25 airports, has a 97% effective facial matching algorithm across demographics, including dark skin tones, a TSA press secretary told Fast Company in June.

Clearview AI is a facial recognition company that provides software to law enforcement and government agencies. Its collection of images amounts to a mega police lineup, critics told Business Insider in April. Clearview AI says it has collected 30 billion images from the internet, Facebook, and other social media without permission from the social media companies. Cease-and-desist letters were sent by Facebook and other social media companies to Clearview AI for violating users privacy.

Critics are also concerned with threats of cybersecurity hackers maliciously breaking into facial recognition databases to steal personal information.

But Noble said whether we like it or not, everybodys face is in facial recognition databases with or without their consent if they are on social media. If they have any photos of themselves up anywhere online, including photos they did not post of themselves but that others posted, those are all available to a variety of different kinds of agencies.

Johnson said that facial recognition is a very good tool for getting a lead into solving a crime, and its law enforcement use should be restricted to case detectives and investigators. But the problem is we are so blindly trusting AI that generally the police just use it. Thats why there needs to be regulations, he said.

We are not sure if theyre calibrating their equipment correctly. Were not sure of the training of the people who are using these technologies. What about officers who have body-worn cameras on thats doing this real-time recording but are also equipped with this mobile facial recognition? [The officers are] basically a walking and talking constitutional violation of sorts, Johnson said.

The most well-known case where facial recognition was a leading contributor to accurately identifying suspects was following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection upon the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Federal law enforcement officials were able to identify well over 1,000 mostly white people accused of breaching the U.S. Capitol and assaulting several law enforcement officers, The Washington Post reported. Investigators used facial recognition technology to match the suspects images from that day to photographs and videos found of them on social media. In some cases, a states Department of Motor Vehicles database of drivers license photos were used to match suspects.

There are no reports of any of the Jan. 6 suspects filing a wrongful arrest lawsuit due to the use of facial recognition.

Legal experts saw the Super Bowl debut of facial recognition technology as a violation of privacy. Those Fourth Amendment concerns persist more than 20 years later, especially since there havent been any proposed federal regulations on how to use the technology without violating individuals civil rights.

The White Houses Office of Science and Technology Policy released in October 2022 a nonbinding Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights that provides five principles on the design, use and deployment of automated systems to protect the American public in the age of artificial intelligence.

But in a December 2022 conversation hosted by the Brookings Center for Technology Innovation, legal experts criticized the White Houses initiative for leaving out guidance for law enforcement agencies use of artificial intelligence, specifically facial recognition.

Excluding law enforcement may continue the oversurveillance of certain populations, communities, and individuals under the guise of public safety and national security and will not necessarily reduce the history and manifestation of rampant discrimination against people of color and immigrants. If law enforcement were included in the Blueprint provisions and guidance, it could have offered new guardrails and agency for individuals left with little recourse when misidentified and/or scrutinized by existing and emerging AI technologies, according to commentary of the Brookings Center for Technology Innovations online event.

The Jan. 6 investigation could imply that facial recognition works well, but if it continues to misidentify Black people or individuals with darker skin tones, it does not, critics say. The 2018 Gender Shades study showed that off-the-shelf facial recognition software systems that companies and law enforcement use have low efficacy when it comes to detecting Black womens faces, and Black people in general, but are more reliable for white mens faces.

There are already practices and policies that are inequitable and result in inequitable outcomes. Why the hell do we think that facial recognition technology will make that better? No, it only exacerbates those things, said Johnson, who was previously an acting police captain in Memphis, Tennessee.

Though there arent any reported cases of a wrongful conviction connected to the use of facial recognition, since 2018 there have been six Black men and a Black woman who have been subjected to days in jail after a facial recognition match falsely connected them to felony-level crimes. In the years to follow, police departments within predominantly Black cities in Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan and New Jersey have been accused of and sued for false arrests due to the use of facial recognition technology.

The number of people who are ensnared relative to the millions of people for whom theres no problem means that the seven people who are falsely accused or imprisoned are just kind of like collateral damage to these companies, Noble said. And Im sure they do their calculus on it and say, Well, if we have to settle some lawsuits, its cheaper than redesigning the product. So we become our communities become the collateral damage.

Apple Inc. was one of the first business entities slapped with a wrongful arrest lawsuit that stemmed from the use of facial recognition to identify a possible suspect in a string of store robberies throughout the Northeast. Ousmane Bah, an 18-year-old college student in New York, sued the tech company for $1 billion after he said he was falsely arrested in 2018. The New York Police Department made the arrest based on a photograph of the possible suspect Apple turned over to police. The police allegedly agreed that the person in the picture did not look like Bah, Business Insider reported. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed, with prejudice against the defendant(s) Apple Inc. in 2021, according to online federal court records.

One of three cases out of the Detroit Police Department was that of Porcha Woodruff, who at the time of her arrest was eight months pregnant and questioned for 11 hours about robbery and carjacking accusations she knew nothing about. Woodruff, Robert Williams, and Michael Oliver had similar experiences with Detroit police and are each suing.

I think we should have a moratorium on facial recognition technologies until it can be determined that they are safe and used in ways that are safe. There are many people who think that facial recognition technologies, myself included, should be made illegal because theyre too consequential in the current ways that theyre used. Bans on facial recognition is actually a public safety imperative, Noble said.

In March, Democratic Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state and Edward Markey of Massachusetts reintroduced the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act to the House. The bill would place a moratorium on law enforcement use of facial recognition until policymakers create regulations and standards that protect constitutional rights and public safety. This is the third time the bill has been presented.

In the interim, several cities across California and Massachusetts, including San Francisco and Boston, have passed laws that ban or restrict law enforcement from using facial recognition technology.

Virginia and New Orleans reversed their short-lived facial recognition bans. In Virginia, lawmakers used the eight-month ban to evaluate the technology and create policies that include having corroborating evidence with a facial recognition match before pursuing the match as a lead.

Johnson said he is currently working on research that explores the possibility of facial recognition being used to further assist in solving crimes and perhaps put an end to the no-snitching culture. Violent crimes such as murder, sexual assault, and hate crimes tend to go unreported and unsolved in Black and brown communities because of historic distrust of the criminal justice system and fear of retaliation.

Theoretically, Johnson said, facial recognition technology can help identify witnesses and victims of crime and amplify the work of police departments across the country, if used correctly.

It [facial recognition] should be helpful, but we just dont have enough research, and Ive cautioned against wildly deploying these things and doing so without even having an inkling of an idea if it has any public safety value, scientifically, Johnson said.

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Facial Recognition Technology and False Arrests: Should Black ... - Capital B

Results of Democrats policies all around us

A writer to the Union (Community, Sept. 8, 2023) is correct that after many years of walking in local Fourth of July parades as a registered Henry County Democrat, I was absent this year. The parades are truly a fun and patriotic celebration of the Fourth.

The writer is wrong to infer there is no Democratic presence on the parade route. Most of those lining the streets have benefited from the policies of Democratic administrations.

Many would not be at the parade if it were not for the hard fight by Democratic Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson to provide Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Before these landmark initiatives many seniors moved in with the kids, died in abject poverty or were shipped off to the county poor farm. These were not Republican ideas and, in fact, Republicans have subverted them for decades as the wealthy don't want them.

Many children on the parade route have benefited from food stamps and Head Start. Thank Roosevelt, Johnson and John F. Kennedy for these vital Quality of Life programs.

Most Iowa communities have subsidized housing for those in need. Initiated by Kennedy and affirmed by Johnson and a Democratic Congress the Department of Housing and Urban Development provides for the housing. Republicans annually attempt to slash the budget.

Nutrition programs and congregate meals are the work of the Democratic Older Americans Act.

Who on the parade route does not know of friends and neighbors who are disabled? Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin championed the ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act.) This was not a Republican idea and many opposed it as hotel and restaurant campaign contributors did not want to foot the bill for doorways, ramps and restrooms.

Roosevelt and Henry Wallace initiated Depression era farm programs heralded today. And, even with the expense of these programs Bill Clinton is the only President in recent memory to actually balance the Federal budget.

Republican and insurance industry kingpins fought Obamacare which provides insurance to many in need.

Locally, the Vision Iowa Program of Governor Tom Vilsack was critical to the Old Threshers carousel and our Salem library. Iowa Republicans axed the program.

Today, President Biden has dramatically lowered the cost of insulin and in a tough fight with Republicans and drug company profiteers is lowering the cost of ten of the most widely used medications.

I have proudly marched in dozens of Henry County parades. I join many in waving the flag for the achievements and policies of our nation's Democratic leaders.

David Hellman

Salem

Dont like direction of Fairfield

What does Fairfield have against the poor and elderly? There have been two articles in recent weeks that have me questioning just what Fairfield has against the poor and elderly.

The first was an article notifying the public of an upcoming vote on the Capital Improvements Levy. The levy is currently at $0.37 per $1,000 dollars of assessed value. The proposal is to raise it to $0.68 per $1,000 dollars of assessed value. I can understand needing some sort of an increase, as these levies are for 25 years, but almost double? And that is coming on top of the new assessment, during a spike in inflation and high gas prices. Even if you are a renter and not an owner, you will be affected. Your rent will go up.

Next up in the why-does- Fairfield- hate-poor & elderly docket is the proposed maintenance ordinance. The City Council is overreaching with this. The Government has no right to take people's homes. Look at the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which guarantees our right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. As long as my activities are not illegal, what happens in my home is no one else's business. And to say that the Government can seize my home because it is in poor repair, not only violates my rights, it places an unfair burden on one sector of the population. It is in effect, telling the poor and elderly, that you have no right to home ownership.

Does the City of Fairfield really believe that if people had the means and opportunity, especially the opportunity, to make repairs that they wouldn't have already done so? The City has put the new fire station off because of high building costs but then turns around and punishes others for the same thing? It is well and good to claim that there are grants available but we all know that is going to apply to a very small number of people. Others, in an effort to keep their homes, will be forced into HELOCs or loans of which they cannot afford the payments.

Then, under the pretext that if the exterior is "bad" the interior needs inspection too, they can force their way into your home like you are a common criminal. Being poor and elderly means you lose your rights.

I grew up in small town Iowa during Governor Ray's reign. We were proud of our ability to "make do, use it up or do without." This has been a large part of the American Way. Now it will no longer be tolerated in Fairfield. Now it is "fall in line or we take your house.

Dianne Brandt

Fairfield

Opinion content represents the viewpoint of the author or The Gazette editorial board. You can join the conversation by submitting a letter to the editor or guest column or by suggesting a topic for an editorial to editorial@thegazette.com

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Letter to the editor - Southeast Iowa Union

A petition was created on Change.org on Sept. 12 to oppose the use of Chainalysis forensic services by federal agencies. The petition questioned Chainalysis accuracy and raised legal issues related to the activities of the blockchain data analysis firm.

The petition, started by Stop Chainalysis, stated that Chainalysis software assists crime prevention efforts by linking the real world to crypto payments. It stated:

The petition claimed that Chainalysis findings do not meet the Daubert standard for expert testimony in United States courts established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1933, that its error rate is unknown, that it has not been subject to peer review and that it uses potentially faulty methodology.

Related: Chainalysis exec touts blockchain analysis to Senate homeland security committee

The technical problems with the service lead to potential privacy violations, the petition argued:

The use of unreliable technology constitutes a violation of the Fourth Amendment requirement of probable cause to issue a warrant for search and seizure and the Bank Secrecy Act, to which exceptions are granted based on the presence of suspicious activity, it said.

The petition listed seven U.S. federal agencies that had used Chainalysis services.

The petition was first publicized by Lola Leetz, a pseudonym stylized as L0la L33tz on X (formerly Twitter), who has been a vocal critic of the company. The X user is not alone in their criticism. In August, CipherTrace director of investigations and intelligence Jonelle Still submitted a report in the case of the United States v. Roman Sterlingov that claimed Chainalysis technology was used incorrectly to link Sterlingov to the Bitcoin Fog cryptocurrency mixer.

Magazine: Tornado Cash 2.0: The race to build safe and legal coin mixers

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Petition hopes to stop US government agencies from using ... - Cointelegraph

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons | The repercussions from the aftermath of 9/11 have been passed on to the next generation.

Zach Petroff | Opinions Editor

I am often reminded, usually in jest, that most of my fellow classmates here at Duquesne were not alive on Sept. 11, 2001.

And while a vast majority of Generation Z were born before the events that took place 22 years ago, the aftermath from 9/11 will be their burden.

As if climate change is not enough.

There is little doubt that when a foreign organization committed an act of terrorism on American soil, killing 2,977 people according to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, it changed this country.

Much has been written since 9/11 about the residual effects it has had on society. These views range from romanticized narratives of selfless heroes and patriotism to the belief that 9/11 was the catalyst of the decline of America.

While these arguments invoke an emotional response, perhaps its time we focus the conversation around the potential consequences Gen Z may have to face.

Instead of speculation, the newest generation of adults need to have a clear picture of the society they are going to inherit and the repercussions that came with how we chose to handle the attacks on Sept. 11.

The choice to invade Iraq has been referred to as one of the worst foreign policies in U.S. history by several public officials, including former United States Foreign Service employee, Peter Van Buren, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The invasion of Iraq along with the global war on terrorism is a direct result of 9/11.

The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University created the Cost of War Project to conduct and publish research about the ongoing consequences of the U.S. post 9/11. The Cost of War Project estimated, in a report released in 2020, that the total cost of the war on terror was $8 trillion.

The project also calculated that the interest payments to the national debt to fund the war could total over $6.5 trillion by the 2050s.

We put a war on a credit card and now are asking our children and grandchildren to pay for it.

Our foreign policy in the Middle East also led to destabilization in that region. The Cost of War Project estimated in 2021 that there were 3.6 to 3.8 million indirect deaths in post-9/11 war zones including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

It seems plausible that those countries will one day seek retribution for the actions of the U.S.

We also need to remind Gen Z that Guantanamo Bay is still operational.

The U.S. detention facility on the Guantnamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba was created in 2002 to house Muslim militants and suspected terrorists captured by U.S. forces.

Since the base was built outside the U.S. it was not required to observe the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war and civilians during wartime, as the conventions did not apply to unlawful enemy combatants.

According to a United Nations investigation conducted in June there were 30 men who remain detained at Guantanamo, 19 of whom have never been charged with a crime.

The lead investigator for the United Nations, Fionnuala N Aolin, reported that prisoners face ongoing cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

She also recommended that the facility should be shuttered, a task that former President Obama campaigned on, but was ultimately unable to achieve.

Hopefully Gen Z can bring some sanity to the situation.

There should also be a discussion about the PATRIOT Act, another lingering and perhaps the most damaging byproduct of 9/11.

This law, upheld by the Supreme Court, expanded surveillance abilities of law enforcement, including domestic and international phone tappings. It also increased the penalties for terrorism crimes and expanded the list of activities which would qualify for terrorism charges.

The American Civil Liberties Union found that between 2003 and 2006 the FBI issued 192,499 national security letters that allowed them to obtain personal information without the approval of a judge. Of those letters issued, only one led to a terror-related conviction. They also concluded the conviction would have occurred without the use of the Patriot Act.

The ramifications of the PATRIOT Act fundamentally changed the scope of the Fourth Amendment. As technology becomes more commonplace, the ability for unlawful searches conducted by the federal government to greatly expand.

While 9/11 may seem like a distant memory, the rippling effect has spanned multiple generations.

It seems like a natural courtesy to give the upcoming adults an honest assessment of the world we created for them.

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Passing on the legacy of 9/11 to the next generation The ... - The Duquesne Duke