{"id":187278,"date":"2021-06-01T16:03:20","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T16:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=2d461eb88639167647b1757868e9a374"},"modified":"2021-06-01T16:03:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-01T16:03:20","slug":"dismantle-nycs-mass-surveillance-project-start-with-jail-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/06\/01\/dismantle-nycs-mass-surveillance-project-start-with-jail-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"Dismantle NYC\u2019s Mass Surveillance Project \u2014 Start With Jail Recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Incarcerated<\/a>

Mass public surveillance is becoming a threat in everyday life, with big tech corporations digitally tracking our every move. For incarcerated people, surveillance is even more intrusive.<\/p>\n

In the last year, the New York City Department of Corrections (DOC) illegally recorded<\/a> more than 1,500 privileged calls between people incarcerated in its jails and their attorneys. Many of these illegal recordings were turned over to prosecutors.<\/a><\/p>\n

This blatant constitutional violation has critical and disproportionate impacts. Three-quarters of people<\/a> incarcerated in New York City jails are awaiting trial and many are held solely because they cannot afford bail. More than 90 percent are Black and Brow<\/a>n<\/a>, thanks to discriminatory police and prosecution practices and the fact that the U.S.\u2019s criminal legal system is constructed on a foundation of white supremacy.<\/p>\n

Behind these illegal recordings looms a scandal-plagued surveillance-tech-company-turned-DOC-phone-service-provider: Securus Technologies. The city\u2019s contract with Securus expired on March 31. Yet, despite this scandal and the many others plaguing the vendor<\/a> nationwide<\/a>, the DOC quietly extended its relationship with Securus for another year.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s decision to do so highlights the threat our ballooning surveillance apparatus poses to New Yorkers\u2019 civil liberties and rights. A critical first step to ensure that neither our privacy nor our dignity are for sale would be to end the universal recording of jail calls.<\/p>\n

As a public defender, I am intimately aware of the crushing isolation that comes with being charged with criminal wrongdoing and caged on a remote island. Cut off from support structures, separated from loved ones and subjected to intense situational stress, New Yorkers who are detained in city jails rely on phone calls to stay in contact with their spouses, children and other loved ones. The phone is the singular lifeline for solace, counsel and advice.<\/p>\n

But phone calls \u2014 free of charge since 2019 thanks to local advocacy \u2014 come at a dehumanizing and devastating cost: the sacrifice of privacy, intimacy and dignity. Every call made to a spouse, parent or child is recorded. There are no exceptions: not for calls to ask your mother for advice on your case; not for calls to talk through your spouse\u2019s medical test results; not for calls to receive news that a younger sibling has passed. Every<\/em> call is recorded.<\/p>\n

It is easy to imagine that jail calls have always been recorded and that this type of dehumanizing surveillance is essential to public safety. Neither is true.<\/p>\n