City Surveillance Watch

Smart Cities Dive
City Surveillance Watch

When does a smart city become an overly-surveilled city? In City Surveillance Watch, a scripted podcast series from Smart Cities Dive, reporter Kate Kaye explores the inherent dichotomy of data-hungry technologies that - while promising to make cities safer and more efficient - can also be considered forms of surveillance tech. In three in-depth episodes, listeners will travel across the country, digging deep into stories that illuminate how and why cities are using surveillance tech. They’ll hear from people who oppose its use, from law enforcement representatives who support it, from city staff who manage it and from others affected by these technologies every day. They’ll consider risks and unintended consequences of surveillance tech, and they’ll learn from municipalities crafting meaningful surveillance tech policy. For more from Smart Cities Dive, sign up for our newsletter at www.smartcitiesdive.com/signup, and follow us on Twitter at @smartcitiesdive.

Episodes

  1. 01/25/2021

    2. Network Effect

    "People live out loud and outside, and I do have concerns that public gathering, public music — that the surveillance is going to lead to more policing of public space." Those are the words of Ursula Price, a racial justice and civil rights advocate in New Orleans who has opposed the city’s expanding connected camera network. She’s one of the many people featured in the second episode of City Surveillance Watch, which takes listeners on a coast-to-coast journey for a glimpse at how surveillance tech is used and how it affects real people. We’ll dig into how private funding and public-private partnerships are enabling surveillance programs — from growing surveillance camera networks in New Orleans and Detroit that stream data to police monitoring centers, to privately-funded drones and license plate readers in Chula Vista, CA and Kansas City. We’ll look into how law enforcement in Kansas City and Mt. Juliet, TN combine data from multiple forms of surveillance tech like license plate readers, connected cameras and video from Amazon Ring security cameras. We’ll explore why some urban residents are pushing to deploy more surveillance tech on their streets and in local businesses. And we’ll ponder a future in which privately-funded surveillance tech moves decision-making — once subject to government accountability and oversight — deeper into the shadows. Sources featured in this episode: Jacob Becchina, sergeant, Kansas City Missouri Police Department; Ross Bourgeois, New Orleans Real Time Crime Center administrator; Renard Bridgewater, anti-surveillance activist, hip hop band leader and MC and community engagement coordinator for the Music and Culture Coalition of New Orleans; Tyler Chandler, captain, Mt. Juliet, TN Police Department; Wendy Hood, parking enforcement officer, City of Eugene, OR; John McKinney, president of the Pebble Point Homeowners Association, Lebanon, Tennessee; Jeff Petry, director of administration, planning and development department, City of Eugene; Rayshaun “Raysh” Phillips, member and former fundraising chair for Black Youth Project 100 in Detroit; Jameson Spivack, policy associate, Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law; Lee Tien, legislative director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

    1h 6m

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

When does a smart city become an overly-surveilled city? In City Surveillance Watch, a scripted podcast series from Smart Cities Dive, reporter Kate Kaye explores the inherent dichotomy of data-hungry technologies that - while promising to make cities safer and more efficient - can also be considered forms of surveillance tech. In three in-depth episodes, listeners will travel across the country, digging deep into stories that illuminate how and why cities are using surveillance tech. They’ll hear from people who oppose its use, from law enforcement representatives who support it, from city staff who manage it and from others affected by these technologies every day. They’ll consider risks and unintended consequences of surveillance tech, and they’ll learn from municipalities crafting meaningful surveillance tech policy. For more from Smart Cities Dive, sign up for our newsletter at www.smartcitiesdive.com/signup, and follow us on Twitter at @smartcitiesdive.

To listen to explicit episodes, sign in.

Stay up to date with this show

Sign in or sign up to follow shows, save episodes, and get the latest updates.

Select a country or region

Africa, Middle East, and India

Asia Pacific

Europe

Latin America and the Caribbean

The United States and Canada