Oakland Is Building a Big Data Center For Police Surveillance

rjmarvin writes "$7 million in federal grant money originally tasked with terrorism prevention is now being used to fund construction of a new data center in Oakland to electronically gather and analyze data around the clock from a variety of sensors and databases, displaying selected info on a bank of giant monitors. The center will mine massive data streams, helping the police department tap into 911 calls, port and traffic cameras, license plate readers, gunshot sensors, social media posts and commuters' electronic toll payments."

Comments

$7M is a big data center?

[king_nebuchadnezzar]

Since when does $7m get you a large data center, more like a single rack...

Re: $7M is a big data center?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it has a donut vending machine next to the rack (separate power line though 'cuz that's what $7 mil gets you).

Re:$7M is a big data center?

[Gravis Zero]

The only subtle distinction is that the terror that we need to worry about are increasingly of the domestic variety.

the important question is if the increase is the cause of our actions or effect of them.

Re:$7M is a big data center?

[Mitreya]

The only subtle distinction is that the terror that we need to worry about are increasingly of the domestic variety.

the important question is if the increase is the cause of our actions or effect of them.

Sadly, we won't be able to tell much until someone defines "terrorism"

Right now, it could be anything. Regular crime, cyber-crime, hateful propaganda, having a wrong name...

Re:$7M is a big data center?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Since when does $7m get you a large data center, more like a single rack...

For $7M, they could at least throw in a free nose job to go with your new rack.

Embarassing Point

[Anonymous Coward]

"Tap into 911 calls" I think it'd be a bit embarrassing but someone ought to point out to the Oakland police that calls to 911 are in fact often calls to the police, so the only thing they'd need to tap into them is, well pick up the bloody ringing phone to be honest.

some definitions for the non-native

[nimbius]

As an Oakland native, i think its only fair to clarify what the police department means by these technologies in their pursuit of law enforcement:

911 calls: those troubling interruptions from sleeping, fast food or harassing the homeless that require you do actually respond to something in an hour or so.

port and traffic cameras often seen on the morning news, and cited frequently throughout the day, it sure would be neat if we used them as frequently as motorists and media personalities did, but that would require us to repair the 400 or so that still dont work.

license plate readers the closest thing we've got to a thoughtcrime detector. if you havent made quota, this little go-getter is like a golden goose for finding people with parking tickets, expired registrations, and the ever guilty smudgy plate that cant be read.

gunshot sensors Residents, mostly. Try not to obsess over the ones in low-income neighborhoods, they're constantly going off and its becoming a nuisance.

social media posts and commuters' electronic toll payments. Ford has a new police car this year, Bushmaster has a new rifle this year, my cruiser laptop is getting too slow to play minecraft, blaze yellow stop sticks are the new black this year, oh, and uh, protect 'n' serve or something.

Re:some definitions for the non-native

[k8to]

Or more simply:

Oakland is pretty crime-encoouraging territory.

The best (most effective, and most efficient) ways to reduce crime are:

  * Improve neighborhoods to the point where they feel well kept, and try to ensure there's a feeling that most public spaces have people watching them by having housing facing those spaces.
  * Walk beats, be present in neighborhoods in a slow, ongoing way. Crime-in-progress tends to require police to be present for around 30-50 minutes for the actors to give up and wander off. Crime tends to be strongly discouraged though by regularly present officers who know the territory.

The problem here is that Oakland like most post-1930s cities is largely built in a semi-suburban pattern, with bones that work against neighborhood centers (which leads to blight) and don't have a strong sense of observation, which means crime feels free to happen.

In addition, it's not high density, so there's far too much territory to realistically fund a police force who actually walk beats. In addition, in a lot of neighborhoods the police would be afraid to do so.

So the obvious place to invest is in neighborhood center revitalization, encouragement of high quality urban development, and slowly getting rid of the semi-tenements that exist here and there. But that's long slow hard work. Gadgets are more fun.

They need any help they can get...

[aralin]

It takes 40+ days in Oakland, just to get a police report number after a non-violent crime has been committed. The insurance people thought that I am kidding, until I mentioned the crime happened in Oakland. Oh well. This is one of the problems with property taxes paying for police. If the value of properties is not high, you don't get police, the crime goes up, the property values go further down and so on. Fun cycle.

Re:Get used to it

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's always been about technology to do stuff and the surplus of wealth necessary to pay for that. In the 1850s, the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy was trying to curb "undesirable writings", so they employed censors to take care of things. But since the quill was the most advanced IT tool by then, and because they could employ something like fifty people, not much was accomplished. Reading letters en masse was just a pipe dream, so they didn't even try. Ditto for the secret police - it sucked by today's standards. By the 1950s, the secret police organizations of the assorted socialist countries were enjoying steam envelope openers (what with seals on letters having fallen out of use) and could read millions of letters every year. Also, the economy, despite still being lousy, improved to the point that the police machinery could have been funded much more generously. And now? With the computational power at hand, immense disk arrays, and with most stuff being electronic, they can store and analyze volumes of letters that the socialist agents of our past could only dream of. It's never been about "will we do that?" for the governments - it's always been about "can we afford that?".

I only read article headlines.

[Alsee]

Oakland Is Building a Big Data Center For Police Surveillance

Awesome. More cities should keep their police under surveillance.

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Re:Get used to it

[MickyTheIdiot]

In 1984 the government actually cared about the citizens more than our government does.

Now let that sink in for a minute.

Gunshot sensos: euphemism for microphones

[Squidlips]

As if the internet surveillance is not enough, most cities now have networks of microphones so that Big Brother can listen in.

Re:Get used to it

[lgw]

Don't think "jobs for all" means "pay for all". I used to work with a guy who grew up in Bulgaria under communism there. Starting at about age 13, he was required to work a few hours every day in a local factory.

The sort of exploitation of workers, especially child labor, that was normal for capitalism in the late 19th century was normal for communism in the late 20th century. People are just dicks, and changes in economic systems can't fix that.