CCR And Others Issue Complaint Against U.S. Death By Incarceration; and Fog Data Science: Constant Surveillance

CCR And Others Issue Complaint Against U.S. Death By Incarceration

The United States condemns one out of every seven prisoners–or more than 200,000 people– to die in prison, over two-thirds of them people of color. Death by Incarceration, or DBI, includes extreme sentences such as life, and life without possibility of parole. DBI violates two treaties the U.S. has ratified, the Convention Against Torture and the Race Convention. DBI is the devastating consequence of a cruel and racially discriminatory criminal legal system that is designed not to address harm, violence, and its root causes, but to satisfy the political pressure to be tough on crime, according to a complaint filed with UN special rapporteurs on September 15.

Valerie Kiebala helped bring together organizations including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Drop LWOP Coalition, and the Abolitionist Law Center, to file the 31-page complaint.

Related Article: Human Rights Groups Urge UN to Call for Abolition of Death by Incarceration by Marjorie Cohn.

Guest – Valerie Kiebala is a writer, organizer, and artist. She is the communications director for Straight Ahead, a nonprofit lobbying organization fighting for the human rights and liberation of incarcerated people. Valerie previously worked as an editorial manager and staff writer for Solitary Watch, a nonprofit organization documenting and exposing the use of solitary confinement across the U.S. Her work has appeared in the Root, the Appeal, Truthout, the Chicago Reporter, and Shadowproof.

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Fog Data Science: Constant Surveillance

Each time we access the internet, we open the door for companies to track our behavior and our location. This information is gathered and sold by data brokers, but not just for the purpose of helping marketers send us targeted ads. Our movement data is also marketed to law enforcement agencies around the nation. State sheriffs, highway patrol, and local police now can trace millions of Americans everyday movements dating back several years. One Virginia data broker contracts to sell telephone geolocation data to state and local law enforcement, according to an investigation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or EFF.

EFF Staff Technologist Bennett Cyphers led the investigation. He and his team found that Fog Data Science sells access to a database with information about where a person was at any point in time over the past several years. The surveillance isnt limited to possible crime scenes. It includes homes, churches, workplaces, health clinics”places in which we have constitutionally-protected expectations of privacy.

Guest – Bennett Cyphers is a staff technologist on EFFs Tech Projects team. He focuses on consumer privacy, competition, and state legislation. He also assists with development of Privacy Badger, a browser add-on that stops advertisers and trackers from secretly tracking your movements.

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