On October 15, 2020, the Brennan Center partnered with several Washington, D.C. groups to submit testimony to a hearing on police reform proposals held by the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety of the Council of the District of Columbia. The testimony highlighted the privacy-invasive nature of surveillance technologies deployed by the Metropolitan Police Department and other D.C. agencies without the input or oversight of the community or its representatives. In particular, the testimony stressed the ways in which deployment of surveillance technologies can exacerbate existing issues like discriminatory policing and First Amendment violations.
The other signatories of the letter include New America’s Open Technology Institute, the ACLU-DC, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Jews United for Justice, and The Project On Government Oversight.
The Brennan Center sent a letter on the same topic to the D.C. Council on January 31, 2020. Read the Brennan Center’s January letter here.
Written Testimony to DC Council in Support of Community Oversight of Surveillance Technology by The Brennan Center for Justice on Scribd
