WEBVTT - Surveillance Tech & Biased AI: The ACLU Fights Back 0:00:00.480 --> 0:00:05.000 Hey, there, everybody, this is Jonathan Strickland, host of Tax Stuff. Today, 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.760 we have something a little different for you. We have 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:13.760 a series called First Contact with Laurie Siegel uh, former 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:18.439 correspondent with CNN, and if you have not listened to 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.000 that show, you definitely need to check it out. She's 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:26.640 doing amazing work having incredible conversations with thought leaders in 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.000 the tech space and the social space, and this particular 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:34.360 episode I think is really important and one that really 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.080 needs to be heard by as many folks as possible. 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:42.760 She sits down with a CLU president, Susan Herman, and 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:47.600 together they talk about the issue of racially biased face 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.720 recognition technology. And you've heard me speak on episodes of 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:58.160 Tech Stuff in the past about bias artificial intelligence, facial recognition, 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.160 you know, image recognition, that sort of stuff, and how 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.800 that is a real problem in tech and it's something 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.600 that we absolutely have to get our heads wrapped around 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.280 and address. So, without further ado, I'm going to have 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.560 that episode play in lieu of a Tech Stuff episode 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.280 for today, and I highly recommend you check out First Contact. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.919 It's a great show and one that I think really 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.480 dove tails nicely with Tech Stuff. So if you enjoy 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:31.400 tech stuff, I think you're really gonna like First Contact 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.920 as well, and we will catch you next week with 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:39.360 new episodes of tech Stuff. Thanks. First Contact with Lori 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.679 Siegel is a production of Dot Dot Dot Media and 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:49.320 I Heart Radio. There's a great quote on the A 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:51.880 c l U website. The fact that technology now allows 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.280 an individual to carry such information in his hand does 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.040 not make the information any less worthy of the protection 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:00.440 for which the founders fought. Exactly. I like to talk about, 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.640 you know, one of the whole points of the Constitution 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.400 adding the fourth Amendment, which is the protection of privacy, 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.359 is they wanted to protect what was in Benjamin Franklin's disk. 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.040 Nobody should know if he was writing some things that 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:13.359 were anti government, and we now have that on our 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:16.040 cell phone, so of course, but that's where I think 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:18.720 that a lot of the protection of civil liberties is 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:34.240 applying our fundamental principles in different circumstances. We are in 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.280 a moment of reckoning as we enter an age of 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:43.880 ubiquitous surveillance, questionable data collection practices, even algorithms that discriminate. 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:49.560 It's minorities, especially black and brown communities that are disproportionately affected. 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.480 Over the last months, as the nation has grappled with 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.519 a conversation around police brutality, we've seen predator drones used 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:01.440 for aerial surveillance at protests, facial recognition technology that wrongfully 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:04.560 accused a black man of a crime he didn't commit, 0:03:05.040 --> 0:03:07.880 and it wasn't a coincidence. Reports say the tech is 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.960 a hundred times more likely to misidentify African, American and 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:16.600 Asian people, and as COVID nineteen continues to spread, there 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.480 are serious questions being raised about contact tracing apps and 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.919 how that data collected could be misused. These issues raise 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:29.880 ethical questions about technology and its impact on our civil liberties, equality, 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.400 and the future of our country. For Susan Herman, it 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.760 is an extraordinary time to be sitting in her seat 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:39.960 as president of the a s l U. Over the years, 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.240 the American Civil Liberties Union has filed lawsuits fighting for 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:48.000 free speech, reproductive rights, and privacy. But as technology continues 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.240 to muddy the waters, the tradeoffs become more complicated. Where 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:55.160 do we draw the line between security and privacy and 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.320 how do we prevent technological innovation from outpacing the law. 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:06.600 I'm Laurie Siegel, and this is first contact, Susan, thank 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.520 you for being virtually with me today. Thank you for 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.880 inviting me, Laurie. Yeah, you know, I I always start 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.919 out these interviews with our first contact. I talked to 0:04:17.040 --> 0:04:20.039 guests about how we met, and we don't really have 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.719 a first contact. We've never met in person, but we 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:24.839 met on an email chain because we were going to 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.040 do an interview together for something else and it and 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:29.160 it fell through. So I said, you've got to come 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.320 on the podcast because you are just sitting in such 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:36.839 an extraordinary seat at such an extraordinary moment in time. 0:04:37.000 --> 0:04:40.279 So that's our first contact. Well, thanks, It just seems 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.160 to me like our first contact was total serendipity. Yeah, exactly, 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.279 so you know, to get started. You've been the president 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.719 of the a c l U since two thousand and eight, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:52.360 and I said this before, but you know, what an 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.080 extraordinary time to be sitting in your seat. You know, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.480 how are you feeling? Oh my, it's just sort of overwhelming. 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:00.919 You know. As president, I'm go the chair of the board, 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.080 so you know, I'm not the one doing the day 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.280 to day work as all of the members of our 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.320 staff are. But to be a member of the a 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:09.880 c l U staff right now is just it's mind 0:05:09.920 --> 0:05:12.560 boggling because we had, you know, a lot of work 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.120 that we were already doing before two thousand and sixteen, 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.120 with all of the states making worse and worse laws 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.280 about reproductive freedom and voting rights and immigrants rights, and 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:24.200 you know, all sorts of other things. Then came the election, 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:27.239 and since that we have brought a hundreds and seventy 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.920 three legal actions against the Trump administration for things like 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.760 family separations and the travel BAM and prohibiting trans in 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:39.719 the military. Then in March, COVID hit, and at that point, 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:42.479 you know, since then, we've also brought over a hundred lawsuits, 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:45.560 including with a hundred lawsuits just about people who are 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.280 incarcerated in jails and prisons and ice attention and who 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:51.400 are just in a hotspot. You know, they have no 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.800 control over whether they can social distance, and so we've 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.400 been working very hard to get vulnerable people out of 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:02.680 those terrible situations, out of basically death traps. Plus, the 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.680 COVID also led to a number of states opportunistically restricting 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.560 things like freedom of abortion, declaring abortion to be a 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:13.680 non essential procedure so people could just wait until the 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.040 pandemic is over to get an abortion right, and voting 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:20.200 rights has also just been a really braught area right 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.440 now because all the restrictions on voting and the ways 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.880 in which the vote was becoming distorted. Have you just 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:31.640 been magnified by all the difficulties of So there's a 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:33.120 lot to talk about. So I was a gonna say, 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.080 what what what I'm hearing from is you're sleeping really 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.400 well at night. You know, there's no work to do, 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.039 almost nothing to do this stuff that they're just sitting 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:44.359 around polishing their nails. Yeah, I mean, like, take me 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.760 to March, like coronavirus hits. You have been involved in 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:51.280 some of these monumental cases that have just shaped society 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:56.200 in our civil liberties, like coronavirus hits. And now you know, 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:57.960 we have a little bit I don't even think we 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.080 have the luxury of perspective at this point, but we 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.440 have a little bit more perspective. But let's take me 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.599 to March, Like in your role at this extraordinary moment, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.440 like what was going through your head? What were you 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:12.480 concerned about at the time. Well, you know, one of 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.360 the first concerns is just you have to close the office. 0:07:15.560 --> 0:07:17.720 So the first concern is how can people do all 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.840 this umcity It increases the work and makes it more 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:23.520 difficult to do the work. So we just had to 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.640 really make sure that our technology was up to doing things. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:28.200 So one thing that the a c l YOU did 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.560 was to buy new laptops for some stuff. People who 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:33.200 are going to be working and you have to worry 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:37.080 about how the technology is working um which has been 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.000 a question for us every time there's something really big hits. 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.360 When the travel band hit, there were so many people 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:45.160 wanting to donate to the a c l U. There 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.400 are website crash so even things like that, you know, 0:07:48.440 --> 0:07:50.120 that's you know, like number one of how do you 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.080 handle this? We have been fortunate so far that the 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.520 a c l U is so well managed and we 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:58.320 had not spent every penny that all of our donors 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.320 had given us up until that point, so have not 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.320 had to laid people off, which is very fortunate because 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.440 as you know, saying, there's more than enough work to do. 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:07.400 But yeah, that's the first concern of just you know, 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:09.960 how do you keep the organization up to speed and 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.840 ready to do you know what. Staff members now need 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.840 to be doing an incredible amount more work. But for 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.560 some of them, it's well, they're juggling a toddler and 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.320 a dog. Yeah. Can you give me a run through 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:24.760 of some of the cases that you've been involved in 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:26.680 that correct me if I'm wrong. You started out as 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.480 an intern, right, and really just worked your way up. 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.240 I mean, I can imagine you've been involved, and I 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.480 know you've been involved in some pretty extraordinary cases. To 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:38.840 give listeners some context, can you explain some of the 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.719 cases that kind of stick out to you. Well, I 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:44.040 wasn't intern for the a c l U back, you know, 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.520 in the nineties seventies, you know, around the time when 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:48.600 I was in law school. And just to make sure 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.400 that everybody understands, I don't actually work at the a 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.000 c l U. Day job is I'm a law professor, 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:56.880 and I don't generally work on the cases. What I'm 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.960 generally doing is we run the organization. But I'll tell 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:03.760 you I think it would be interesting start um. But 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:05.520 the first a c l U case that I actually 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.560 did work on, which was while I was a law student, 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:10.840 and this was the case. One of my connections with 0:09:10.880 --> 0:09:12.520 the a c l U originally was that one of 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:15.319 my law professors in the first year was connected with 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.000 the New York Civil Liberties Union, and he had some 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.880 clients who came to him who were graduate students at 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.160 Stony Brook on Allowland, and they had just discovered they 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:26.200 were not allowed to live together. They had rented a 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.360 house together, there were six of them, and they had 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.920 just discovered they weren't allowed to live together because there 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.679 was an ordinance in their village village called belt Hair, 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.760 that prohibited more than two persons unrelated by blood, marriage 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.000 or adoption from living together. So, you know, they were 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.760 pretty shocked. And it turned out that under the laws 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:46.719 it was at the time, by the time they were 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.880 talking about this, they were liable for all sorts of 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.560 criminal fines and punishment. It was really a very heavy stuff. 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.199 So I started working on that case with my law 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:01.079 professor and um we went to a federal job to 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.240 ask for a temporary restraining order, which means to just 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.000 until we had litigated whether or not that was a 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.680 constitutional thing to do, to tell people who they couldn't 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.400 couldn't live with that the village should not be allowed 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.440 to either kick them out of their their house or 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:17.560 to you know, start walking them up because you know, 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.760 they owned too many fines for having been illegal residents. 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:24.880 So um, the judge ended up signing the order, and 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.720 he was signing the order about that, and then one 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:30.160 of the ways they which actually the original way in 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:33.000 which our clients had discovered that they were illegal residents, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.520 was that they had applied for residents only beach permit 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:37.640 and they were told they couldn't have one because they 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.320 were illegal residents. So the judge who we had the 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:42.720 district judge, who was a very nice man, looked at 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.400 the order we had written out and he said, well, 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:46.240 you know, it's the summer. Don't your clients want to 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:49.040 go to the beach while the litigation is pending? Do 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.040 you mind if I write that in that they have 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:52.839 to be allowed to park in the parking lot of 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.960 the beach. So we said sure, you know, that's very nice, 0:10:55.960 --> 0:10:58.400 so he wrote that in. Then, as the junior member 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:00.800 of the team, I was sent out to explain to 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:02.839 our clients, to show them the order and explained to 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:04.960 them what was going on, and they gave me a 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.600 tour of you what the village looked like in the 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:10.640 residents only beach and the minute the wheels of their 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.240 car hit the parking lot is very large. Your fierce 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:15.640 looking man comes striding across and says, what are you 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:17.720 doing here? You're not allowed to be in this parking lot. 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:20.760 And they all look at me, and I'm thinking, what 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:22.480 am I? I'm like, you know, twenty something, I'm not 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:24.400 very tall, but what am I supposed to do with 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:26.400 this large man who doesn't want us in there in 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:28.600 his parking lot? And then I remembered that I had 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:31.719 a federal court order right on my person, so I 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:33.719 kind of drew myself up, but I showed him my 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.320 federal court order and I said, well, I'm with the 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.160 New York Civil Liberties Union kind of, and I have 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.720 a federal court order saying that these people are allowed 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.760 to be in this parking lot and go to the beach. 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.480 And he melted. And that that was, I think, in 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.360 one of the points at which I thought, Wow, you 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:53.080 know this, this is really powerful stuff. Yeah you saw 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:56.839 that there was my first day case. Yeah, exactly, that's great. 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:58.800 And I saw I read that. So maybe your your 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:02.440 earliest memories, um of speaking up to authority involved I 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:06.480 think a dispute over a book at your school library. Yeah, 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.120 that's right, even before the Belchair case. My first civil 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:12.080 liberties hero was my mother. So when I was in 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.000 third grade, we were doing a school play about a 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:18.439 story called Johnny Tremaine, about a boy in the American Revolution, 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:21.280 and I like, I thought the play was interesting. Players 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.679 don't have that many words, and we were told that 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:25.720 this was based on the book. So I went to 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.439 my school library, my public school library, and I asked 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:31.000 to take out the book, and the librarian said, oh, 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:32.880 you can't take out that book, dear, that's in the 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.840 boys section. And I was I was surprised to find 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.040 this out. I've been reading books in the girls section, 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.400 which were all collections of fairy tales and biographies of 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.120 president's wives, but it had never occurred to me that 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:46.920 I wasn't allowed to take out a book from the 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:49.400 boys section. So I went home and I told my 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.400 mother about this. You're just thinking, you know, that's the 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.600 way things are, and she just exploded and she called 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:56.680 the librarian the next day and say, how dare you 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.080 told my daughter you know what she's not allowed to read. 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.480 So the librarian told me that from then on, I 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.880 could take out any book I wanted, and you know, 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:07.439 not long after that, they changed the policy for everyone. 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:10.120 So you know, there was another example of how you 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.160 know you can kind of speak up to authority when 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.280 they kind of tell you who to be and prevent 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.160 you from making your own choices. Were you always like that? Well, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.600 you know, that's third grade and I feel like yes, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.400 I think for most of us are values of form 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.160 when we're pretty young. Yeah, so you know, seeing my 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.760 mother do that, I'm sure you would have had an 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.760 impact on me. Yeah, that's such a good story. And 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:33.320 did you I mean, did you always know you wanted 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.880 to go into law? No? I actually really didn't, because 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.240 having grown up as a woman during that era, my 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.439 father was a lawyer and he always used to talk 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:43.520 about the fact that law was really not a good 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.360 profession for women. Why would you want to do that 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.040 if you could be an English teacher and have the 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.240 summer off, you take care of your children, so you 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.280 have to be a while. I graduated from college and 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.480 then spent a few years doing other things and then 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.000 decided to go to law school. Well, I mean, it's 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.360 it's so interesting and now to seeing where you're at 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:05.120 um and seeing this moment, it does feel like a moment. 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:07.200 And I was looking at something you said about you know, 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.120 this feels like a moment we can be optimistic because 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.840 so many Americans are beginning to really understand the scope 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.000 and the depth of structural racism. It certainly feels, you know, 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.480 I'm based in New York City. You can just feel 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.760 it right on the streets with the protests, and they 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.080 hear the sirens and the helicopters, you know, as we 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:29.080 sit here, um and we hear you know, your rich 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.720 history and covering and caring about these issues. What is 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:37.000 the challenge for you guys ahead, Well, you know, the 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:40.520 challenge on that particular subject is that this is work 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:42.600 that we had already been doing. One of our top 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.440 priorities for the past several years has been trying to 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:50.600 break our addiction to mass incarceration, which, as everybody is 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.520 now really coming to terms with, has been really it's 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.640 a system that has disproportionately affected people on the basis 0:14:56.640 --> 0:15:00.320 of race and income and disability of co to the 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:02.520 people who are arrested or people who are mentally ill, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.359 And our feeling is that the system has been fundamentally 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.480 broken and misguided for a long time. So part of 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:11.200 what we're trying to do with this moment is to 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.440 capitalize on the fact that people want to look at 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:16.240 what the police do. We're trying to encourage people to 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.760 look beyond the police. It's not just you. Who are 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:21.200 the police arresting and how are they treating the people 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.480 they arrest? I think behind that is the question of 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:26.400 what do we really want to treat as a crime. 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:31.120 So when you treat all sorts of very minor misconduct 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.280 as a crime, you're really setting up a situation where 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.200 they're going to be more contacts and therefore potentially more 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.800 arbitrary and discriminatory context. So, if you think about it, 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.000 Eric Garner ended up dying because he was selling single 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:49.320 cigarettes on which the tax had not been paid. George Floyd. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:51.800 The basis for that encounter was that they thought he 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.640 might be passing a counterfeit twenty dollar bill. So I 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.560 think that if you look at why are we criminalizing 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.160 some of the things we criminalize, especially if you're talking 0:16:01.200 --> 0:16:04.640 about people who are mentally ill and are having problems. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:07.040 Do we really want the police to be the people 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.640 who are the first responders to people who are having 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.800 a mental health crisis or is there some more effective 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.000 way to deal with that that would avoid putting those 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:18.800 people into the criminal justice system, which isn't really good 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:23.120 for anyone, and to maybe recommit, reallocate some of the 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.680 resources we're using on arresting people and locking them up 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.880 to actually dealing with the mental health crises. You have 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.920 mental health treatment. So instead of viewing everything as well 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.040 dysfunction as a matter of policing, why don't we spend 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.560 more time reinvesting and to try to prevent more dysfunction. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:42.520 Instort of like the old saying, you know, if you're 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.800 a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Well, you know, 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.560 not every problem in our society is a problem for 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.280 the criminal justice system, and an occasion to arrest people 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.440 and lock them up a lot of them really should 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.880 be an occasion for thinking about public health treatments. I'm 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:58.600 thinking about how we want to approach homelessness, and you 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.360 have a lot of much deeper thoughts about how you 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.479 prevent dysfunction. Rather than answering everything with you we're going 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.520 to send in the police. It certainly seems also like 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.360 this moment, even coming out of the pandemic, I can 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:12.439 only imagine the mental health crisis is going to be 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.119 even worse. Yeah, that could well be um and I 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.080 think the pandemic is also showing us. Somebody asked me 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:23.240 the other day whether the protests over policing and police 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.359 brutality are related to the pandemic, and I was in 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:28.159 a webinar and one of the smart people in the 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.639 room said, oh, no, no, they're two entirely different things. 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.119 But I said, what do you mean. The same people 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.560 who are being disproportionately affected by policing and police brutality 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.600 are the people who are being disproportionately affected by COVID. 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:43.520 The statistics is that people of color are much more 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:45.959 likely to die, and there are a lot of reasons 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.399 for that. You're having to do with your underlying health 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.960 and having to do with the fact that minorities and 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.960 people who are not affluent don't get to work from home, 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:57.200 they don't get to work through zoom. There are the 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.440 people who are out there on the streets being the 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:01.879 first risk wanders, being the people who are picking up 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.040 the garbage, being the people who was talking the supermarket shills. 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:09.520 And I feel like the virus is really amplifying so 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.560 many of the inequities we've had in our society. And 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.359 I think especially you know, I don't know what it's 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:16.960 like for everyone else. But I live in Brooklyn and 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:18.840 in New York City. It really felt like a lot 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:20.920 of the people who were out on the street, they 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:22.760 were out on the street because they were upset about 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:25.520 George Floyd. But I think it was more that they 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.000 recognized that George Floyd was the chip of the iceberg 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.000 and that there were just a lot going on that 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:38.280 they really just you could not tolerate any longer. More 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.280 from Susan after the break, and make sure to subscribe 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:44.399 to First Contact in Apple podcasts or wherever you listen 0:18:44.520 --> 0:19:02.840 so you don't miss an episode putting on the tech hat. 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:04.840 You know, I think most people probably don't think of 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:06.320 tech when they think of the a c l U, 0:19:06.920 --> 0:19:10.119 But there's quite a bit of litigation in regards to 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:15.440 security and privacy issues around contact tracing, surveillance, algorithmic bias, 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:17.880 and obviously the a c l U has a hand 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:19.679 in checks and balances and a lot of the issues 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:23.320 that are merging from the pandemic. You know, what are 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.720 some of the tech developments that you guys are most 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:31.040 concerned about. Well, since you were mentioning the COVID and 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:33.640 the the contact tracking and tracing, I'll start with that. 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.720 So the upshot is that we are neither for nor 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.480 against contact racing. Contact tracing is something that really will 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.720 contribute to public health. Our concern is not to say no, 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:45.600 you can't do it, or you just go right ahead 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.520 and do whatever you want. What we're concerned about is 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:54.679 to minimize the damage to privacy, the damage to equity. Again, Uh, 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:56.840 there are a lot of concerns that we have. The 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.680 other thing that we're concerned about is discrimination. Again, because 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:05.320 there are ways in which the technology could also increase 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:08.800 pre existing social inequities. We think that people should not 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.560 be coerced into participating and in testing. We think it 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.399 should be voluntary, and we also think that it should 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.760 be nonpunitive, because if you start having the criminal justice 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.320 system enforcing whether or not people are willing to use 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:25.040 their phone to take a test or whatever it is, 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:31.720 you're just creating more opportunities for police interactions that will 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:35.280 at some point be arbitrary or discriminatory. So we don't 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:37.879 want to see rules and regulations that are good to 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.479 public health rules. Even if they really are good public 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.680 health rules, we don't want to see those become occasions 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.720 for filling up the jails with the people who aren't complying, 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.440 because we've already seen there were some statistics in New 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.640 York that when you ask the police to start enforcing 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:56.879