A crime briefing at 1 Police Plaza (photo: Benny Polatseck/Mayoral Photography Office)
When thousands of New Yorkers went to see Drake at the Apollo last weekend, the last thing they wanted was to see the NYPD recording them, but that’s just what happened on Saturday as they emerged from the historic theater into the view of officers’ smartphones. The episode sparked questions from celebrities and everyday New Yorkers alike, wondering just why the NYPD was filming and what exactly they planned to do with the data. In the words of CBS’ Gayle King: “I didn’t see them videotaping after Harry Styles.”
In the end, the NYPD revealed that the filming was part of a self-congratulatory PSA put out by the department to depict its crowd control work as some sort of heroic feat, while conveniently omitting that Drake’s second show on Sunday got so raucous that one man fell from the balcony in an unintended crowd surfing episode. Yet even once the final video was published, social media commentators were quick to ask even more questions, such as “So....what happened to the raw footage?”
The public concern shouldn’t come as a surprise. Black artists have faced systematic NYPD surveillance for decades. In the ‘90s, they were called the “hip-hop police.” Now, they operate euphemistically as the Enterprise Operations Unit. But no matter what the unit is called, the truth is that Black artists and concertgoers face suspicion and surveillance simply for trying to listen to and perform the music that they love.
For some it may seem like no big deal to have your image hijacked for a policing PSA, but the incident highlights just how little attention the NYPD pays to New Yorkers’ privacy rights. No company could have legally filmed concertgoers for an ad without their notice or consent, so what gives the police the right to use attendees’ images? The department may act like it’s above the law, but ultimately it has to ask for permission to film just like everyone else.
Of course, the NYPD has the ability to track New Yorkers like no one else. Tens of thousands of cameras crisscross the city, with new surveillance devices being rolled out by the day. Within hours of launching the Drake PSA, officers unveiled their new prototype “robocop” cruiser, with 360-degree camera standard. More and more cameras are capturing all of our lives, but still with almost zero rules controlling who the NYPD can watch and when, and what happens with the footage.
And the cameras are only becoming more powerful, with facial recognition technology and other forms of biometric surveillance turning our own bodies into tracking devices. A camera system that can simply record what we do is invasive on its own, but when combined with these ever-more-powerful forms of artificial intelligence, the threat is chilling.
With the technology becoming more and more powerful, and police surveillance budgets ballooning, the need for new legislation comes clearly into focus. Right now, it’s the NYPD that largely decides what surveillance equipment to buy and how to use it. But there are forms of mass surveillance that it clearly can’t be trusted to wield.
Cameras are one thing, but it’s long past time to unplug the NYPD’s facial recognition program. The software, which scans thousands of New Yorkers a year, is primed to wrongly put New Yorkers behind bars and increase bias. And with a growing cohort of New Yorkers speaking out against the ways the technology is used (both by police and private companies like Madison Square Garden Entertainment), lawmakers must act to stop the abuses.
Facial recognition is just one of the many forms of mass surveillance that New Yorkers fear, and that’s why we worked with lawmakers to introduce a ten-part package of statewide bills to “Ban Big Brother” and make New York a surveillance sanctuary state. But while momentum for these statewide initiatives is growing, the New York City Council must act too. Council Members have called for facial recognition legislation for years now, only to be blocked by both the speaker and central staff. This must be the year when the legislation moves forward, at least giving lawmakers the chance to have an open and honest debate about the tech that continues to spread across our city.
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Albert Fox Cahn is the Founder and Executive Director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based civil rights and privacy group, a TED fellow, and a visiting fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project. Will Owen is the Communications Director at S.T.O.P. On Twitter @StopSpyingNY.
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Gov. Hochul signs legislation (photo: Darren McGee/Governor's Office)
Everyone wants to feel secure in their own home, but for survivors of domestic violence, safety is an absolute necessity.
At New Destiny Housing, we have spent nearly two decades building supportive housing for domestic violence survivors, striving to provide the security and support services that our families need to remain safe from violence and begin to rebuild their lives.
But the chronic underfunding of the contract on which our oldest five buildings rely, the New York State Supportive Housing Program (NYSSHP), has left us choosing between case management or security, and hoping that donations can make up for the shortfall.
NYSSHP was created in the 1980s, as the state’s first supportive housing program, funding social service providers to offer onsite counseling, job training, financial counseling, and community rebuilding programs for individuals and families who had lost everything. But funding levels have hardly changed in 30 years, providing just under $2,700 a year for single adults, and $3,700 for families with children.
By contrast, the state’s more recent supportive housing program, Empire State Supportive Housing Initiative (ESSHI), funds up to $25,000 per unit, and even that is insufficient to meet today’s operating and service costs.
Governor Kathy Hochul clearly recognizes the importance of supportive housing as one of the most powerful tools at the state’s disposal to address the myriad challenges the most vulnerable New Yorkers face. Last year, she funded the next five years of the state’s 20,000-unit ESSHI commitment.
The Governor has proposed a plan to address the affordable housing and homelessness crises and build much-needed new units across the state. But we can’t keep funding new housing at the expense of leaving our vulnerable families without the most basic of services to stay safe from violence and recover from their trauma. This year we need the Governor to support our old NYSSHP-funded buildings in her Executive Budget proposal.
The Governor has repeatedly made clear that she is deeply devoted to supporting the survivors of domestic violence and has a unique insight into the many challenges survivors face. She has publicly shared the painful story of her grandmother’s domestic abuse, and how that spurred her mother to open a transitional domestic violence abuse shelter in her native Western New York, the Kathleen Mary House.
Those experiences also informed Governor Hochul’s own activism, leading her to a life of service, and, more recently, to enact legislation that significantly enhanced housing resources for survivors across the state. She knows better than anyone the dangers that families who have escaped domestic violence face from their abusers — dangers that are especially keen in the time immediately after they leave to try to start a new life.
Statistics show that the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship is after she has made the decision to leave. Seventy-five percent of domestic violence-related homicides occur upon a survivor’s separation from their abuser.
That is why security is paramount at supportive housing programs like ours that focus on domestic violence survivors, but also our sister providers that house runaway homeless youth, homeless veterans, and other vulnerable populations. There are 20,000 households supported by NYSSHP programs all over the state, 10,000 of which depend solely on NYSSHP funding.
The families we serve, who have been through the double trauma of homelessness and abuse, deserve better, as do all the tenants in existing NYSSHP-funded buildings located across New York. If the state fails to invest in these services and bring them into line with ESHHI rates, we will lose units as fast as we build them, if not faster, and the state will merely tread water in its quest to end homelessness.
We very much hope that the soon-to-be-released Executive Budget includes a major boost for NYSSHP funding to protect the thousands of individuals and families who depend on it for stability – and, in our case, for their very lives.
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Nicole Branca is executive director of New Destiny Housing, a New York City nonprofit founded in 1994 to provide housing and services to one of the City’s most vulnerable homeless populations – victims of domestic violence and their children. On Twitter @NewDestinyOrg.
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Classical Charter Schools
A random number in a lottery is chosen, and a parent breathes a sigh of relief. But I’m not talking about the New York Lottery – I’m talking about our education system.
It’s no secret that schools in some of New York City’s poorest districts aren’t getting the job done for students. That’s why public charter schools were created in the first place, and the results for families have been promising.
But as demand from families for seats in charter schools has grown, we’re running out of space. Charters run a randomized lottery for admission, and for schools that receive more applications than available seats that means being forced to turn students away. The reality is that charter leaders want to be able to serve more students, but the charter cap – a state statutory limit on the number of charter schools – has kept new schools from opening their doors.
We can’t accept a status quo where a lottery number determines a child’s future. That’s why it’s time to lift the cap. Governor Hochul has the chance to do just that by including a cap lift in her budget proposal this week.
The choices elected leaders make when it comes to policy can be complicated, but when it comes to education, it’s simple – when you see something works, scale it.
The one thing standing in the way of that for New York City students? The charter school cap. For me, lifting the cap is personal.
I was a kid who, to put it lightly, did not do well in school, and was never instilled with the love for learning that students need to succeed. After high school, I became a truck driver, and quickly realized that it wasn’t the right path for me. So, I kept working and enrolled in night school, ultimately earning a college degree. That’s when I fell in love with education for the first time – and it changed my life.
A decade later, that spark for education never left, so I quit my job in banking and became a New York City teaching fellow. That’s where I got a firsthand look at the problems facing our students, and saw some of the same issues that I encountered myself. I knew we could do so much more, so I took my experience in education and the business world, and founded my own school network, Classical Charter Schools.
In 2022, 90% of students at our schools passed the state’s math test, and 88% passed English Language Arts (ELA) – double the rates of students across New York State, and triple the district average in the South Bronx. Our commitment goes beyond test scores. Our students learn how to become well-rounded adults by exploring their passions, building character, and learning how to navigate interpersonal relationships.
We listen to families. We work to ensure that our teachers and deans look like the communities they serve. We know what works, and fix what doesn’t. We want to do more. But the hard truth is that we remain forced to turn away thousands of families who apply to our schools every year because we simply don’t have enough seats.
It’s not just our network of schools – public charters across New York City are offering working class families something that for far too long has only been available to the wealthy: a choice in where to send their kids to school. In fact, three charters (including Classical) were the only schools across the city to make the U.S. Education Department’s list of ‘Blue Ribbon Schools’ last year. We did this by demonstrating that we go “above and beyond to keep students healthy and safe while meeting their academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs.” This isn’t just an award – it’s a point of pride for our students who know that they can learn every day in a safe, supportive, and invigorating environment.
From community nonprofit leaders and educators who are ready to bring their passion to life by starting a school for the first time to innovative charter networks that have been serving students for years, we all have one goal in mind: to provide a high-quality public education to as many students as possible.
But until the charter cap is lifted, more of these great schools can’t open and I can’t provide more seats to students and families who want them. What do we have to gain by shutting the door on New Yorkers with the experience and vision to support and educate our kids?
The decisions that lawmakers make in Albany are a reflection of our values. This session, our leaders can show New Yorkers that they value giving families a choice in their children’s education. Governor Hochul has expressed support for lifting the charter school cap; she can move toward making it happen by taking the next big step of including it in her Executive Budget.
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Lester Long is Founder and Executive Director of Classical Charter Schools, four high-performing elementary and middle schools in the South Bronx.
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