Technology

Journalists covering the increasing utilize of surveillance technology by law enforcement now have a new resource to help navigate a complex and often opaque landscape. A report released today, “Selling Safety,” provides guidance on dissecting marketing claims made by police technology vendors and reporting accurately on the costs, benefits, privacy implications, and accountability surrounding these tools.

The report is a collaborative effort from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Center for Just Journalism (CJJ), and IPVM, organizations dedicated to digital rights, investigative journalism, and independent research into the surveillance industry. It comes at a time when police departments across the nation are rapidly adopting new technologies, often with limited public scrutiny.

“Selling Safety” addresses a core problem: the tendency for police technology to be presented as a quick fix for complex issues. Vendors often market their products as a way to modernize departments, enhance public safety, and even eliminate human bias through algorithmic objectivity. However, the report argues that this narrative often obscures a lack of rigorous testing and a profit-driven incentive to exaggerate effectiveness. The cost of this uncritical acceptance, the report emphasizes, can be substantial – impacting both taxpayer dollars and civil liberties.

The report breaks down the tactics used by policing technology companies to market their tools, and how those claims frequently find their way into media coverage without sufficient questioning. It offers journalists practical tools for asking better questions, understanding the financial incentives at play, and uncovering local accountability stories. You can access the full “Selling Safety” report here.

The Unregulated Landscape of Police Technology

According to Matthew Guariglia, EFF Senior Policy Analyst, the industry supplying technology to law enforcement is largely unregulated and often operates without adequate oversight. “Most Americans would rightfully be horrified to know how many decisions about policing are made: not by public employees, but by multi-billion-dollar surveillance tech companies who have an insatiable profit motive to market their technology as the silver bullet that will stop crime,” Guariglia stated. He also pointed to a tendency among lawmakers to prioritize appearing “tough on crime” and journalists to readily publish law enforcement press releases without critical examination.

Hannah Riley Fernandez, Director of Programming at the Center for Just Journalism, highlighted the increasing speed at which surveillance technologies are being deployed. “Surveillance and other police technologies are spreading faster than public understanding or oversight, leaving journalists to do critical accountability function in real time,” she said. “We hope this report helps create that work easier.”

Conor Healy, IPVM’s Director of Government Research, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of evidence-based reporting. “The surveillance technology industry has a documented pattern of making unsubstantiated claims about technology,” Healy explained. “Marketing is not a substitute for evidence. Journalists who go beyond press releases to critically examine vendor claims will often find solutions are not as magical as they may seem. In doing so, they perform essential accountability work that protects both taxpayer dollars and civil liberties.”

Resources for Understanding Surveillance

The EFF provides a wealth of resources for understanding the various types of police technologies being deployed and mapping their use across the United States. Their Street-Level Surveillance hub offers detailed information on specific technologies, while the Atlas of Surveillance provides a visual mapping of surveillance systems in communities nationwide.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), founded in 1990, is a leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. According to Wikipedia, the EFF provides legal defense, presents amicus briefs, and works to expose government malfeasance. Media Bias/Fact Check rates the EFF as “Left-Center” biased but “High” for factual reporting, describing it as the “online equivalent of the American Civil Liberties Union.”

As police departments continue to adopt new surveillance technologies, the need for informed and critical reporting will only grow. “Selling Safety” offers a valuable toolkit for journalists seeking to hold these technologies – and the companies that sell them – accountable.

The conversation around police surveillance is evolving rapidly. Looking ahead, it will be crucial to monitor legislative efforts like the Protect Reporters from Exploitive State Spying (PRESS) Act, H.R. 4250, which aims to protect journalists from government surveillance, as highlighted by the EFF and the Coalition For Women In Journalism. Further investigation into the financial relationships between police departments and surveillance technology vendors will also be essential.

What are your thoughts on the increasing use of surveillance technology by law enforcement? Share your comments below and help us continue the conversation.

In a groundbreaking discovery, astronomers have identified a galaxy, dubbed CDG-2, that is overwhelmingly dominated by dark matter – potentially composed of up to 99% of this mysterious substance. This elusive galaxy, detected using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in conjunction with other observatories, presents a rare opportunity to study the nature of dark matter and its role in galaxy formation. The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, highlight the challenges and rewards of searching for these faint, hidden structures in the universe.

The universe is filled with galaxies that shine brightly, but a compact fraction remain nearly invisible, characterized by low surface brightness and a dominance of dark matter. These galaxies are difficult to detect, requiring advanced techniques to reveal their presence. CDG-2, located approximately 300 million light-years away in the Perseus galaxy cluster, stands out as one of the most extreme examples of this phenomenon. Understanding these dark galaxies is crucial to refining our models of cosmic structure and the distribution of matter in the universe.

Unveiling a Dark Enigma

Dark matter, which doesn’t interact with light, makes up a significant portion of the universe’s mass, yet its composition remains one of the biggest mysteries in modern cosmology. While its presence is inferred through its gravitational effects on visible matter, directly observing dark matter is incredibly difficult. CDG-2 offers a unique window into this hidden realm, as it contains only about 1 million times the mass of our Sun in stars – a stark contrast to the Milky Way’s 150-plus globular clusters and billions of stars. The galaxy appears to contain just four globular star clusters, compact groups of stars that orbit galaxies.

The discovery wasn’t straightforward. David Li of the University of Toronto, Canada, and his team employed sophisticated statistical techniques to identify CDG-2. They initially searched for tight groupings of globular clusters – compact, spherical star groups commonly found orbiting normal galaxies – as indicators of a faint, hidden stellar population. This approach allowed them to identify 10 previously confirmed low-surface-brightness galaxies and two additional dark galaxy candidates, including CDG-2.

A Trio of Observatories Confirms the Discovery

To confirm CDG-2’s nature, astronomers combined data from three powerful observatories: the Hubble Space Telescope, ESA’s Euclid space observatory, and the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. Hubble’s high-resolution imaging was particularly crucial, revealing the close collection of four globular clusters within the Perseus galaxy cluster. This confirmation solidifies CDG-2’s status as a heavily dark matter-dominated galaxy.

The low surface brightness of CDG-2 makes it exceptionally difficult to study. As NASA explains, detecting such faint galaxies is “extraordinarily difficult.” The galaxy dimly shines with the light of only about 6 million Suns, according to the Space Telescope Science Institute. This faintness underscores the challenges of mapping the distribution of dark matter in the universe and the need for increasingly sensitive instruments and innovative detection methods.

The low-surface-brightness galaxy CDG-2, within the dashed red circle at right, is dominated by dark matter and contains only a sparse scattering of stars. The full image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is at left. NASA, ESA, Dayi Li (UToronto); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Implications for Dark Matter Research

The discovery of CDG-2 provides valuable insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies in dark matter halos. It suggests that dark matter halos can exist with very few stars, challenging existing models that predict a stronger correlation between dark matter and star formation. Further study of CDG-2 and similar galaxies could help refine our understanding of the fundamental properties of dark matter and its influence on the structure of the cosmos.

Astronomers will continue to analyze data from Hubble, Euclid, and other observatories to learn more about CDG-2 and other dark galaxies. Future observations may reveal additional details about the distribution of dark matter within these structures and provide clues about the nature of this elusive substance. The ongoing exploration of these faint, dark corners of the universe promises to unlock latest secrets about the cosmos and our place within it.

What new insights will CDG-2 offer into the nature of dark matter? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and don’t forget to share this article with fellow space enthusiasts!