What base is this work accountable to?
A month ago we asked: who are reform professionals like @barryfriemdan1 accountable to when they push their harmful proposals?
Looking at their website, @policingproject's accountability is clear. Their Advisory Board is half police officials, plus surveillance executives, @CatoInstitute, and @CKinstitute. That's who @barryfriedman1 is “Reimagining Public Safety” with. policingproject.org/our-advisory-b…
It gets worse. @barryfriedman1's funders include @axon_us, @Microsoft (which sells policing technology to LAPD and funds @policingproject’s "work on ethical regulation of policing technology”), @awscloud (surveillance infrastructure), and @mark43 (used to surveil Los Angeles). ImageImageImageImage
The Axon funding is especially disturbing. LAPD hired @barryfriedman1 to legitimize and sanitize their body cam surveillance in 2017. LAPD has since paid Axon over $36 million for body cams. Axon then kicks money back to @barryfriedman1’s nonprofit for “support for our work."
The work @barryfriedman1 did for LAPD helped launch his then-small organization, which now has 18 staff (plus hiring at least 3 more) and 8 senior fellows. LAPD trotted him out to justify its body cam policies and act as a buffer. Then he used that work to build a huge nonprofit.
Policing Project’s other LAPD ties are worth naming too. Their board includes Arif Alkikhan @LAPD_OCPP, who was also a senior advisor to John Ashcroft and once described by L.A.’s mayor as “instrumental in putting 1,000 new LAPD officers on our streets.”
Alikhan also served as LAPD’s Director of Constitutional Policing during the Operation LASER predictive policing program, which was shut down after the community exposed its violent toll. An official audit also showed LAPD violated the City Attorney's own rules for the program.
What does Alikhan do now? He left LAPD to launch a police technology company and “reimagine public safety” on @policingproject’s board. This ecology – nonprofits, academics, businesses, and cops collaborating to strengthen policing – is always how police violence evolves. Image
If you’re wondering why we go after organizations like @policingproject, their website explicitly says they're spending their millions to oppose communities who want surveillance technologies banned.

That includes us. Image
We're not expecting @barryfriedman1 to address any of this. People like him have no notion of accountability to the community. They are functionaries of the state, paid by our oppressors to bless new forms of violence.

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More from @stoplapdspying

16 Mar
BREAKING: Along with @LACANetwork @BLMLA and 39 other community groups, we just sent City Council a letter about the new City Council report on LAPD's violence last summer. The report is a bold attempt to win LAPD more resources and spy powers. drive.google.com/file/d/1MCQIgu… Image
As we wrote in @KNOCKdotLA today: “It should surprise no one that this investigation, featuring almost zero effort to hear from the community, offers nothing but calls to expand policing. It’s hard to see this review as anything but a police coup.” knock-la.com/lapd-report-pr…
This report was written by a team of six LAPD veterans and insiders after interviewing 100+ police (and exactly 10 community members, all handpicked by City Council).

What does their police-fed investigation conclude? They say LAPD needs more resources and surveillance powers.
Read 11 tweets
15 Mar
Three months ago @lapdcommission removed this disclaimer from of its motions accepting @LAPoliceFdtn gifts: "To the best of our knowledge, there are no potential factors that may give the appearance of a conflict of interest in accepting this donation."
These gifts are how LAPD gets hooked on dangerous weapons that they use on the community. In 2002, @CommissBratton had @LAPoliceFdtn ask @Target (yes Target) for $200k to buy @PalantirTech for LAPD.

Once hooked on Palantir, LAPD went on to spend millions of tax $$ on it. Image
The @LAPoliceFdtn is also a front for the surveillance industry to buy influence with LAPD, as @awinston and @DarwinBondGraha have written: propublica.org/article/privat…
Read 4 tweets
19 Feb
Two law professors just wrote this LA Times op-ed proposing various police reforms.

Who asked for these? This is another example of reform professionals offering prescriptions to strengthen policing with no accountability to those who will be harmed. latimes.com/opinion/story/…
The first author is @barryfriedman1. What base is he accountable to?

His sole link to LA that we're aware of is @LAPoliceFdtn paying him $18,000 to help sanitize and legitimize LAPD's body cam surveillance. You would think an op-ed about policing might mention this payment.
The op-ed’s main proposal is legislation standardizing police use of force, probably the ALI model bill @barryfriedman1 wrote.

Well, California two years ago enacted a bill that ALI claims is based on this model. Police here then killed more people in 2020 than 2019 and 2018.
Read 8 tweets
17 Feb
Starting now! Community conversation on AI and white supremacy: us02web.zoom.us/j/84024803080 ImageImage
Over the past decade "artificial intelligence" has emerged as a new branding for mass surveillance in response to the scrutiny of the Snowden disclosures, explains @yardenkatz. Image
Until we dismantle the carceral state, research naming the intersectional biases of AI will just help carceral tools more powerful.

Face recognition AI might be bad at identifying Black women, but do we really want police facial recognition to do that better? Image
Read 11 tweets
4 Feb
THREAD: You might have heard LAPD claim that their budget was cut by $150 million this summer. That’s a lie. They’re playing games with numbers. We're here to demystify and defund LAPD's budget, which is billions of dollars spent to stalk and brutalize our people.
LAPD got $1.733 billion in 2019-2020 and $1.721 for 2020-21. That means their funding was reduced by only $12 million. The $150 million number that police keep throwing around is the difference from their budget REQUEST (always a high number), not from any actual city budget.
Let’s use an analogy. Suppose LAPD requested $120 last year and we gave them $100. Then suppose they requested $120 again and we gave them $95. That’s a $5 reduction, but LAPD wants to call it a $25 reduction. That’s what their $150 million number is like.
Read 19 tweets
23 Apr 20
PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THREAD… (1 of 7)
@LAPDChiefMoore says @PredPol was dismantled because of budget constraints. Lets look at the sequence of events & bldg grassroots power just over the last two years @LACANetwork @katecrawford @leilamillersays @alicesperi @ChallengeIneq
Thread (2 of 7)
Feb 2018 @stoplapdspying files public record lawsuit: govtech.com/public-safety/…
May 2018 @stoplapdspying release its report Before the Bullet Hits the Body – Dismantling Predictive Policing in LA: theintercept.com/2018/05/11/pre…
@YouthJusticeLA @BLMLA @freeradsorg
Thread (3 of 7)
July 2018 @lapdcommission holds first ever public hearing on Data Driven Policing – Community shows up in force and demands the dismantlement of LASER & Predpol and demands audit: latimes.com/local/lanow/la…

@WP4BL @GrassrootsJrg @srahrman
Read 7 tweets

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