New York City\u2019s state-of-the-art, Domain Awareness System was developed as a partnership between the NYPD and Microsoft.<\/p>\n
The first partnership of its kind in the United States, DAS has evoked comparisons of New York City to \u2018the steel ring\u2019 of London.\u00a0 Still others are convinced carte blanche surveillance has arrived in the U.S. for good.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not your mom-and-pop\u2019s Police Department anymore,\u201d New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced at a press conference<\/a> <\/span>in 2012.\u00a0 Originally engineered to combat terrorism, DAS is now the premiere beat-policing tool in the United States.\u00a0 DAS utilizes existing databases and camera feed to compile a surveillance map New York City.\u00a0 It can simultaneously detect potential terrorist threats, provide real-time crime updates and analyze data.
\nThe most innovative feature of the NYPD\u2019s DAS is not its surveillance capabilities or its breadth, but rather its origins in the private sector. \u00a0A seminal public-private partnership, DAS is the product of a joint venture between Microsoft and the NYPD.
\nDAS has also been enhanced over the years, a continuing phase of the partnership.\u00a0 When the NYPD, already on the hunt for security software in 2009, decided to work with Microsoft to create a security system, the result was sophisticated.\u00a0 Designed with NYPD input, and customized for their use, DAS boasts a user friendly interface, tailored at every stage of production to meet the Department\u2019s unique counterterrorism and policing needs.
\nMoreover, both Microsoft and the NYPD stand to profit from this joint venture<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0A revenue-sharing plan devised by the organizations ensure this lucrative partnership will flourish.\u00a0 The NYPD, estimated to have spent around forty million dollars of its own money developing DAS, will receive thirty percent revenue<\/a><\/span> when DAS programs are created and sold to other law enforcement agencies around the country.
\nDAS funnels information from the universe of existing law enforcement databases into a program run on the City\u2019s high-speed, \u201cwireless broadband infrastructure<\/a><\/span>.\u201d\u00a0 Thanks largely to Microsoft\u2019s expertise and engineering, the system is easy to use, and comprehensive in its scope.\u00a0 Supported by the \u201cNew York City Wireless\u201d Network, DAS performs a huge range of functions.\u00a0 At its release in 2012, it tapped into the feeds of over 3,000 cameras<\/a><\/span> positioned throughout Manhattan, compiling a real-time surveillance map by stitching together all the feeds.\u00a0 Every car traveling through Manhattan was recorded, and each location data point was included in the map<\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 If required, police could focus on a particular traveler and ascertain his or her journey from start to finish. \u00a0As Commissioner Ray Kelly announced in 2012, DAS can \u201ctrack<\/a> <\/span>where a car associated with a suspect is located, and where it has been in past days, weeks or months,\u201d or \u201cif a suspicious package is left at a location, the NYPD can immediately . . . look back in time and see who left it there\u201d and where that person went.
\nIn addition, license plate scans and radiation detectors are incorporated into DAS.\u00a0 In 2012, the City placed several hundred license plate readers along roads and bridges<\/a> <\/span>across New York, (now a fraction of devices deployed).\u00a0 The plate readers scanned each car\u2019s plates while simultaneously searching national watch lists.\u00a0 If a match is registered, police are automatically notified.\u00a0 Over 2,500 radiation detectors are also mounted throughout the city.\u00a0 Concentrated on Manhattan, radiation detectors scan each car.\u00a0 Whether the car contains a medical isotope or more dangerous type of radiation is quickly determined.\u00a0 Neil Ungerleider of Fast Company<\/em> live-tweeted Bloomberg\u2019s 2012 press conference, remarking \u201c[N]ypd system identifies exact source of radiation (chemo, meds, industrial\u2026 or terrorism) instantly<\/a><\/span> in passing cars.\u201d
\nPublic surveillance is a completely legal policing tool, and has been supported in the Courts throughout common law.\u00a0 Nevertheless, mass surveillance conducted by DAS and wielded by every beat officer is rife with Fourth Amendment concerns.\u00a0 What used to mean several police officers surveilling an individual for a period of time, now means an artificial surveillance without limitation.\u00a0 Furthermore, DAS heritage as a public-private joint venture signifies an erosion of social protections against zealous law enforcement.\u00a0 Limited resources once restrained police surveillance, but now function as an origin point for partnerships like Microsoft and the NYPD\u2019s.
\nIt is unclear, as this technology spreads across the country, whether any reaction will register from citizens, who are both targeted and protected, by programs like DAS.
\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s state-of-the-art, Domain Awareness System was developed as a partnership between the NYPD and Microsoft. The first partnership of its kind in the United States, DAS has evoked comparisons of New York City to \u2018the steel ring\u2019 of London.\u00a0 Still others are convinced carte blanche surveillance has arrived in the U.S. for good. …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3944"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7236,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3944\/revisions\/7236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}