Talia Kamran, Staff Attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow in the Seizure and Surveillance Defense Project, testified before the New York City Council Committees on Public Safety, Technology, and Oversight and Investigation on the NYPD’s failure to comply with the POST Act. She detailed how the department continues to expand its mass surveillance capabilities with little transparency or oversight, disproportionately targeting Black, Brown, and low-income communities.

"We are living in a city with Orwellian levels of surveillance. The NYPD has the capability—and actively uses it—to observe citizens constantly through an extensive network of CCTV cameras, as indicated in its DAS and CCTV Impact and Use Policies (IUPs). Now, with a vast array of drones equipped with audiovisual capabilities, this near-constant surveillance has become even more pervasive. This unchecked expansion of surveillance technology has serious implications for civil liberties and privacy rights, disproportionately affecting Black, brown, and low-income communities."

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"The NYPD has continually failed to comply with both the letter and the spirit of the POST Act, using broad and misleading interpretations to minimize transparency. Rather than fully disclosing the capabilities and implications of its surveillance technologies, the Department selectively omits key details regarding the most critical privacy concerns for New Yorkers."

Read the full testimony here.