NYC City Council Approves Legislation Requiring the NYPD to Reveal the Secret Electronic Surveillance Tools it Uses to Monitor & Target Citizens [aka its enemies & slaves]

From [HERE] The New York City Police Department may soon be required to divulge information about its use of electronic surveillance tools amid growing concern that government agencies are using largely unregulated technology to monitor nationwide protests against police brutality.

The City Council overwhelmingly approved legislation, known as the POST Act, that would require the NYPD to issue a report for the first time to explain the tools at its disposal and their uses. The department maintains one of the country’s largest networks of surveillance cameras and has other tools such as facial recognition software, license plate readers and mobile phone trackers.

The legislation passed Thursday is one of a handful of NYPD changes that have been approved since protests broke out after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in late May. Privacy and civil liberties advocates say the bill, which was first introduced in 2018 but had lain dormant without a commitment that Mayor Bill de Blasio would sign it into law, may not have passed without the protests.

“People have been pushed too far to the limit, and they’re tired,” Councilwoman Vanessa Gibson, who sponsored the legislation, said at a news conference before the vote. “We have seen too many of our brothers and sisters who have been victims of police surveillance for far too long.”

De Blasio, under pressure by activists to support policing overhaul measures, last week signaled his support for the bill over the objection of the NYPD, which has said the bill would cripple anti-terrorist investigations and leave police officers exposed. Contacted by CQ Roll Call, a spokesperson for de Blasio declined to say when the mayor plans to sign the bill into law.

Proponents of the bill say it is long overdue and is only an underpinning for additional accountability measures in the future, in part because the bill does not actually govern police use of surveillance technology, just its disclosure.

Some cities have outlawed law enforcement use of certain tools, such as facial recognition, but the NYPD has resisted limits on what technologies it can and cannot use.