Cops Push Citizen Self-Surveillance in Plea Bargains

You might be tempted to dismiss NY: Police are blackmailing motorists into installing cellphone monitoring devices as an aberrant act by local cops were it not sponsored by an international firm that supplies the monitoring technology.

As far as I can tell, the enforcement authority pushing the so-called ‘Distracted Driver Education Program’ (DDEP) is local Nassau County, not the ‘feds’ as reported in the article. “Blackmailing” also isn’t the word I would choose here, but by any standard it’s a pretty ferocious plea bargain deal.

Even more worrying, the attempt to find ways to get people to pay to spy on themselves and on others for the benefit of law enforcement echos this incident, Police Demand Shop Install Surveillance, Give Cops Full Feed, and also Right to Ban Customers, that I blogged about a month ago.

This is a trend that bears watching.

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