What’s the BRIC? The Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) is one of nearly 80 “fusion centers” the federal government’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funded and built after the 9/11 attacks. The BRIC was established in 2005, as a “counterterrorism intelligence” center...
Tomorrow is Election Day—finally. There’s a lot at stake in this contest, but no matter who wins, those of us who care about civil rights and civil liberties will continue to have our work cut out for us. Here are three...
On Friday October 21, 2016, the people of the United States learned two scary lessons: 1. It’s relatively easy for rogue actors to turn consumer technologies against their owners and wield them as weapons; and 2. Doing so may shut off access to...
Debates about internet security and the limits of state power just got a lot more interesting. Unless you don’t use the internet, you likely know that on Friday a number of major websites were inaccessible for hours. These sites were victims of a...
Education technology presents exciting new opportunities for students, teachers, and schools, but it also exposes young people to serious new risks. We must ensure that we both enable students to benefit from this technology and protect their privacy. That’s why the ACLU...
By Nancy Murray, 2016 Table of Contents I. Introduction Twenty-first century ‘homeland security’ policing took over Watertown’s streets during the hunt for those responsible for the heinous attack on the 2013 Boston Marathon. The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reportedly...
New Washington Post reporting describes disturbing pre-crime technology in place at the Fresno, California police department’s “real-time crime center.” The NCIC-like cop-cave plays host to license plate tracking databases, feeds from innumerable surveillance cameras, and government and corporate databases, which contain information about...
Over the decade, the government’s powers of surveillance have expanded dramatically. They are directed not just at people suspected of wrongdoing, but at all of us. Our phone calls, our emails and website visits, our financial records, our travel itineraries, and our...
Photo: Gabe Camacho The United States is not a battlefield, and our homes and communities should not be targets for military raids. But throughout Massachusetts today, forces composed of members of our public police departments increasingly resemble military units, backed up by...
