This Week at TAP: Taking on Surveillance
Devorah Levy-Pearlman
The Activated People is ringing in the new year by taking action -- and winning -- against police surveillance in Northern Virginia.
We don’t need to tell you that Black Lives Matter and #DefundThePolice had their moment in 2020. Now more than ever, we as activists are in the hot seat. The heat is on to hold our nation’s justice systems accountable. This moment calls upon us and challenges us; we must work tooth-and-nail to nip harmful and unjust policies in the bud and demand more collective, community-centered approaches to crime. This requires us to investigate the currently-existing systems in our cities, counties, and states perpetuate racial injustice, many of which have flown under the radar, undetected and unchallenged, for years. At The Activated People, we take this challenge seriously.
The Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force is one such case. In The Activated People’s (TAP) home state, the Task Force was formed in 2003 as a coalition of city and county governments to intervene with local gangs and gather data (read: surveil and incarcerate more young men of color). Carrying out such a broadly-defined task, described vaguely on their website as “impact gang activity in North Virginia”, necessitates an expanded surveillance machine. The insidious tactic of merging public data with police surveillance technology to expand the carceral state is nothing new. The database in question, GangNet has been operating for 17 years. Since 2003, GangNet has partnered with dozens of police agencies in cities across the country to share information on potential crime suspects, ostensibly to help cops solve crimes. But the database is woefully inaccurate and allows for gross discretionary powers on the part of law enforcement. Police officers can enter individuals into the system based on tenuous and arbitrary criteria; wearing “cheap or expensive” jewelry or “loose shirts” are considered acceptable criteria to be listed as a gang member. This gives officers the discretion to choose who to send down the prison pipeline, further reinforcing racial biases in the criminal justice system.
This means that many individuals, mostly young Brown and Black men, are being surveilled, targeted, charged for crimes, and incarcerated because an officer who lurked in their neighborhood decided they looked suspicious, for living in the “wrong” neighborhood, associating with the “wrong” people, or even wearing the “wrong” clothes. Children as young as 11 or 12 years old are thus shuffled on a fast track into the prison pipeline. The GangNet database, and the heavy-handed surveillance required to uphold it, also trigger deportation proceedings since ICE agents have access to the database.
In response to these injustices in TAP’s home base, Founder and Director Kofi Annan sent a letter to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors urging them to withdraw their participation from the Regional Gang Task Force unless more stringent criteria are adopted. In the letter, he cites a breach of constitutional rights and the resulting stigmatization of Brown and Black communities. The database, Annan writes, endangers Fairfax County residents of color by creating “opportunities for law enforcement to violate the First Amendment rights (freedom of assembly), and Fourth Amendment rights (freedom from warrantless government surveillance) of innocent residents simply for “associating” with suspected gang members.” Speaking on behalf of The Activated People, Annan urges the county to uphold due process and withdraw from the gang task force unless “more stringent criteria for placing individuals into the gang database” is adopted. His recommendations to the county and the task force include explicitly limiting the criteria to drug convictions that are tied directly to gang activity and increasing transparency so that residents are always notified if their name is entered in the system.
Since sending out the letter to Fairfax County, we’ve seen immediate results. As of Tuesday, December 29, Annan received notification that the task force’s director is “working to suspend its use of GangNet”. We took on the fight against police surveillance-- and we’re winning! When individuals point out the injustices in their community and present a strong case against those harmful policies to the people in power, justice prevails. When everyday people take up the task of engaging in meaningful dialogue about the fate of their community, people listen. And sometimes, real change takes place. The Activated People will be watching vigilantly in the coming weeks and months to ensure that the task force and Fairfax County, VA follow through on their promises to withdraw from the GangNet database.
We urge our readers to educate themselves about the policies that impact their own communities and take the appropriate steps to protest unjust activities carried out by their cities, counties, and states. Political change, like any trend, often sows its first seeds on the micro, local level. If you are angry about our broken criminal justice system and the cruelty of police surveillance, start investigating within your own community.
Here are some investigative questions to get you started:
Does my city, county, or local police department use the GangNet database?
Does my city, county, or local police department rely on any other surveillance tactics that unfairly target and endanger young Black and Brown people?
Do local law enforcement in my area cooperate with ICE?
What systems of accountability exist, or are missing, from my local government and law enforcement?
Who has power in my town/city/county? What are they not doing that they should be doing to protect my community?
What do those people need to hear from someone like me? What can I do to influence power structures in my community?
