{"id":842242,"date":"2026-08-03T17:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842242\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T17:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T17:11:11","slug":"john-oliver-on-police-surveillance-big-brother-on-steroids-john-oliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/842242\/","title":{"rendered":"John Oliver on police surveillance: \u2018Big Brother on steroids\u2019 | John Oliver"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Oliver<\/a> discussed the tools that police are using to keep track of Americans on the latest episode of Last Week Tonight.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the use of surveillance technology has exploded among local police forces due to decreasing prices and federal funding, with one local mayor comparing modern systems to \u201cBig Brother on steroids\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure that\u2019s quite the sell he thinks it is,\u201d said Oliver with a laugh. \u201cBig Brother is pretty famously not the hero of [George Orwell\u2019s] 1984 \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the truth is, a lot of the technologies that feed into those [local surveillance] centers have significant problems, and some civil liberties issues to the way they\u2019ve been weaponized recently to target immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere needs to be much more awareness of what\u2019s actually out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Local police forces use a combination of cameras, license plate readers, microphones and cell-site simulators in \u201cpredictive policing\u201d that \u201ccombines all of them to make that Big Brother on steroids line true\u201d, Oliver said.<\/p>\n

In New Orleans, where there are more than 2,000 surveillance cameras, a police officer said that without them they would \u201cabsolutely not\u201d have been able to determine who was the shooter and who was the victim in a recent case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds like less of an argument for cameras than an argument against you guys,\u201d said Oliver. \u201cYou basically just admitted there that \u2018we couldn\u2019t do dick-all until we got them video doodads\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cameras are also used to identify people who are suspected of being potential criminals, in a \u201cdigital form of stop and frisk\u201d. Police are increasingly able to use cameras used by private businesses or homeowners and routinely request access to the 85,000 cameras in the US.<\/p>\n

One software company named Fusus recently advertised its ability to allow police to request all camera footage from businesses in an area at the click of a button. \u201cTechnology is amazing, but it does feel like turning on the panopticon should be a bit harder than that,\u201d Oliver said.<\/p>\n

Fusus is also developing tools to allow police to livestream footage from private homeowners\u2019 Ring cameras, while cities such as Rialto, California, stipulate that businesses must allow authorities access to security footage.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, you have to decide whether opening your nail salon is worth being a narc on passersby.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, more than 200 US jurisdictions use a microphone system called ShotSpotter which alerts police when it picks up the sound of gunfire. Unfortunately, the system often mistakes fireworks, nail guns and other loud noises for firearms. \u201cYou don\u2019t want hyped-up cops showing up, weapons drawn, because dad finally got around to putting up the Christmas lights,\u201d noted Oliver.<\/p>\n

Automated license plate readers (Alprs) also present similar issues. These cameras do not just scan license plates to check if a vehicle has been reported stolen, but bank photos of every car that passes and keep track of its movements for 30 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlprs will send up a lot of alerts, but many are false alarms,\u201d Oliver said, adding that at least 35% of alerts are false alarms per a recent study. Police in Denver recently assumed that a car full of children was stolen and pulled over the vehicle with kids as young as six years old instructed to get on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou already know that the police fucked up there, but I promise that you are not ready for just how dumb that fuckup was,\u201d said Oliver. It turned out that the stolen vehicle that the police were looking for was a motorcycle from a different state with the same license plate number.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when these systems work perfectly, they can still be wildly invasive,\u201d Oliver added. \u201cCameras and license plate readers can track your movements wherever you go, which means they could find out, say, if you attended a protest or visited an abortion clinic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cell site simulators \u2013 often called Stingray \u2013 convince phones that they are real cell towers and pass data to police.<\/p>\n

\u201cCell site simulators are a mass surveillance tool and police can get a lot from them, from who you are calling to what you are texting,\u201d said the host, adding that police recently used a Stingray to track down someone who stole 15 chicken wings and three sub sandwiches.<\/p>\n

The \u201cdumbest use of this tech\u201d is predictive policing, Oliver said. \u201cThink Minority Report, but instead of three pale orphans hanging out in goo, it\u2019s a bunch of bland-looking computers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Predictive policing can allow authorities to compile lists of \u201cpotential offenders\u201d based on arrest histories and other \u201carbitrary decisions by police analysts\u201d, according to one report. Police departments in Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia are now using the technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, cops can be assholes no matter what, but it doesn\u2019t help to have a computer program telling them, \u2018you should absolutely go and be an asshole to this particular person because we think they\u2019re a criminal just waiting to happen,\u201d said Oliver.<\/p>\n

He also pointed out that a lot of the technology discussed, such as ShotSpotter systems and license plate readers, are disproportionately used in communities of color.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sure seems to me that these surveillance tools have much bigger flaws than the people both selling and using them are comfortable admitting,\u201d Oliver concluded. \u201cTime and again, the pattern when they get rolled out is: they get deployed in secret, and then publicly presented in the most positive light, and only much later do we start to fully understand the damage they can do.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, the public conversation comes last.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Oliver discussed the tools that police are using to keep track of Americans on the latest episode…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":842243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":["post-842242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/842243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}