How surveillance crept up on us : Planet Money

Pedestrians walk beneath security cameras in Brooklyn. Mario Tama/Getty Images hide caption

For years, police have spent billions of tax dollars on watching us, tracking us, and recording us. In the largest police department in the country, these surveillance systems were paid for and adopted without the kind of public oversight cities usually require.

In the wake of 9/11, the New York Police Department built one of the most sophisticated and omnipresent surveillance systems in the country.

And while decisions were being made about what tech to adopt and how much to pay for it, few outside the NYPD were consulted. Not the City Council nor the public. For over a decade, the only paper trail of these purchases were offline, stored in filing cabinets, inaccessible to the public.

Today on the show, how the country's largest police department built its surveillance system, and the fight to get police everywhere to tell us how they're watching us.

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This episode was produced by Vito Emanuel and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Music: NPR Source Audio - "Funky Space Mama," "Sunday Lights," and "Blammo"

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