Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Wednesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“A Chicago Police training exercise next to Whitney Young High School caused the school to go on lockdown Tuesday during finals when students spotted a gunman outside, the school’s principal told parents,” Block Club Chicago reports.
Apparently the school hadn’t been told there would be a drill next door.
“[Principal Joyce] Kenner, in an e-mail to parents, said three students spotted a gunman outside the school, under a nearby bridge. She then put the prestigious selective enrollment school on lockdown.”


Well, this is why they have drills! In the event of a real gunman, they’ll notify the school!
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“Chicago Police said they got a call of a man with a gun at 11:50 a.m. Tuesday in the 1300 block of West Jackson Avenue.

Kellie Bartoli, a spokeswoman for the Chicago Police Department, confirmed a training was taking place outside of the police academy, which sits next to the Whitney Young High School campus.
Bartoli said there was a person with a gun, who was participating in the training drill.
“The call was cleared immediately when it was determined this was part of academy training,” Bartoli said in an e-mail.

In a way, you could say the system worked!
Also, next time pick up the damn phone so you can ask the police flak some questions instead of just cutting-and-pasting her e-mailed statement.
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Clearview Longview
“The Chicago Police Department is using a controversial facial recognition tool that allows investigators to search an image of unknown suspects to see if it matches a database of three billion photos lifted from websites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter – a technology privacy advocates say is so ripe for abuse that cops should stop using it immediately,” the Sun-Times reports.
“Clearview AI, the Manhattan-based firm that developed the software, has come under fire after a lawsuit was filed in federal court in Chicago earlier this month seeking to halt the company’s data collection and after the New York Times published a bombshell report detailing the privacy concerns its technology has brought to the fore.”
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“Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said facial recognition software like Clearview adds ‘jet fuel’ to the department’s ability to identify and locate suspects.”
Jet fuel is one way to describe Clearview’s capabilities. Here’s another, via the Times:

But without public scrutiny, more than 600 law enforcement agencies have started using Clearview in the past year, according to the company, which declined to provide a list. The computer code underlying its app, analyzed by The New York Times, includes programming language to pair it with augmented-reality glasses; users would potentially be able to identify every person they saw. The tool could identify activists at a protest or an attractive stranger on the subway, revealing not just their names but where they lived, what they did and whom they knew.
And it’s not just law enforcement: Clearview has also licensed the app to at least a handful of companies for security purposes.
“The weaponization possibilities of this are endless,” said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. “Imagine a rogue law enforcement officer who wants to stalk potential romantic partners, or a foreign government using this to dig up secrets about people to blackmail them or throw them in jail.”
Clearview has shrouded itself in secrecy, avoiding debate about its boundary-pushing technology. When I began looking into the company in November, its website was a bare page showing a nonexistent Manhattan address as its place of business. The company’s one employee listed on LinkedIn, a sales manager named “John Good,” turned out to be Mr. Ton-That, using a fake name. For a month, people affiliated with the company would not return my e-mails or phone calls.

Seems Mr. Ton-That likes his privacy!
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But it gets worse:
“While the company was dodging me, it was also monitoring me. At my request, a number of police officers had run my photo through the Clearview app. They soon received phone calls from company representatives asking if they were talking to the media – a sign that Clearview has the ability and, in this case, the appetite to monitor whom law enforcement is searching for.”

shocked-face-with-exploding-head_1f92f.png
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Back to the Sun-Times:
“Before she was elected Mayor last April, [Mayor Lori] Lightfoot told the ACLU of Illinois that she would go as far as to halt the use of the technology while convening a panel to investigate its use.

“During this process I will place a moratorium on the use of facial recognition technology or its expansion absent an emergency situation arising from a legitimate law enforcement need,” she wrote in an ACLU questionnaire.
But since taking office, no review or moratorium has taken place. In fact, with the addition of Clearview to CPD’s facial recognition arsenal, the city’s capabilities have only expanded under her watch.
Asked about the expansion late last week, Lightfoot reiterated her vow to review the city’s use of the technology with the assistance of privacy advocates and community members.
The city aims to advance protections and integrate “national best practices for the use of this technology to ensure nothing but the full protection of personal and constitutional rights for our residents and visitors,” her office said in a statement.
The city “is working responsibly to confront the risks and promises of these tools,” Lightfoot’s office said.

Work faster.
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Maybe this technology could be rigged to warn schools when CPD is holding active shooter drills next door.
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See also: Clearview’s Face Surveillance Shows Why We Need a Strong Federal Consumer Privacy Law.
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
The 10 Least-Reported Humanitarian Crises Of 2019
Nine are in Africa.
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Baseball Furies
“Baseball Furies is a documentary that explores the complex relationship between baseball, music, and artists who reject the cookie-cutter parameters of the American Dream.”
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Atari Hotel Announced For Chicago
“Atari Hotels level up hotel entertainment with fully immersive experiences for every age and gaming ability, including the latest in VR and AR (Virtual and Augmented Reality).”
So maybe you won’t even be staying there, it will just seem like it!
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ChicagoReddit

The Year of Chicago Music Band Roster – deadline extended until Friday, Febraury 14, 2020, at 5pm CST from r/chicago


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ChicagoGram


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ChicagoTube
Tate McRae at Schubas last Tuesday night.

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BeachBook
Miniaturist Perfectly Recreates Historic Interiors At A Staggering 1:12 Scale.

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Can You Beat The Buffet? Let’s Try!

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TweetWood
A sampling of the delight and disgust you can find @BeachwoodReport.


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“I feel nothing for you.”
“I’m ambivalent about you.”
“I’m too shy shy, hush hush, eye to eye.”
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Only the President of the United States is allowed to do that.


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The Beachwood Tattletale Line: Do tell.

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Posted on January 29, 2020