As we witnessed with horror in Ferguson, the tools we create to fight wars overseas find their way back to the home front, free markets taking over where DARPA and other Defense departments trail off. Beyond guns and drones, surveillance equipment is the latest boomerang returning, and there are few rules in place to moderate their use, the technology, as usual, outstripping legislation. 

From Timothy Williams at the New York Times:

SAN DIEGO — Facial recognition software, which American military and intelligence agencies used for years in Iraq and Afghanistan to identify potential terrorists, is being eagerly adopted by dozens of police departments around the country to pursue drug dealers, prostitutes and other conventional criminal suspects. But because it is being used with few guidelines and with little oversight or public disclosure, it is raising questions of privacy and concerns about potential misuse.

Law enforcement officers say the technology is much faster than fingerprinting at identifying suspects, although it is unclear how much it is helping the police make arrests.

When Aaron Harvey was stopped by the police here in 2013 while driving near his grandmother’s house, an officer not only searched his car, he said, but also took his photograph and ran it through the software to try to confirm his identity and determine whether he had a criminal record.•