This post also appears in Cosmopolitan.

Almost exactly six years after NYPD officers murdered Eric Garner in New York City, Minneapolis police officers murdered George Floyd. Activists, advocates, and protestors are still screaming “I can’t breathe” and begging government officials for police reform that will end police violence in Black communities. But today’s demands are bigger and bolder: Now, protesters are advocating for systemic changes that require a complete reimagining of law enforcement in the United States.

American policing has never been a neutral institution. The first U.S. city police department was a slave patrol, and modern police forces have directed oppression and violence at Black people to enforce Jim Crow, wage the War on Drugs, and crack down on protests. When people ask for police reform, many are actually asking for this oppressive system to be dismantled and to invest in institutions, resources, and services that help communities grow and thrive. That’s why many protestors and activists, following in the footsteps of Black-led grassroots groups, are demanding immediate defunding of police departments.

The idea of defunding, or divestment, is new to some folks, but the basic premise is simple: We must cut the astronomical amount of money that our governments spend on law enforcement and give that money to more helpful services like job training, counseling, and violence-prevention programs. Each year, state and local governments spend upward of $100 billion dollars on law enforcement—and that’s excluding billions more in federal grants and resources.
 
Budgets are not created in a vacuum. They can be changed through targeted advocacy and organizing. We can demand that our local officials (including city council members and mayors) stop allocating funds for the police to acquire more militarized equipment and instead ask for that money to go toward community-run violence-prevention programs.
We can demand that our federal government redirect the money that funds police presence in schools to putting counselors in schools instead.

Funneling so many resources into law enforcement instead of education, affordable housing, and accessible health care has caused significant harm to communities. Police violence is actually a leading cause of death for Black men: A recent study found that 1 in 1,000 Black men can expect to be killed by police, and public health experts have described police violence as a serious public health issue. For a country like ours, which considers itself a modern democracy that pushes ideals of freedom and justice for all, that number should be truly shocking.

We can demand that our federal government redirect the money that funds police presence in schools to putting counselors in schools instead.
Funneling so many resources into law enforcement instead of education, affordable housing, and accessible health care has caused significant harm to communities. Police violence is actually a leading cause of death for Black men: A recent study found that 1 in 1,000 Black men can expect to be killed by police, and public health experts have described police violence as a serious public health issue. For a country like ours, which considers itself a modern democracy that pushes ideals of freedom and justice for all, that number should be truly shocking.

We have little evidence, if any, to show that more police surveillance results in fewer crimes and greater public safety. Indeed, funneling police into communities of color and pushing officers to make arrests just perpetuates harm and trauma. Yet since the 1980s, spending on law enforcement and our criminal legal system has dramatically outpaced that in community services such as housing, education, and violence prevention programs. Those are the institutions that help build stable, safe, and healthy communities.
 
For example, Los Angeles’s budget gives police $3.14 billion out of the city’s $10.5 billion. Spending on community services such as economic development ($30 million) and housing ($81 million) pale in comparison to the massive LAPD budget. (On Wednesday night, after years of Black Lives Matter grassroots activists demanding a cut in LAPD’s budget, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced he would cut $100 million to $150 million from the LAPD budget and reinvest those funds in communities of color.) Similarly, in New York City, the government spends almost $6 billion on policing, which is more than it does on the Department of Health, Homeless Services, Housing Preservation and Development, and Youth and Community development combined.
 
By shrinking their massive budgets, we can help end decades of racially driven social control and oppression as well as address social problems at their root instead of investing in an institution that further oppresses and terrorizes communities.

In addition to divesting from police and reinvesting the savings in nonpunitive programs that benefit public safety and health, there are other critical steps we need to take to foster the systemic change people across the country are calling for:

1. End enforcement of minor offenses that drive street-level harassment. We can do this by repealing laws across the country that criminalize minor behaviors and passing laws that legalize activities such as marijuana possession and distribution.
2. End the presence of police in schools, which exacerbates racial inequalities, puts immigrant students at risk of deportation, and limits opportunities accessible to low-income students. (Minneapolis Public Schools just voted to end its contract with the city’s police department.)
3. Develop mobile crisis services, peer crisis services, and crisis hotlines and warmlines (where people can call when they just need to talk to someone who understands what it’s like to live with mental health problems) to support people who have a behavioral or mental health crisis.
4. Ban pretextual stops and consent searches that act as common mechanisms for police to engage in racial profiling and circumvent legal standards.
5. Implement common-sense, civilly and criminally enforceable legal constraints so there will be only rare instances in which officers are able to use force against community members.

For too long, the focus on police reform has been dominated by reforms that try to reduce the harms of policing rather than rethink the overall role of police in society. But six years after the Black Lives Matter movement rose to national attention, activists across the country are coming together to demand what many have known has been the solution all along: defund the police.

Paige Fernandez, Policing Policy Advisor, ACLU

As major tech companies rush to claim solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, they’re being rightfully called out for the ways their products and workplace conditions actively undermine the rights and safety of Black people. IBM has listened and stopped development of face recognition, a technology that supercharges police surveillance and has repeatedly been shown to disproportionately misidentify Black and Brown people. Amazon announced today that it would stop selling the technology to police for one year, following sustained demands from an ACLU-led civil rights coalition that began with our May 2018 investigation.

But these aren’t the only tech companies that deserve our scrutiny. Microsoft, which has issued a number of statements in support of Black Lives Matter, has not prohibited the sale of its face recognition system to police departments — institutions with a long record of systemic racism and disproportionate targeting of Black and Brown communities.

Face surveillance threatens the privacy rights of all, but the harms of this technology are not experienced equally. A recent comprehensive government study conducted by the National Institute of Science and Technology found that African American and Asian people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white men, depending on the algorithm and type of use. Even one wrong match can lead to false arrests, lengthy interrogations, or even deadly police encounters — all too common racist police abuses that people of color already experience on a daily basis.

This technology is a threat to civil rights even if the algorithms are cured of issues that currently make many systems less accurate for Black faces. Police have already deployed these systems against people protesting the police killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Florida police have used facial recognition to charge and convict people under racist drug laws, even when the results may be wrong. Facial recognition — by making the tracking and scrutiny of people automatic and easy — grants police unprecedented and dangerous power to expand intrusive patrols and the enforcement of racist laws and policies.

Not only does Microsoft build and sell face surveillance technology, it is also on a mission to enact laws to protect that business. This year in California, Microsoft supported a pro-surveillance bill that would have legitimized the use of these systems by both cops and private companies. The ACLU of California and a coalition of 65 groups — including those fighting for racial justice, immigrants’ rights, and economic justice — fought for months to stop Microsoft’s bill.

That bill, AB 2261, failed last week because of our coalition’s efforts. But we have no reason to believe Microsoft will stop trying to write rules that support its surveillance technology business. In fact, similar legislation was recently signed into law in Washington state.

The world Microsoft seems to want is one where police have an invisible but inescapable surveillance presence in our communities. Where an infrastructure exists to scan your face and identify you as you walk down the street, go to a protest, attend a place of worship, and participate in public life. Building a surveillance apparatus this big would have severe consequences — chilling demonstrations, fueling a for-profit surveillance industry, and creating racist watchlists that governments and businesses will use for discriminatory ends.

Microsoft’s legislative efforts are also deeply anti-activist and anti-democratic. The bill introduced in California sought to erase local bans on government facial recognition championed and secured by grassroots racial justice organizations in partnership with the ACLU. These bans have now become law in half a dozen U.S. cities.

Microsoft may say it is ready to champion racial justice — but the truth is that some of its business practices risk perpetuating police abuse. Microsoft has reportedly sold its facial recognition software to at least one American prison and funded an Israeli facial recognition firm that surveils Palestinians in the West Bank. It is no surprise that 250 Microsoft employees just called on Microsoft to cut off its contracts with police.

Technology companies with face surveillance products should follow the first steps taken by IBM, which in addition to ceasing development of its facial recognition product, is reconsidering police sales altogether. This decision follows groundbreaking research by Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru to uncover the racial bias in facial recognition systems sold by IBM and others.

The ACLU and our civil rights allies will stay vigilant and focused on what companies like Microsoft do, not just what they say. We continue our calls on Microsoft and other companies selling this technology to demonstrate a commitment to racial justice by divesting from facial recognition that fuels the over-policing of communities of color. If these companies believe that Black Lives Matter, the least they can do is announce that they will refuse to perpetuate and profit off our racist criminal justice system.

Matt Cagle, Technology and Civil Liberties attorney, ACLU of Northern California