From Protests to Panopticon: The Rise of High-Tech Surveillance in Los Angeles
Drones, helicopters, facial recognition and Ring cameras help build a massive database of information about protesters.
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LA Protests Raise the Specter of a Growing Surveillance State
Over the course of the last week, protests erupted in Los Angeles over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Soon after, the protests spread to other U.S. cities, including Atlanta, New York, Boston, Chicago, and Dallas. The protests have precipitated an extreme response from the Trump administration, with the President calling up the California National Guard as well as U.S. Marines. The government response to the protests has raised significant concerns, such as the frightening specter of American troops being used against protesters and whether the Trump administration is escalating the conflict for its own agendas.
While the response to the protests has led to questions about first amendment rights and the limits of presidential power, they have also served to highlight a more insidious problem. It took a dramatic controversy to bring this issue to the forefront. On Sunday, an LAPD officer in a helicopter used a loudspeaker to broadcast the statement “I have all of you on camera. I’m going to come to your house.” According to Anthony Kimery in Biometric Update:
To many, this ominous statement seemed less like hyperbole and more like a real threat, particularly given LAPD’s long-standing access to sophisticated facial recognition technologies and its history of surveilling protests. The chilling nature of the comment underscored what many activists have long feared, which is modern protest is no longer a matter of public demonstration, but of personal exposure, traceability, and potential retribution.
LA's Many-Layered Surveillance Apparatus
To me, it seems that more and more conflicts and crises become test beds where governments, along with industry interests and the military, try out their latest toys and techniques. That these new weapons and surveillance technologies are often deployed at the expense of our rights to free speech and privacy does not seem to concern them. The Los Angeles protests have allowed state and federal law enforcement to demonstrate the capabilities of their multi-layered surveillance machine.
Authorities in Los Angeles are able to call upon a many-pronged surveillance infrastructure, including:
Aerial Surveillance
Facial Recognition
Social Media Monitoring
Private Surveillance Networks
Database Retention
Drones and Helicopters are Recording Everything
Aerial Surveillance in L.A. is not a new phenomenon. The city's use of helicopters equipped with video cameras has been criticized by privacy advocates and other activists since being approved by city officials in 2020. Unfortunately, video cameras are just the tip if the iceberg. NBC Los Angeles has reported the use of Predator drones by U.S. Customs and Border Protection for high-altitude surveillance of the June 2025 protests. They go on to say:
Publicly-collected flight tracking data reviewed by NBCLA over the weekend showed an unknown aircraft, marked with a light blue icon and flight track in the image below, flying hexagonal orbits over Downtown Los Angeles at an altitude of approximately 22,000 feet, which is a flight pattern and altitude previously associated with domestic drone surveillance flights.
Helicopters, including military-style Blackhawk helicopters, have also been a constant presence over the protests, recording hours and hours of digital video. This continuous monitoring has led to concerns about indefinite data storage by authorities and whether the drones and helicopters have facial-recognition capabilities. ICE officials claim that their video and photographic equipment doesn't have enough resolution for facial recognition. Even if this isn't the case, though, the presence of helicopters and drones will likely have a chilling effect on future protests. That's probably the point.
Photo by Sven Piper on Unsplash
Facial Recognition Data Is Harvested and Retained
The use of facial recognition technology is also not new to Los Angeles. According to the LA Times, the LAPD has used facial recognition "nearly 30,000 times since 2009." The LAPD denies that it has this software, but this is a partial truth at best. Law enforcement has access to a Los Angeles Sherriff's Department facial recognition database. This database, called the Los Angeles County Regional Identification System (LACRIS), contains millions of mug shots and certainly gives the LAPD the ability to use facial recognition technology.
As for the federal government, ICE is a client of Clearview AI. This company, which provides facial recognition and other surveillance technologies for ICE and other agencies, has a questionable history regarding privacy. In 2024, Clearview was sued by a Dutch privacy watchdog for harvesting billions of internet images to build a biometric identification database. Obviously, authorities at the state and federal levels are capable of building these huge databases of facial and other biometric indicators. They can then use this data to retroactively identify nearly anyone, anywhere. Combined with the explicit airborne threat mentioned above, the idea that the police will track you down at home if you protest poses a threat to both the first and fourth amendments.
Authorities Scour Social Media for Information About Protesters
Social media is an essential tool for activists hoping to arrange protests and for citizens needing to get information about events in their communities. There's no doubt that groups and individuals prone to violence and hate use social media for their own means. As unfortunate as this is, turning social media into a weapon to be used against citizens and activists hoping to organize and protest is a move reminiscent of the most repressive governments.
Law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have access to tools that can monitor social media for information about protests and protesters. According to Biometric Update:
These platforms allow law enforcement to sift through enormous volumes of public and semi-public posts, flagging individuals based on location, affiliations, or even hashtags. The ACLU has separately documented how these tools can sweep up innocent bystanders, activists, and journalists into databases that are difficult to audit or contest.
You can't opt out, and they don't have to tell you before they use this data.
Private Surveillance Networks Provide Another Possible Data Trove
If drones, facial recognition, and social media monitoring aren't bad enough, there's another tool available to authorities. During the BLM protests in 2021, authorities began asking for Ring Doorbell and security camera footage. Recently, Amazon discontinued a policy of making this data available through the Neighbors app, but law enforcement agencies can still obtain court orders to get the data. This "Private Surveillance Network," can be used to track the movements of protesters as they move past houses with these devices.
Los Angeles residents have been sharing pictures and video related to ICE raids obtained from Ring devices. ICE and the LAPD have not openly used this data, but it has certainly become a part of the information they can access if they deem it necessary.
Conclusion
In the United States, people have specific rights, enshrined in the first amendment, to speak out, assemble, and associate with like-minded individuals and groups. They also have rights regarding privacy and protection against "unreasonable searches and seizures." The surveillance technologies being employed in Los Angeles right now are being used without public input. The public also does not have real knowledge about the means used to watch and record their activities, and they don't have a choice about how the data is used or stored. Lack of transparency breeds fear and mistrust. Lawful protests and assemblies may be stifled under the threat of political retribution, and given the behavior of the current administration, there's little reason to feel safe.
The surveillance machine is not unbiased either. There is research showing that the above mentioned technologies are disproportionately employed against communities of color, including those already targeted by immigration raids. Once again according to Biometric Update:
...facial recognition technologies and predictive policing programs are disproportionately deployed in neighborhoods that are already subjected to heightened police scrutiny. These tools often reflect and reinforce existing patterns of racial bias, especially when used to preemptively monitor events tied to immigration enforcement or racial justice. The resulting feedback loop has profound implications for civil liberties and democratic accountability.
Keep in mind, too: all of this collected data is likely stored in perpetuity. Once the government has it, there is no impetus for them to give it up. There is real concern that our state and federal governments will soon have access to massive databases of personal information gained from aerial surveillance, facial recognition tools, social media monitoring, and private surveillance networks. Using all of these data points, they would be able to create a complete picture of everything you do, everywhere you go, everyone you associate with, and everything you say. And, in a world where authoritarianism is on the rise, that information about all of us can easily be weaponized.
Sources
https://www.flyingmag.com/border-patrol-deploys-predator-drones-black-hawks-to-surveil-downtown-la/
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-21/lapd-controversial-facial-recognition-software
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/02/lapd-requested-ring-footage-black-lives-matter-protests