Friend,

You’re probably under surveillance.

Half of American adults are in a law enforcement facial recognition database. This unprecedented, supercharged spying on the general American public violates our constitutional and human rights, our safety, and our civil liberties.

Disproportionately mis-identifying women and people of color, the software worsens false arrests and over-policing of marginalized communities, which can have dangerous—even fatal—consequences. This is of particular concern in cities like my hometown of Detroit, where the population is 80% Black.

That’s why I’m joining with progressive Congressmembers and organizations to fight this injustice.

Sign the petition: Ban government use of facial recognition surveillance.

Last week, I visited Detroit's “Real Time Crime Center,” which only heightened my concerns about how this broken technology is being used to lock up Black and brown people in my city.

Detroit’s police department bought and uses a continuously-operating system that can scan people’s faces in real-time through pervasive, connected networks of surveillance cameras—and it did so without any public input or awareness.

Local residents have been fighting this injustice for a year and a half, including the Detroit Community Technology Project, which has organized researchers and advocates to speak out against Detroit’s surveillance network and software, warning that it “risks fundamentally changing the nature of our public spaces.”

Unfortunately, the Police Board just voted to approve the technology, and many activists are turning to Michigan’s relevant statewide bills.

Until we fix this, people will be wrongly identified and arrested by this broken, racist technology. Cities across the country are working with federal agencies—including the FBI, DHS, and ICE—to monitor law-abiding people and put us into a perpetual line-up, often without warrants or suspicion of a crime.

We can’t sit by while people of color, immigrants, religious minorities, and other marginalized communities now face greater odds of getting harassed, detained, wrongfully imprisoned, harmed, deported, or killed by law enforcement.

Sign the petition now to ban local, state, and federal government agencies’ sale and use of racist, unconstitutional facial recognition technology.

Now, thanks to the hard work of people like you, many local, state, and federal elected officials are pushing back—including cities across the country which are outright banning government use of this technology.

In the House, I co-introduced legislation with Reps. Ayanna Pressley and Yvette Clarke, which prohibits public housing (which receives HUD funding) from using this technology. And I’m a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill that would prohibit federal funding for its purchase or use of facial recognition technology.

But there’s still much more work to be done, and for now, it’s primarily happening at the local level.

Please sign the petition: It’s time to ban facial recognition surveillance, an unconstitutional, invasive technology that endangers our communities, our freedoms, and our lives.

In solidarity,

Rashida