Chapter Ten - Predictive Policing and Other Sci‑Fi Nightmares

CHAPTER TEN

Predictive Policing and Other Sci‑Fi Nightmares

AFTER A FEW decades of watching everything in real time, the NSA had a thought:

“What if we got ahead of the crimes?”

Not stopped them.
Not reacted faster.
But actually predicted them.

You know — like Minority Report, except instead of psychics in a bathtub, it’s just a lot of math, some shady datasets, and the kind of software that confidently flags your grandma as a terrorist because she searched “pressure cooker” and “Boston” in the same week.

This was the dream.
Not just surveillance, but foresight.

Map behavior. Track patterns. Identify “radicalization pathways.”
Build models that spot potential threats before they happen.

And sure, the models didn’t work.
But they looked amazing in PowerPoint.

The NSA wasn’t alone in this. Local law enforcement got in on it too.
Enter predictive policing.

The idea was simple: feed historical crime data into an algorithm, and it’ll tell you where future crimes are likely to happen.
Sounds efficient.
Until you remember that historical crime data is a flaming pile of bias.

So now the software is saying,
“Wow, crime sure happens a lot in this neighborhood,”
when what it actually means is,
“Wow, we’ve been over-policing this neighborhood for 40 years and calling it data.”

The NSA’s version was more high-tech, more classified, and somehow even dumber.

They weren’t just watching what you did.
They were tracking who you talked to.
How long.
How often.
What time of day.
Where you were standing when you made the call.

Then the system builds a “pattern-of-life” profile.
It doesn’t care what you said — just that your behavior resembles someone who might say something later.

Congratulations. You’re now algorithmically suspicious.

Even if you’ve done nothing wrong.
Even if you never will.

And when this all gets challenged in court?

Good luck.

Because the system is secret.
The rules are secret.
The court is secret.
And the evidence?
That’s classified too.

You can’t defend yourself against vibes.

And this isn’t just happening abroad.
This is happening here.

Right now.

You go about your day.
They model it.
You change your routine.
They flag it.

It’s not about crime.
It’s about prediction.
It’s not about what you did.
It’s about whether you made the wrong shape on the graph.

And there’s no way to opt out.
Because the system doesn’t care if you're guilty.

It cares if you’re interesting.