AltWeeklies Wire
Smarter City or City Under Surveillancenew

Last week the Dig alerted readers to a secret experiment carried out by the City of Boston during the Boston Calling concerts that took place in May and September of last year. Among the revelations therein: Outside contractors helped municipal authorities deploy resources designed to analyze body and facial patterns of “every person who approaches the door” in order to gauge panic levels and crowd sentiment. In this follow-up, again relying in part on privileged documents that were left exposed online, we examine the communications leading up to these surveillance trials in the days, months, and even decade prior to the first Boston Calling.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone, Kenneth Lipp and Jonathan Riley |
08-15-2014 |
Civil Liberties
Tags: Boston Surveillance
City of Boston Testing Facial Recognition Software at Concertsnew

You partied hard at Boston Calling and now there's facial recognition data to prove it.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone, Kenneth Lipp and Jonathan Riley |
08-08-2014 |
Civil Liberties
The Somerville Files: A Four Part Investigative Seriesnew

For 10 months, three reporters dug into the unseemly political underbelly of the City of Somerville, where the power and privilege of an elite few has dominated and perverted municipal progress for decades. The Somerville Files is the culmination of their work, which pulls back the hip urban Somerville facade to reveal a shadow government amidst both turmoil and transition.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone, Tom Nash and Adam Vaccaro |
08-15-2013 |
Housing & Development
The Somerville Files Part 4: The Man in the Mayor Suitnew

A look at the machine's once—and future?—king, Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone, Tom Nash and Adam Vaccaro |
07-31-2013 |
Features
The Somerville Files Part 3: Rage Against the Machinenew

How a carefully orchestrated bureaucratic ecosystem ensures development by any means necessary in Somerville—legal or not.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone, Tom Nash and Adam Vaccaro |
07-15-2013 |
Housing & Development
The Somerville Filesnew

The first installment in a multi-part series about the intersection of politics, development, and power in the City of Somerville.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone, Tom Nash and Adam Vaccaro |
06-12-2013 |
Crime & Justice
Why Boston Police Didn't Think Tamerlan Tsarnaev Was a Killernew

If anybody had a chance of identifying the Tsarnaevs ahead of time, it would have been the Boston Police Department. Here's how they fucked up.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone |
05-23-2013 |
Crime & Justice
Terror: Then and Nownew

"What the fuck is going on? Are you down there?"
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone |
04-16-2013 |
Disasters
Are Anti-Bullying Laws Gay?new
Is that a homosexual agenda, or are you just happy to see me?
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone |
05-10-2007 |
LGBT
Tags: gay & lesbian issues
Urban Prospectors Strike the Mother Lode -- In Your Basementnew
Massachusetts residents aren't standing on a gold mine, but with the price of copper nearly quintupling over the past three years, any Bay State degenerate with wire cutters, brass stones and a lookout can make a lucrative dishonest living.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone |
04-25-2007 |
Crime & Justice
Tags: crime & justice
Strike! Strike! Strike!new
Patrick Deval turns a blind eye to the profs.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone |
01-17-2007 |
Education
Tags: Education
License Deniednew
After personally navigating the Mass. Registry of Motor Vehicles -- an infinitely complex, post-9/11 bureaucratic labyrinth beyond my wildest nightmares -- the noise about the rampant theft of citizenship becomes a lot harder to believe.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone |
11-15-2006 |
Policy Issues
Tags: public policy issues
The Man Behind the Self-Cleansing Filmnew
Meet the Utah-based head of CleanFlicks.com: the man who claims to have started the whole DVD-sanitization craze among various Values Belt boobs.
Dig Boston |
Chris Faraone |
05-19-2005 |
Media