A new AI platform promises to stop school shootings by scanning your entire digital life—sparking a fierce debate on safety versus privacy.
In the last three hours, a single tweet thread turned an Israeli AI startup into public enemy number one. The pitch? Use real-time web scraping to prevent the next school shooting. The backlash? Instant. As keywords like AI surveillance and school shooting AI trend worldwide, we unpack why this story matters to every smartphone owner.
The Spark That Ignited a Firestorm
Three hours ago, Glenn Greenwald dropped a thread that lit the internet on fire. He exposed a brand-new AI platform—pitched by an Israeli special-ops veteran named Cohen—that scrapes the entire web 24/7 to flag “pre-crime” behavior for U.S. police. The hook? Cohen used a recent school-shooting tragedy as his launchpad, promising “Israeli-grade” threat detection to stop the next massacre. Critics instantly smelled déjà vu: post-9/11 fear paved the way for NSA mass surveillance—are we about to repeat history with AI?
Greenwald’s post racked up 4,300 likes and 188 replies in minutes. Why the uproar? Because the pitch video shows Cohen boasting that his system can read your tweets, group-chat jokes, and even Spotify playlists to assign a risk score. Imagine getting a knock on the door because an algorithm misread your dark humor as intent. That chilling possibility is exactly why this story is trending under keywords like AI surveillance, school shooting AI, and mass surveillance ethics.
The stakes feel personal. Parents worry their kids’ online rants will land them on watch lists. Privacy advocates warn of racial profiling baked into opaque algorithms. Meanwhile, law-enforcement forums cheer the tech as a long-overdue upgrade. One viral reply summed it up: “Safety is great—until the scanner points at you.”
Inside the Algorithm
Let’s zoom out. Cohen’s platform isn’t just another analytics dashboard—it’s a real-time web scraper that claims to fuse open-source intel with “proprietary ontology” trained on Israeli military data. Translation: it digests everything from Reddit threads to Discord memes, then spits out threat scores for local cops. The company slide deck even brags about flagging “loner gamers” who post violent lyrics. Sound broad? That’s the point.
Here’s how the pipeline works:
• Crawl public data 24/7 using multilingual NLP
• Match phrases against a classified lexicon of “risk markers”
• Generate heat maps that ping nearby precincts
• Auto-deliver dossiers complete with social graphs and geolocation
Supporters call it predictive policing 2.0. Critics call it guilt by algorithm. The ACLU already flagged similar tools for disproportionately targeting Black teens. Add in the profit motive—subscription fees per officer—and the ethical red flags multiply. If a false positive ruins someone’s life, who’s accountable: the coder, the cop, or the cloud?
Greenwald’s thread also resurfaced a 2023 Reuters investigation showing that Israeli cyber firms routinely repurpose battlefield tech for civilian surveillance. Same code that tracked militants now tracks mall shoppers. The pattern is clear: crisis narratives accelerate adoption, and oversight lags behind marketing.
Echoes of Post-9/11 Surveillance
History rhymes, and it’s loud. After 9/11, the Patriot Act passed in six weeks, birthing programs like PRISM and warrantless wiretaps. Polls at the time showed Americans trading privacy for security—until Snowden revealed the scope. Today, the emotional trigger isn’t planes—it’s school shootings. Every parent’s nightmare becomes the sales pitch for omnipresent AI eyes.
Look at the numbers. A 2024 Pew study found 71% of U.S. adults support “advanced tech” to prevent school violence—until they learn it includes monitoring their own social media. Support drops to 42%. That gap is the battlefield where lobbyists push fear over facts. Cohen’s launch video leans hard on statistics: “Over 3,000 threats detected in beta.” But without transparency audits, those claims are just scary sound bites.
Meanwhile, venture capital smells gold. Palantir stock jumped 6% after rumors of a similar Pentagon contract. Investors tweet emojis of rocket ships while civil-liberties lawyers draft injunctions. The cycle feels inevitable: tragedy, tech promise, cash influx, then years of courtroom cleanup. The only variable is how much personal data we hand over before the pushback begins.
Ask yourself: if this tool had existed in 1999, would Columbine have been prevented—or would introverted teens wearing black trench coats be flagged for life? The answer depends on who trains the algorithm and whose fears get coded as facts.
Your Move in the Age of Predictive Policing
So where do we go from here? Regulation is racing the rollout, and so far the rollout is winning. Congress has floated the SAFE AI Act, which would require impact assessments for public-sector deployments, but lobbyists argue it “stifles innovation.” Cities like San Francisco have banned facial recognition, yet smaller towns—eager for grants—are signing up for pilot programs without public hearings.
What can you actually do?
• Demand transparency: Ask local officials if they’re testing similar tools and request audit reports
• Encrypt your life: Use end-to-end messaging apps and limit public posts with sensitive keywords
• Support watchdogs: Groups like EPIC and EFF file lawsuits that force disclosure
• Vote locally: School boards and city councils often green-light these contracts in quiet sessions
The conversation isn’t anti-technology—it’s pro-accountability. AI can spot genuine threats, but only if the rules of engagement are written by citizens, not sales decks. Until then, every viral tweet, late-night gaming session, or protest livestream feeds a dataset that might one day judge you. Creepy? Absolutely. Preventable? That’s up to us.
Ready to push back? Share this story, tag your reps, and keep the spotlight on who profits from our panic.
