Thread by @ConMijente

We're starting our second Tech Wars, "Rogue One: The Blue Death Star" NOW, on how cops & other law enforcement use surveillance against our communities

Join us, our speakers @safiyanoble & @hypervisible, & the hundreds who registered here: instituto.mijente.net/courses/tech-w…

Our agenda today: We're going to be delving into the different forms of police surveillance technology—facial recognition, data brokers, predictive policing, & more—w/a discussion between Dr. Safiya Noble & Dr. Chris Gilliard.

Then we're going to highlight folks fighting back.

Jacinta Gonzalez, our #NoTechforICE campaign lead, introduces the purpose of today: Just like the rebels in Star Wars, we're trying to get the blueprint for the "Death Star" of policing—so that once we have that blue print, we can abolish it.

"Today really what we're going to be talking about is understanding the blueprint of how policing is using algorithms, using technology, using surveillance to build up its machinery for policing of our communities."

"And then from there, try to figure out what are the weaknesses, what is it what are its weaknesses so that we can use that in our organizing."

With that, we start w/@hypervisible, with Jacinta asking Chris to detail the history of this anti-Black police surveillance.

@hypervisible says, first of all, to start by reading Simone Brown's "Dark Matters" on how surveillance is "at its core organized around anti-Black racism."

Download below 👇👇👇
scribd.com/document/28344…

Lists of a host of troubling technologies: automated license plate readers, ankle monitors, robot dogs, police body cams, ShotSpotter—all of which are used by different law enforcement agencies to keep tabs on wide swaths of the country's population.

And how all of these technologies are provided by companies like Palantir, Axon, even Motorola directly to law enforcement, how a slew of firms have come up to service law enforcement's need for greater & greater surveillance.

Next Q to @safiyanoble, who has written about the racist underpinnings of search algorithms powering Google etc: How does that same racism that underpins these algorithms get replicated by police when they're using surveillance technologies?

She says not only are there a ton of tools, as @hypervisible mentioned, that are explicitly surveillance tech, but there are other commonplace products that do a huge amount of surveillance.

"Companies like Google & Facebook are really extrajudicial arms of the state."

"This isn't the way that people typically think about these kinds of companies, but the first thing that you can be guaranteed that will happen within organizations & among organizers, is that law enforcement will look to see your search history."

This kind of surveillance is illegal—the state needs a warrant to get personal info like this—but it's legal when they go to the companies themselves.

"They have a kind of open door into that, those kinds of practice that would be typically violating the constitution."

Next Q to @hypervisible: Can you give us a concrete example of how anti-Blackness has historically been built into digital surveillance?

Interesting answer: The patent underpinning much of home surveillance programs like Amazon's Ring was invented by a Black woman.

"A Black woman basically invented the home security system."

Marie Van Brittan Brown, a nurse, first patented a camera & a microphone that could be in your home or room, to talk to someone or see them through a door.

That early idea was then used & weaponized.

"She never got to see the device built, but that patent is cited in almost every kind of a home security system that's been made since then. Since the late 60s, early 70s, that patent has been cited in almost every home security system that's built, including the Ring doorbell."

That system has grown tremendously from that initial idea, however, to weaponize the police, weaponize ICE, weaponize a host of law enforcement agencies & give them "another layer of surveillance" into people's homes & neighborhoods.

This story "crystallizes" the anti-Blackness of surveillance, he says, b/c even though it was invented for a largely humble purpose, it grows to hurt Black communities.

"Marie Van Brittan Brown didn't kind of invent the system for that surveillance, but that's what it becomes, because that is the anti-Blackness that the culture & the country is steeped in."

Our final question: What's the one thing you would say is the "worst of the worst" in surveillance tech? What's one thing that's giving you hope?

@safiyanoble: "The system is rapidly organizing people into the haves & have nots."

She talks about wealth inequality, how by 2030 the top 1% will control 2/3 of global wealth, & how that's just not sustainable, how this racial/economic disparity will create injustice everywhere (& how those at the top will use this surveillance tech to maintain the status quo).

But that's also her big hope: "It's actually the Achilles heel of the entire system."

The gross inequality gives hope that people will demand a different system altogether, organize labor, & "attach racial/economic justice issues to labor."

@hypervisible: "The sort of running joke is that for the last 20 years every tech innovation has amounted to 'Put a camera on it...or put a second or third camera on it.'"

Talks about a world covered with sensors which would be "disastrous" for everyone.

But his big hope is a Star Wars reference, a quote from Donnie Yen: "I am one with the force and the force is one with me."

"When I think about that, our connection to our community is the force, & that is ultimately really where we get home from & strength from—our community."

We're wrapping up w/videos from six organizations that have organized against these surveillance technologies, @EOS_NOLA @stoplapdspying @Grassroots_News @stopshotspotter & @svdebug, speaking about their campaigns.

"Surveillance ain't never been safety," says @Combsthepoet

That's a wrap! Thanks everyone for joining us, if you haven't signed up yet, please register for our "Tech Wars" course here: instituto.mijente.net/courses/tech-w…

We've got THREE more courses w/amazing speakers & organizers. Don't miss this.