Thread by @_PMolnar

In a breaking world, books are a labour of love. After 6 years, #TheWallsHaveEyes is (almost) here! It is a global story of border surveillance, where your body is your passport and matters of life and death are determined by algorithm.

📖May 21st thenewpress.com/books/walls-ha…

@thenewpress @BKCHarvard @RefugeeLawLab @migration_tech @YorkUniversity 🧵My amazing colleague Azza Abbaro designed The Lawyer's Notebook, a companion site for #TheWallsHaveEyes, with audio and photos complementing each chapter. It starts with a reflection on how we do this work, and the beauties and pitfalls of storytelling
👉 petramolnar.com/the-walls-have…

🧵1/ The first chapter takes us to the US/Mexico border, where we meet James Holeman @BattalionSAR and visit Casa de la Esperanza in Sasabe, Mexico and track robo-dogs and AI towers that push people-on-the-move into increasingly treacherous terrain.

🧵2/ #TheWallsHaveEyes then looks to the fringes of Europe, where thousands have died in the sea or at land crossings. Yet the EU continues to pump more money into border surveillance...but at what cost?

🧵3/ Chapter 3 takes us to a brand new refugee camp - a digital open-air prison - with people like @DimitrisChoulis keeping watch. But after the massive fire in Moria in 2020, Greece has been leading on the development of massive new camps, but other countries are learning too.

🧵4/ The story of #TheWallsHaveEyes then moves inland: AI-lie detectors, voice printing, and visa triaging are just some of the ways that Canada and the EU are experimenting with...and private companies are cashing in in a multi-billion dollar border industrial complex.

🧵5/ Chapter 5 visits Kenya: What happens when colonialism and technologies interact? As @Roon_jamal @Haki_na_Sheria says "data is the new oil," and some regions like East Africa are replete with biometric data extraction in refugee camps and digital ID projects, writes @Nanjala1

🧵6/ #TheWallsHaveEyes next looks at how Israel is at the centre of a lucrative and global border industrial complex, testing technologies on Palestinians and exporting them for border control to the EU and US/Mexico, and now using AI-powered weapons to kill thousands in Gaza.

🧵7/ But why is this all happening? As #TheWallsHaveEyes argues, border have long been violent places that welcome some and exclude others, along racial and discriminatory lines. Migration management continues to be a political game, with people-on-the-move caught in the middle.

🧵8/ #TheWallsHaveEyes does end on a hopeful note. How do we build a different world, as @ruha9 asks? So many people work day-in-day-out to help how they can, including supporting the work of colleagues in displacement, like we try to do @migration_tech

👉thenewpress.com/books/walls-ha…

This book is a culmination of many people and spaces. I tagged some of them above but many others helped, contributed, taught, and listened. The last words in the book go to my friend Zaid, who lived in Ritsona and wrote the afterword, collected and translated through WhatsApp🙏