Amid Israel’s offensive in south Lebanon, Nasser Beydoun — like many Arab Americans who hail from the area — would look at satellite images of his hometown of Bint Jbeil to see if his family house is still standing. Israel has been wiping out entire towns on the Lebanese side of the border as part of a deliberate policy that human rights advocates say aims to make the region uninhabitable.
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Sadeq Abdelhafiz, 26, noticed an unusual quiet around him as he stood in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza near the cemetery on Salah al-Din Street. A small quadcopter drone (about the size of a floor tile) had fired a volley of bullets just minutes earlier, and it was still there, hovering over the minaret of the nearby Ibn Marwan Mosque, adjacent to the cemetery. Abdelhafiz turned his head…
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Police in cities across the U.S. are rolling out a pro-drone PR blitz as hundreds of local police departments prepare to deploy autonomous, AI-driven surveillance drones. The drones are capable of following a single vehicle across an entire city, capturing footage through apartment windows, and generally recording daily life from the sky without being noticed. As of February, more than 1,000…
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On July 9, the European Parliament passed a resolution that condemned the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for supporting a violent Sudanese paramilitary responsible for war crimes and other atrocities. The resolution demanded urgent action to stop the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) from invading el-Obeid, a strategic city in central Sudan at risk of mass atrocities. It called for an end to all…
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When residents of Madison County, North Carolina, sought to speak about the county’s AI surveillance cameras at a recent Madison County Commissioners meeting, commissioner Michael Garrison’s response was simple: “You will not speak on Flock tonight.” A clip capturing Garrison’s move to prevent public comment soon went viral, resonating with others waging similar battles in their communities.
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On the morning of February 11, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation (BNYDC), a non-profit landlord responsible for developing the Brooklyn Navy Yard, convened a closed-doors meeting. One item of business concerned the lease of Easy Aerial, an AI drone manufacturer with material ties to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Israeli military, and one of 550 businesses housed…
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