Progressives and Republicans Introduce Competing Bills to Rein In Flock Cameras

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have introduced competing legislation to rein in the government’s use of Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers (ALPRs) following widespread abuses by police and intense public backlash to the powerful surveillance technology. ALPRs allow police to track vehicles and their drivers across expansive areas by using a variety of easily…
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Activists Target What They Call a Major “Spy Center” for ICE in Rural Vermont

After setting up robust rapid-response groups to resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abductions and stopping the buying up of warehouses to detain thousands of immigrants, activists are now focusing on other ways they can disrupt the Trump administration’s plans for mass deportations. On the East Coast, some are targeting the parking spots that ICE uses for staging arrests. In Buffalo…
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Amazon Is Deploying AI to Spy on Its Workers and Bust Unions Before They Form

The 18th-century notion of the panopticon — a circular prison design with a guard station in the middle, allowing a single officer to enforce discipline by keeping watch over all the prisoners — has become real in the 21st century through AI-driven surveillance against workers: It’s the Amazon warehouse. It should be no surprise that the company that harnessed technology to create a vast, $2.
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This Group Made Tech to Protect Users’ Privacy. Trump Labeled Them Terrorists.

When the government puts a target on your back, every corner of online organizing becomes a puzzle. How do you ensure that your emails are private, when Google will hand over the contents of your emails to prosecutors, sometimes without ever notifying you? How do you keep your comrades informed, when maintaining an email list poses a security risk? How do you share information online without…
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The Fundamental Freedoms Today: Views from the Frontlines of Repression

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” In setting out the words of the First Amendment to the Constitution, America’s founders also laid a milestone in the…
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First Came the Flock Cameras. Now Local Cops Want Autonomous Drones.

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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