I know everything feels terrible and doomy but I've been working on surveillance issues for most of my adult life and I have never seen so much energy, momentum, and concrete VICTORIES happening as what we are seeing right now on Flock cameras and facial recognition in venues. Keep. Going.

New pre-print from @torinmonahan.bsky.social, Lanore Hahn, and me: "Against Mechanical Subjectivity: The Misalignment of Generative AI as a Tool for Qualitative Research." We argue that using GenAI tools is inconsistent w/ interpretive or constructivist positionality." osf.io/preprints/so...

Check out this CFP for a new journal issue on "Social work and artificial intelligence." They're open to critical explorations of #surveillance too. think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

New: Flock planned to use cameras in hundreds of thousands of Uber, Lyft, and delivery driver vehicles as a way to collect more license plate data. Pitched the idea to an Attorney General. Would basically turn Uber/Lyft into roaming surveillance vehicles www.404media.co/flock-pitche...

Flock Pitched a Plan To Turn Uber and Lyft Drivers Into Roaming Surveillance Vehicles

A Flock presentation shows the company planned to use around 350,000 Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers to collect license plate data for its surveillance system.

404media.co

Daaaamn. “AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage." www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...

Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying

It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...

thenerve.news

Steve Eimers, aka The Guardrail Guy, is known for his videos that about faulty guardrails & the risk they pose to drivers He recently began posting about Flock cameras & ALPRs. He’s not anymore. Why? Someone began destroying cameras he’d recently posted about: www.wired.com/story/flock-...

He Went Viral for Posting About Flock Cameras. Then Someone Destroyed Them

Steve Elmers, also known as the “Guardrail Guy,” is done calling out license plate readers after two that appeared in his videos were vandalized.

wired.com

🚨New article:🚨 “Flock on Campus: University Police as Appendages of a National Policing Apparatus.” Based on #FOIA requests & reviews of audit logs, this article documents at least 150 colleges & universities using #Flock. Unis have also permitted #ICE searches, even in sanctuary states. #openaccess

Flock on campus: university police as appendages of a national policing apparatus

Dangerous new forms of networked surveillance are gaining traction with police departments across the United States. One popular example is Flock Safety’s Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR)...

tinyurl.com

“Putting together a coherent report at the touch of a button seems easy but verifying it, and pruning the dross, is a time suck. Just look at the proliferation of AI-generated LinkedIn posts. It’s not just that they have become formulaic but also interminably long.” www.ft.com/content/2dde...

Why workers are nostalgic for life before AI

Many white-collar professionals worry about the tech inhibiting creativity and making errors

ft.com

Check out a terrific new special issue of Surveillance & Society on “Resisting Surveillance Through Data Visibility and Invisibility.” Always #OpenAccess. #Ring #Surveillance #FacialRecognition #LGBTQ+ #ForensicArchitecture ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...

Surveillance & Society has been inundated w/ #AI #slop too, even though we prohibit AI use and require authors to attest that they haven’t used it. I wish such authors would realize the damage they’re doing to academic publishing & their reputations.

Ben Williamson@benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 4w ago

The anatomy of an AI-supported academic article is becoming more apparent. I desk reviewed ~70 manuscripts this week for our journal. Reckon 20ish had significant AI assistance. On top of hundreds of others recently I'm starting to see patterns. Are other editors are seeing the same or similar? 1/

Surveillance & Society and @survstudiesnet.bsky.social have just announced the Early Career Researcher prize winners for 2025. Congrats to the winners, and check out their amazing articles too! (Linked here: ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...)

Google AI thinks that @amygaeta.bsky.social and I have coauthored a paper. I'm flattered! We should. =)

Check out a terrific new special issue of Surveillance & Society on “Resisting Surveillance Through Data Visibility and Invisibility.” Always #OpenAccess. #Ring #Surveillance #FacialRecognition #LGBTQ+ #ForensicArchitecture @survstudiesnet.bsky.social ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...

🚨New Pub Alert: “Grounding the Flock: Confronting Police Surveillance of Mobilities.”🚨 Drawing on the work of @404media.co, activists, & others, I highlight how #Flock's #ALPR #surveillance harmonizes local jurisdictions to far-right policing cultures. #deflock #openaccess tinyurl.com/58ud7x4e

Happy #pride month, #LGBTQ research style: Check out this article by @torinmonahan.bsky.social, Maral Erol, and Jill A Fisher on how LGBTQ+ #academic couples navigate experiences of visibility in #highered journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

1. Use this to see which candidates is on the take from AI companies in the upcoming midterms. aimoneywatch.org 2. Organize against them. 3. Don’t vote for them.

“What they're not saying is that ALPRs are also frequently used for extremely low-level investigations, such as verifying whether a student lives within a particular school zone…police have even used this tech to conduct employment background checks and investigations into loud music complaints.”

Electronic Frontier Foundation@eff.org · 2mo ago

An EFF analysis reveals a troubling pattern of mission creep with ALPRs. Without a warrant requirement, law enforcement agencies are shifting from using the technology for specific criminal investigations to using these surveillance networks for minor personal whims. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

the pipeline from a facile understanding of "what if we afford nonhuman actors agency in sociotechnical systems analysis" to "the computer can think and it's my girlfriend" is such a thing to behold

"Anthropic is helping the US National Security Agency deploy its powerful Mythos AI model for offensive cyber operations, embedding engineers inside the agency despite an ongoing legal battle with the Pentagon."

US National Security Agency using Anthropic’s Mythos for cyber attacks

Arrangement comes as AI lab is locked in legal battle with Pentagon over Claude model

ft.com

Surveillance in the Majority World @surveillancemw.bsky.social Job Opportunity: Newsletter Editor surveillance-majority-world.net/2026/05/06/j...

Job Opportunity: Newsletter Editor

Surveillance in the Majority World Research Network is looking for an early-career researcher to join us as a Newsletter Editor for our widely read and growing newsletter.

surveillance-majority-world.net

New Pub Alert: “Activating Prejudice: Refugee Disinformation as Information Warfare in Russia’s War on Ukraine” (w/ Julie Terebekov & @alicetiara.bsky.social). #openaccess #disinformation #refugees doi.org/10.5210/fm.v...

The chilling effects on university campuses are real, as I've noted too: tinyurl.com/2s36b3f7. However, student mobilizations have been strong this year against ICE, for sanctuary campuses, and for mutual aid to assist vulnerable populations. The work might not be as mediagenic, but it's vibrant.

Censorship and Surveillance at US Universities

The night before the start of the Fall 2025 semester, facilities workers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill quietly boarded up a pro-Palestine mural. The mural, created by art students...

tinyurl.com

The Conversation U.S.@us.theconversation.com · 3mo ago

A persistent government strategy to sow fear through punitive measures has corroded freedom of speech.

Really great Antipode film project w/ the inimitable Inderpal Grewal on Delhi as a “surveillance city.” Definitely filing this away for class screenings! antipodeonline.org/2026/05/13/s... #surveillance #security #majorityworld @antipodeonline.bsky.social [ping: @azadehakbari.bsky.social]

The Antipode Film Project — “Surveillance City” - Antipode Online

Today it’s our pleasure to present the second of the films produced following the re-launch of the Antipode Film Project in May 2023 (the first can be viewed here). The brief was to create something “...

antipodeonline.org

On the one-year anniversary of EMPIRE OF AI, I am so, so excited to announce The AI Resist List, a new project that documents examples of resistance to the AI empires around the world 😍 airesistlist.org

UC Berkeley Law creates new AI policy that bans AI for "conceptualizing, outlining, drafting, revising, translating, or editing any work submitted for credit" or exams because "thinking remains the sine qua non of good lawyering (and of a quality legal education)." That's what I'm talking about.

📢 Call for Papers | Special Issue — Surveillance & Society: “Everyday Surveillance and Intimate Partner Violence” Edited by Karen Louise Grova Søilen, Kristin Veel & Kassandra Wellendorf.

People like @petramolnar.com have done some vital work on states using #surveillance + violence to push back #migrants. Add to that corpus this new article by Özgün Topak focusing on the deployment of drones to achieve those goals. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Drone and Border Surveillance: Necro-Racial Effects in the Mediterranean

The European Union (EU) authorities use drones and other border surveillance systems to track migrant boats departing from the Libyan coasts heading towards European territories. They share this da...

tandfonline.com

“If Berkeley keeps working with Flock, critics say, the company could use that as a selling point for other progressive jurisdictions where officials have doubts about its stewardship of sensitive data. And if Berkeley cuts ties with Flock, it might spur other sanctuary cities to do the same.”

Berkeley — the first U.S. sanctuary city — reconsiders surveillance expansion with Flock

It joins a growing number of jurisdictions that are scaling back, or canceling, contracts with the controversial spytech company.

sfstandard.com

This is more of a big picture story, but many AI agents are necessarily surveillant—they monitor and direct human action. Of course penalization would be the next step.

Forget the AI job apocalypse. AI’s real threat is worker control and surveillance

A new divide is emerging: between workers who use AI at work and those who are managed by it

theguardian.com

I'll clarify by saying: There is no situation that is not escalated, made more violent, or more volatile by adding in an armed drone or robot to a situation. "Saving lives" in this situation clearly does not mean the lives of bystanders, hostages, etc. Plus these things would be at every protest.

Matthew Guariglia@mguariglia.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Every city and state should read the writing on the wall and start to push *now* for legislation that prevents the use of force as deployed by police drones and robots.