ALVARO BEDOYA HAS been working on surveillance, privacy, and technology in Washington for years now. Before founding Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy & Technology, he served as chief counsel to Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.
But as surveillance became a major national issue thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Bedoya saw something disturbing amid the Washington wonkery: a huge gulf between the discussions of government spying, on the one hand, and aggressive policing tactics in minority communities on the other.
Alvaro Bedoya.
Photo: Twitter
Today’s much anticipated all-day conference, “The Color of Surveillance: Government Monitoring of the African American Community,” is an attempt to bridge the gulf. The conference, organized by Bedoya and Georgetown Law professor Paul Butler, runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, and is being live streamed here, hashtag #ColorofSurveillance.
In January, Bedoya wrote an essay in Slate exploring the history of FBI surveillance of activists and people of color, using the example of Martin Luther King Jr., and how those practices have advanced with technology.
Similarly, the conference will start with the history of surveillance reaching all the way back to the days of slavery and plantations, when policies like lantern laws, enacted in the 18th century, forced black, mixed race, and other enslaved people to carry a light at night to identify themselves.
The timeline will then jump to World Word I, W.E.B. Du Bois, and the “negro subversion” division of military intelligence, which was formed to spy on black activists. Then, attendees will hear about Martin Luther King Jr. and the days of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and his COINTELPRO program focused on monitoring of social and political activists.
Presentations from the present day, Bedoya says, will focus on developments since the September 11 attacks, and the expansion of the government’s overall spying power at home and abroad.
Speakers include Freddy Martinez of Lucy Parson Labs, who recently won a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department to disclose documents on the city’s use of Stingray technology, which mimics a cellphone tower in order to grab up information about nearby cellphones. For the past year, he and his colleagues have been working on a project tracking how the city has used money from civil forfeitures and the war on drugs to fund its expensive surveillance equipment.
Hamid Khan will speak about the architecture of surveillance in Los Angeles, where his grassroots Stop LAPD Spying Coalition works on exposing and eliminating the police department’s aggressive use of predictive policing, data gathering, and technology to track and criminalize homeless, poor, and minority communities.
Brandi Collins, representing the Color of Change, is expected to speak about her work pushing the government to reveal the extent of the Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of Black Lives Matter activists, while Boston University researcher Khiara Bridges will talk about her research on pregnant women in New York on Medicaid whose entire lives are exposed by invasive questioning, unlike wealthy women who can afford private health care.
Finally, Bedoya says he wants to turn the tables on technology being framed as a tool to spy reserved for the government.
“I don’t want to have the narrative that technology is just a tool of oppression. It empowers communities to watch back,” he says, describing an application that allows citizens to track their interactions with police.
Related:
As someone who was politically active in the Sixties, I never have been able to be understand people who post so much on Facebook and use cellphones. I tend to try to stay away from business areas where there are a lot of surveillance cameras too. Just paranoid, I guess, but when people are following you, taking pictures of you, and perhaps tapping your phones, I just don’t want to make it easy for them. Don’t give them too much help.
https://jackblueblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/an-essay-on-race/
https://jackblueblog.wordpress.com/2016/04/09/apple-and-the-fbi-have-the-same-objectives/
It goes much deeper and is much more nefarious than what was used in the Hoover FBI days..military technology like voice to skull (which is now being touted as audio spotlighting technology) and behaviour modification technology, along with mind control technology (yes…the CIA has been researching this for a long time. MK-ULTRA was revealed at the same time as CoIntelpro)..the US government and it’s lackeys and contractors are using this covert technology on untold numbers of citizens and using them as involuntary guinea pigs to try to gage ‘real world application’. This goes way beyond the Tuskegees and even CoIntelpro. And believe me, if they are doing it to black people first–they will be coming for the rest of you in due time.
Most who participate at this site are fact-based. You don’t document any of your claims.
Obviously you must be using Empire’s definition of ‘fact’–which is whatever they say it is. There are DECLASSIFIED documents that detail US military directed energy/frequency weapons. This info is accessible on the net. TI & author Gloria Naylor provided supporting info in the bibliography of her novel ‘1996’ which documents her experience as a TI. ‘Rational’ Wiki’s so-called ‘facts’ mention her but concluded that b/c she hasn’t written anything since that HAS to be b/c she’s ‘crazy’…this is ‘factually-based’? Sounds more like conjecture and innuendo? There are lawsuits on the book, one of the most thorough has been filed by John St. Clair-Akwei, which details the technological and surveilling capabilities of NSA. So the info is out there AND there is much supporting and anecdotal evidence to support TI claims–the US government has a LONG and DOCUMENTED (by THEM) history of covert and illegal human experimentation. And particularly on black people. Harriet Washington’s Medical Apartheid is a great source on this topic. ‘Rational-Wiki’ is ANYTHING but…a hack site where you can’t even contact article authors, let alone offer alternative viewpoints & probably created by the same criminal entities engaging in these kinds of historical crimes of state. Your credibility is 0 as far as I’m concerned. I could care less whether you believe me or not–again, anyone can look up the info themselves on topics like: Targeted Individuals, Psychotronics, directed energy weapons, voice to skull (v2k) & it’s commercial cousin–audio spotlighting technology–(I believe TIs have been involuntary guinea pigs for this technology—when the effects of being exposed to V2k are reported by TIs, we have been derided as mentally ill or schizophrenic’, but look up AUDIO SPOTLIGHTING TECHNOLOGY and tell me, if you heard it and were not AWARE of the technology, wouldn’t you also probably think you were going crazy or be written off as ‘crazy’ by most?–isn’t that convenient for those who created this technology, profit from it and also doesn’t it benefit Big Pharma–more ‘specimens’ for drugging? Sounds like the former USSR’s punitive psychiatry if you ask me), ultra-low frequency weapons, organized gang stalking, CIA’s Mk-ULTRA, D. Ewan Cameron..any of these terms can be easily researched–IF interested in the truth. Others will continue to deny..either b/c they are vested in lies and profit from them or they are moral cowards. Tuskegee took 40 years to be revealed; the truth about the CIA being instrumental in Crack-cocaine distribution in inner cities took decades and their funding of Jonestown has also taken decades to come to light..so just b/c the truth isn’t widely known TODAY doesn’t mean it isn’t happening TODAY.
Alright. Now I understand why you do not document your claims. You’re one of these.
And I understand why you keep saying there is no documentation when there CLEARLY is—so here’s some more reference topics for those who actually care to seek truth—no proof of Dr. D. Ewan Cameron working for the CIA at McGill University on behavior modification/mind control experiments? No proof of the CIA’s MK-ULTRA? No proof of directed energy weapons existence? No proof of the military Voice to Skull being eerily similar to the commercial Audio spotlight Technology? No John St. Clair-Akwei lawsuit. According to you, I just made all of that up, huh? lol.. apparently, looking at info outside of ‘rational’ wiki is too much like work for a lazy, criminally insane reprobate such as yourself. From your stock/canned responses, it’s obvious you are some low level shill who is a part of the US government letter agencies affirmative action outreach program to sociopaths. It’s good to see that at least the criminally insane are still a protected class in govt hiring. You freaks will always be employed as long as the US govt is up and running.
Off topic, but not really, the next time Bill Clinton starts claiming his ’90s tough on crime and welfare reform shit doesn’t stink because, “crack,” somebody ask mr. different universe if he want to discuss Pulitzer Prize winning author Gary Webb and the CIA drug cartel.
Whoa! Thanks Jenna for making the point so clearly and impactfully. Yikes. It becomes clear that a certain population has been targeted to the extent that the oppressors, like bashar al-assad, feels the need to be on the alert for blow-back. As that is the case, it only makes twisted sense that the operation can remain in place to make oppression a little more secure thus do-able.
step by step, soylent green.
(after more research) phew. operationgroupme Every racists wet dream? I think this is a covert NSA sponsored operation for who where what on a national scale not so much for crime prevention but for people monitoring. I believe the NSA is testing to see how fast and accurate facial + name recognition can happen- lots of processing power will be used and budgeted.
If everyone were guaranteed life support as God would have it, and everyone were guaranteed the ability to earn or inherit reasonable comfort, and wealth could not exist in the face of poverty nor be allowed by hording, we would not have these preposterous problems and their crazy solutions.
Of course the wealthy who have horded or own the life support resources will be very happy that the newly paranoid citizenry can now assist them in tamping down the desparate persons who want to participate in their economy and who might otherwise protest a condition of having been deprived of life support or inherited comfort.
Prediction: Those convicted of crimes – more than the ankle thing, will be required to place “always on” camera and microphone monitoring at their place of residence and pay for it.
“Prediction: Those convicted of crimes – more than the ankle thing, will be required to place “always on” camera and microphone monitoring at their place of residence and pay for it.”
We already have camera and microphone surveillance in citizens homes that citizens are paying for–cellphones, laptops, etc. cameras and microphones can be turned off remotely without the owners knowledge or permission.
There was a story recently about hackers remotely turning on cellphone cameras while the owners were watching porn. The hackers were then extorting money from the victims with the threat of posting the video to their social media sites.
http://www.jdjournal.com/2015/01/30/federal-judge-steps-down-from-panel-over-evidence-rules/
Summary: Judge Jed Rakoff has resigned from an advisory committee after the Justice Department determined it could not examine the nature of evidence used in a trial.
On Wednesday, in a letter written by Judge Rakoff to his colleagues in the National Commission on Forensic Science, the judge explained that he would be stepping down after the Justice Department revealed its decision, calling it “unsupportable.” Judge Rakoff added, “I feel I have no choice” in deciding to resign.
Many argue that some forensic evidence is unreliable.
The commission was made up of over 30 individuals, and Judge Rakoff was the only federal judge selected. The panel’s purpose was to improve the reliability of forensic evidence after sloppy evidence processing in state, federal, and local labs led to the conviction of many suspects.
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Judge Rakoff was appointed to the federal bench by former president Bill Clinton. He has addressed many scientific issues in court, and has openly criticized the government’s decisions in many areas, such as the manner in which the Justice Department handled financial-misconduct probes and settlements the Securities and Exchange Commission made with banks.
Read about the Securities and Exchange Commission settlements here.
Unadvertised And Secret
In the letter, Judge Rakoff explained he had been informed that Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, second in command at the Justice Department, determined that the commission would not review how scientific evidence is shared during the discovery phase of trial work. Discovery is the exchange of evidence between the parties in advance of a trial so that the parties can prepare their arguments for the courtroom.
Judge Rakoff explained that federal prosecutors have fewer discovery requirements regarding scientific evidence than plaintiffs do in civil lawsuits. Although Judge Rakoff did not detail which scientific areas he worries about the most, many other legal professionals have questioned arson science, handwriting analysis, ballistics, and other disciplines.
Thank you for raising awareness of this issue and the conference. It has been fascinating.
Shout out to Stop LAPD Spying. They do great work! Was with them when they organized a rally at the Los Angeles FUSION Center. Our hope was to file requests of any and all files they may have on us as individuals. The one problem was, that DHS, LAPD, and CHP wouldn’t let us in the building.
This sounds like an exceptional and important conference. What I like about it, aside from the content, is that these events allow networking of leaders and different groups.
Once all the dots begin to connect, and an exponential curve is hit, and the people rise with one voice, then real democratic, political change can happen. These events help connect the dots at greater scale.
I will try to live stream some time later today.
“Then, attendees will hear about Martin Luther King Jr. and the days of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and his COINTELPRO program focused on monitoring of social and political activists.”
While the name may have changed, these activities continue:
fightgangstalking.com
But the topic will likely be ignored.
Very true… And thank you for the website ;)
Casting reason and facts on the subject.
Well, that was a highly patronizing read. tx
Not patronizing; mocking. But entirely fact-based.
Fact based my arse. How are TIs delusional when info on this technology is declassified? What it sounds like is the US government is trying to mimic the former USSR with punitive psychiatry. But no matter, like Tuskegee and CoIntelpro and the CIA’s Mk-ULTRA, all documented and revealed later by the US government–this too will be revealed. Sooner rather than later. TIs aren’t the psychos in this equation. It’s your government who’s being run by certifiable twats who need to be quarantined.
TI’s are unfortunate sufferers of delusions. For all the reasons at my above link this is so. You make piles of assertions but cannot substantiate your extraordinary claims. No TIs have been able to do that, and their “explanations” for lack of evidence are nonsense.
Look, believing and promoting bizarre, unwarranted conspiracies is not harmless. See this other article at this site.
You can’t substantiate your extraordinary claims – saying something with force is not substantiating…in case you hadn’t realized
P.S. I do like, however, how obvious you make yourself part of the “things that aren’t harmful are harmful if they convince you to do what we narrowly want” camp.
When I make such claims I most certainly can and do. But I have made none in this thread. By contrast, several of your friends here are promoting fact-free, delusional, quite extraordinaryl nonsense. As my link shows.
It will ignored til they find out they are being targeted too. http://www.rosemarysbabiesandcompany.wordpress.com
“But as surveillance became a major national issue thanks to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden…”
MLK read that up in heaven and thought to himself, “Surveillance wasn’t a national issue until Snowden?”
You better get your historiography straight boy, nothing of consequence occurred before 911 (unless a certain post-structural read of pre-911 history can advance the narrative at-hand).
MLK had already been murdered when the full extent of FBI outrages against him and other blacks and peace activists were exposed by the Church Committee investigating COINTELPRO, catalyzed by the papers filched by the FBI Burglars in 1971. The Edward Snowden revelations brought those brave people out of hiding after 40 years, and they embraced Edward Snowden as their spiritual heir.
I almost feel like you’re high. How could this have been approached in simpler terms…like in a way people could immediately resonate with or realize was a pack or weirdness
Liberals will insist that everyone’s rights should be taken away, equally. They won’t succeed completely, but they will probably manage to take away the rights of a much greater number of people. It’s still worth fighting, even if the best you can achieve is a partial victory.
So I salute them.