Today’s Surveillance articles reflect a groundswell of local opposition to AI cameras in public places, especially license plate readers from Flock Safety. Dozens of cities have canceled their contracts with Flock or covered up the cameras because citizens don’t like how easily local law enforcement can share the data with federal agencies, or how the plate readers— which are an easy first sale because they generate traffic ticket revenue— are a slippery slope to Flock’s world of pervasive surveillance drones and general-purpose, wide-angle cameras, which do more than read license plates.
People don’t want Big Brother. It’s why Ring cancelled its partnership with Flock after people were disturbed by the Super Bowl ad showing its doorbell cameras networked together and following a lost dog. It’s why Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce had Madison Square Garden turn its cameras off during their wedding (which some object to, but I see as thoughtful hosting). It’s why fashion designers are creating surveillance-thwarting wearables and why influence-seekers on Instagram attract huge followings by lying and falsifying documents that stoke anti-Flock sentiment. Relatedly, people also hate the “Pervert Glasses” from Meta that individuals can use to surreptitiously capture video.
(Personally, I avoid automated facial recognition by keeping my likeness unconnectable with my name online, but it’s getting harder. Instagram won’t let me keep an account without doing a face scan, and other social platforms increasingly require or reward face or photo ID scans. Legally, I know that my likeness is personal information which these companies can’t share without my consent, but I don’t trust them.)
Like opposition to surveillance, opposition to datacenters is also spurring grassroots action. I recently talked with a woman who lives near a new datacenter in Virginia that’s located next to a military cemetery. People there are furious. “It’s so loud,” she said, “Military graveyards are supposed to be sacred spaces, but now all you can hear is the noise from the datacenter.”
As Dumbledore tells Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, “Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.” As I’ve written here, I think the only AI that you could fully trust is an open-source system that runs on your own local hardware and answers to you, as opposed to a commercial cloud-hosted service that runs for the benefit of its owners.
Opponents of datacenters and surveillance tech are called Luddites, which is understood to mean ignorantly anti-technology. But as every article about Neo-Luddism points out, the Luddites weren’t anti-technology. The equipment that they destroyed in the 1810’s, stocking frames, had been invented back in 1589, and many Luddites were longtime, skilled operators of it.
The problem wasn’t the machines; it was that, in the wake of the French Revolution, men started wearing pants instead of stockings, adopting a common worker look instead of aristocratic finery (kinda like the way people started wearing blue jeans in the 1960s). This fashion change caused England’s hosiery industry to collapse, during which factory owners increasingly exploited the workers. In response, workers smashed the factory equipment in rebellion and as a negotiating tactic against the technology’s owners.
The Luddites didn’t oppose technology itself; they opposed exploitation connected with it. People today can relate.
So I love how the term “Neo-Luddite” restores this true meaning. Reclaiming an insulting term is powerful way to defuse and redirect, for example the way President Obama took “Obamacare” away from his critics. Any time someone uses “Luddite” to mean “anti-technology” provides a chance to realign with actual history, and move the focus of the conversation onto the underlying issues of exploitation and human misery. I’ll try to do this myself, in a sympathetic way, rather than just sounding like some pedantic Communist type who’s looking for ways to correct people.
Image Credit: The Leader of the Luddites, open source via Wikimedia Commons
SURVEILLANCE
When Flock Comes to Your Town, CNET (July 17)
Great overview of Flock cameras, related equipment, and issues. License plates and car features are not “personal information” so their data is less restricted, but how it’s used pushes legal boundaries. Flock doesn’t limit how local police distribute data, but local laws increasingly do (discussed above, along with the other Surveillance articles below).
The Urbanist Case Against Flock Cameras, The Discourse Lounge (July 24)
“In a country where the federal government is hostile to localities, municipally controlled technologies with databases administered by civilian agencies is the safest bet if plate readers are used at all.”
The Rise of Anti-Flock Influencers Who Make Things Up for Clout, 404 Media (July 23)
An Instagram influencer gained followers by criticizing Flock. After fabricating and sharing a fake cease-and-desist letter that he claimed to have received from Flock, he gained many more. The stunt detracts from the genuine reporters and grassroots projects that document how Flock cameras are used.
Privacy-Minded Fashion Aims To Baffle Facial Recognition, Reason (July 13)
In response to expanding facial recognition tech, the anti-surveillance clothing market is growing, with several dedicated manufacturers. Design approaches include dazzle patterns that confuse image-processing software and bright infrared LEDs that blind cameras.
COMMUNITY BUILDING
The Bay’s Newest Social Scene Isn’t a Bar or an App – It’s a Free Newspaper, Broke-Ass Stuart (July 8)
In the SF Bay Area, Conference Calendar discussions (introduced and reported on here) are a new social scene where strangers and friends gather to discuss specific topics at local public venues.
CO-OPS
A New Directory for Worker Co-op Products, Grassroots Economic Organizing (July 20)
workerowned.info is a new online marketplace of retail products from worker-owned companies. It offers Amazon-style convenience for over 30K products (and growing), with location search for buying directly and locally. The site collects no user data, and has a submission form for adding new worker-owned businesses.
FINANCE
San Francisco Supervisors Put Public Bank Measure on November Ballot, KQED (July 7)
This November, San Francisco residents will vote whether to approve the city supervisors’ proposed framework for creating a city public bank, to support affordable housing, green energy and small businesses. The ballot measure does not allocate startup capital for the bank. (Meanwhile, Berkeley voters will decide on funding for a public bank, based in the East Bay, with similar aims.)
CLIMATE
The Return of the Staycation, Corporate Knights (July 16)
When the Covid pandemic made travel difficult in 2020, people adapted by making the most of where they lived. In Canada, high fuel prices and canceled flights are returning summertime focus onto “staycations” and nature-based travel, and Canadians are already avoiding travel to the U.S. because of politics.
ENERGY
The Secret to a Better Grid? Electric Vehicles, Grist (July 23)
Batteries in EVs can increase grid storage capacity via vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, which lets utilities buy electricity back from connected vehicles during times of peak demand. A pilot V2G system in Massachusetts is expanding existing ConnectedSolutions infrastructure to include car batteries as well as home solar and commercial storage batteries.
HOUSING
How Planning Controls Shape Australian Cities, YIMBY Melbourne (July 20)
A new report is an interactive atlas of zoning laws in Australian cities and their central business districts. It uses data-rich graphs and maps to make the case that legacy restrictions for low density etc. have led to “suboptimal outcomes” in Australian cities overall, and in specific cities.
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