Practitioners, activists, and legal scholars will join together to discuss how technology is fundamentally reshaping how political demonstrations are monitored by the police. This panel will discuss how police and federal agencies utilize their extensive resources to track, identify and surveil Black Lives Matter protesters, and ask if far-right, white supremacist groups engaging in protest are being surveilled to the same extent. This panel will also discuss the differences between “situational awareness” and “surveillance” and how social media monitoring, though a powerful tool for protest, can be used as a weapon to magnify the power of the police. Lastly, this panel will discuss how cities across the country have started putting civilians in charge of police surveillance through Civilian Control over Police Surveillance ordinances, and in contrast how other activist groups have made it their mission to end police surveillance alongside larger police abolition efforts.
Jack Schulz, Counsel Representing Detroit Will Breathe
Linda Sarsour, Co-Founder and Executive Director at MPower Change
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, Deputy Director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty & National Security Program
Albert Fox Cahn, Founder and Executive Director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project
To register for the symposium and attend this event, click here.