As surveillance technologies grow more sophisticated and more embedded in everyday life, questions of privacy, power, and accountability have taken on new urgency. From facial recognition and predictive policing to the monitoring of protest movements, today’s surveillance landscape raises profound concerns about civil liberties, who is being watched, and why. This program brings together legal scholars, advocates, and organizers to examine how surveillance operates in practice, and how it is being challenged.

Moderated by award-winning journalist and author Moustafa Bayoumi, the conversation will feature Michelle Dahl, Executive Director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), whose work focuses on government transparency and police accountability; Olivier Sylvain, Professor of Law at Fordham University and a leading voice on communications policy, artificial intelligence, and commercial surveillance; and Derrick “Dwreck” Ingram, co-founder of Warriors in the Garden, who brings firsthand insight into the surveillance of protest movements and the lived experience of organizing under watch.

Together, the panel will explore how surveillance technologies shape public life, the legal frameworks that enable or constrain their use, and the strategies communities are developing to ensure that technological advancements don’t come at the expense of age-old rights. Grounded in both scholarship and lived experience, this conversation will ask what it means to safeguard civil liberties in an age of constant monitoring.