Ep. 76 - Surveillance Capitalism & Abolitionist Tech, Pt. 2 ft. Alyxandra Goodwin

BrownTown spills even more the tea on in part two of the
surveillance capitalism and abolitionist tech conversation with
Alyx Goodwin, currently a Deputy Campaign Director on Policing
and Incarceration at the Action Center on Race and the Economy
(ACRE), organizes with BYP100 Chicago, and is a co-founder and
writer with LEFT OUT Magazine.


Alyx and BrownTown pick up where they left off centering a couple
reminders and updates before the dig in. The gang discusses the
observations and broader lessons from the October 4th Chicago
Police Department budget hearing, then-updates of the
#StopShotSpotter campaign (1, 2), and the global ramifications of
Facebook going down for several hours before unpacking policing
as a logic, disaster capitalism, and the bias of tech. Alyx and
Caullen discuss how prison tech came home during COVID-19
lockdowns and the advantages of public tech. David re-introduces
the role of popular culture in both reinforcing copaganda and
problematic systems while also offering heightened critiques of
such "fictional" future worlds with tech and spectacle at the
forefront. Caullen offers his abolitionist and anti-capitalist
critiques of RoboCop (1987) and its early 90's sequels,
RoboCop (2014), The Running Man (1987),
Demolition Man (1993), and Minority Report (2002)
while David and Alyx build out the real world implications,
deducing the highly reflexive relationship between art and
culture. Once again, they close out encouraging us to interrogate
not only the uses of new technologies, but the technologies
themselves as well as the unaltered violent systems that they
often embolden. If surveillance capitalism and the
prison-industrial complex is the puppet master of technology, who
is the show for? Here's their take. Originally recorded October
7, 2021. Listen to Part One!


NOTE: Content warning for gunshot sounds and spoiler
alert for aforementioned films


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Corrections and information on films mentioned:


RoboCop  (2014) - 5 Reasons Why RoboCop 2014 Isn’t As
Bad As People Say It Is (& 5 Reasons It Is) (Screenrant)

RoboCop (2014) - Opening scene takes place in Tehran, Iran,
presented as "Operation: Tehran" in the film.

The Politics of Demolition Man (video)

The Running Man (1987) synopsis: By 2017, the United States
has become a totalitarian police state following a worldwide
economic collapse. The government pacifies the populace through
The Running Man, a broadcast game show, where criminals
fight for their lives as "runners", fleeing from armed
mercenaries named the "stalkers", to earn a state pardon.



Mentioned in episode and extra information:


Shoshana Zuboff featured in 'The goal is to automate us':
Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism (Naughton, The
Guardian)

Gang database under a new fancy name Criminal Enterprise
Information System (CEIS) (MacArthur Justice Center)


Operation Legend is Bringing Surveillance Tech to Cities
(Schwenk, The Intercept)


Students Are Pushing Back Against Proctoring Surveillance
Apps (Kelly, EFF)


For Tech to be equitable, the people must control it
(Alyx Goodwin, LEFT OUT)

Issues in "crime" reporting  (Alex Karakatsanis)


Afghan Activist: We All Deserve Refuge, Not Just Those Who
Served the U.S. (Lazare, In These Times)


Where Counter-terrorism Got Us  (Todd St. Hill,
LEFT OUT)

General McKenzie apologies for Kabul strike killing 10
civilians, not ISIS-K (Smith, The Guardian)


Plans for $400-billion new city in the American desert
unveiled (Holland, CNN)


Dystopian world’: Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of
surveillance state (France-Presse, The Guardian)

Chicago Drill 'n' Activism cross-platform documentary and
multimedia project on drill rap and activism

Obama CBA Coalition and SoapBox project

Predictive policing and Chicago's Heat List (The
Verge)

Neighborhoods Watched: The Rise of Urban Mass Surveillance
(Stein, et. al)

Social justice solutions for BIPOC communities (SXSW)

Citizens Police Data Project

Tech is Not Neutral



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Follow Alyxandra on Instagram and Twitter! Read her and others'
work at LEFTOUTmag.com and follow LEFT OUT on Facebook,
Instagram, and Twitter. Sign the #StopShotSpotter petition and
take action with the toolkit! Watch SoapBox's Stop
ShotSpotter PSA here!


Follow ACRE on their site, Facebook, Instagram, and Medium; and
BYP100 on their site, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.


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CREDITS: Intro soundbite from SoapBox's Stop
ShotSpotter PSA edited by James Edward Murray and outro song
Police State by Dead Prez. Audio engineered by Genta
Tamashiro and Kiera Battles. Episode graphic from the Electronic
Frontier Foundation's Three Interactive Tools for
Understanding Police Surveillance article.


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