The Next Fight: Combating the Ever-Rising Surveillance State
Session Type(s): Panel
Starts: Thursday, Aug. 13 11:00 AM (Eastern)
Ends: Thursday, Aug. 13 11:50 AM (Eastern)
Surveillance technologies are growing and expanding their reach in both the private and public sectors. Despite moves toward ending mass incarceration and its harms, the systems of criminalization are evolving with the power of technology. This panel will bring organizers from different movements and communities together to talk about the growing impact of these technologies, the different sectors they effect, organizing and corporate campaign strategies to combat them for current and future fights, and the role of corporate power in how these technologies are distributed.
Moderator
Alyxandra Goodwin
Alyx is currently organizing with BYP100 Chicago, a senior organizer and researcher at Action Center on Race and the Economy, and a co-founder and writer with LEFT OUT Magazine. Her writing and activism are centered around the momentum and challenges of building Black power and self-determination. Her work at ACRE currently focuses on the relationship between the finance industry and policing, racialized capitalism, and how these things exacerbate oppressions.
Panelists
Jelani Drew
Jelani is an organizer from the South dedicated to building power for their communities online and offline. As the Director of Campaigns for Kairos they enjoy long reads through Twitter and taking any chance to drag Big Tech CEOs. Jelani’s organizing interest is at the intersection of racial justice and technology. They dream about a world where tech works for all of us. So they work to help people understand how tech has a deep impact on our lives.
PG Watkins
Paige PG Watkins (they/them) is a nonbinary organizer, facilitator, trainer and organizational strategist from Detroit. They are a founding member of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100)’s Detroit chapter and a board member of the James & Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership. PG is a member of Blackout Collective’s Dark Matter network, training in direct action and civil disobedience with groups around the country. They are an abolitionist who believes that a world is possible beyond jails, detention, and punitive punishment. PG is currently involved in campaigns to end mass surveillance in Detroit, to create a People’s Budget that divests from policing and to stop the new county jail development.