MIT tech review Operation Safety Net feedback looping the faces of our Friends, the all surrounding pessimism dripping from the cornices and corbelâs of the metropolisâ walls
An investigation conducted by MIT Technology Review shows that Operation Safety Net (OSN) continued its work far past and beyond the scope of its original stated mission. Doug Neville, spokesperson for OSN writes that it is ânot an ongoing operationâ. However, MIT Tech Review has evidence to the contrary. A photo of a department meeting, with a slide projected on a screen with the heading âOSN 2.0â.
The iPhone introduced a new feature in recent years, geo-tagged photos. Where a user can look at Apple maps and pins will be dropped wherever you have taken a photo before. While this could be useful in locating a specific photo you took in that one place that one time; the implications and paranoid realities that become actualized are bewildering. As MIT Tech Review puts it, OSN is âa complex engine of surveillance tailor-made for keeping close tabs on protestorsâ. A wide system of surveillance that spans the FBI, Minneapolis Police Department, and other local and federal agencies. OSN funneled collected information into a subscription based app thanks to AT&T. âItâs much like Slack for SWATâ, Scroll through lengthy lists of protestors and journalists, see if you find anyone remotely resembling them. Watch drone footage taken during the uprising.
âTaken together, they reveal how advanced surveillance techniques and technologies employed by the state, sometimes in an extra-legal fashion, have changed the nature of protest in the United States, effectively bringing an end to Americansâ ability to exercise their First Amendment rights anonymously in public spacesâ
We as an American culture, at least within my reach, prefer not to look into the maw of the blackhole-camera and wave it away. Weâre all too busy to care, too depressed to fight, too anxious to look, and privileged enough to not be affected by it. Too often you hear a podcaster, influencer, whoever, say: âI fully submit, fuck it, they already have my face, finger prints, eye-color, and a map of my tattoos, what do I have to care.â We tell ourselves anything to make us feel better, itâs part of survival. But this applies only to the most complacent, as in, the most comfortable politically inactive population (the majority of Americans). To the partisans and the partisan-curious however, we must be attentive to the newest developments in surveillance technology. And it is imperative that this information be dispersed.
Other third party owned indoor security cameras offer a contradictory sense of security for middle and upper class households. We know now too well how vulnerable these cameras are to exploitation by anyone with an adequate amount of computer knowledge. (Inescam.com is a surface website where you can access security cameras all around the world; a couple in chicago, one where we see the dark corner of some establishment with six gambling machines). In the deep-web, you can find sites where a few individuals compile hundreds if not thousands of personal computer web-cams. Free quick and easy access to the assumed most private place a person can be.
Living in one of the biggest cities in the world such as Chicago, one must reckon with the fact that you will be documented by a security camera, if not by a pesky anachronistic documentarian street-photographer. One foot out the door and there is a red wireframe surrounding your head. One foot toward the door of your neighbor and Amazon smiles while noting your facial expression, skin color, and how fast you are moving. Not to mention whatever utterance may happen to escape your trap. We even have Neil deGrasse Tyson on podcasts declaring the Unites States has the most sophisticated and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world. Everything is not only recorded, but stored. In the event you do commit a crime worth the effort, there are thousands of hours and terabytes of biometric data they can sift through. It is not a question of when will this dystopian system come to be, but, when will the government decide to fully employ it.
Social media intelligence gathering, facial recognition systems made by private companies, âcell site simulators for cell-phone surveillanceâ. A predator drone accustomed to being flown over Afghanistan and Iraq was deployed in Minnesota during the George Floyd uprising. The kicker is, the technology the local police had was more sophisticated in terms of surveillance and efficiency.
Spectacularization has become incredibly ingrained within the newer generations minds. We see largely attended protests, where a brave soul struck with inspiration ends up being handcuffed. The last thing the crowd will do is take the leap, de-arrest, and help our fellow Friend not be needlessly carried off. Our first instinct as the observers, to chant âThe whole world is watching!â, showing how we already pre-conceive ourselves as images. This is following the argument Ian Allan Paul lays out in the Ill Will article Liberal Infernos âthe desire to be recognized usurps the desire to revoltâ. It is a shame to see that planned arrests, that donât disrupt so much as a commuterâs day, is still seen as a viable form of protest that will bring change.
Let us examine what change these forms of process bring forth. A student encampment urging its institution divest from Israel, after a show down, several dozens are arrested after repeat warning of imminent arrest. The following semester, not even a tenth of freshmen are aware. We end up photographed, finger printed, recorded. Itâs a weird game, a risky game of play where so many of us fling ourselves into it. Assuming the consequences, but that is just the trouble, we assumed the consequences without accurately knowing what we threw ourselves into.
A marginally more effective use of a planned arrest are the numerous actions made by non-violent protesters blocking highways, handcuffing themselves to construction equipment, and even cementing locked hands in concrete posts. These can create large impressions upon the general public, the issues are many. Chief amongst them is again, âthe desire to be recognized usurps the desire to revoltâ.
It may be fair to consider that a lot of the younger protestors, filled with rage and injustice, want something, anything to make a difference. They frantically look around to see whoâs already doing what. They see a long history of nonviolent protest and are deluded enough to think that if only their body was there, all the difference would be made. I donât expect most people to think with such arrogance but we see it every single day.
What counts as effective, and how do we measure that? What are the motives that drive people to revolt, to insurrect, and to collectively rise against? (link to revolutionary motives article)
Shards of reality assemble themselves into an autopoiesis, a nucleus divorced from the reality in the streets. This ontogenetic world presents itself in the form of nothing but images. In other words, the multiple feeds endlessly running and feeding back into itself becomes the de facto reality the majority of the population see. The new generation within an atomised post-pandemic society of agoraphobic, socially anxious, and self hating people is exactly what the government and the supposedly entropic machine of capitalism desires. A new tension arises that has not been present in previous revolutionary, or, aspirationally revolutionary circles. We will not dwell on it here, but thereâs something about how the neo-liberal order profits from and grows through âequal rightsâ campaigns. The long held critique of rights, why should we beg for the minimum treatment a human deserves? Instead of bursting through the seams and demanding change.
Thereâs a three eyed face, the two of the subject, and the one of the camera. Thereâs fluid group dynamics, individuals who spark an idea suddenly gain the inspiration to break, as if in a magnetic current others join. Curiosity, creativity, and potential. In a highly prepared, organized manner, the room for improvisation is vast. The trouble is that it isnât so simple to be highly prepared and organized at the individual level. We are seeing now that even finding 3-4 other trusted friends is a tough task. We are being watched at every moment. For an increasing amount of the population, even in their homes. Ring cameras owned by Amazon are happy to turn over footage of your front door to the police.
âWe committed no crime, and yet records were kept on us. I believe this is a step in the direction of authoritarianism, and has a chilling effect on the free press,â
MIT tech review found Minneapolis Police Department using fake social media accounts to engage Black people, organizations and elected officials. In one case, an MPD officer used an MPD covert account to pose as a Black community member to send a message to a local branch of the NAACP criticizing the group. In another case, an MPD officer posed as a community member and RSVPâd to attend the birthday party of a prominent Black civil rights lawyer and activist
Surveillance systems have long been developed -knowingly or not- since the birth of cybernetics. These systems quickly like sand slipped through the fingertips of Stafford Beer. Of course they will not stop at anonymous approval and satisfaction ratings from factories acting as nodes for the proposed cybernetic governance of Salvador Allende. Indeed nothing is sacred, and morality lies not in the tools we possess, but in how we use them, how they affect us, and the importance we place on them. This is difficult to quantify when these systems are invisible beyond their black hole eyes.
Beyond the direct involvement of federal and local government surveillance, a trend of crowdsourced surveillance has blossomed. The website AntifaWatch, which gained popularity during the George Floyd uprising âexists to document and track Antifa and the Far Leftâ. On the website users are encouraged to photograph protestors who may be in any way involved with âAntifaâ, a nonexistent group created in the minds of right-wing radicals to designate everyone to the left of them who participate in protest. Thousands of photographs are uploaded to the website and other users try to identify who the photo is of, then publishing their name, address, phone number, anything they can get their hands on. How about that for a cybernetic feedback loop? If you wanted to know whether your next hire, or a co-worker participated in âAntifaâ activity simply upload a picture of their face and see if the database returns any matches. Of course similar operations were executed by citizens who wanted to identify those who participated in the riot at the capital on January 6th, 2021. The differences are as such: The right-wing out numbers the left, the right are decidedly better organized and have had the government in their favor from the start.
We shall conclude with a notable recent deployment of mass concentrated surveillance. The Chicago Democratic National Convention (DNC) 2024. I found it comically tragic that a Teen Vogue article was published warning potential protesters of the surveillance around the convention. All protests occurring during the convention were considered a âNational Special Security Eventâ, designating them as potential terrorist targets. The Police so heavily outnumbered the protestors many were bored with nothing to do. And this is precisely the second tragedy, the absolute liberalising, peace policing organizers with their fluorescent vests did all they could to stop any moments of improvisation, going so far as to get fellow âprotestorsâ arrested. Many police officers were in attendance wearing similar vests. The organizers of the main protests around the DNC worked with the police, fearing mass police brutalising of protestors, where many families brought their children and elder family members. A much longer drawn out critique of protest culture could follow, but we will keep it to the slight jabs and laments. For another ironic image, a protest against the convening of the financiers and facilitators of the genocide of Palestinians is met with a forcefully peaceful march with children welcome and several organizations with signs coordinated colors, chanting their hearts out, like a flowing river forced into the gutters, claustrophobic with walls of cycling police and a second wall of protest âmarshallsâ or police collaborators. âMake it great like â68!â we heard in the weeks leading up to the DNC. This could not have been anything further from the â68 DNC. What exactly is it that has led to the absolute murder of radical action within the US?
Considering that Chicago, and more specifically the area surrounding the United Center was the most surveilled area in the world at that time, with aid from Chicago Police, Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Secret Service. Maybe it was wiser to not strike at the most expected place with the most eyes.
There have been moves toward increasing clandestine actions, some smarter than others. Clandestine operations in Atlanta to defend the Welaunee forest were effective at getting construction companies to drop contracts, but eventually the process bulldozed ahead. Discussions of revolutionary motives must be held.
(draft)
some)