The time is right: Organizing against the surveillance-industrial complex in the ATmosphere and the fediverses

If we organize, we can have a big impact in the fight against the surveillance-industrial complex.

Early results are encouraging: experiences organizing against the surveillance-industrial complex in the ATmosphere and the fediverses

Part 3 of The time is right

"The S is for surveillance": fighting KOSA and bad internet bills in the ATmosphere and the fediverses

Part 2 of The Time Is Right: shifting from theory to practice.

Opinion | Time to Dump Time Zones (Published 2016)

Designed for the railroad era, they have no place in our globalized, interconnected world.

Pluralistic: Surveillance is inequality’s stabilizer (26 Jun 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

The "dictator's dilemma" pits a dictator's desire to create social stability by censoring public communications in order to prevent the spread of anti-regime messages with the dictator's need to know whether powerful elites are becoming restless and plotting a coup:

"Pushed into the Shadows": Evidencing Digital Surveillance Chilling Effects and the Erosion of the Rights to Freedom of Assembly and of Association

SummaryThe United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Gina Romero, presents "Pushed into the Shadows: Evidencing digital surveillance chilling effects and the erosion of the rights to freedom of assembly and of association". This Global Study documents the profound impact that pervasive digital monitoring exerts on fundamental public freedoms. Moving beyond traditional privacy-centric narratives, the Study details how contemporary surveillance ecosystems induce serious chilling effects.

State Capacity of Secret Surveillance

The state capacity-civil society tradeoff model tends to treat the “state” and “civil society” as separate entities who move to constrain one another. However, this modeling technique leaves out the nuances of individual action within a collective setting by treating each as a relative black box. This article explores this balance in the context of the surveillance state that has arisen in the 20th and 21st century. As state capacity in surveillance increases it better allows the state to respond to threats to citizens from citizens. However, the increased capacity also lessens the ability of societal pressure to check authoritarian advances even in a nation with a thriving civil society presence.

State Capacity of Secret Surveillance

The state capacity-civil society tradeoff model tends to treat the “state” and “civil society” as separate entities who move to constrain one another. However, this modeling technique leaves out the nuances of individual action within a collective setting by treating each as a relative black box. This article explores this balance in the context of the surveillance state that has arisen in the 20th and 21st century. As state capacity in surveillance increases it better allows the state to respond to threats to citizens from citizens. However, the increased capacity also lessens the ability of societal pressure to check authoritarian advances even in a nation with a thriving civil society presence.

Palantir's social media manifesto is a blueprint for technofascism

The surveillance firm’s viral X post calls for hard power, conscription and the end of pluralism. AI expert and academic Mark Coeckelbergh on what happens when technology becomes the gateway to authoritarianism

What is the PIC? What is Abolition?

THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems. Through its reach and impact, the PIC

To Repress or to Co‐opt? Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance

This article studies the consequences of digital surveillance in dictatorships. I first develop an informational theory of repression and co-optation. I argue that digital surveillance resolves dicta...

The web can be weaponised – and we can't count on big tech to stop it | Tim Berners-Lee

It’s dangerous having a handful of companies control how ideas and opinions are shared. A regulator may be needed