Anti-Capitalist Computer Club: Independence Daze

What did we do last month? What are we up to next month? Read on, find out!

WHAT’S ON

Monthly Meeting / Wednesday, July 1st 6-8pm at Dagny’s Coffee Co.

This month’s meeting, we’re talking tactics. Now that we’ve begun organizing to get Flock out of our city, where do we go from here? We’ll share CPRA records request ideas, talking points for future city council meetings, and approachable action items to get folks on board with this work.

As always, feel free to bring any projects you’re working on and/or tech-related questions for the group to tackle.

Really Really Free Market / Sunday, July 19th 9-11am at TBD

Tech service as mutual aid. We’ll help you get an ad blocker installed on your phone, talk through personal operational security upgrades, show you open source alternatives so you can break up with Big Tech. We dare you to come and make just one small step towards making your personal digital space more private and more secure. It feels pretty radical, we promise.

The location will be announced closer to the date on RRFM’s Instagram, @rrfmbakersfield.

THINGS WE’RE WORKING TOWARDS

June was quite a fucking month for us.

We went to city council on June 10th and again on June 24th and asked for transparency on the city’s contract with surveillance tech company Flock Safety, and the development of their "Real Time Information Center," the panopticon hub that synthesizes all camera feeds the city owns or that private businesses share with them.

We wrote about our ethos behind this work and why it matters in the Bakersfield Californian and on our new site, Get the Flock Out.

We mapped out our local retail relic of a pre-housing crisis America (aka the Valley Plaza Mall) and confirmed 23(!) automated license plate readers on mall property. Posted on every entrance and exit, clustered often in absurd, dystopian-farcical ways. How’d a dying mall afford all this? We don’t know, but we have our suspicions. In completely unrelated news, stay tuned for more California Public Records Act requests from us, City of Bakersfield!

Looking ahead, we want to build on the momentum against surveillance tech companies like Flock. There’s a LOT more to do here in Kern County. Folks in Ridgecrest and Tehachapi are fighting it out with their own cities, and we would love for any other Kern County organizers doing this work to reach out to us. We can and will fight this better together.

The city told us that they’re working on a privacy policy for their usage of Flock. Let’s set aside our quiet horror at the realization that they’ve been watching us for YEARS without this bare minimum standard in place. We want to get eyes on this policy as soon as it’s up for council review — if not before — so we will be keeping up to date with city council agendas so we can show up to that meeting.

To be clear, we don’t believe that guardrails or even the world’s most robust privacy policy will make the usage of surveillance technology any less poisonous. This tech shouldn’t exist, and we as human beings deserve better. We will continue advocating for the removal, not just of the city’s contract with Flock Safety, but of this technology, and both government and private usage, altogether.

With the rise of data centers, the public’s growing awareness of surveillance technology, and AI resistance, we are part of a moment of critical tech resistance. Here in Kern County we don’t always know we are working as part of a larger movement (or even that others in our city and county are aligned with that work at all). Well, we’re reminding you that we are.

In August, we will be participating in the National Week of Action Against ALPRs. Mark your calenders for August 16th through the 21st, and we’ll give you more details on the what and the where in our August newsletter.

THINGS WE’RE READING

last seen online

"You were always a snoop, weren’t you? That’s why you bought an old computer you saw lying among piles of junk at a garage sale. You didn’t even bother to format the computer before you turned it on. You were curious. After all, a personal computer is an extension of another person’s soul, all their secrets, projects, interactions."

Do you miss old flash games? That was the shit, man. This indie, "escape room" style game brings back those vibes with a horror twist, and touches on the intimate nature of our personal tech and the vulnerability of isolated people finding connections online.

A Walking Tour of Surveillance Infrastructure in San Francisco

Have you ever driven to the grocery store, spotted a weird camera while waiting at a red light, and wondered, ‘What’s that?’ So did this SF author, and the piece he wrote details the curiosity and questions from a civilian perspective of the surveillance infrastructure that permeates our lives both online and off.

Fair warning: Once you know what to look for, you’ll start seeing these cameras everywhere.

Flock Cameras and Government Surveillance in Tehachapi

"By allowing these cameras we are upholding that our neighbor doesn’t deserve to drive to work or to school, or get groceries without being tracked and recorded." This is such a solid primer and rallying cry from someone else fighting the good fight here in Kern County. Hell yeah, Tehachapi. We see you.

Data center proposed in Inyokern and now Taft

[cue Jaws theme] Here we are again! Same shit, different day! This time it’s a data center rearing its ugly head in Taft. If you are doing any organizing around this, especially if you’re a Taft city resident, reach out to us. We want to connect and amplify advocacy against this.

THINGS WE’RE WATCHING

The Revolt Against Technology

Jared Henderson runs the whole history of telling technology to fuck off. From Plato hating on writing, all the way up to the Neo-Luddites. And those Neo-Luddites? They’re playing our song. It’s the same fight on a longer timeline. Best part: Jared nails how these tools turn your attention into something to be mined and sold. Extraction, baby. That’s the enemy! Mostly worth a watch because these are our people.

BYEE

Remember to touch grass, restart your devices, and show up in community. See you out there, comrades!

Anti-Capitalist Computer Club: High June

ACC here to inject you with your monthly medicine: news about surveillance and tech overreach in Kern County.

First, find out where you can plug in this month.

WHAT’S ON

Monthly Meeting / Wednesday, June 3rd 6-8pm at Dagny’s Coffee Co.

This month’s meeting, we’re strategizing for Bakersfield City Council meetings in June. We’ll go over talking points, threat profiling, and contextualize this advocacy by mapping out our asks and how they build on each other.

Bakersfield City Council Meeting / Wednesday, June 10th 5:15pm at City Hall

It’s budget month, y’all! Join us at the hideous funeral home that is Bakersfield City Hall to demand transparency and constituent-driven policies governing surveillance tech in our city. City Council’s draconion conduct rules don’t allow for signage, any sound from the audience, or water bottles. You must pass through a metal detector and endure the presence of law enforcement in full SWAT gear, so consider your risk tolerance before you decide whether or not you’re attending.

Really Really Free Market / Sunday, June 21st 9am-11am at University Park

This market celebrates the one year anniversary of RRFM’s launch. If you haven’t yet experienced the wonderful community that gathers once a month to share free items and services, now’s your chance. We will be tabling as always, offering tech services as mutual aid. Come through to lend your own expertise or to take advantage of ours.

Bakersfield City Council Meeting / Wendesday, June 24th 5:15pm at City Hall

Same shit, different day. We will keep showing up and speaking out.

Flock Walk / Saturday, June 27th 10am-11am at the Valley Plaza Mall Food Court

Help us map the cameras that watch our every move, meet your neighbors, and get a little exercise all at once. Not a bad way to spend your Saturday morning! Keep in mind, we are getting up close and personal with live surveillance cameras at these walks. Consider your personal tolerance for risk and plan accordingly.

BIRD-WATCHING IN BAKERSFIELD

The city sent us two more drops worth of information from our original CPRA request, and there’s a lot to go through. The second batch includes executed contracts going back to the original June 2021 pilot agreement, subsequent amendments, purchase orders, and the department’s official ALPR policy manual. It also includes the city’s formal response letter, in which they denied disclosing camera locations under Government Code §7922.000 and confirmed that no annual ALPR audit reports exist.

Drop 2 is archived and public here.

The third drop is the real data: audit logs from Bakersfield PD’s Flock Safety searches covering October 2021 through February 2026. Individual license plate queries, who ran them, when, all wrapped up in a bunch of CSV files, ready to import into whatever spreadsheet software you use.

Drop 3 is here.

We’re working on getting this data into the hands of the Have I Been Flocked team so people in town can find out whether their plate appears in the logs.

The biggest bummer from our request is that the city won’t tell us where the cameras are. Okay. Fine. We’re building the map ourselves anyway.

BirdWatch is our tool for anyone in the Bakersfield area who spots a Flock camera and wants to log it without creating an account on DeFlock or jumping through hoops. Visit that page, tap a button, done. Your GPS coordinates and the time/date go into the database.

We’re using that data to plan our future Flock Walks, filling in gaps and making that sure every camera in the city gets documented on the DeFlock map.

Speaking of… our next Flock Walk will be June 27th at 10am at Valley Plaza Mall. We’ll be meeting up at the food court. Why the mall? Well, the lot surrounding Valley Plaza is lousy with Flock’s ALPRs. Damn near every entrance and exit point is covered.

If you’d rather not drive and get logged in the process, GET routes 22, 41, 42, 44, and 81 all serve the Southwest Transit Center in the mall’s lot off of Wible.

August is a few months away, but it brings the National Week of Action Against ALPRs, organized by DeFlock. Contracts are being cancelled across the country and communities are pushing back on the surveillance infrastructure these private, profit-driven companies have been building out. Sign up at the link above to hear more about how you can get involved there, and hit us up if you’ve got ideas for events you’d like to see ACC plan here in town to line up with this week of action.

DATA CENTER OPPOSITION IN INYOKERN

Meanwhile, in East Kern…

You’ve likely heard at least in passing about energy-draining AI data centers and the small communities fighting back against their development. Now, they’re coming for Kern.

We spoke with Jennifer Slayton, one of the folks organizing the opposition, about what’s going down.

ACC: For folks who may be new to this, can you give a TLDR of the proposed Inyokern data center, what communities it would affect, and why we should care?

JS: A company owned by Robbie Barker of Trona has proposed building a hyperscale, AI-ready data center behind the Chevron in Inyokern. This project includes 40 3MW diesel generators for backup power, so they must obtain permission from the California Energy Commission (CEC) before proceeding with the regular county approval process. The developer is requesting an exemption from a full environmental review process at the CEC under something called a “Small Power Plant Exemption”, which many of us believe is not a legal request. The exemption is for projects that are under 100MW and have “no significant adverse environmental impacts.” However, if you include both phases of this project that he’s promoted to his investors and asked for electric service to serve already, and consider the many adverse environmental impacts of any data center, we firmly believe that it is not appropriate. So we are asking that it be denied and that a full certification be done instead. We are also asking for them to pause any application until the legal process our groundwater usage is caught up in is finished because, legally, projects of this size must show they have enough water for the next 20 years, which obviously cannot be done when we don’t know the outcome of the court battle over our water. We also question the zoning for this, as it is being proposed in an M-2 zone, which requires that things like dust and noise remain within the zone, and, even in his own documents, he states that they will extend beyond that.

Obviously, it would affect Inyokern… it is 370 feet from the closest home to the data center operations, and less than 1400 feet from Inyokern School, and at the two major cross-streets of the community. But in a valley like the Indian Wells Valley, it really affects all of us. Our water, air, and light don’t stop at city or community boundaries, so everyone who lives in this valley has a vested interest in this project and should care. And there are a lot of reasons to care about this… in fact, there are very few reasons not to, unless you just don’t believe the research and data that’s coming out about how serious an impact data centers have on everything from the environment to your utility bills to your health.

But I’ll share the specific reason I care: our groundwater. Our entire valley draws from the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater Basin, a basin that by all accounts is using more water than it’s taking in, and by some accounts using a critically high amount beyond what it takes in. Obviously, this is a problem for our long-term survival, but it’s also a problem for our short-term legality because the state requires that water use be balanced with recharge. As a community, we’ve spent a decade trying to reduce our groundwater usage because the only alternative our local authority in charge of this is pursuing is riddled with challenges and, by some estimates (including my own), would cost every property owner around $3,000 a year on average. Data centers use a lot of water, and could make it impossible to reach this goal without tacking that amount onto my property taxes… and I certainly don’t want to have to pay $3000 a year to have an increase in air and water pollution, higher utility bills, increased strain on infrastructure, our dark skies ruined, and only a handful of actual permanent jobs.

ACC: How did you get involved in this work?

JS: I went to graduate school to study Community Development and community-based Economic Development, and have been working in the Central Valley for the past two and a half decades, so I’ve done a lot of work there for quite a while, while living here in Ridgecrest. I do generally try to avoid getting very involved in community issues where I live because I’m so involved at work, but sometimes there are just things that I think will impact me and my family so much personally, or honestly that are just so infuriating, that I do get involved here as well. The Groundwater Authority and their pipeline was one of those, and the data center coming in the middle of that just took that same fight to the next level for me.

ACC: What’s something that has come up during your work that’s surprised you? Any unlikely friends or foes?

JS: In the community organizing world, there’s a very common saying - no permanent friends, no permanent foes, just permanent interests. I think that’s the thing that always surprises me about working on community issues… the various reasons that folks have for coming to the same conclusion about what they want. And particularly how little that motivation matters to the shared vision we can find and work on together. Beyond that, though… it’s really the enduring relationships that are created when this happens with people we generally would disagree with that I always find surprising and heartening. There’s one particular local resident whom I was adamantly opposed to on a prior issue, and now we’re working closely to try to stop this data center… and I would now consider her my friend - even though I still oppose some of her specific policies and the motivations behind them. Being able to find value in people and not “other” them when we don’t agree with them is not only essential to a civil society, but to the fabric of a rural community. And those threads are forged when we come together and work alongside each other on issues like this.

ACC: There’s this tension coming up in the coverage of this data center and local opposition to it- "We aren’t opposed to innovation, AI is the future, we love AI and use it daily." (My paraphrasing several quotes from residents speaking out, yourself included.) From your perspective, what’s this framing about? Does opposition like this feel like it needs an anti-Luddite disclaimer to be taken seriously?

JS: The “you’re just against progress” argument isn’t a new argument; it’s the same argument the robber barons and the industrial revolution factory builders used for the past couple of hundred years. But one would hope that we’re beyond the exploitative land use and other decisions that led to the horrifying and shameful industrial accidents and human toil that unbridled racing toward “the future” by super-rich guys has also brought throughout history. Even if we appreciate the value technology brings, that doesn’t mean we should blind ourselves to the costs or ignore them when making decisions about how to responsibly account for those in our communities. That’s not to say that there aren’t actually folks who are just adamantly opposed to AI (potentially for very good reasons), or really do fear it (don’t we all at least a little bit?). But I do think the majority of folks claiming we’re attacking the technology itself are being intentionally fallacious because they know they lose on the “smart land use and mitigated negative impacts” argument. And most of the arguments, including those disclaimers, are probably as a result of these fallacious attacks on very real environmental and community concerns.

ACC: Do you have advice for anyone who wants to shape their community for the better through grassroots organizing?

JS: Find something you care about, find other people who care about it, learn everything you can about it, find others who were successful at it, and then follow your passions strategically. A lot of people discount the strategy that’s involved in making change… just showing up to meetings or writing letters is almost never enough. What are the critical paths? What are the levers to change? What’s the strategy to put the pieces in place to make what you think is important happen? And a bunch of caring and committed people working on that is always better in my opinion, no matter how smart or experienced you are. It’s the Margaret Mead quote - Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

ACC: Can you share one clear action item for folks to do right after reading this interview that will help you fight against the development of the RB Inyokern Data Center?

JS: Right now, the one and only thing we need folks to focus on is submitting a comment to the California Energy Commission docket, and then sending that comment as an email to our decision-makers. There’s a pinned post on our Facebook page (if you have that) at Taxpayers for Accountability for Our Groundwater with details on what makes a good comment and where to submit it, and where to send it additionally. If you don’t have access to Facebook, you can just Google “California Energy Commission RB Inyokern data center” and it will come right up (we’d encourage you to also send whatever you comment to local decision makers!).

ACC: You heard it here first folks. We’ve compiled the action items at Inyokern Data Center Info. Solidarity to our neighbors and we will continue to support them in this work.

WHAT WE’RE READING

taken.

Read this for a simple, powerful statement on the data your device gives away without you even knowing (let alone consenting to).

Residents Raise Concerns Over Inyokern Data Center, Ridgecrest Flock Cameras

Okay Ridgecrest, we see you! The reporter of this piece calls the issues of data centers and DeFlock advocacy "unrelated," but are they? Both exemplify the long arm of Big Tech extending into communities without local knowledge or consent, people in power playing with shiny new toys without considering the consequences, and city councils who plug their ears and sing "LA LA LA" whenever people who disagree with them express concerns. But hey, we wouldn’t know anything about that!

Communities are rising up against data centers — and winning

A good reminder that if you feel alone in wanting change for the better, you’re not. The more we connect in this work, the closer we get to the future we want to build together.

The Intersection of Data Center Development, Water Availability, and Environmental Justice in California

A meaty report from nonprofit Next 10 that examines the repercussions of data centers in California’s central valley, and how smaller communities are especially vulnerable to these developments. Of particular interest is the second finding in the Conclusions section (p. 47) on how the impact of water scarcity extends beyond just the cities these are being built in or even near: "Increased demand in one jurisdiction can contribute to basin-wide depletion, reduced drought resilience, and eco-logical stress in distant source regions." The explosion of data center development affects all of us.

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO

Pablo Dutta - West Bengal Soundsystem DJ Set

Twenty minutes of DJ Pablo Dutta doing his thing through a Bengali Dek Bass soundsystem. Dek Bass is a DIY sound system culture out of rural West Bengal. The name comes from the cassette decks used to build the setup, and the whole scene grew out of providing sound for weddings and religious gatherings. The utter joy and vibes of everyone jamming out are immaculate.

BYEEEE

See you out there, comrades!

MAY MEET-UPS

Monthly Meeting / Wednesday, May 6th 6-8pm at Dagny's Coffee Co.

De-Flock Your Community Saturday, May 9th 12pm-1:30pm on Zoom

Really Really Free Market / Sunday, May 16th 9am-11am at Panorama Park

Flock Walk Saturday, May 23rd 10am-11am at Blue Oak Coffee

CITY COUNCIL V. ANTI-CAPITALIST COMPUTER CLUB

What We've Asked Them For:

1. Adopt a moratorium on any expansion of the Flock deployment. No new cameras, no new Wing channels, no new integrations until the public has a say. This includes the proposed $250k earmarked for security cameras in our public parks coming from the PSVS tax revenue.
2. Release the camera locations. Residents have a right to know where they're being recorded in their own city.
3. Publish the usage logs. Who searched what, when, and under what justification. If the system is being used responsibly, the audit trail should not be a secret.
4. Hold a public council hearing before the next contract amendment or renewal. No more rubber-stamping in the consent calendar.
5. Pass a surveillance technology ordinance with real teeth. Public notice, council approval, annual reporting, and a clear path to decommission tools that don't deliver.
6. Cancel the contract. In California alone, Santa Cruz, Mountain View, Los Altos Hills, and South Pasadena have already cut ties. Oxnard suspended its program after an audit found federal access to its data.

WHAT WE'RE READING

KILL YR SUBSTACK / Jason Cosper

Our one and only Jason made a browser extension you can install that skips straight over Substack and routes you to an archived version of the article. It's a great day to stop giving a company that platforms white supremacists any web traffic.

"We Can (and Do) Solve Crime"

Apple Fixes Bug that let FBI Extract Deleted Signal Messages / 404 Media

Keep Android Open

Depending on how tech-adjacent you are, you may or may not be aware of some of the coming updates to Android (spoiler alert: they aren't good). This organization can bring you up to speed and shares ways on how to fight against this.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

Why we're switching from Meshtastic to MeshCore

Sleep Dealer (2008)

A messy and fun dystopian slice-of-life movie set in a future in which technology rules humanity (many such cases!). Come for the mid-aughts robotics angst, stay for the all too relevant issues of migration, labor exploitation, and automation as displacement and destruction.

BYEEEEEE

Leaving you with the inspiring words of Marc Fischer (which you can also get as postcards via Half Letter Press):

"Make a zine if you can't make a book.

Make a flyer if you can't make a zine.

Make a postcard if you can't make a flyer.

Leave a record."

Alright! That's all for now! See you out there this month!

Anti-Capitalist Computer Club: April’s Fools

Meetups old and new abound in April!

Monthly Meeting April 1st, we’ll be at Dagny’s from 6-8pm. Bring your computer or phone by for tinkering, or just bring yourself and we’ll talk shop and scheme together.

Really Really Free Market The RRFM is usually the 3rd Sunday of the month. No formal announcement for April yet, but we’ll be there! Stay tuned.

Flock Walk Saturday, April 18th! This is where we put our money where our mouth is, our feet to the pavement, our nose to the grindstone, er… You know. We flock around, we find out.

We will meet at the Beale Memorial Library, give a brief introduction into Flock, what it does, and the city of Bakersfield’s relationship with it, then hit the streets and find Flock cameras to add to the DeFlock map

Don’t know what any of those things are? That’s okay! If you’re on this newsletter and are concerned at all about surveillance tools and how they are used here in Kern County, that’s all you need. Show up, learn, log cameras, live in community. After all, one can only take so much doomscrolling before moving to action. And speaking of doomscrolling-

Things We’re Reading

The Last Quiet Thing by Terry Godier

A short, centering piece on how technology has changed from a simple product into a transactional, ongoing relationship- and why that isn’t your fault.

This Wisconsin City Ditched AI Surveillance Cameras. Now Activists Want to Keep Going

It’s possible to desurveill our communities. This piece about Dane County Wisconsin cancelling their contract with Flock is a good reminder of that, and the kind of outcome we’re trying to move towards with our FOIA requests with BPD and KCSO and our Flock Walk.

You told BetterHelp your deepest secrets. You had no idea who was listening

Private, for-profit companies like BetterHelp and Zocdoc can help bridge the gap between the American public and the hellscape that is our healthcare system. But what are they taking in exchange? As is all too often the case, if the product is "free," YOU are the product.

Means of Control by Byron Tau

Jason just finished this one. Tau spent years tracing how the U.S. government became the biggest customer of the commercial data broker industry. Ad networks, free-to-play games, apps, smart devices, the wireless signals from your car tires. All of it feeds a pipeline that ends at intelligence agencies and law enforcement. The kicker: the same data collection that serves you targeted ads gets purchased in bulk through legal loopholes that bypass traditional surveillance law. The surveillance state got built on top of capitalism.

Wrap It Up

We’ve got a Mastodon account where we post shorter updates, links, and commentary as things come up.

Anti-Capitalist Computer Club: Everything’s Flocked

The Bakersfield Police Department finally responded to our California Public Records Act request about their relationship with Flock Safety, and what they sent us is too important to sit on.

We’ve got the full breakdown of what BPD bought, what it does, and who’s paying for it. We’re also publishing the documents BPD sent us at the end of the newsletter so you can read them for yourself.

After that, we put together a practical guide to locking down your web browser, because reading about a multi-million dollar suburban surveillance network has a way of making you want to do something to cover your ass immediately.

Two things before we get into it:

Really Really Free Market — March 15th at Pioneer Park @ 9am. We’ll have our usual table. Bring your old laptop, your phone full of questions, or just yourself. We’d be happy to help you set up the browser extensions covered below.

Next meeting at Dagny’s Coffee Co. — April 1st @ 6pm. No joke. We’ll be there.

BPD’s Multi-Million Dollar Panopticon (And How You’re Paying For It)

We filed a California Public Records Act request with the Bakersfield Police Department. We wanted to see exactly what kind of relationship they have with Flock Safety. If you haven’t heard of them, Flock is the surveillance company quietly building a massive, nationwide network of cameras and license plate readers.

BPD finally got back to us and sent over 13 documents.

This shit is genuinely wild. And we need to talk about it.

The Hardware on Our Streets

As of May 2025, BPD’s Flock Safety deployment includes 133 cameras.

That breaks down to 83 Flock ALPR cameras. ALPR stands for Automatic License Plate Reader — the little boxes that log exactly where your car goes and when. They also have 40 Condor PTZ video cameras, which are full-video, pan-tilt-zoom surveillance cameras. Plus Mobile Security Trailers equipped with even more cameras and sensors.

But 133 is not the number that should concern you the most.

The scariest number here is 128. That’s how many channels each of BPD’s three Wing Video Integration Gateways can accept.

What does that mean in plain English? A Wing is basically a massive hard drive that records network video, packing 64TB of local storage. Those 128 channels can be fed by any compatible camera in the city. We’re talking about traffic cams, feeds from neighboring neighborhoods, and cameras from local schools and businesses.

All of that footage gets piped directly into Flock’s platform. And BPD bought three of these boxes.

What The Software Actually Does

Flock likes to call their platform a "situational awareness operating system." But the contracts gave us the actual feature list they keep off their public sales pages.

Here is what they are doing with all that data:

Convoy Analysis tracks multiple vehicles moving together across the camera network. Read that again. If you and your friends drive to a protest, a mutual aid drop, a church meeting, or just happen to be heading in the same direction, this system can flag that movement and log the connection between your vehicles. This isn’t about catching a specific car involved in a specific crime. This is pattern-of-life surveillance. It maps who you travel with.

FirstTwo Connection integrates a third-party resident database directly into the police map. When cops are looking at an incident, they can click on any nearby building and see the names, ages, and addresses of everyone who lives there. It even links to their phone numbers. They aren’t just looking at the vehicle owner. They’re looking at your neighbors.

Community Camera Registry pulls private and institutional cameras right into the BPD surveillance picture. Fixed camera feeds from local schools, businesses, and neighborhoods, even if those cameras aren’t made by Flock.

Visual Search & Multi Geo Search lets them hunt for vehicles by physical description and query license plates across multiple geographic areas at once. Physical description means exactly what it sounds like. A red SUV missing one hubcap with a roof rack on top. That level of detail. Across every camera in the network, across every zone they have access to.

CAD Connection wires 911 dispatch directly into the surveillance interface, putting calls-for-service and camera footage side by side.

Drone Video Integration pulls live drone feeds right into the same map.

Body Camera Integration lets officers pipe their body-worn camera feeds directly into the platform in real time.

You Are Paying For This

Here is where it gets absolutely infuriating.

A significant chunk of this mass surveillance network is funded by the Board of State and Community Corrections’ Organized Retail Theft Prevention grant. You can read all about the grant program over on the BSCC website.

This is a California state program that was sold to the public as a way to stop shoplifting. Instead, California taxpayers are subsidizing a multi-million dollar surveillance buildout that tracks who you drive with and maps who lives in your house.

BPD is pulling six figures annually from their ORT grant account and from city Technology Services just for the license plate readers. The video camera contract is funded from a totally separate ORT grant account.

In May 2025, Bakersfield signed a consolidation deal pulling every prior Flock contract into a single five-year term. This agreement locks the city into hundreds of thousands of dollars per year through May 2030.

And the document the city signed to govern this massive surveillance relationship doesn’t even have actual rules in it. It just points to a URL for Flock’s Terms of Service. Flock can update those rules whenever they feel like it.

What Comes Next

None of this infrastructure was put to a public vote. Nobody in Bakersfield got a say in whether they wanted convoy tracking, a resident database piped into a police map, or 384 channels of video intake capacity pointed at their neighborhoods. It showed up, paid for with grant money earmarked for shoplifting, and governed by a terms-of-service page that can change without notice.

We are still missing camera locations, privacy policies, and usage audits from BPD. All three were in scope of our original request, but they haven’t produced them yet.

You can bet your ass that we’re going to keep pulling on this thread.

Take Back Your Browser: The Firefox Privacy Starter Pack

So, you’ve read about BPD’s new surveillance network and you’re feeling a little exposed. That’s a reasonable response. We talk a lot about how your life, digital or otherwise, shouldn’t be a product. But fighting surveillance capitalism can feel like trying to boil the ocean.

You gotta start somewhere tho.

And the best place to start is right where you spend most of your time: your web browser. If you’re using Chrome, the first step is to ditch it for Firefox. Google is an ad company. They’re currently making changes to Chrome’s underlying architecture that kneecaps ad blockers.

Now, I’m not going to pretend Mozilla is perfect. They kind of give a shit about your privacy. Mostly, they’re just the only real cross-platform, non-WebKit alternative keeping us from a total browser monoculture. Even if their market share is a fraction of Chrome’s.

The problem is Firefox’s leadership has spent the last few years shoehorning AI features and other revenue-generating crud into the browser. Because of course they have.

So before we even get to extensions, you gotta strip all that junk out. I highly recommend using Just The Browser to handle that. It gives you a clean, basic Firefox install without the bloat.

Once you’ve done that, here are the three essential privacy extensions you need to install.

uBlock Origin

The problem: The modern web is a bloated, tracker-infested nightmare. Every site you visit is trying to load dozens of third-party scripts to track your behavior and serve you ads.

Why it matters: All that garbage slows down your computer, eats your battery, and feeds the massive data-broker machine.

The fix: Install uBlock Origin. Not "uBlock" or "AdBlock Plus." uBlock Origin. It is the absolute gold standard for blocking ads and tracking scripts. It’s lightweight, open-source, and it just works.

While you’re at it, you should soup it up with some custom filter lists. We mentioned a couple in our last dispatch that block AI content farm domains and strip AI features out of sites you already use. Add those. I’d also highly recommend adding the optimized OISD blocklist. It’s basically a massive, curated hit list of domains that serve ads, trackers, and malware.

If you need more motivation: California residents have been filing a wave of class action lawsuits under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) against companies that use these exact kinds of trackers on their websites. The courts are starting to take this seriously. The trackers you’re blocking aren’t just annoying. They’re a legal liability for the companies deploying them and a violation of your privacy under state law.

Firefox Multi-Account Containers

The problem: You log into Facebook or Google, and suddenly those companies can track you across every other tab you have open.

Why it matters: These companies build massive behavioral profiles on you by watching what you do outside of their walled gardens.

The fix: Mozilla’s Multi-Account Containers extension. It essentially sandboxes your tabs. You can put all your Google stuff in a "Google" container, and all your social media in a "Social" container. These containerized cookies and trackers can’t escape to follow you around the rest of the web.

ClearURLs

The problem: You ever copy a link to share with a friend, and it has a massive string of random letters and numbers at the end?

Why it matters: That’s a tracking parameter. It tells the site exactly who shared the link, where it was shared, and who clicked on it. It’s how they map out who you might know outside of known social networks without your permission.

The fix: ClearURLs quietly strips all that tracking garbage off the end of your links before the page even loads. It breaks the chain of surveillance without breaking the website you’re trying to visit.

Getting Started

I know it can be a pain to change your daily habits.

But taking control of your privacy doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process. And locking down your browser is the biggest, easiest step you can take today to opt out of the bullshit.

If you run into any weirdness setting these up, come find us at the Really Really Free Market this Sunday (March 15th) at Pioneer Park. We’d be happy to help you get things sorted.

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Things We’re Listening To

"Serious Business" by LOSSES

Paranoid synth music from LA. Seems like a good pick given the rest of this newsletter. 😅 If you like what you hear, they’re playing Jerry’s on March 19th.

"Alligator Bites Never Heal" by Doechii

Funny, biting, sometimes ironic, mostly earnest hip hop album that demands your dull attention while listening. Speaking from experience: great to have in your headphones on your bike commute.

Wrap It Up

We’ll keep posting updates on the BPD Flock situation right here in the newsletter, but we’re also trying to get better about sharing things between issues. We’ve got a Mastodon account where we post shorter updates, links, and commentary as things come up.

A shorter version of the Flock piece above already went up there before this newsletter went out. If you want to stay in the loop without waiting for the next dispatch, the fediverse is the place. No algorithm. No ads. Chronological feed. Honestly, it’s a thing of beauty.

Read The Documents For Yourself

We promised we’d share what BPD sent us. So here it is. These are the 13 documents produced in response to our California Public Records Act request about the city’s relationship with Flock Safety. Contracts, amendments, consolidation agreements, grant funding records, the works.

Download the full set of BPD/Flock Safety CPRA documents (PDF)

Read them. Share them. If you spot a smoking gun that we missed, let us know!

Anti-Capitalist Computer Club: March Reminders

Kind of a lot happening this month! Here’s the rundown…

There’s a digital security training tomorrow! Ariel is doing a training for Rapid Response Network of Kern on basic digital security for activists. Tomorrow, March 3rd from 5:30 – 7:00pm at Salon Juarez (815 E. 18th St). Come for some down and dirty practical tips and threat profiling exercises.

We’re at Dagny’s this Wednesday! March 4th at 6pm. Come hang out, bring your questions, bring a friend. If you’ve got an old laptop collecting dust (see: not your daily driver) bring it and a thumb drive. We’ll try to get Linux running on it before you leave. We’ll have distros ready to toss onto whatever lil storage device you bring.

The Really Really Free Market is back! Sunday, March 15th from 9am to 11am at Pioneer Park (4929 Pioneer Dr). Free haircuts from Pure Dew Beauty, free mending and sewing from Piñata Moon, and the usual deal: bring what you can, take what you need.

You don’t have to bring something to take something. That said, the RRFM is not a drop-off site. If you’ve got stuff to share, hang out, enjoy the park for a couple hours, and connect with your neighbors. We’ll have our table there.

Tools we’re sharing

Two adblock filter lists worth adding

If you’re running uBlock Origin, add these! The AI slop site blocklist blocks content farm domains that exist to wrap LLM output in ads. Stevo’s GenAI Blocklist strips AI features out of sites you’re already using: Google AI overviews, YouTube summaries, Grok buttons, Copilot in GitHub, whatever Amazon’s Rufus is. Add both. If you’re not running uBlock Origin yet, come to Dagny’s on Wednesday and we’ll get you set up.

Things we’re reading

The Watchers: How OpenAI, the US Government, and Persona Built an Identity Surveillance Machine That Files Reports on You to the Feds

A security researcher did a Shodan search, found a single IP, and ended up with 53 megabytes of unprotected source code sitting unauthenticated on a government endpoint. What it revealed: a platform that runs your selfie through facial recognition against watchlists, screens you against 14 categories of adverse media, and files Suspicious Activity Reports with FinCEN. Every time you verify your identity to use a commercial AI service, this is part of what happens. No systems were breached. The door was just open.

Things we’re listening to

The NTS Guide To… Dub & Reggae Influenced Post Punk

March in Bakersfield started at 82 degrees. Some dub vibes seem like the appropriate response.

Things we’re plugging

Bakersfield Burrito Project

While you’re thinking about showing up on March 15th, the Bakersfield Burrito Project is out at it every single Sunday, rain or shine, feeding our hungry and unhoused neighbors across the city. If you’ve got a few dollars to spare, they take donations via Cash App, Venmo, and PayPal. Links to all three are on their site.

Give us a follow

We could always use a few more followers over on our Mastodon account. And if you don’t even know what Mastodon (or the fediverse) is, just ask us the next time we’re hanging out.

Okay. That’s all we’ve got for now… Hope to see you soon!

Anti-Capitalist Computer Club: March 2026

Another month, another reason to get together and figure things out. We’ve got a full meeting coming up at Dagny’s on March 4th, a couple of projects that are ready to move from "we’ve been talking about this" to actually doing it, and some reading and whatnot that connects directly to the work.

We’re also expecting the Really Really Free Market to happen on the third Sunday of the month, weather permitting. You can bet that we’ll have our usual table there. We’ll send a separate email as soon as the date is confirmed.

Here’s what’s on our plate for March…

Meeting at Dagny’s Coffee Co.

March 4th, 2026 @ 6pm

We’re back at Dagny’s for our March meeting. Come hang out, ask questions, share what you’ve been working on, and meet your neighbors who are also trying to figure out how to use technology without being used by it. We’ll have folks on hand to talk through digital privacy basics and answer whatever might be on your mind. No experience required. Just show up.

Things we’re working towards

Flock Walk

A community mapping project where we help document and catalog Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs) scattered across Bakersfield for DeFlock, a national project making police surveillance impossible to ignore. We walk a chosen neighborhood, record where these cameras are, and build the kind of shared knowledge that actually protects people. This surveillance infrastructure went up in our community without our knowledge or consent, and somebody’s gotta make it visible.

Mesh Networking

We’re also considering experimenting with mesh networking technology like Meshtastic and MeshCore. Both are decentralized communication tools that work without cell service or corporate infrastructure. Think of it as building backup communication channels for our community — ways to stay connected during emergencies, coordinate mutual aid work, or just communicate with one another without relying on systems that don’t have our interests in mind. We want to figure out what will actually work in Bakersfield and would like to invite people to explore this with us. No technical experience required.

Resurrect Your Old Laptop

Hardware gets abandoned long before it stops working. We want to start dedicating time at our Dagny’s meetings to helping people get Linux running on old machines. A laptop that chokes on Windows 11 runs Linux Mint or Debian just fine. Bring an old laptop and a USB thumb drive and we’ll get it running again. This is permacomputing in practice: use what exists, waste nothing, depend on no one but each other.

Things we’re reading

The Tech We Want / Read This Before You Build

The Open Knowledge Foundation put out a field guide asking the questions that should come before any line of code gets written: who is this for, who will maintain it, and does it actually need to exist? Built around their experience developing an open data tool alongside real communities, it’s a practical argument for building smaller, and with people rather than for them.

The Bliss Attractor

When multiple instances of Claude were left talking to each other without human input, they reliably collapsed into loops of gratitude, spiritual language, and thousands of spiral emojis. This bit of critical theory uses that phenomenon to ask what’s actually baked into AI training. Whose idea of "helpful" gets encoded, and what it means that the logical endpoint of safety-optimized AI might just be a machine that keeps saying thank you until it stops saying anything at all.

How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance

A practical Wired guide to protecting yourself and your people when the stakes are real. Good foundational reading whether you’re new to this or just looking to tighten things up.

Things we’re watching

Gadgets For People Who Don’t Trust The Government

Benn Jordan walks through a set of DIY projects that connect directly to things we’re already working on: a Meshtastic node built into a solar garden light, a Flock Safety ALPR detector, a weather satellite data ripper, and a Stingray detector. Comes with a brief history of anarchism woven throughout. Worth your time before March 4th.

Neighbourhood-First Software

Jade Ambrose makes the case for hosting open source web software for your actual physical neighbors. A few people with technical skills keeping a server running for a few hundred people nearby — ideally close enough to walk to when the power goes out. The climate framing is serious and the practical stuff on Raspberry Pis and mesh networking will feel familiar given what we’re already thinking about.

Things we’re listening to

Particle Shift: Atmospheric DnB & Jungle

Background music for reading, hacking, or staring out a window thinking about mesh networks.

Close the door, open eyes: Post-punk cult anthems

For when you need something with a lil bit more edge.

We’re on social media now, but not like that

We spun up a Mastodon account. Chronological feed, no ads, no behavioral tracking. Follow us there for shorter updates and links between meetings.

Hello friend!

Bakersfield’s Anti-Capitalist Computer Club is gathering again this coming Wednesday, February 4th, and we’d love for you to join us.

We’ll be at Dagny’s Coffee (1600 20th St.) from 6pm to 8pm.

It’s going to be a chill, low-stress time. Bring your laptop, your phone, or just your skepticism. Whether you want to finally switch to Signal, get that ad blocker installed, or just chat with some friendly faces who agree that a small handful of companies shouldn’t own our entire digital lives, come say hi.

No agenda. No upsells. Just coffee, community, and a little bit of autonomy.

Hope to see you there!