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!