Heyo companions in electronics,
The sands of time slip on, and so do we. Another month for us to get up to some mischief.

MAY MEET-UPS

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

Bring your projects, your hopes, your dreams, and we'll work on em together. Some of the stuff we've been tinkering with lately is mesh networking for decentralized communication, Discord alternatives, and dismantling systems of oppression.
 

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

Deep dive webinar panel organized by the Library Freedom Project and featuring speakers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Lucy Parsons Labs, and Ariel repping Anti-Capitalist Computer Club and sharing some of the work we've been up to.
 

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

Stop by and say hi! The RRFM is a great opportunity to connect with other folks in the community, pick up some cool shit, and/or get rid of shit you don't need anymore. We will be tabling there as usual, offering our menu of services and our zines on digital security and de-surveilling our neighborhoods.

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

The most morbid scavenger hunt in the city, guaranteed! We'll walk the neighborhood and look out for surveillance equipment and log it on the DeFlock app. Come for some leisurely exercise, socializing, and camera-hunting. Each camera logged is a win for transparency and against the structures that seek to control us.

CITY COUNCIL V. ANTI-CAPITALIST COMPUTER CLUB

We reached out to Bakersfield City Council last week about the proposed 2026-27 fiscal year budget. 

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.
Do we think they're going to meaningfully address these concerns? Given their past track record, it's highly unlikely. But this is just the first step on a long, hard hike to advocating for a freer, less surveilled Bakersfield. If this sounds up your alley and you'd like to get involved with this advocacy work, hit us up! We're just getting started.

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"

Unhinged puff piece from Flock Safety about how a massive, nationwide infrastructure of surveillance that any law enforcement agency can tap into any time without a warrant is good, actually. Know your enemy type shit.

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

Great news, team! Your Signal chat notifications aren't being secretly stored in your iPhone's notification database anymore. This is a win for privacy thanks to reporting by 404 Media, and a good reminder that just because you communicate on Signal, that doesn't make you invisible.
If you need help locking down your phone's privacy and security settings, hit us up at any one of the places we'll be this month (or email us!) and we'll be happy to help.

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

Great, short breakdown vid explaining different long range radio wave mesh network protocols and their use-cases.

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!

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