I am all too familiar with this. Many people who use these cameras have no respect for public space and this is only one way they show it. They water the sidewalk, let fires smolder for hours, compulsively operate leaf blowers, and generally make the urban outdoors crappier every day.

@economist.com The @michaelhobbes.bsky.social and Peter Shamshiri podcast "If Books Could Kill” demolished the book _In Covid’s Wake_ in June. Your paper is weekly. What were you doing, printing an uncritical review of a foolish book in the second half of August?

@wyden.senate.gov You cannot protect human freedom by making deals with surveillance firms like Flock Safety. They can always make a new deal with someone else. Ban their business model. End the mass surveillance sector.

Another great book that I finished recently was @kimkelly.bsky.social’s Fight Like Hell, a history of the U.S. organized labor movement since colonial times. Gives several examples of private surveillance / violence (Pinkertons, hired thugs) and police opposing organizers—rhymes with the present!

Finished “Nuclear Is Not the Solution” by M.V. Ramana last night. Nuclear is carrying the same baggage as it always has: bad economics, near- and long-term environmental dangers, proliferation risks, and public corruption. We cannot afford to waste time and money on it.

I am continually appalled that Flock is even allowed to exist. Their network is a machine for abusing human rights at scale.

Timothy Snyder mentions something important, that Russia is very interested in psychological vulnerability, which Trump has lots of. snyder.substack.com/p/trumps-psy... Does Russian intelligence deploy better “psychological technology” than the U.S. does?

In the ‘50s and ‘60s there were organized movements with leaders—some leaders were highly talented. People trained to be movement participants. Rosa Parks was brave; IIUC, she was also a trained activist. I lack movement training and ISTM talented leaders are few and far between—what about you?

New heat pump came with a new “smart thermostat.” Old one (Nest) pretended to be a sleek ally for the energy miser as it tried during some winters to freeze some users in their homes. The new one (ecobee) does not pretend to be anything but a low-user-utility instrument for surveillance capitalism.

Urbana keeps rejecting ALPRs but we are surrounded by communities that have helped extend Flock Safety’s web of unaccountable surveillance. Chances are high that Flock stalks you on daily journeys. This is a bad situation but it is also reversible.