Episode 108 - Cops and Klan

This week, Roqayah and Kumars talk surveillance and repression with first-time guest Kade Crockford, director of the ACLU Massachusetts Technology for Liberty program, as well as returning guest Freddy Martinez, a hacker, activist, and director of the transparency and digital rights organization Lucy Parsons Labs. Freddy fills everyone in on the circumstances surrounding his arrest at a far-right rally in Berkeley called “No to Marxism,” after which his name and mugshot were tweeted out by the Berkeley Police Department as part of what emails obtained by Lucy Parsons Labs show was a deliberate social media strategy to punish him and other leftist organizers.

Kade and Freddy touch on the historical role of surveillance in the repression of radical organizing, particularly in marginalized communities, before detailing the current landscape and latest developments in the expansion of surveillance by local, state, and federal police forces. We learn about the Preventing Emerging Threats Act and leaks showing FISA is being used to spy on journalists. The gang ends with a discussion of the longstanding, mostly unspoken alliance between law enforcement and the far-right, going beyond overlaps in membership to consider the ways state power and the supposed right-wing fringe collaborate against their common left enemy.

Follow Kade on Twitter @onekade and Freddy @b_meson. Check out Freddy’s write-up of the leaked Berkeley PD emails on the Lucy Parsons Labs blog, and keep up with Kade’s work on the ACLU Massachusetts’s blog Privacy Matters.

A transcript for this episode will be provided upon request. Please send an email to deleteuracct @ gmail to get a copy sent to you when it is completed.

If you want to support the show and receive access to tons of bonus content, subscribe on our Patreon page for as little as $5 a month. Also, don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review the show on iTunes. We can't do this show without your support!!!