Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence

Mizue Aizeki is the Director of Surveillance,Technology, and Immigration Policing at the Immigrant Defense Project (IDP). Aizeki’s photographic work appears in Dying to Live, A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid and Policing the Planet.Matt Mahmoudi is Researcher/Adviser on Artificial Intelligence & Human Rights at Amnesty Tech, where he has spent the last two years leading the effort to ban facial recognition technologies. He is an Affiliated Lecturer at the University of Cambridge. Mahmoudi is co-author of the book Digital Witness, published by Oxford University Press.Coline Schupfer is a consultant working with the International Institute for Environment and Development and Open Society Foundations on community-based public interest litigation. She has written for publications including the International Justice Monitor, Border Criminologies, Opinio Juris, and the Asia Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law.Ruha Benjamin is an internationally recognized writer, speaker, and professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where she is the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab. She is the award-winning author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code and editor of Captivating Technology, among many other publications. Her work has been featured widely in the media, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, The Root, and The Guardian.

"[This] book goes well beyond empowering us with information. It highlights the connections at all levels of government, from the local to the international; between private corporations and public policies; among states of the Global North that collude in sustaining global apartheid; and among organizations and movements across the globe that are fighting against the same corporations and technologies and against the shared root causes of oppression in imperialism and racial capitalism."—Convergence"This volume... holds a mirror up to the everyday violence of borders that rarely capture widespread public attention, much less outrage. The essays and case studies that follow draw our attention to the policies and technologies that governments and companies are deploying quietly and viciously, tearing into people’s lives, ripping families apart, and hunting down the most vulnerable, one computer bit at a time."—Ruha Benjamin, from the Foreword"In a world awash with violent borders, this book serves as a beacon of hope guiding us towards a more just future."—Reece Jones, author of Nobody Is Protected: How the Border Patrol Became the Most Dangerous Police Force in the United States"A valuable resource for those trying to dismantle technologized regimes of state terror around the world and create something life-giving in their place."—Ben Tarnoff, author of Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future

• FOREWORD: Borders & Bits: From Obvious to Insidious Violence by Ruha BenjaminIntroduction: Resisting Technologies of Violence and Control By Mizue Aizeki, Matt Mahmoudi, and Coline SchupferSECTION 1: Ideologies of Exclusion:Title? By Harsha WaliaMultiplying State Violence in the Name of Homeland Security by Mizue AizekiEmpire’s Walls, Global Apartheid’s Infrastructure by Joseph Nevins and Todd MillerFortress Europe’s Proliferating Borders by Miriam TicktinFrontex and Fortress Europe’s Technological Experiments by Katy Fallon and Petra MolnarAbolish Migration Deterrence by Jenna M. LoydCruel Fictions in the Black Mediterranean by Ida Danewid, The Black Mediterranean CollectiveCASE STUDY: Why We Need Local Campaigns to End Immigration DetentionCASE STUDY: Why We Took the U.K. to Court for their Discriminatory Visa Streaming AlgorithmSECTION 2: Conjuring the Perfect Threat: Techno-Securitization and Domestic PolicingBuilding the #NoTechforICE Campaign: An Interview with Jacinta GonzalezBig Tech, Borders and Biosecurity: Securitization in Britain after Covid-19 by Nisha KapoorTargeting Muslim communities in NYC: Interview with Fahd AhmedGlobal Palestine: Exporting Israel’s Regime of Population Control by Jeff HalperChicago’s Gang Database Targeting People of Color: Interview with Xanat Sobrevilla and Alyx GoodwinBuilding Community Power in Unequal Cities: Interview with Hamid KhanCASE STUDY: Why We Are Suing Clearview AI In California State CourtCASE STUDY: How We Fight Against (Tech-Facilitated) Persecution of Uyghurs in China and AbroadCASE STUDY: Stop Urban Shield: How We Fought DHS’ Militarized Police TrainingsSECTION 3: Digital IDs: The Body as a BorderDigital ID: A Primer by Sara Baker, The Engine RoomIDs and the Citizen: Technologically Determined Identity in India by Usha RamanathanThe cost of recognition by the state: IDs card as coercion: Interview with Rodjé Malcolm and Matthew McNaughtonThe UK’s Production of Tech-enabled Precarity: An Interview with Gracie Mae BradleyOn Donkeys and Blockchains: A Conversation with Margie CheesmanCASE STUDY: How We Mobilized Civil Society to Fight Tunisia’s Proposed Digital ID SystemCASE STUDY: Why We Must Fight for Alternatives to the UK’s Digital-Only ID SystemSECTION 4: Bordering Everyday CitiesApartheid Tech: The Use and Expansion of Biometric Identification and Surveillance Technologies in the Occupied West Bank by Marwa FartaftaThe Encroachment of Smart Cities by Ben GreenCONTROL-X: Communication, Control, & Exclusion by Brian JeffersonData Justice in Mexico: How Big Data is Reshaping the Struggle for Rights and Political Freedoms by Arely Cruz-Santiago, Ernesto Schwartz-Marín, and Conor O’ReillyCorporate Tech and The Legible City by Ryan Gerety, Mariah Montgomery, Mizue Aizeki and Nasma AhmedSeeing the Watched: Mass Surveillance in Detroit By Tawana PettyNecropolitics and Neoliberalism Are Driving Brazil’s Surveillance Infrastructure By Rafael EvangelistaCASE STUDY: Why We Must Fight Against COVID-19 Surveillance and TechnosolutionismCASE STUDY: How We Challenged the German Migration Office’s Surveillance TechnologyCASE STUDY: Fighting San Diego’s Smart Streetlights Super Surveillance SystemSECTION 5: Looking ForwardAbolish National Security by Arun KundnaniThe First Step is Finding Each Other by Timmy ChâuThe Red Deal: Indigenous Liberation and The Fight to Save the Planet by Nick EstesTrying Harder to Build a World Where Life is Precious: An Interview with Ruth Wilson GilmoreEditors and ContributorsAcknowledgments