Our collective endorses the "Sunshine Over Surveillance" open letter published by Sunshine Labs, which urges Asheville City Council to vote NO on a $1.14M DOJ grant to expand surveillance through the creation of a "real time intelligence center," and the authorization of a separate 7.5-year contract with Axon.

In particular, we agree with the following major objections articulated by the authors:

"Public participation and procurement have been bypassed. Council has heard from only APD and the vendors. The 7.5-year Axon contract has had no committee review and is being authorized through Sourcewell—a cooperative-purchasing exemption that bypasses competitive bidding.

Residents need more information. The proposed Axon contract and the existing Flock contract are both unpublished. APD has refused a public records request for Flock audit logs. One agency on APD's Flock data-sharing list is Florida Fish & Wildlife—reported by @404mediaco to be running thousands of Flock searches on behalf of ICE.

Federal money is not free money. The current administration has explicitly conditioned federal funding on local ICE cooperation and pursued legal action against jurisdictions that limit it. The grant resolution itself acknowledges that compliance terms will be set "at the Federal level"—and reviewed only AFTER acceptance. Separately, Axon held approximately $31.9 million in ICE contracts in 2025.

Civilian oversight has been dismantled. Asheville's Citizens Police Advisory Committee was paused in 2020 and dismantled in 2024. APD points to self-audits—but in San Francisco, SFPD shared Flock data with ICE and out-of-state agencies 1.6 million times in violation of state law, undetected through two consecutive quarterly audits."

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As an abolitionist organization, Firestorm believes that police reform is unrealistic and opposes any investment in policing. Sunshine Labs demonstrates that even non-abolitionists should reject the undemocratic and opaque proposals under consideration by City Council.

#DeFlock #AntiSurveillance #AbolishICE #FeministBookstore

This week @404mediaco revealed that Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is providing ICE with access to Flock surveillance data. This should raise alarms in Asheville because city records show that Asheville police are sharing data with that state agency, potentially exposing residents and visitors to ICE tracking.

According to a spreadsheet (begrudgingly) provided by the City of Asheville in response to Sunshine Request last September, APD is sharing search and "hotlist" data with over 1,300 agencies, including Florida's FWC and others known to provide ICE with warrantless access to Flock. Flock data includes the license plate, brand, color, and even bumper stickers of every vehicle photographed. According to the Flock transparency portal, APD's relatively small camera network generated 357,227 vehicle records in the last 30 days alone.

The City of Asheville must publicly release Flock audit logs to show with whom, and for what purpose, surveillance data collected in our community is being shared. Furthermore, in response to the clearly demonstrated threat posed to Asheville residents, the city should cancel its Flock contract immediately.

To learn more about Flock and other surveillance technologies being deployed against our community, please join us on Saturday, April 11th at 3pm for a presentation by Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure. More information can be found at https://firestorm.coop/events/3520-you-are-being-watched-an-introduction-to-police-surveillance-in-buncombe-county.html.

#DeFlock #AntiSurveillance #AbolishICE (- L)

A lot of the specific security measures discussed here are overkill for personal use, but cultivating the sort of security mindset that's behind those measures will help keep any of us safer in an increasingly dangerous political environment -- especially in the US.

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-organize-safely-in-the-age-of-surveillance/

#security #antisurveillance #organizing

📝 New article: Nofuture-Memguard-PQ – Your Answer to ChatControl

Nofuture-Memguard-PQ: self-hostable, ephemeral, post-quantum encryption to defeat ChatControl surveillance. Reclaim your privacy on mainstream platforms.

🔗 https://www.virebent.art/blog/nofuture.html

#chatcontrol #antisurveillance #selfhostedencryption

Our Faception pattern in action to trick #facialrecognition

Which face is the real one or do I really have 3 faces? 😵‍💫

Tested with the Iphone (S8) camera App and also with the Yolo Algorithm.

https://urban-privacy.com/de/collections/faception-reloaded/products/faception-sweat-black

#dazzle #trickai #antisurveillance #facerecognition #surveillance #antiai #digitaleselbstbestimmung #privacyfirst #privacymatters #privacy #faception #urbanprivacy

Telegram isn’t a privacy app.
Default chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted, messages sit on Telegram’s servers, and “Secret Chats” aren’t default.

Great for groups — not for private conversations.

#privacy #infosec #security #decentralization #FOSS #FediPrivacy #Transparency #DigitalRights #AntiSurveillance #CivilLiberties