An activist and publisher examining local opposition to automated license-plate readers and the wider commercial surveillance industry.
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Watch E003 ↗Episode 002 · Released September 22
The AI
Control Grid
Agenda 2030, Flock cameras, digital identity, and the infrastructure joining surveillance to artificial intelligence.
Aaron DayJason BasslerBarrett BrownMark Passio
Available now · Audio + video
The conversation
What connects the systems being built around us?
What connects digital identity, roadside cameras, programmable money, and the rapid construction of AI data centers? Aaron Day and his guests approach the emerging surveillance stack from different directions: local organizing, private intelligence, technical infrastructure, morality, and personal responsibility.
Identity. Cameras. Data. Power.
Digital identityLicense-plate readersPrivate intelligenceAI infrastructureCensorshipResistance
In this episode
Three perspectives on a system taking shape.
A journalist and researcher connecting contemporary surveillance networks to private intelligence contracting and the strategic use of collected data.
View guest profile →A researcher arguing that technical systems cannot be separated from morality, individual responsibility, and the choices of the people who build and obey them.
View guest profile →Hosted by
Aaron Day
Aaron brings the discussion together around digital overreach, financial privacy, artificial intelligence, and the systems shaping individual choice.
View host profile →Show notes + sources
References from the conversation.
The technotronic era
“More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society.”Zbigniew Brzezinski · Between Two Ages (1970) ↗
Continuous surveillance
“It will soon be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and to maintain up-to-date, complete files, containing even most personal information about the health or personal behaviour of the citizen, in addition to more customary data. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.”Zbigniew Brzezinski · America in the Technetronic Age (1968) ↗
Private capital for infrastructure
“And so, much of this money — is gonna be coming from the private sector. From savings accounts, from pension accounts, from insurance companies, and on and on and on.”Larry Fink · Yahoo Finance ↗
SignalTrace, ALPR and Bluetooth tracking
Leonardo’s SignalTrace technology combines automatic license-plate recognition with the detection of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals emitted by nearby phones, earbuds, watches, and other devices.
TechRepublic ↗