Shownotes Episode 5

Transcript available HERE
Content Note: This episode mentions children in immigration detention and residential schools.

Borders have long been sites of colonial enforcement about who can come and go and how Indigenous peoples are treated. Canada is no exception. Increasingly, governments look to technology to make potentially life-or-death decisions about whether a person fleeing danger should be allowed to cross a border. What happens when that technology reinforces bias and makes unreliable choices?

Author and activist Harsha Walia leads us through how borders came to exist and how Canada has used them to keep out "undesirables" from the country with tools like the Safe Third Country Agreement. We connect with Joy Henderson, an Afro-Indigenous person whose own experience with the oppressive power of borders means they're unable to claim status in Canada. We chat with Jamie Duncan, a PhD student and researcher about how deploying artificial intelligence at the border can reinforce systemic racism in some disturbing ways. And finally, Petra Molnar, a researcher who authored a report with Citizen Lab at the Unversity of Toronto, explains her work on how the border is often a test site for invasive surveillance technologies on asylum seekers.

Take Action

• Canada: End the Safe Third Country Agreement – Amnesty International Canada

Further Resources

• Canada: Leading human rights groups challenge Safe Third Country Agreement at Supreme Court – Amnesty International Canada
• REPORT – Canada: Abuse, Discrimination in Immigration Detention – Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International Canada
• BOOK – Harsha Walia “Border and Rule”
• REPORT – Bots at the Gate: a human rights analysis of automated decision-making in Canada’s immigration and refugee system – Petra Molnar
• Migrant Rights Network
• Canadian Council for Refugees – Safe Third Country Agreement

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript available HERE.

Content note: this episode is about racial profiling

“I'm aware that any time I have an interaction with police that my life could be in danger-- or my freedom.” - Gyasi Symonds

After he was accused of jaywalking and then followed back to his workplace, Gyasi Symonds won his racial profiling case against the Halifax Regional Police. But street surveillance of Black people continues across the country. What's behind calls to defund the police in Canada and what does public safety mean? Does it really mean more police on the streets?

We learn from El Jones about the history of defunding the police and abolition, and how technology tends to exacerbate surveillance issues that already exist. We then cross the country to meet Tonye Aganaba who organizes with Vancouver’s abolitionist group defund604, to hear about their work and the people’s budget they conducted. Finally, we sit down with Chuka Ejeckam, a political researcher who talks us through some of his research on comparative police budgets and breaks down the Vancouver Police Department’s video game-style recruitment content on social media.

Further resources:

• Carding and Anti-Black Racism in Canada - Amnesty International Canada
• TAKE ACTION: Canada: Stop Anti-Black Racism and Overpolicing - Amnesty International Canada
• Anti-Black Racism and Policing: Keep up the Pressure - Amnesty International Canada
• Halifax, Nova Scotia: Street Checks Report (March 2019), Scot Wortley
• Defunding the Police: Defining the Way Forward for HRP Tari Ajadi, Dr. El Jones, Harry Critchley, Julia Rodgers
• BOOK: Simone Browne “Dark Matters: On the Surveillance of Blackness”
• Defund604 Network and their People’s Budget
• Chuka Ejeckam “Defunding the VPD is an investment in public safety and collective well-being”
• Africville Forever – a podcast about Africville, Nova Scotia

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Shownotes Episode 3

Transcript available HERE.

Content note: this episode contains mentions of sexual violence

“I feel like people would have cared more… about this injustice if I had just died.” - Rowa Mohamed

Rowa Mohamed showed up to support her neighbours at an encampment eviction and was injured by police during the protest. Her experience of violence is not unusual – Black Muslim women are often treated with suspicion, like they don’t belong. What happens when people “fight crime” with home surveillance technology and treat their own neighbours as suspects?

We chat with Hannan Mohamud about the surveillance of Muslims and the proposed “barbaric practices hotline”, connect with Ottawa’s Coalition Against More Surveillance and the resistance they’re engaged in to stop proliferation of surveillance technology in their neighbourhoods, and finally we connect with Dr. Chris Gilliard who walks us through the pitfalls of luxury surveillance and how doorbell surveillance cameras threaten our human rights.

Further resources:

• Protect the Protest - Amnesty International
• Hamilton Encampment Support Network
• Coalition Against More Surveillance
• BOOK: Andrea Ritchie “Invisible No More”
• REPORT: The Toxic Culture of Misogyny, Racism and Violence in the RCMP
• Women working with RCMP suffered 'shocking' levels of violence, sex assaults, says report
• ARTICLE: Chris Gilliard ““The Rise of Luxury Surveillance”

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.