AGENDA

Friday, June 21

at City Hall Restaurant

  • The role of technology in the genocide of Palestinians can not be ignored. From the way information travels online to the use of artificial intelligence by the Israeli Occupation Forces, Palestinians have long lived in a surveillance state. Yet the siege on Gaza is seeing further advances of technology as a weapon of war as Israel continues to be an exporter of surveillance tech to borders and police departments across the world. And in the United States and across the world, people uprising in support of the struggle for Palestine on college campuses and in the streets have been targeted for surveillance. Our opening panel will explore all of this and more, as we deepen our understanding of the current crisis and its implications for all of us.

Saturday, June 22

at Chicago Teacher’s Union

  • The hype and hysteria around artificial intelligence are at an all-time high, and yet that hasn’t slowed down how quickly AI-enabled tools are being used. Catchy headlines would lead you to believe that the biggest concerns around AI are the potential of this technology to wipe out humans. But what is this focus around AI hiding on the actual costs humans will pay for this tech? And ultimately who stands to benefit? This panel will help unpack the political moment we are in and what is at stake.

  • Get grounded in how the dark patterns of technology are used for social control, oppression and criminalization of our communities.

  • By Stop LAPD Spying Coalition

    The goal of this workshop is to provide a brief overview of how public health data and methods are shared across social safety-net systems and weaponized against communities through emboldening the carceral state. This will be done via case studies that take a historical and international approach to understanding public health’s role in maintaining injustice and will include contemporary examples, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing occupation of Palestine. These conversations will center organizing efforts across the country that have exposed and challenged the ways in which these data and forms of surveillance contradict the fundamental principles of health equity.

  • By The Drug Policy Alliance, ACLU Women’s Right Project

    We will explore the range of surveillance technologies within civil systems to monitor people who use drugs or people suspected of using and/or selling drugs, especially within the family policing system (so-called "child welfare system") and consequences for non-citizens of family court investigations. What technologies are already deployed and what's on the horizon? Which spaces are particularly subject to surveillance? We will discuss technologies including algorithms and predictive analytics, digital health and criminal legal data sharing, background checks, and drug testing. We’ll explore the incentives driving these technologies, who they impact, and how.

  • By Accountable Tech

    This workshop will explore the implications of a growing surveillance state on reproductive freedoms. We will discuss the long history of criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, which are increasingly assisted by digital forensic and surveillance technologies. We will hear from reproductive justice activists and organizers about the most pressing concerns they see in their own work, discuss what resistance to surveillance looks like, and ideate on broad demands for tech companies and policymakers to protect abortion seekers and reproductive privacy.

  • By Stop LAPD Spying Coalition

    Our workshop will provide a history of youth surveillance programs in the United States, focusing on their elevation to national security significance. We will also track how these programs have been reformed in response to community opposition and have now incorporated a public health framework that criminalizes mental health. Our workshop will conclude by discussing how to best build power as federal policing agencies partner with health agencies to expand criminalization and surveillance programs.

  • By Radical Elders

    Elders comprise nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population and, yet, we frequently ignore the enormous harm surveillance, AI, disinformation and so many other aspects of technology does to them -- and the enormous potential tech offers elders' for a better society and a movement to build one. Join Radical Elders, the national organization of left-wing activists over 55, for a conversation about technology and elders: the oppressions and the potential.

  • By Muslim Advocates

    How the surveillance state targets marginalized communities—and won’t stop there. Panelists will discuss the reauthorization of FISA Section 702 and how surveillance policies and other laws connect to the silencing of political speech, from Stop Cop City to Black activists, to Palestinian and/or Muslim identity (in the struggle for Palestinian freedom and beyond), indigenous environmental activists, and immigrants. Panelists will also discuss the impacts of surveillance and police aggression on individual activists, communities, and implications for our collective action for liberation.

  • By The Athena Coalition, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, PowerSwitch Action

    Fueled by the expansion of power-hungry artificial intelligence, tech corporations are rapidly expanding data center build out. In the last few months, Amazon has opened data centers adjacent to nuclear power, it is connecting directly to a new pipeline in Oregon, and is forcing Virginia to consider importing coal power. In Virginia, the 25 million square feet of data centers currently use as much electricity as the entire City of Seattle and by 2024 those data centers are estimated to need more energy than France. Amazon recently beat back legislation in Oregon that would require renewable energy build out, but tech workers and local communities are organizing to force the company and the industry to change. This will be an interactive discussion with Amazon tech workers and organizers.

  • By Carceral Tech Resistance Network

    For organizers who’ve just gained a handle on big data, the Internet of Things, and algorithms, the emergence of AI and the way these tech are being used to surveil, target, and criminalize our communities can feel like a new and unfamiliar threat. In this workshop, we’ll demonstrate a community power mapping strategy called “synthesization of our praxis” introduced to us by facilitators at the Berta Cáceres International Feminist Organizing School. SoP teaches us how to historicize AI and to root our understanding of it in the longer history of colonialism, white supremacy, and popular resistance to Empire.

  • By People’s Tech Project

    Across the country and around the world, our communities have fought powerful campaigns at the intersection of technology, race and inequality for years. But in a time of extraordinary crisis, technology has helped the state and corporations to stay stable and continue to extract from and exploit our communities. This year, as part of a process led by People's Tech Project, leaders from 15 tech justice organizations came together to ask a giant question: how is technology holding up the entire system of racial capitalism? And if we try to understand how tech helps keep that system flowing, can we find the weak points in that system, and assess how our groups would need to come together to hit those weak points, and take it down? This workshop will orient attendees to how we answered the question of how tech holds up capital, explore some of the implications of what we found in terms of the strategy the tech justice sector and the left should pursue, and help us tell the story of how we've transformed in the process of imagining that we have the power to truly change the world.

  • By National Shot Spotter Coalition

    Join this workshop for a dialogue with organizers about the strategy and lessons learned from three cities in the national #StopShotSpotter coalition. Organizers from Boston, Chicago, and Portland will create space for a conversation about what ShotSpotter is, the strategies used to challenge it, and lessons learned.

  • Parable of the Sower - Hear how communities are fighting back, creating change and sowing the seeds of our liberated futures.

  • By Just Futures Law

    This workshop will provide background on data brokers, what they collect and sell, and their impact on communities. We’ll walk you through the process of requesting and deleting your data with a data broker, and share the limitations of the current process. We’ll also discuss larger policy protections and demands at the local and federal level to stop data brokers and protect people’s data.

  • By Advancement Project, Puente Human Rights Movement

    The fight for Police Free Schools saw important wins in cities across the country in 2020, when many school districts finally listened to young people and removed policed officers from their schools. However, we quickly saw that even if a district removed cops, that did not mean they stopped policing young people – many places instead chose to invest in surveillance technologies. Over the past several years school surveillance has grown to a multi-billion dollar industry, all without any evidence or research to support the claims of “safety” that these companies make. This workshop will discuss what school surveillance is and why its harmful, and what people are doing to fight back against it.

  • By No Tech for Apartheid Campaign

    Hear from Google workers who were fired in April after staging historic coast-to-coast sit-ins at New York City and Sunnyvale, CA Google offices to demand their bosses stop powering Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza via their $1.2B cloud contract with the Israeli apartheid state. In this session, ex-Google workers will briefly share their experiences before we collectively: explore how tech companies are the new war profiteers fueling the settler-colonial war machine from the U.S. to Israel & strategize together on building national-local worker, student and community power to demand tech divestment from state violence.

  • By Surveillance Resistance Lab

    Join us for a workshop to learn about how digital ID systems are increasing state violence and corporate control in the US and around the world. Right now, digital ID systems are being used to mediate access to social services, transportation, communications, housing, and more. They are part of the global push to automate policing and therefore have significant consequences for communities who are already heavily criminalized. This workshop will also explore pathways for organizing to challenge the adoption of these systems, drawing on examples from Australia, India, towards building organizing strategies against mobile driver’s licenses in the US.

  • By The Athena Coalition, Missouri Worker Center

    Each day at Amazon warehouses, hundreds of thousands of workers are monitored and penalized for not working quickly enough. The logic of criminalization coupled with technologies of control turns the human into a robot, an object of control. This same logic of control underpins state surveillance. Within the Athena coalition we have brought together worker organizers, antipolicing activists, tech policy and worker advocacy groups to fight back. We've organized popular education, partnered with researchers, developed policy models, forced regulators to act, and educated reporters. During the session, organizers will share how these methods of control function, the historical context, and how people are fighting back.

  • By Progressive Technology Project and Mayfirst

    This workshop will be presented by May First Movement Technology and Progressive Technology Project and will look at the complicity of Big Tech in the oppressions of the current political moment. We'll explore the rich history of left technology and also discuss the expanding network of alternative, movement-aligned technologies that do exist.

  • By Access Now

    In the U.S., policymakers have debated various issues surrounding TikTok, ranging from general data privacy concerns to potential threats posed by China to U.S. national security, as well as the platform’s purported algorithmic influence on young audiences to adopt a more pro-Palestinian stance. On April 24, 2024, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that threatens to block access to TikTok nationally if the company does not divest to a U.S.-based owner. This sets the stage for a series of legal challenges and, if implemented, could result in the country's first recorded shutdown. We will explore the challenges and opportunities in safeguarding user data, the impact of internet shutdowns on freedom of expression, and the broader human rights implications.

  • By Techies 4 Reproductive Justice

    This workshop will give an overview of the state of abortion access, reproductive justice values, how they do or do not show up in tech we use or fight against, and how the abortion access movement is working to incorporate reproductive justice values to build our values-driven tech that keeps our movements safer and stronger.

  • By WITNESS

    Synthetic media can offer opportunities to create impactful narratives, but it can also be used to misinform and undermine democracy. During the upcoming elections, it is necessary that we prepare to avert and mitigate potential harms, especially those that can affect vulnerable groups. Using the collaboration between United We Dream and WITNESS to create a targeted media literacy campaign to raise awareness about synthetic media and how it could affect migrant communities as an example, we will engage with participants to explore how it could affect other vulnerable groups in the country and what we should do to be prepared.

Sunday, June 23

at Chicago Teacher’s Union

  • The fight to Take Back Tech is global, with communities across the planet navigating similar and distinct challenges. Regions in Latin America and Africa are bearing the majority of the environmental harms caused by the extraction of raw materials needed to produce more devices. Large scale experiments with technology are reinforcing social and racial hierarchies. Tech is advancing the nationalist and authoritarian objectives of right-wing governments. And similar to the US, groups are organizing different kinds of interventions to address tech harms in their community. This panel offers an opportunity for shared analysis, lessons learned from local struggles, and strategies for our futures.

  • Parable of the Talents - Grow your talents and learn skills and tactics for driving change through culture, art, storytelling and play.

  • By Spitfire Strategies

    Technology should support and affirm our individual and collective well-being, but as we’ve seen, its continuous, rapid and boundless expansion has led to real-world disruptions and the deep proliferation of systemic harms. Advocates need new language to call forward a future where technology can truly support our well-being and collective humanity. Spitfire has developed a narrative strategy in collaboration with field leaders to support justice advocates and partners in their efforts to advance a new narrative that centers an affirmative vision for our technology futures. Participants of this session will have a chance to workshop the narrative framework, understand messaging do’s and don’ts, and discuss a better vision for the future.

  • By Just Futures Law

    Policy discussions around artificial intelligence (AI) can often be overly technical, legally complex, and almost always lack community and organizer participation. In this workshop, we break down the state of artificial intelligence policy across various sectors and at the local/state/national level, and how organizers can engage in policy making with power. What are the policy solutions that communities should be pushing? What questions should organizers ask policymakers and lawmakers when assessing whether a proposal is a good policy? We’ll collaboratively discuss policy tools and principles for organizers to engage in policy fights around artificial intelligence and beyond.

  • By Pueblos de Lucha y Esperanza, St. Louis Interfaith Committee on Latin America, Migrantes Unidos, Freedom To Thrive

    This workshop is about how storytelling through art and graphics can be an effective strategy against e-carceration: digital monitoring methods like ankle shackles and GPS trackers that impact marginalized communities. Organizers will share how art can be used to expand awareness of the impacts and spread of e-carceration; how art can be a strategic advocacy tool when we lack research or data; and how co-creating art with directly impacted individuals—letting them share their own stories—can empower them. Participants will then reflect on the role of art in advancing conversations around surveillance and freedom and will participate in art-making-as-organizing together.

  • By The Greelining Institute

    The goal of this workshop is to cultivate a nuanced grasp of Artificial Intelligence (AI) perceptions and their broader societal impacts. By doing so, participants will be better equipped to engage constructively with governmental entities as they expand their utilization of AI technologies. Armed with this heightened awareness, attendees can advocate for necessary policy reforms to ensure responsible AI governance. The goal of this workshop is to cultivate a nuanced grasp of Artificial Intelligence (AI) its broader societal impacts. By doing so, participants will be better equipped to engage constructively with governmental entities as they expand their utilization of AI technologies. Armed with this heightened awareness, attendees can advocate for necessary policy reforms to ensure responsible AI governance. Grounded in current initiatives at The Greenling Institute, a national policy advocacy organization focused on the intersections of Technology Equity and Racial Justice, this workshop will provide an overview of issues impacting AI bias including: military, predictive policing, mortgage lending, and credit approval. By highlighting these systematic disparities, this workshop aims to create a participatory space for participants to collaborate on community-led initiatives and solutions towards addressing these biases.

  • By Kairos

    Kairos does want to take back tech. We recognize the many ways that tech corporations are accelerating surveillance and violence, as well as detrimental harm to the planet. But since we are both the product and the users, we envision a world in which tech can work for all, where it is a democratic space in which we all have a say. We will begin to unravel the problem together, and then engage in some solutions-driven dreaming and scheming.

  • By United We Dream

    The session will focus on key highlights and learnings from UWDA's innovative Gamer Influencer Program on Twitch and Discord, which leveraged research on Latinx media habits to partner with key influencers in gaming spaces as a method to reach young Latinx men. The main goal of the session will be to share the program's theory of change, outcomes, and impact, as well as lessons learned and recommendations for future counter-disinformation programs online. We will dive into crafting organic content and strategies that resonate with young Latinx gamers, storytelling as a tool for narrative change, and techniques for inoculating audiences against harmful online narratives, disinformation, and radicalization during an election year.

  • By Fight for the Future

    Members of the Fight for the Future team share about their campaigning work guiding the audience through a sample campaign (https://www.badinternetbills.com/): the strategies involved, tech tools and how to stay safe on the Internet while doing this work. Our small but nimble team combines creativity with technology to make viral, unexpected, cultural moments that bring millions of people together to fight for their basic rights. We’d like to share our experience and open up for discussion and learning from other organizations.

  • By Consentful Tech

    Low-tech tools (printed workbooks, offline audio recordings, etc.) are one way for us to regain control of how our data is collected and used. This workshop will cover how low-tech tools are instances of consentful technology, using the example of a zine created to log personal health data to track chronic illness symptoms. We’ll then imagine new low tech tools for consentful data collection, as well as how we might pool the data we collect for organizing and advocacy. How might these analog/low tech methods strengthen our movements not with speed and scale, but connection? 

  • By Institute for Local Self Reliance

    The framework of Tech Justice is an opportunity for us to explore how we can build personal resilience to “Take Back Tech”. What are the ways in which folks are building frameworks to understand how hegemony has partnered with technology? And what are the projects and initiatives that are working to build a just, digital world. The panel is composed of funders, activists, tech workers, and advocates who are engaged in discourse on answers to these questions.

  • By Equality Labs

    Our workshop will focus on the security threats facing pro-democracy and liberation movements, especially given the current crackdown on dissent and student activism and in the leadup to elections. This will also include geopolitical alliances like that of India and Israel around surveillance tech such as Pegasus; and concerns with platform accountability around the spread of genocidal hate speech and disinformation. Additionally, we'll be sharing practical tips to keep activists and organizations safe and practice collective digital resilience from an abolitionist lens.

  • We’re not done yet. Join us for a book and organizational fair with friends featuring books to check out and purchase. We’ll also have several organizations–including perhaps your own–present to share information about their work, materials and resources, and how to get involved.