While most of what I post emphasizes America’s surveillance state, this is a global problem - something that’s been reinforced by my intensive travel schedule in 2023, during which I made I believe 6 International trips and 2 domestic by air. I also spent tons of down time researching countries I might want to visit with my full intention being that perhaps one day I could live in one of them. Everything I experienced was generally discouraging, I’m afraid to report, with regard to surveillance tech, sharing of disinformation across borders, and its primary function - to abuse - by the same types of people I already hate, same or similar Conservative or Establishmentarian bent, same overly nationalistic and theistic post-truth dorks, etc. And what I read about faraway lands I dreamt of visiting - places like Vietnam, Kenya, Nicaragua, Oceania - were very discouraging. It all points to the same surveillance abuses, taking various forms but in general - abused without restraint by the powerful to cause the suffering of so-called undesirables and ideological opponents. Given our vast collective knowledge of human history, none of this should be surprising, by the way, whereas the fact that this industry gets to operate with impunity as if it’s not the supercharged enabler of filthy criminal fascist tyranny that it repeatedly demonstrates itself to be - is flat-out inexcusable.
By the way, “this industry” is perhaps an amalgamation of many - so-called data brokers, the so-called government “intelligence community” comprising the familiar 3-letter acronyms, the video analytics industry, the device ID tracking (human stalking) services, any industry collecting and “sharing” biometric information (cellular, computer, ISP, automotive and transportation (so underrated what they are presently building), and other various so-called artificial intelligence-enhanced industries, etc. A few who warrant immediate attention due to their size and extent of their partnerships - Palantir, Lexis-Nexis, Babel Street, PredPol, Inflection Risk Solutions. The head of a Trojan Horse inside which hide literally thousands of these shady entities which help make it harder to trace their end users’ abuses.
Anyway, here is my now-canceled short list of escape destinations and some basic info on why they are no longer desirable for me. I think it’s super important to note that these were like, my “wish list,” the places that are supposed to be cool and fun. I haven’t even done much digging into what’s going on in places already presumed to be awful or risky. The human rights abuses going unchecked over this past decade, and as far as I can tell into the next decade, are unbelievable.
MEXICO
https://www.sapiens.org/culture/mexico-city-surveillance-anthropology/
https://restofworld.org/2021/mexico-city-security-theater/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/19/world/americas/mexico-spyware-anticrime.html
https://www.vice.com/en/article/mexican-cartels-government-security-software-track-target-enemies/
Mexico in my experience has had the worst surveillance / vigilante culture of any country besides America. I made 3 attempts to see different states, cities, etc recently. Same general issues. I don’t plan to revisit anytime soon frankly. I’ve been repeatedly cuffed, extorted, and robbed by cop supporters (it’s not typically the cops most of the time, there is an utterly massive private network of “supporters” whose side jobs are to spy and stalk) who track my real-time location via my face, devices, vehicle, ATM activity, and more. It’s not a surprise to me that so many people are pinpointed and eliminated for showing a desire to make a better society there.
https://apnews.com/article/mexico-election-candidates-killed-mayor-66e20fe665a25a4974637d8369c7a740
https://menafn.com/1108025358/One-Mothers-Anguished-Search-For-The-Disappeared-In-Mexico-Video
Driving in Mexico was particularly rough on me, and so was unfortunately - just visiting parks. I get that too in America, but Mexico public park surveillance seemed worse somehow, and I found it impossible to simply sit down on a bench and drink a coffee under the uncomfortable pressure of malicious snooping. There seemed to be an excessive number of facial recognition detection systems in place and a vast network of “prevention / deterrence” busybodies in tourist zones, where if you haven’t gotten the gist of my page yet, is where I’m treated as a threat to you when you’re on vacation, not a person actually trying to enjoy a vacation of his own.
Mexico was a place where I thoroughly enjoyed what I consider the true Salt of the Earth people, the kinds of people you want to just stay with forever when you come from the dysfunction that I do here in the USA …. only to realize after some time the vigilante underbelly can be ruthless and abundant, and after you get robbed several times within 24 hours of being seen at an ATM withdrawing cash, it is quickly realized “crime fighting” is a pretext.
Nobody likes to challenge the rationales of “safety” industries - stopping trafficking in drugs, weapons, humans, for example. Who can’t get behind that, right? But there’s a massive unspoken issue, that of hysteria-building for gain, and unaccountable things being done in the name of something virtuous. Meaning - I felt I was treated like some trafficker the more I drove around MX and could not help but suspect this was somehow a smear job by the US “sharing” disinformation. I highly doubt Mexican cops / vigilantes just randomly decided this about me on my roadtrips. They’re probably getting fed the same BS profile about me via private sector third party stalkerware and “safety” apps / systems each time I pass under a surveillance cam or run my ID at a hotel or withdraw money. So that’s the issue, the fraudulent claim that these little “watchlists” are actually legitimate. What it felt like was that, as in America, “safety” people were engaged in needless patrolling and “deterrence” behaviors that served their own ego, filled time, created a sense of purpose, but were overly reliant on bogeymen like myself while diverting time/resources/people/money away from what they pretend to be stopping - criminals.
Mexico, I would love to be back, even make a home, but definitely will not be under the status quo surveillance paradigm, which as I understand is only going to get worse the more both US and MX police team up to “stop illegal immigration” and “trafficking” (and none of these pretexts will ever be abused for any reason I’m sure haha).
Absent radical change, I highly doubt there will be a day in my life where a Mexico trip feels free and safe (from “official abuse” and private managers / security, not street crime) as they did when I was younger.
CENTRAL & SOUTH AMERICA
https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/surveillance-technology-is-on-the-rise-in-latin-america/
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/10/unblinking-eyes-latinamerica-surveillance
SE ASIA
VIETNAM
CAMBODIA
AUSTRALIA
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2021/australia-is-becoming-a-surveillance-state.html
JAMAICA
https://jis.gov.jm/jamaicaeye-to-utilise-network-of-cctv-cameras-in-crime-fighting/
I think it’s worth noting this isn’t negative press per se, but I included it because I certainly felt the negative effects of “crime fighting” there. However I feel it is equally worth noting Jamaica was not the most egregiously surveillance-abuse-addicted country I visited. In fact, I found it interesting that the below article just came out in America, which seems more an attempt by America to torpedo their thriving tourism industry than to “keep us safe” esp after reading the details - tourism is way up, but in reality murder, the sensationalist basis for this “danger” demarcation, is not.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-jamaica-travel-advisory-bahamas-caribbean-spate-of-murders/
You can also compare propaganda against reality via my videos page where it seems pretty clear America is a fascist s***hole whose horrible culture is mitigated by and tolerated largely because of its undeniable economical prowess - fair or not - and the Caribbean is a place where you don’t have to be a prisoner to said propaganda.
NEW ZEALAND
ENGLAND
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/business/london-police-facial-recognition.html
BRASIL
https://www.ibtimes.com/brazil-police-probe-bolsonaro-son-over-alleged-spying-3723276
https://apnews.com/article/brazil-ramagem-bolsonaro-police-spying-18d039c5e111e18341afe8ee2fb4428d
In addition, simply reading the book “Securing Democracy” quickly assuaged any lingering itch I had to visit this country.
ITALY HYPOCRISY
https://www.reuters.com/technology/italy-outlaws-facial-recognition-tech-except-fight-crime-2022-11-14/
*I post Italy because I visited after they allegedly banned face rec “except fighting crime.” Well I clearly must have been committing crimes there because it was rampant and I call BS, just like I do on BS “face rec ban” cities like Portland and Oakland where I get it worse often times than in places that don’t toot their own horn about “banning” it. If you’re going to ban it, enforce it, enforce a detailed program to include private cameras, private companies, private mobile devices, private citizens, and private fixed or mobile cameras in public spaces, for God’s f****g sake ….. the workarounds are so obvious. And if I meet the criteria of “fighting crime” then obviously your loopholes are proportional to the size of your various lies about me. Italy is not technically a “5 Eyes” country but in general I think you’re going to find that level of complicity in a surveillance atmosphere anywhere in Western Europe, just with a tid bit less fear than when it’s applied in North America.
BERKELEY & OAKLAND, CA
Yes, obviously I know these are domestic cities, but I want to point them out, as well as Portland, because they are all places I have lived, where I really do have a baseline for “how it once was” (not too terribly long ago, to boot) and now see how it is, at least for me. Berkeley was a town I sauntered through in July of this year the day before I ran the SF Marathon. I got off BART at Shattuck and toured the UC Berkeley campus as simply a sightseeing expedition, college campuses in general tend to be pretty tree-lined public spaces with nice architecture, they’re like large parks for a casual sightseer so I did not even anticipate any issues. But there were, oh there were. Let’s just say that beginning with the stroll, and in particular as Joe Leineweber’s face passed under more and more “AI enhanced” security cameras, the trip got progressively s****ier, which is typical when I travel - the more surveillance cameras I pass under, the more prejudiced “prevention” vigilantes are summoned to stop me from unthinkable horrors. In any event, this was the first time that one of them specifically spelled out suspicions of being an abduction threat. This represented a painful new low for me I think. Me, by myself, a random man, walking through the property of America’s singular most notable bastion of social justice, one that at least used to be noted for its rigor and extremely high standards, the one that’s supposed to radically and defiantly stand up to the surveillance state, and they’re treating me just like - no, worse than - the prejudiced dummies who chase me around SW Portland for a week after my car has been detected anywhere on the East Side of Portland. It was very, very disappointing for me to see how I was treated both around downtown and UC Berkeley, as well as around downtown Oakland, Lake Merritt, and ironically how I was chased down a BART platform by transit cops who aggressively questioned me just outside of “Oscar Grant Square” in a scene that looked eerily similar to that which preceded the murder of Grant himself one stop away.
Anyway, here’s Berkeley administration, doing what college administrators do best - immediately validating and caving to whiny out-of-touch complainers (who by the way will never be satisfied that they are doing enough even as no serious crimes occur day after day). Besides the link below, this weak leadership style is well documented in the book “Coddling of the American Mind” in my Required Reading List.
Then there are embarrassing rogue movements like this at a school whose parents and students should know, and expect upon enrolling that “safety” isn’t exactly UCB’s brand, it’s pretty difficult to affect radical social progress as this town once did by “being safe.”
This is the kind of culture that finds a way, where there is no way, to somehow frame me as an “abduction” threat. And when fed to foreign countries, who have no concept of how truly radical and extreme this culture has become here, and I am at a loss as to how to explain any of it —- it makes for some really dicey situations that I should never have had to endure.
I was actually surprised to learn that my own city apparently, long ago, enacted “tough” face rec bans, because those bans clearly are not being respected by end users and service providers at all. I definitely do appreciate the spirit of what these American cities are trying to, but understand that (a) there seems to be zero fear of reprisal on the part of those using face rec, (b) I experience indisputable evidence it’s rampant all over your cities, in particular near transit areas which may have to do with technicalities, that maybe that’s considered “federal” property, and (c) there is a third loophole even after government and private business buildings have been banned, that being the so-called “volunteer” using his or her cell phone app. So the mobilization and crowdsourcing of face rec-based politically motivated stalking - I mean “kidnapping and terrorist prevention” ahem - is really exploding all over the world but in particular cities that oppose it due to not sealing up the ban to include individuals who may be weaponizing face rec via cell phones to achieve the same end, and often a much much better and more nimble version of it, as fixed cameras directly tied to known public or private entities.