LFI Course Materials 2020/Week four
Contents
Week 4: Privacy rights[edit]
- Real time lecture: March 30th, 11 Pacific/2 Eastern
Overview[edit]
People in the United States technically have a right to privacy guaranteed in the constitution. In practice, the privacy rights of marginalized people have been historically violated. As Angela Davis said, “ If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night”, and today in the post-Snowden world, it’s true that we’re all experiencing the loss of our privacy rights. This is of course now doubly true for marginalized people, who are under even more intense surveillance than ever before. With promises of escalating surveillance due to coronavirus, this may become even more true for a larger group of people including people with illnesses and people who are Chinese, of Chinese descent, or racialized as Chinese. This week, Abi Hassen from the Black Movement Law Project will join us to answer our questions about how surveillance might change in this new world and who will be impacted by it. We'll also talk about some ways that we can support the most affected people in this time.
Readings[edit]
- Coronavirus and escalating surveillance: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/technology/coronavirus-surveillance-tracking-privacy.html
- The ACLU’s resources on internet privacy (read through some of the subtopics, reports, blogs, and so on) https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/internet-privacy
- EFF’s take on how librarians should be protecting privacy rights in the library: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/12/librarians-act-now-protect-your-users-its-too-late
- Library records privacy laws by state: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/privacy/statelaws
Guest lecturer[edit]
Abi Hassen, Black Movement Law Project
Discussion[edit]
- How are your communities affected by the loss of privacy rights?
- How are you already seeing privacy rights eroded by the pandemic?
- How else do you think things are likely to change?
- What can we do about it?
Tasks[edit]
- Lecture, readings, discussion forum, and small group work
- Download Signal, and let Alison know when you do. She'll add you to the LFI Cohort 3 Signal group.
