Control and Containment
The control and containment of human beings is a primary aim of right-wing forces around the globe. The efforts to refine methods of control are accelerating under Donald Trump. Although he is by no means the chief architect of these efforts, or solely responsible, there is no doubt that he and his allies recognize the political and financial gains to be made in surveillance, control, and containment of large groups of people. They are fostering fear and distrust to manipulate people and protect their own wealth and power.
We experience control and containment as isolated policies. But there is a deep connection among the moves to privatize education, establish for-profit prisons, expand surveillance technologies, increase access by law enforcement to personal data, open immigration detention centers, enact abusive educational practices, and increase militarization in communities of color, especially those with high immigrant populations. While the “school to prison pipeline” has been well documented, this larger network of control and containment is less understood. It is evolving into a multi-billion dollar industry, putting in place mechanisms that undermine the very foundations of democratic action.
Consider the events that have come to light most recently.
First, we learned this week that Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, a vicious, private security force, has been working with Project Veritas, “a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups.” Prince has joined with them to create a private intelligence agency, using former CIA and M-16 spies to infiltrate progressive groups. The Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers was one of the targets of an operation to gain information and discredit its leadership. Prince has close ties to Trump, both through his business dealings and personal relationships. Betsy DeVos is his sister.
We also learned this week of the use of a new software tool by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials in New York that has been intentionally rigged to produce results to make detention of individuals a guaranteed outcome. Creating the illusion of neutral, mathematical decisions, the tool has been “perverted” to be used as “an unconstitutional cudgel that’s been rigged to detain virtually everyone ICE’s New York Field Office brings in, even when the government itself believes they present a minimal threat to public safety.”
Also this week, in cities across the country, ICE began an intense period of surveillance, arrest and public intimidation. They are deploying elite forces and SWAT units to cities deemed unfriendly to Trump’s immigration policies. Their directive is to “arrest as many people as possible” and to “flood the streets.” Dubbed Operation Palladium, they are employing door to door tactics, with agents in SWAT gear. Mindful of how this looks in the media, tactics are designed to be sporadic.
Many of the people swept up in this effort will be marked through the use of facial recognition technologies. This week we also learned of the use by ICE of facial recognition to find undocumented people by their drivers license photos, stored in state data bases.
No doubt many of the people arrested will find their way to detention in Criminal Alien Requirement ( CAR) prisons, like the one in northern Michigan. These are specifically for non-citizens and form a for profit shadow prison network. Bárbara Suárez Galeano, organizing director with Detention Watch Network explained that these prisons are often located in rural areas, “hidden away from the public eye.” Their practices are shielded from public scrutiny by private profiteers like GEO and CoreCivic, both major Trump allies.
This increase in control and containment is exactly why public conversations about technologies are so important. Here in Detroit, we are fortunate to have strong community-based leadership challenging the assumption that these practices will make us safer. Many of us know they are designed to control us and make money off of containing our bodies.
These are dangerous times. They demand we understand how fearful the forces of power and privilege are of our capacities to create new ways to protect and care for one another. Anything less moves us toward high-tech barbarism.