Matthew Guariglia

A truly all-star list of tech policy folks

If you’re looking for signals of good tech policy from the Mamdani administration look no further than his transition team including @alondra.bsky.social and @ruha9.bsky.social

This is the announcement I was HOPING to see.

Ok, Bluesky. I have a lot of big projects coming out in the next few months and the powers that be have decreed I need new platforms to share things on.

To that end, if you prefer a visual medium, please follow me on Instagram: @mguarig.

www.instagram.com/mguarig?igsh...

The UW Center for an Informed Public is looking for postdocs (for 2026-2028) from across diverse disciplines whose research sheds light on the challenges of our modern information environment, promotes civic health, and/or helps people/communities navigate online spaces: apply.interfolio.com/177901

When I started working in policy I was (naively) mad at how decision/law makers ignore expertise/evidence...but it's still wild to see how experts have spent 5 years shouting "THE AI BUBBLE WILL BURST" and are ignored for the sake of large short-term profit. The paper trail of warning is massive.

YouTube video by 404 Media How Big Tech Has Convinced Us to Surveil Ourselves and Each Other

Was an honor to have @hypervisible.blacksky.app on our podcast to talk about spying on ourselves, spying on each other, Flock, Ring, food delivery robots, and general surveillance culture:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBg...

This period also oversaw the nationalizing of local police prob­ lems. Feeling unable to control immigrant crime in New York and elsewhere, police intel- lectuals became out­ spoken advocates for using the federal levers of power to address their concerns. Federal immigration policy and deportations, culmi- nating in the draconian immigration restrictions of 1921 and 1924, became vital tools to prevent immigration or remove immigrants from ­ those demo- graphics police believed ­ were especially prone to criminality.

Whenever I see local police collaborating with ICE, or taking anti-immigrant stances themselves, I think about this line of argument from Police and the Empire City about how police in the early 1900s celebrated the rise of deportation as a possible solution for solving xenophobic crime panics.

The makeup of the current SF board makes it one of the *least* capable governing bodies to deal with this crisis. The majority have written a hardline criminal justice system in SF a monetary and behavioral blank check.

Ok, Bluesky. I have a lot of big projects coming out in the next few months and the powers that be have decreed I need new platforms to share things on.

To that end, if you prefer a visual medium, please follow me on Instagram: @mguarig.

www.instagram.com/mguarig?igsh...

Think Twice Before Giving Surveillance for the Holidays With the holidays upon us, it's easy to default to giving the tech gifts that retailers tend to push on us this time of year: smart speakers, video doorbells, bluetooth trackers, fitness trackers,

So-called "smart" devices are pushed heavily for the holidays, but be mindful of what you're opting that gift recipient into. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

Here are the law enforcement agencies who searched Flock Safety's ALPR database related to this year's No Kings protests.

www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

This is a big win. Sacramento was indiscriminately sifting through people’s electricity usage looking for signs of grow lights in an attempt to find people growing marijuana.

Not anymore! Get a warrant, pals!

This is a big win. Sacramento was indiscriminately sifting through people’s electricity usage looking for signs of grow lights in an attempt to find people growing marijuana.

Not anymore! Get a warrant, pals!

If you haven't watched the Robert Redford & Barbara Streisand 1973 masterpiece The Way We Were in awhile, I suggest you open up a bottle of wine and do that right now.

Count me in!

I’ll be at UHA on a policing panel!

Looking over the AHA conference program, this feel like the first year in a while where carceral studies and police & prison histories are really on the decline in popularity….usurped by what I think is a trend toward broader histories/political economies of violence and guns.

The FBI Wants AI Surveillance Drones With Facial Recognition An FBI procurement document inquires about AI surveillance on drones, raising concerns about a crackdown on protests.

I was interviewed for @theintercept.com about the FBI’s attempt to find new AI capabilities for their drones including face recognition, license plate reading, and always-flawed firearms detection.

This week’s was particularly good.

The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of immigration activists, records reveal Exclusive: Agency accessed private conversations of New York ‘courtwatch’ group that was observing public hearings

NEW: The FBI spied on a Signal group chat of NY immigrants' rights volunteers organizing court watch+ labeled activists “anarchist violent extremist actors.”

Joint FBI/NYPD report shows law enforcement accessed private planning convo of ppl monitoring ICE

Docs obtained by @propertyofthepeople.org

The FBI Wants AI Surveillance Drones With Facial Recognition An FBI procurement document inquires about AI surveillance on drones, raising concerns about a crackdown on protests.

“It’s essentially technology tailor-made for political retribution and harassment.”

WIRED seeks an experienced journalist to cover national politics, particularly the Trump administration’s efforts to remake the federal government and how other power centers—Congress, tech oligarchs, and more—are responding. In this role, you’ll be responsible for breaking news consistently. We’re less interested in horse race drama than we are in the people making consequential decisions, whether in the White House, among local and national Democrats, or Silicon Valley, and the logic guiding their actions. To succeed in this role, you should be deeply sourced at both the top and working levels of government and politics and intimately familiar with the operational mechanics of the federal government; you will ideally also have good sourcing in and understanding of the tech industry. You should have a proven ability to deliver scoops, exclusives, and stories that can’t be found anywhere else. We’re interested in hard news and the ability to put new information into a broader context. A large part of this role is writing a politics-focused newsletter every week; the ideal candidate will understand how to leverage their reporting to attract and retain subscribers, engage audiences, and drive reader loyalty in a competitive news landscape. In addition to breaking news and regular newsletter sends, there are opportunities to work on long-form feature stories and collaborate with reporters across our coverage areas as part of this role as well. You should also be prepared to engage in a wide range of storytelling formats, such as social, podcasts, video series, and live events. This senior writer will report to WIRED’s Director, Politics, Science, and Security, and will be part of a growing and increasingly global newsroom of smart, kind, collaborative, and well-informed colleagues who are always brimming with ideas and eager to help each other out. This role is in-office (4 days/week) and will be based in our New York or Washington, DC offices.

WIRED is hiring for a senior politics reporter who will write our weekly newsletter; detailed job description below. This role will be based in New York or DC and report to me; the salary range is $95,000 - $132,000. condenast.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CondeC...

Cops around the country searched Flock Safety ALPR databases related to the No Kings protests.

Ok, Bluesky. I have a lot of big projects coming out in the next few months and the powers that be have decreed I need new platforms to share things on.

To that end, if you prefer a visual medium, please follow me on Instagram: @mguarig.

www.instagram.com/mguarig?igsh...

I gave keywords to search and about a 3 week window and it worked fine. They claimed they searched every channel on that server, but the results were only from one, so I’m uncertain the use of private messages.

ICE Says Critical Evidence In Abuse Case Was Lost In 'System Crash' a Day After It Was Sued The government also said "we don't have resources" to retain all footage and that plaintiffs could supply "endless hard drives that we could save things to."

Feds now claim a "system crash" that happened immediately after ICE was sued is the reason why 10 days of footage from inside the Broadview Detention Center has been lost.

Unreal hearing on this earlier:

www.404media.co/ice-says-cri...

Chicago: Did you know that police departments in the Chicago area coordinate on Slack? Now that I know it's accessible to public records requests, request away:

Their server is called CHI-INTEL and requests should be sent to the department that runs it, the Cook County Sheriff.

Send away!

SIREN and CAIR-CA v. San Jose The San Jose Police Department has blanketed the city’s roadways with nearly five hundred Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs). The police department uses this unblinking surveillance network to

🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨
We're suing the city of San Jose for its pervasive ALPR surveillance program. With nearly 500 ALPRs, the SJPD allows its officers to search millions of records, all without a warrant. These unconstitutional searches must be stopped. Read the complaint: www.eff.org/cases/siren...

A $100,000 Robot Dog Is Becoming Standard in Policing — and Raising Ethical Alarms Spot, the four-legged robot from Boston Dynamics Inc., is perhaps best known for its viral dance routines to songs like “Uptown Funk.” But beyond its playful antics, Spot’s ability to climb stairs and...

You mean to tell me those dancing robot videos were copaganda.