It抖阴ap clear that Mayor Mike Johnston鈥檚 office does not understand, or does not care about, the underlying privacy and human rights concerns raised by many of his constituents; fortunately, Denver’s city councilmembers can do better.
Thousands of Denverites have made it clear that they reject constant and unwarranted surveillance, the violations of our constitutional rights and that we find the profits companies rake in selling our data unconscionable.
Over the last year, organizations like mine, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC),聽 successfully organized to end Denver鈥檚 contracts with one such company, Flock. But now Mayor Johnston is proposing another contract using our taxpayer dollars, with Axon Enterprises, a company at the forefront of the Trump administration’s investments in the surveillance state.
Denver residents are deeply engaged in networks of rapid response and mutual aid, seeking to protect one another as more ICE agents hit the streets each day in rapid, kidnap-style actions profiling immigrants and people of color.
Each day, we receive dozens of calls to the Colorado Rapid Response hotline and hear from our volunteers across the city. A pattern of indiscriminate detention targeting the breadwinners of immigrant families has emerged. The machinery of this injustice involves few humans and relies on the corporate surveillance state. Artificial Intelligence selects which of our neighbors to unleash ICE on next.
The cameras behind the License Plate Reader system build data profiles on all of our driving patterns, creating dozens of location data points for each unique license plate daily. This data is sold to other companies, analyzed by AI and compared against lists of people who鈥檝e applied for asylum, temporary statuses or green cards.
These companies sell ICE a list of our neighbors whose routines are predictable — be they advocates or immigrants. The federal government抖阴ap ability to wreak havoc and attempt to silence our communities depends mightily on the machines running on our streets and in data centers.
Axon currently has a $370 million contract to provide ICE and DHS with body cameras, TASERs, and other devices and technologies. Their technologies have been used in immigration enforcement and deportation operations.
And on a recent earnings call, their CEO told investors the company鈥檚 rapid growth was attributed to its 鈥淎I era plan鈥�, which includes a voice-activated companion to body cameras, as the company eyes federal law enforcement contracts as a 鈥渕ajor opportunity鈥� for the company.
This is not surprising. , who served as the acting director of ICE under the first Trump administration, where he oversaw the implementation of the zero-tolerance policy that separated families at the border.
Since joining Axon, he has deepened the company鈥檚 relationship with DHS agencies. Amid reports of informal information sharing with federal immigration agents, we must question both the technologies we鈥檙e inviting into our city and the private companies that control them.
Axon鈥檚 relationships and technologies are not only a threat to our privacy today, but inviting the company into our community will only be the beginning. While the company markets its products as an accountability tool, it can quickly become one of mass surveillance. Axon is already testing its enhanced facial recognition body cameras to check against police records with the Edmonton Police Department, raising serious concerns about civil liberties and privacy.
Inviting Axon into our community sets a dangerous precedent, and our residents deserve to understand the full scope of what this partnership means. For the safety of our community and the protection of our civil liberties, the City Council must vote against a contract with Axon.
Jennifer Piper is the Program Director for the Colorado office of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker-based peace and social justice organization. For more than two decades Ms. Piper has worked extensively at the intersection of legal, community, and policy solutions to support the human rights of immigrants and the larger community.
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