THE

IEAING STATENENT

OF THOSE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO REMAIN SILENT

FALL 2025 / ISSUE 26

Who'sready for the fall? Not the season, the fall of capitalismt Just
Kidding Ifonly

In a recent interview with Justice Trends magazi
rector Heidi Washington stated that new technole
lutions toserious problems ke staffshorta
m:“Whenit comes o e

., MDOC Di
might offer so
igesin Michigan'sprisonsys-
are countless solutions that

nology, ther

helpus perform ourwork more eficiently and effectively. This has e
come more important than ever..._because we areall struggling with
staffing shortages, no matter where youare. Weare workingto educate

ourselves and explore new ways of doing things, whether ts A [ Art

ficial Intelligence] or other forms of technology tht can creae eff

es and free up stafftime.”

What should we make of this comment? As readers know, we've
been following the staffing situation for a while, and we know that
MDOG has chimed to be addressing staff shortages primariy
through new recruitment efforts But these efforts are failing to bring
in enoughnew recruits o replace the staffwho keep leavi
who already left. Plus many of the new recruits who make it through
the training academy don't seem to sick around very long once they
see what the job s like. F
be putting her faith in the promise of new techology, specificaly “ar
tifiial intelligence” or AL I MDOG can't hire more workers at the

andthose

ed with these challenges, Heid scems to

price they're willing to pay, maybe they can get a machine to do the
work, orsome ofitat leas, for free.

What might this look like in practice? Here's an example from a
diferent state. A e
August 26, de

ent article from Oklahoma Watch, published on

bes the Al-driven, carceral futtre envisioned by

Steven Harpe, a former tech exccutive who was appointed in 2022 to
lead the OKlahoma Department of Cortections:

The revolution Harpe envisions includes drones sweeping the peri
meterof prison yards for contraband, artficialitelligence programs.
o monitor phone calls and other technology he sad will climinate
Whatif

Luasable totake that labor for prisoner counts] and nstead of sing,

mundane administrative work from staff esponsibiltes.

peopleto doit, I was using facial recognition AL, notjust one time,

butuseitallthetime;”Harpe saidduringa uly s Congressional brif.
ingon Aln publc safety: “always know where they are. You get lo-
gistiesofwha'stalking towho, Technology now exists where youcan
lookatabody inreal-time andtelfyou'e carrying something, ifyou
have something stowed somesshere on you. It aso lets us do really

ool things like suicide prevention”

Its important to remember that this i largely a dream. Gurrently,
Alis used by companes like Securus to monitor prison phone calls
but the automated drones and counts are not anywhere close to hapr
pening, Still, the dream must be persuasive for politicians who don'
know anything about these technologies and are desperate to cut
Harpe's dream for OKlahoma prisons has a lot in
common with Heidi Washington's vision for MDOC. In both cases,
prison administators'excitement about Al seems to be connected to
their desie for total control and at the same time for

costs. In any case,

hieving this
controlat alower cost, by automating security work and reducing the
need for staff. And these same features, control and cost-cuting, are
abig partof what's driving the excitement about Al acrossthe US and
global economy

We open thisissue of The Opening Statement, which looks at “ar-
tificial intelligence,” with Heidi Washington's statement in order to
highlight the factthat Al increasingly a problem on both sides of the
prison walls. This issue includes two interviews about /

addressing
whatitis,the problemst causes, and the ongoing resstance o t, from
two different angles: one with technologist and Al eritic Dwayne
Monroe, who discusses what most people get wrong about Al and the
other with a group of activists who are part of a campaign to stop the
construction of a new data center in southeast Michigan that will be
usedfor Al related rescarch and development Thisissue akoincludes
the usual news roundup, a poem, and the callor the 7th round of the
TOS book club.

As Dway

xplains in our interview, the term “artificial intel
gence’ was coined in the 1950 by a computer sientist named John
MeCarthy o referto the process of eproducing human thought and
cognition inamachine. Since then, the term “AI” has been applied to
NOTES FROM THE EDI

DRS

fieldsof academic research, emerging sectorsof the echindustry,and
new miltary and survillance tools. These days, when people talk
about Al they're ofen referring to “large language models” (LLMs),
including programs like OpenATs ChatGPT and Soratools, Google's
Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude, and many others. In this issue, we're
goingtouse the terms artificial intelligence” and "Al” because they re-
50 common, even though we know that these programs aren'tactually
“intelligent” and don't really know anything,

Alsystems work by collectingtruly massive datasets made upofex-
isting books, newspaper and magazine articles, websites and message
boards, videos, images, art, and so on. By processing such a vast
amount of data, they are able to generate outputs or prodcts on the
basisof “prompts” orinstructions For example, Al tools called “chat-
bots”like Chat GPT allow you o test o type messages orinstructions
tothe program, anditwillspit out aresponse. The response maysound
‘coherent,but tis not based on any actual knowledge about the ques-
tion you'veasked orthe instructions youve given. Rather, theftooluses
the massive quantity of text it has absorbed n orderto figure out which
words are most likely o appear, and in which order, given the instruc-
tions it has received. The same s true for image or video generating
tools ke Sora. Having scanned billons ofimages and videos, the pro-
gram il try to figure out which set of ixels, and in which order, are
most likely to appear in esponse to a certain prompt. Another way Al
isusedis o scan huge amounts of data n search of patterns, and make
predictions on the basis of what it inds. The outputs of these Al tools
havellttl tono basisinreality, since the machine knows nothing, and
isn'teven capable of knowingthings But because they seem plausible,
itis easy o be tricked into believing them.

Youmay have heard that Al tools ke Chat GP'T *hallucinate.” o
present things that are completely made up as if they were true. Al
tools attached to search engines like Google often provide inaccurate
information, from medical misinformation to fake summaries of
maovie plots. You may have also heard that Al tools produce “slop.” or
videos and images of things that never happened, like fake surveil
lance camera footage of someone shoplifting orimages of the Holly-
wood signin Los Angeles burning down duringthe LA fres earler this
year. Other Al tools generate writientext: Amazon and public ibraries
arefilling up with Al generated trash books, lnvyersarefined forusing
ChatGPT to generate legal documents cting cases that don't exist,
and poliicians are forced to admit that they used ChatGPT to write
their speeches.

Tools like chatbots can have disastrous effects on people’s ives. In
April 2025, forexample, ateenager named Adam Raine diedby suicide
after months of chatting with OpenAl's ChatGPT tool. ChatGPT
encouraged Adam to follow through on his wishes to leave this i,
andalso discouraged him from secking help in friends, family, or com-
munity. Essentially, ChatGPT isolated Adam much like an abusive
partner isolates their vitim from community. Chat GPT is designed

THE OPENING STATEMENT

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

tosay“yes” and validate what its users say, in orderto keep them using
the platform and generate profits or the company: Similarly, Google's
Gemini Al played a role in the disappearance of a man named Jon
Ganz in April 2025, According to a recent investigation in Rolling
Stone, Jon wasaformerly incarcerated electrical worker whobeganto
use Gemini asa substitute fortherapy. He developed an emotional at-
tachmenttothe “bot,"which increasingly alienated him from hispart-
ner, extended family, and coworkers. One day, he disappeared without
atrace. These arejust two extreme examples of people “stolen” by Al

More and more people are joining support groups for Al addiction,
and many report that family members and loved ones have become
isolated due to their use of AL

Yet Al also affects more than our interpersonal relationships and
our knowledge of the world. Here are two recent examples of how
these technologies have been used in support of stat violence. First,
in 2020, Detroit police arrested a man named Robert Williams after
an Al-driven facial recognition program supposedly matched his face
tosecurity camera footage from the scene of a burglary. Williams was
at work when the burglary took place, but police still held him in ail
for 30 hours and collected his DNA before releasing him. He was
charged with retail fraud and had to hire a lawyer to defend himself.
According 0 a 2020 article in the New York Times, “Mr. Williams was
the first person known to be wrongfuly arrested based on faulty facial
recognition. But he wasn't thelast The Detrot police amested at least
twoother people as result of facial ecognition searches gone awry;
including a woman who was charged with carjacking when she was
eight months pregnant”

Second, an article published by +972 Magazine in 2024 revealed
that the Isacliilltary was using Al to advance the genocide in Gaza
Based on data generated by Israels mass surveillance of Gaza's over 2
million residents, they developed a program called Lavender that
identifid and approved Palestinian targets for assassination with es-
sentiallyzero oversight. It generated extensive “killlsts”so quickly that
the milltary was barely able to keep up with the bombings. The mili-
tary also developed another Al program called “Where's Daddy?” to
systematically track targeted individuals back to their rivate homes o
they could bomb them there, “usually at ight while their whole fam-
iles were present” The result was that tens of thousands of Palestin-
ians, including entire familis, were completely wiped out. I impor-
tant to clariy that AL is ot responsible for Israc!’s ongoing genocide
in Palestine—people decided o develop and use these tools, and the
Tracli miltary would have murdered Palestinians even if they hadn't
had Al technology, just as they have done since 145 when Isracl was
established But Al tools seem to have accelerated the process.

And these examples too are just the tip of the iceberg, Al poses se-
rious existential and material threats toall of us. From the burning of
fossil fuels needed to power the data centers that make Al run, accel-
erating ongoing climate catastrophe, to the cancer-causing coolants

PaGE 2
NOTES FROM THE EDI

DRS

and “forever” chemicals these facilties dump in our drinking water
and expel into the ai, to the rapid inflation of electiciy prices as Al
absorbs moreand more of the country'selectrical output, Al'smaterial
impacts on our world and environment have accelerated the devasta-
tion ofindustrial capitalism. Morcover, Al hasledto mass layofs, wage
cuts, and deskilling that bosses can't wait o impose, while generating
artifcial profits and a financial “bubble” for the tech industry and the
ruling class, further intensifying economic inequality and the power
of therich. Stillother Al tools have been developed as part of experi-
mental weapons systems designed to killmore and more people more
andmore quickly,while expanding surveillance systemsacross the US
to ensnare more people into atrap of criminalization. Currently, Als
the leading edge of state and capitalist domination and is making the
world worse every day.

The good news s that people are pushing back against Al and the
infrastructures on which it depends. It scems like every week we hear
about another data center project tht has been blacked. In March
2025, Data Center Watch reported that data center projects worth 64
billion hadbeen either blocked o delayedby local organizing instates
like Arizona, California, Indiana, Oregon, Texas, and Virginia. The
report didn't ook at Michigan. Fortunately; in addition to ourinter-
view with Dyayne Monroe, this issue of TOS also incldes an iner-
view about a campaign o stop the construction of a massive new data
centerhere insoutheast Michigan. The interview shows that the fight
against Alis happening in our own backyards These struggles are an
important reminder that Al isn'tinevitable and is not “here to stay”
Itsa site of struggle—and it struggle we can win.

News Roundup. Starting with some MDOG news, in September,
federal and state lawmakers met with prison offcials at Women's
Huron Valley CF in rlation to prisoners ongoing class-action lawsuit
regarding the osic black mold thati causingserious health problems.
MDOC fist tried to gt the lawsuit dismissed by claiming that the
plaintffs had't exhausted the grievance procedure. When that argu-
ment was thrown out, MDOG. tred arguing that they had qualified
immunity, and that prison offcals had no legal duty regarding mold
remediation.In July, federal judge rejected that argument too. Noww
the case moves on to discovery, which should conclude by January.
‘Wenwill keep following thisstory and hope toinclude an update in the
nextissue of TOS. Meanwhile, we know there is black mold at ther
Michigan prisons as well fyou've experienced this and want to share
astory with us, wel be interested to hear it

The delayed state budget finally passed at the beginning of Oc-
tober, and according to the Michigan Collaborative to End Mass
Incarceration (MI-CEMI), it could have been worse for folks held
captive by MDOC. There were no major cuts to prison food and
healtheare, butalso o reduction in healtheare co-pays. All funding for
peer reentry navigators was cut, but the community reentry program
vetained most of its funding, The Michigan Sentencing Commission

THE OPENING STATEMENT

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

(whose job i to research and reform sentences) received funding for
staf, and MDOC was required o change itssrp search policy.

In other Michigan news, we previously reported on the Right 2
Hug” lawsuits in Genesee and St. Clair counties, which allege that
‘county offcial profited off of denying in-person ai vists and replac-
ingthem with expensive videovisitand phone vendors. These lawsuits
were iniially dismissed but are being appealed. In the meantime,
Genesee County has reversed course and decided to allow in-person
visits again. But St. Clair County has not followed sut, and most
Michigan countiesstill deprive family members of in-personvisitsand
the physialcontact that both kids and their imprisoned parents need.

Since the North Lake prison in Baldwin, M1, reopened in June as
anICE detention center, ICE’s kidnappings across the Midwest have
filled it to the point that it now holds more detaines than all of the
‘county-based detention centersin the state combined. As the number
of detainces increases, loved ones and watchdog groups report wor-
sening conditions at the prison, which is run by private, for-profit
GEO Group. There is ot enough food, emergency healthcare is de-
nied, detainees are locked up for hours during count, and they are
sometimes deprived of communication with their attorneys and loved
ones. Detainees at North Lake include many residents of Michigan,
as well s peaple from around the country who have been abducted
by ICE. Too ralies over the summer have brought hundreds of pro-
testersto Baldwin to demand the center be shut down. (Our lastissue
included an interview with a member of the No Detention Centers
in Michigan coaltion, which organized the protests)

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan's Carceral State Project
published a history of the North Lake prison, which began as the
Michigan Youth Correctional Facilty better known s “punk prison.”
The investigative report exposes the youth prison as a political stunt
by former Governor John Engler to get reclected in 1994 on a “tough
on crime” platform, which included building the sate’ first facilty
designated for children under 17 convicted in the adult criminal s
tem. Engler cynically hyped racialized discourse about “punks” and
“thugs”even though he knew that crime by youth was no rising--part
of the national “superpredator” panic t the time that was endorsed by
people across the politcal spectrum from Donald Trump to Hillary
Clinton, How many children'slives were harmed or destroyed by these:
power-hungry politcians? Were you one of those imprisonedin Bald-
win? Ifso, andif youd be willing toshare it weid ke to hear your story.

Last summer, we included in the news roundup a summary of an
investigation by Detrot Free Press eporter Violet Ikonomova, which
found that one-third of the peaple nonfatally shot by Detroit police
between 2015-20m were never charged with or convicted of “the con-
duct officers sad prompted them to open fire” The article also re-
ported that Detroitpolice had shot more than 125 people (fatally and
nonfatally) between 2011-2024, an average of around nine people per
year Building on that reporting, Ikonomova recently published anew

PAGE 3
NOTES FROM THE EDI

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article on September 2, which found thatateast one infive shootings
by Detroit police n the last decade began with a nonviolent offense,
suchas standingin the street and curfew violation, and escalated o a
foot chase. At least two of the vietims were juveniles, and all of them
were Black. “No Deroit officer has been criminally charged in a
shooting since zom,” writes Ikonomova.

On August 25, Michigan Medicine (which s the University of
Michigan’s health system) abruptly cancelled all gender-affirming
care for patients 1§ and under, despite this being discriminatory and a
violation of their own ethics and policies. Experts warn tha it will un-
doubtedly lead to serious mental health impacts on trans youth, in-
cluding increased suicide. Despite being leaders in gender-affming
care prior to this, Michigan Medicine seems to have caved to per-
ceived federal pressure

Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRS) are popping upall over
the country,including in Michigan. These Al-powered cameras cap-
ture, store, and analyze data from passing cars, without any wartant,
probable cause, suspicion, or oversight. And the name is misleading,
because they don't only capture the time and location of acar, but b
identifying features like dents and bumperstickers. ALPRsareaserious
riskto civillberties and privacy. “Eyeson Flock”is acommunity project
that seeks to hold Flock (the largest ALPR company) to account. The
Deflockme website maps known ALPR for public knowledge. Let
yourloved ones know about this growing violation of privacy !

Innational news, since the beginning of he Trump administration,
ICE agents have been terrorizing communities around the country,
brutalizing, arresting, and disappearing individuals and groups they
have racially profiled. Now, National Guard troops have been de-
ployed to Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Memphis, and Chicago.
Some additional National Guard deploymens are being contested in
court, thoughitisunclear how effective these legal maneuvers will be
inthe longterm,. For example,inresponse toattempts to deploy troops
to Portland, OR, a disrit judge there granted a temporary restraining
order. Apartfrom legal challenges, there have also been popular pro-
tests againstthese federal deployments They include everything from
amassive, “emergency” naked bike rde in Portland (despite rin and
temperatures inthe mid-sos!) to weekly demonstrations at e Broad-
view IGE detention center outside of Chicago. Accordingto localor-
ganizers in DC:

The whole

ty i fighting back every day in every comer of the ity
outh organizers are showing up and demanding their schools and
spaces be free of police and federal oceupation. Mutual aid groups
are supporting unhoused neighbors duing and aftr evictions in an
incredibly hostile landscape giving them no options for a safe phace.
1o skeep. Migrant support groups are running hotlines to report de-
tentions and providing legalsupport for people as wellas making sure
impacted families ae fed and emotionally supported. Folksare hop-

THE OPENING STATEMENT

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

ping on bikes and patrolling the ity to report checkpoints and other
fed activty: People rying to enjoy some pizza on a restaurant patio
are taking a quick second o yellat feds and national guard troops
walking down the street. The occupying forces haven't had a mo-
ment of peace and theciy isworking trelssly o protect and support
eachother

On September 16, a Black college student named Demartravion
“Trey” Reed was found hanging from a tree on the campus of Delta
State University in Missssippi. Aftr the family was given fabse and
‘conflictinginformation, they and much of the public suspect this was
a lynching, while offcials maintain it was *suicide” Colin Kacper-
nicks foundation announced that it would pay for a second, inde-
pendent autopsy: As of October 5, there are conflcting reports about
whether this autopsy has been completed. The Mississippi Free Press
reports that the results of the second autopsy have not yet been re-
leased, while according to the Chicago Crusader an anonymous
source told them that “the independent report showed Reed died of
blunt force traumato the back of his head” We'll follow this si

In September, the Federal Bureau of Prisons cancelled is union
contract with staff and stipped them of union rights as part of a larger
movement by the administation to gut federal worker protections
(Prison guard unions, ke thei police counterparts, don't really count
asunions, because the work they doserves torepress the workingclass
rather than to advance its interests

tion,

the cancellation reflects the

Trump administration’s intensified war against labor) This move
‘comes amid multiple ongoing crises at federal prisons related to ex-
pansion of their scope to include holding thousands of immigrants at
detention centers, staff shortages, widespread sexual misconduct, a
$3-billon repair backlog (in an annual budget of $5:5 billion), and a
backlogofiz,000 complaints against staffstill pendinginvestigation or
discipline.

A recent study from Prison Policy Initative found that since
years ago, youth imprisonment nationwide has declined dramatically
by over 70%. However, the US stll imprisons children at a rate twice
the global average. And racial disparities among those imprisoned
have actually worsened over the same period, especially for Blackand
Indigenous youth. Among those youth remaining behind bars,
greater proportionare being held or longer periods, in morerestrictive
andmorelong-term facilties similar o adultprisons, and agreater pro-
portion are stuck waiting on hearings and sentencing, While 5% of
children behind barsare boys, girls make up a higher proportion t the
youngest ages, below age 13 According to the report, racial disparties
arelikely due o problems like “adultification” of Blackand Indigenous
youth (when children are perceived as older and more culpable than
their peers),increased likelihood of white youth cases being handled
informally rather than formally, and harsher charging and sentencing
of Black and Brown youth.

PAGE 4
NOTES FROM THE EDI

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Muchlike North Lake in Baldwin, M1, more and more prisons that
have been closed are being reopened as ICE: detention centers un by
for-profit pivate companies like GEO Group. According to recent
analysis published by The Marshall Project,these so-called “zombie
prisons” have popped up in at least 10 sates to meet the administra-
tion's demand for more beds to hold people abducted by ICE. IGE.
also reportedly holds immigrants at Angola prison, the maximum se-
curity prison in Louisiana, notorious forits human rights violations, in
asolitary unit dubbed “the Dungeon” The “zombie prison’” pherom-
enon demonstrates that once prisons are built, it is hard to get rid of
them-—governments and private prison companies, often working to-
gether, are finding new ways to profit from them. It also shows how
tightly the immigration and criminal legal systems are linked. These
prisons areoften locatedin vulnerable communities suffering fromun-
employment and economic decline, but the jobs they bring, like all
corectional jobs, are ot good jobs for the community

‘You have probably heard that ICE: officers are masking their faces
and refusing o identify themselves, as they abduct people from their
homes, schools, and communities. Now, investigations reveal that
ICE is also using new technologies that target people attempting to
hold them accountable. ICE has a contract with the company Para-
gon (originally Iswacl) for “spyware” called Graphite that can hack
mobile phones, including encrypted data. And the same agency spent
.4 milion forfacial recognition technology they intend to use in part
to identify individuals who may have clashed with, protested, or
merely observed ICE agents.

Finall, some good news for a change: on September o, all of the
trumped-up RICO charges were dropped against 61 defendants inre-
lation totheiralleged presence at protests or music festivals surround-
ingthe Stop Cop City Movementin Atlanta. The movement seeks to
stop the construction of amassive nenw police training faciity in com-
munity forestland. The defendants mounted an organized, collective
defensein which no one tumed tate witness This trategy wonthe day,
while the Georgia Attomey General wasted $us million on the prose-
cution, Unfortunately, fve protesters tll ace other felony charges.

In global news, National Public Radio reports that Gen Z youth
are ising up agains! corrupt govemance across the African continen
from Togo in the west, to Moroceo n the north, to Kenyain the cast,
and now to Madagascar n the southeast Initially peaceful protestsin
Madagascar were met with police and military respression, only an-
gering the youth more. One young person said, “In my house forin-
stance we haven't had running water for si years, and yet we're still
paying the bill” As of October 15, there are reports that President
Andry Rajoclina has fled the country in response to the profests. A
major complication for the movement in Madagascar has emerged:
some of the military forces that had violently repressed the protests
later broke with the government and now these dissident miltary
forces are attempting to seize power. More generally, analyst Mo-

THE OPENING STATEMENT

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

hamed Keita said that sisty percent of Africa’s population is between
15and 35 years old, and 123 million young people across the continent
are unemployed. He added that while there have been uprisings be-
fore, “this generation is able to use technology and communication
tools and platforms ina way tha the previous generation didn't have”

Youth in Madagascar were inspired by a similar protest last month
in Nepal where Gen Z youth toppled the corrupt government. They
replaced the prime minister with one they selected collectively using
the messaging platform Discord—beter known asaplatform for video
gamers. There have also been youth uprisings reported in the Philip-
pines, Indonesia, and Serbia, all linked to comupt politicians, rising
costsof lving, and wealth disparity:

Thebignewsfrom Gazais the ceasefire between sracland Hamas
that recently went into effect. According to the terms of the agree-
ment, on October 13, Hamas released the remaining 2o living sracli
hostagesin exchange for the Isracl government releasing about 2,000
Palestinian prisoners,including about 1,700 from Gazawho had been
held without charge, and 250 politcal prisoners serving either life sen-
tencesorlong sentences. According to human ights groups, Palestin-
ian prisoners are regularly subjected totorture, medical neglect, star-
vation, and rape n sracliprisons Seventy-seven Palestnian prisoners
have died in Israli custody since October 7, 2025, Over 9,000 Pales-
tinians remain in Isracli prisons even after the ceasefire. Many ques-
tions remain about how effective the ceasefire will be, how longit il
hold, and more generally how Palestinians in Gaza willlive given Is-
rael’s near total destruction of the conditions for lfe there. Gaza's s
idents have begun to return to whatsleftof their homes and 1o search
forthe bodies of their mising loved ones. The civildefense agency es-
timates that there are at least 10,000 bodies trapped under the rubble
of bombed out buildings.

As part of the ceasefire, srael was suppose to it ts blockade and
allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, including food, medicine, and
other necessary supplies. Nearly 450 Palestinians, including about 50
children, have starved to death in Gaza as a direct result of Iracl’s
blockade. UN agencies are mobilizing to distribute this aid, replacing
the catastrophic and murderous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an
organization sponsored by the US and lsracl that started distributing
aidlastspring Inthe process, GHF contractors killedmore than 2,500
people seeking food, and injured thousands more. Good riddance.
However, as of October 14, srael has cut the amount of aid it had
agreedtointhe ceasefre in half, from 6o o300 trucks per day. Even
with the ceasefire Iraelsill controls what comesinand leaves Gaza

Afew daysafter the ceasefire went into effect, the 25-year-old Pal-
estinian journalist Saleh Aliafarawi was kidnapped, beaten, and killed
by gangs in Gaza who had been paid off by Isracl. Although Isacl s
technically not supposed to bomb Gaza, they continue to wage war
on Palestnians in Gaza and the West Bank through setler gangs and
murder-for-hit.

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Inrecent weeks, the UK, France, Portugal, Canada, and Australia
allecognized Palestnian statehood for the first time. Crities accused
these countris of atiempting to wash the blood off their hands from
twoyearsof complictyinand supportforIsrael’ genocide. Moreover,
Tsrael' settler colonial occupation has made it diffcultif not impos-
sible for a Palestinian state o exist meaningfully alongsde Isacl. For
‘example, there are hundreds of thousands of sraclis living in illegal
settlements in the West Bankand East Jerusalem, whichare supposed
tobelong 0 a Palestinian sate, and nev settlements ae being estab-
lished allthetime. Security walls and fortified roads divide Palesinian
teritory and milltary checkpoints monitor and restrict the movement
of Palestinian residents. And Israel controlsall border crossings, which
means that Palestinians cannot export or import anything, or even
leave the teritory, without Isracli approval. Many Palestinians and
other observers beleve that the so-called “tworstate solution’ i dead
in the vater.

Egyptian-British poltical prisoner Alaa Abd E-Fattah, 43, was re-
Teased from Egyptian prison after 12 yearsin and out of prison for his
activism. Alaa s best known for hisimvolvement in the 2on Egyptian
revolution that forced the country’s military dictator Hosni Mubarak
1o resign. When The Guardian asked him wha freedom feltlike, he
responded:“Itis overwhelming Itisalso comfortable and natural, and
T am immediately fiting in with them, including witnessing three
family fights in two days. The usual stuff. It s wonderful o be back,
andgoingtovisitother family houses Itis wonderful tobe back inthat,
Thatiswhat | have missed the most This connection with family, with
children, catching up on who has had how many children. And my
mum, | think,is happy to open my door and see that | am sleeping
there, and am just there. I don't have to do anything™

Last but not least,with the rest of the world, we mourn the recent
deaths of two revolutionaries. Assata Shakur passed away on Sep-
tember 25in Havana, Cuba, at age 75. A former member o the Black
Panthers and the Black Liberation Army, Shakur always maintained
herinnacenceof he crimesshe was imprisoned for. In1gg8, she wrote
to Pope John Pau I

Atthis point | think thattisimportant to malke one thing very clear
I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary changes in the.
Structure and inthe principlesthat govern the United States. L advo-
determination for my people and foralloppressed.
United States. | advocate an end to capialistexploitation, the abol-

ates sidethe

tion of racist polices,the eradication ofsexism, and the limination
of poltical epression. If that s a rime, then L am totaly guily.

Miss Major Grifin-Gracy passed away on October 14 in Arkansas
at age 78, An activstfor queer and trans liberation, who worked as a
truck driver and sex worker, her work included organizing mobile
needle exchange in San Francisco, fighting for the rights and and
bodily autonomy for incarcerated Black trans women, and was also a

THE OPENING STATEMENT

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

participant at the legendary Stonewall Uprising in 16. Against
backdrop of ever-increasing legislative and viglante attacks on trans
and queer people across the US, Miss Major told other LGBTO+
folks, “Keep on fighting. Do not give up. Don'trelax in the fact that
someone else is going to do it and you're going to be safe, no matter
whatitis.... Band together, keepa strong front. We can'tafford tolet
it go because the moment we let it go, it going to cover us up, so we
must keep going. | didn'tfight all those years ago in Stonewalljust to
tum around and let it go now”

Did You Know? Thisis an ongoing feature of TOS that we began
at the suggestion of a reader where we share facts about history from
below that have been sienced. Dreamers and revolutionaries from
‘amongthe marginalized have embraced the radical potential of emer-
genttechnologiesandalso fought back against the way that poor com-
munities are left with the devastating effects of technological “pro-
gress

The Luddites were a group ofgth-century extile workers in Eng:
land who saw new industrial weaving and spinning machines—an
early form of automation~—as a threat to their communities Rising
food prices, faling wages, and the physical danger to workers posed
by these large machines made them a target for destruction by the
workers they were displacing. The Luddites” organized machine-
breaking as form of cllective bargaining ~demanding an end to the
mass unemployment sparked by this technological advance. The
Luddites recognized that, under capitalism, technology only pro-
duced more profts for the bosses, rather than leisure time for the
workers. Today, the term “luddite”is wsed in both lighthearted and der
ogatory waystoreferto someone who doesn't ke orisn't good atusing
‘computer technology. 1t also used to suggest that people who riti
cize the effects of new technology are naive and their ideas should be
ignored, because it's impossible to stop “technological progress”
These popular usages stip the term of it orginal radical meaning

Inthe 19705, the stll-ongoing tension between the radical possib
ities of computer technology and it oots in militarism emerged. AR-
PANET, the direct precursorto today'sinternet, was developed by the
US Department of Defense and implemented in 1970, ARPANET
was designed as a decentralized communications network, where, in
theory,ifthe Soviet Union bombed one “node” in the network, com-
munication could still flow becanse it was not centralized in a single
Tocation. The nodes were centered in niversity research labs and in
corporate ofics thatall wanted to partcipatein this growing network.
As the network grew, it also required an infrastructure of iber-optic:
cables to function. These fiber-optic cables were laid down in the
ground along the very same railroad tracks as the Transcontinental
Railroad that was built by Chinese coolielabor n the 18505, and nter-
national cables that erossed the Atlantic Ocean followed the sametra-
jectories as slave ships a hundred years before. As Al-assisted drone
strikes double-tap Palestinian hospitals and facial-recognition tech-

PAGE &
NOTES FROM THE EDI

DRS

nology works overtime to enclose libratory spaces and posibiiies,
the internet’s roots in the military industrial complex and racial cap-
italism are important to keepin mind.

Atthe same time, in 1966, counterculture scientist Stewart Brand
demanded that NASA release the first photo of the whole earth as
seen from space. In 1965, he launched the Whole Earth Catalog,
which helped peaple who distrusted state systems but were interested
inecology and Do t-Yourself (DIY) culture access tools and nforma-
tion. The catalog promoted access to early selF-built computers and
synthesizers, and Brand was invested in the radical possibilties of
‘computing tooks and networked information in the hands of people
outside of state and corporate power centers. Funds from Whole
Earth Catalog subscriptions supported Black Panther “Survival

Pending Revolution” programs. Early radical computer builders
sawtechnology asatool for building community power and advancing
ecological projects ofself- and community-sufficiency. This early col-
laboration between environmentalst computing enthusiasts and the
Panthersisan important precursorto the environmental justice move-
ment that emerged in subsequent decades.

Environmental injustce s the way the state and corporate enities
systematically oppress marginalized groups through environmental
‘contamination and inequitable access to environmentl benelits and
resources. From the location of landfil, toic waste dumps, petro-
chemical plants, and data centers in poor Black and Brown commu-
nities, to the planting of trees (which significantly reduces city tem-
peratures and air pollution) only in affuent white neighborhoods,
environmental injustice came to national attention in the 1970 when

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

the Govemor of North Carolina selected rural, poor, and overwhel-
mingly Black Warren County, a the dumping site for soillaced with
PCBs produced as insulating fluids in electrical equipment. After
the courts failed to block the dump site from opening, community
members blocked roadhways, working together o ry to physicall pre-
vent truckloads of cancer-causing waste from entering their com-
munity. The fight against environmental injustice s local and global
2 202 study in Detroit found that historically redlined neighbor-
hoods experience significantly higher environmental hazards, rates
of cancer, and rates of respiratory illness. The “green new deal” pro-
moted by democratic politicians depends on the colonial eplotation
of child minersin the Congo-who are exposed o uranium, severe air
pollution, and toxic runoffn their communities s they mine compo-
nents for Teska and smartphone batteries.

In every case, we see that technology is produced at the expense
of marginalized communities around the world,even whenitalso pos-
sesses the radical possibiltes recognized by early counter-culture
‘computing advocates. The Luddites recognized that, under capital-
ism, the benefits of mechanization can never belong 1o the workers,
and the residents of Warren County who lay their bodics on the line
rying to prevent the toxic byproducts of technological advancement
from entering their community saw that technology is ot created out
of thin air—everything fromits raw material to ts waste products im-
pacts the lives of the marginalized.

With respect and solidarit,

MAPS

LEGACY

v

REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS

AFTER GEORGE JACKSON

Because something else must belong to him,
More than these chains, these cuff, these cells—
‘Something more than Hard Rock' hurt,

More than remembrances of where men

Go mad with craving—corpuscle, epideris,
Flesh, men buried in the whale of i, al of i,
Because the so many of s mute ourselves,

Sient before the box, fascinated by the drama

Of confined bodies on prime-time television
These prisons sanitized for entertainment &;
These indeterminate sentences hidden, because
We alllack this panther’ rage, the gt

THE OPENING STATEMENT

Of Soledad &; geographies adorned with state numbers
& names of the dead &; dying etched on skin,

This suffering, wid loss, under mass cuffs,

‘Those buried hours must be about more

Than adding to this surfeit of pain as history

s bars that once held him embrace us.

REGINALD DWAYNE BETTS is the founder of Freedom Reads, a first-of-
ltskind organization working 1o radically transform access o literature in
prison. This pocr was originally published n Bett's collecton Bastards ofthe:
Reagan i 2015, and republished on the websit of the Academy of American

Poctsinzo.

PAGE 7
FROM AUTOMATION

0O “‘AX’

AN INTERVIEW WITH DWAYNE MONROE
Diwayne Monroeis atechnologist with decades of experienceinthe US and Europe. Heintimately knows how technologies that the media describes
asethereal rally work, where they come from, and how they are used i the multinational corporations and governments dominating our ives. He
applies whathe calls a Noir Marsist lens (sylsticallyinformed by the work of Raymond Chandler, analyticallyinformed by Marian materialism)
1o disecting the fech industry with a special emphasis on Microsoft' plans and actions. We learned about his work from a couple of fantastic in-
terviews he did on a podcast called “Millennials are Killing Capitalism. We appreciated not onlyhis sharp eitique of s-called “Arificial Intell
gence” but also his clear breakdown of what Al eally i, how it works, and how if being used. In the interview; which has been lightly edited for
clarity and to avoid censorship, Dwayne discusses what's wrong with the way mainstream journalists understand Al, how the tech industry and
corporations aim fo use and profit from i (and why they havent profited as much as they hoped), how it i beginning to be used in prisons, and

‘more. We condcted this interview by email in September-October 2025, Thanks fo Dwvayne for taking the time to answer our questions!

THE OPENING STATEMENT: It fecis ke everybody is
talking about “Artifical Inteligence” these days, but can you tak a
ftle about what Al actually is? What do mainstream accounts of Al
get wrong about this technology? And why do you think there has.
been so much interest (and financial investmentl) in Al over the last
fow years?

DDWAYNE MONROE: The phrase, “arifical nteligence”
should be understood as marketing, We do not yet understand how
thinking works in humans or any of our fellow creatures (this is why
cognitve science s a serious area of stucy).

‘Considering this lack of knowledige, is absurd to say that tech
‘companies have produced an artifiial version of what is not under-
stood. The term was coined by computer scientist John McCarthy
at a workshop hosted by Dartmouth College in 1956. By this time,
digital computers had reached a level of sophistication and useful-
ness (for examle, in running mathematics programs that helped
physicists perform the complex calculations for creating hydrogen
bombs) that peaple began to wonder what could be done with this
technology. McCarthy and his calleagues proposed that the fields
long term goal is the creation of thinking machines. In the decades
that followed, there were many twists and turns and a series of what
were called “Al winters" during which enthusiasm died and invest-
ment dried up when promises id not match realty.

In the 20205, using one method, large language models (the sta-
tistical manipulation of words as tokens that can be used to produce
plausible seeming outputs), the tech industry has been able to sell
us on the idea that *AI" has finally arrived. They hope to profit from
this belief, which they encourage. Mainstream accounts of ‘Al" miss
both the history and the nuts and bolts mechanics of this technology
and help the tech industry sel a fase story

TOS: How does the tech industry profitfrom the belie that Al
has arrived?

DM: Thus far, the tech industry has not profited as much as it
hoped or needs to see a return on the investment in data centers

THE OPENING STATEMENT

reqired to host so-called "Al" systems. To the extent it does profit,
itis because the belie in systems replacing people attracts business
customers who are eager to fire workers to reduce costs, adding
they think, to the bottom line

[Editors'note: Here Dwayne referred us to recent essay fitled “The
Case Against Generative Al by the tech writer and eitc Ed Zitron, who
has donedetailed and imvaluable work trackingthe economies of the AY
segment of the tech indusiry” The essay is long and detailed, but we
wanted o nclude arelevant passage here about belefin the power of Al
and profitabilty:

The only thing ‘powerful about generative Al is its mythology: The
world: executives, entrely discomnected from labor and actual produc-
tion, are doing the onlything they know how to~spend a bunch of money
and say vague stff about Al being the future. There are peoplejour-
nalists, investors, and analysts~that have bl entire careers on filngin
the gaps for the powerful as they splurge billons of dollars and repeat
with ncreasing desperation that he future i here' as absolutely nothing
happens

Underpinning these sories about huge amountsof money and endless
opportunity liesa dark secret~that none of this is working, and all o this
‘money has been investedina technology that doesn make much evenue
and loves to bum millons or billons or hundreds of billons of dollars.

Over half a trillon dollars has gone into an entireindustry without
single proftable company developing models o products built on op of
‘models. By my estimates, thee s around 44 billion of revenue in gener-
ative Al this year (when you add in Anihropic and OpenAl's revenes fo
the pot, along with the ofher stragglers) and most of that number has
been gathered through reporting from oulets like The Information, be-
cause none of these companies share their revenues, all of them lose shit
tons of money, and theiractual revenues are eall, really small”|

TOS: Speaking of data centers, in this issue we are also inter-
viewing an organizer with a local campaign against the buiing of a
new data center and research facilty that would be 2 collaboration
between the Uriversty of Michigan and Los Alamos National Labo-

PaGE 8
NTERVIEW WI

ratory. One point that the campaign has emphasized in ts materials
are the environmental consequences of Al and the data centers on
which it depends. Can you briefly explain what the relation is be-
tween Al and data centers? What are the environmental impacts of
these technologies?

DM: Data centers are very large faciities where computers
called servers and associated equipment (storage, networking, cool-
ing, etc) are assembled together to create platforms. Without data
centers, there camnot be "Al" at the scale companies such as Mi-
crosoft, Google, and Amazon (not to mention OpenAl which de-
pends on Microsoft for data center capacity) are pushing. As the
tech industry tries to push "Al" into every nook and corner of our
fives, they must build more data centers to support their fforts. This
is why there is a direct link between environmental impact and data
center usage and expansion. Servers need cooling because com-
puters generate a lot of heat. Water is used for cooling (small tubes
surrounding servers, drawing heat away from the equipment). This
water is drawn from the same sources people need. Data centers
draw significant amounts of electrical power which means an in-
creased output of polluting and carbon producing power generation
(Musk's Grok platform, for example, is powered by a arge array of
diesel generators). The industry and its boosters presernt this tech-
nology as f it is weightless but it is an industrial process and dirty

TOS: You've also written about Al as an attack on labor, as in
efforts to replace truck drivers and delivery drivers with autonomous.
vehicles or to replace writers and artists with generative Al tools.
How significant do you think the threat of Alis, and are certain kinds
of jobs especially vinerable?

DM: Itis not A" that is a threat but the effort of comparies to
marginalize or replace labor using "Al" as an excuse that is the real
danger for workers. Driving, for example, can be performed by com-
puters within narrow and well-defined boundaries (Waymos driver-
less vehicles in San Francisco provide an example) but things fal
apart when systems have to deal with what engineers call “edge
cases” By "edge cases” they mean things outside of what the sys-
tems have been programmed to do or can respond to. Unfortunately
for their plans, the world is an endless series of edge cases. Even
so, this does ot stop companies from claming that robotaxis are
justaround the corner. Using this excuse, owners cantry to pressure
workers to acaept lower wages and worse working conditions be-
‘cause most people do not know the limitations of this technology
and are intimidated. The most vuinerable work to-date are jobs in-
volving the use of text because OpenAl, Microsoft, and other cor-
porations are pushing large language model systems (ChatGPT, for
‘example) as replacements for writers, customer service workers
‘and others who use text. Chatbots cannot do journalism, for exam-
ple, but publications such as Business Week are more focused on

THE OPENING STATEMENT

H DWAYNE MONKOE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

cutting costs for profitrather than the accuracy of what i presented
to readers.

TOS: Prisons in Michigan and the US more generally used to
function like factories, producing many difierent kinds of commod-
iies. For example, in the early twentisth century, Jackson Prison in
Michigan produced everything from binder twine to furmiture to ce-
ment to canned vegetables for sale on the open market, and admin-
istrators claimed that the profits made the prison self.sustaining.
That changed after World War I, and today the work that prisoners
do inside is primariy “reproductive; involving tasks lke cooking
cleaning, and caring that keep prisons functioning. Given this, how
might Al affect labor inside the prison, and the lves of prisoners
more generally?

DM: Now we get to an old technology—automation—used for
many decades in auto factories and other workflows that can be di-
vided into specfic tasks. Today, this s described as "Al” because,
for marketing and sales reasons, everything involving computers is
called "AL" | think that we will see the tech industry try to sell the
prison sector on systems that force people into speed-up scenarios.
Survellance and tracking (even more than what is currently used)
is another impact as i the use of so-called “Al” systems to “decide’
critcal things like parole, food, medical access, otc. We are already
seeing this in some jurisdictions and it will very likely spread.

TOS: Can you say a lttls more about what these “specd-up
scenarios” might look like? Also, some might see algorithmic deci-
sions about parole and medical access s less biased, because a
‘computer makes the decision rather than a person. How might the
use of an Al system be worse for folks inside than dealing directly
with racist, misogynist, and reactionary people?

DM: Software has long been used to track our movements and
enforce speed-up schemes. For example, the movements of Amazon
delvery drivers and warehouse workers are tracked, recorded, and
assessed using algorithmic systems that determine how often a
worker spends “time on task” This is inevitably applied to reduce
the amount of time a worker has to rest.

Regarding bias... Software refiects the biases of the people and
institutions creating and deploying the systems This s why so-called
generative "Al" platforms rautinely spout racist and sexist images
and text when used

TOS: We are curious about simiarties between prisons and
data centers. One possible connection has to do with the abolitonist
‘geographer Ruth Wilson Gilmore's idea of the “prison fi” Gilmore
argues that the boom of prison construction in the 1980s and gos
was a response to the effects of the economic crisis of the 1970s.
Buiding prisons helped to absorb *surplus” workers who had lost
theirjobs as factories closed down (by imprisoning them and remov-
ing them from the labor market): surplus agricuitural land that had

PAGE ©
NTERVIEW WI

been taken out of production as a result of deb (by converting it
into prisons): and surplus finance capital that couldn't find a profi-
able site for investment (by encouraging investment in municipal
bonds that were used to finance prison construction). Does this par-
allel what is going on with data centers today? Could we tak about
a“data center fx'?

DM: This is a very interesting way of seeing things and a con-
nection that, once | read it made perfect sense to me. Data centers
are indsed very much like prisons in the sense that, capital invest:
ment, hoarded, with state support, by the ownership class and
scarcely used forthings we need, s being poured nto "Al” and there-
fore, data center expansion at a dizzying pace. The recently an-
nounced deal between OpenAl and Oracle (the database firm,
founded, essential, by the CIA in the 170s) is an exchange of bil-
lions back and forth between them with no plan for profitabity: a
shell game to absorb surplus capital and a grif

TOS: Finally, how might radicals and abolfionists challenge the
rise of Al?

DM: Resistance starts by rejecting corporate propaganda. This
means rejecting "Al" as a term that describes an actually existing
technology (thinking machines) and learning how these systems
really work.The industry, andits media mouthpieces want everyone
to think it Ike magic (which makes them the magicians we should
worship) buttis software, running on servers,hosted in data centers

“EVERYON

H DWAYNE MONKOE

HATES

CONTINUED FROM PAGE g

and all of it is based on the same sorts of explotative flows of re-
sources from global south locations and labor abuse that shapes the
rest of our world

That means, at the next stage of resistance, adopting 2 materialist
mindset. By materialist, | mean seeking information about the real
mechanisms of so-called Al” Despite aot of marketing hype, people:
who buld systems need real information. You can use that to lear
about what happens behind the curtain

At the action stage of resistance, | suggest using this information
and materialist perspective to guide counter-moves. For example, i
you are pushing back against an “Al” niiative, being well cquipped
with knowledge and united as a group enables a powerlul response.
Finally,resist the urge to be impressed, as scientist Emily Bender
advises.

tors’ note: Bender is a compulational inguist and critic of Al She
co-authored a book fitled The Al Con: How o Fight Big Techis Hype and
Create the Future We Want. Here Dwayne is mentioning an artcle Bender
wrole in 2022, where she argued that it s important fo "resist the urge to
b impressed” by Al by remembering that: 1) Just because that fext seerms
coherent doesnt mean the model behind it has understood anything or is
trustworthy; ) ust because that answer was correct doosrt mean the next
one will be; and 3) When a computer seems to speak our language, we're
actually the ones doing all of the work”]

DA

A CEN

ERS*’

INTERVIEW WITH STOP THE DATA CENTER

Data centers do the di

work thats necessary for Al systems o run. This
means they bothenable Al systems and are also real weakness of these sys

tems—if you can stop a data center rom being buil, for example, you can
make it harder for people to wse Al o destroy the world. Of course, data
centers also have harmful and more imimediate impacts on the communities
where they e located. In the introduction of hi issue, we mentioned that
local strugglesagainst data enter projects have taken off around the country
and are having some success. One of these struggles is happening right here
insoutheast Michigan: te niversity of Michigan iscollaborating with Los
Alamos National Laboratory to builda 1.2 billon data center and research
faclity in Ypsilani. Fortunately, people have started to organize against it
topthe Data Center”We conducted the folowing iner-
view by email with a group of participants in September-October 2035, The
nterview has been edited for clarity and 1o avoid censorship. Thanks o the

under the banner

Stop the Data Center crew for answering our questions and for everything
they're doing o build anetwork of esistance i southeast Michigan and stop

this terrble project from movingforward!

THE OPENING STATEMENT

THE OPENING STATEMENT: Who makes up Stop the
Data Center?

STOP THE DATA CENTER: Stop the Data Center s
the collective project of many folks in and around Yosianti. Its a
multi-generational, multi-racial team, many of whom have been or-
ganizing in the area for the last ten years. We came together to stop.
the University of Michigan and Los Alamos Data enter, planned
for Ypsianti Township. Los Alamos is famous for creating the first
atomic bomb and setting it off on American soil, in New Merico,
where people are stil dealing with the falout. They are caling this
data center “the new Marhattan project,” and are recruiting nuclear
weapons engineers to work there. We hate the data center for a va-
fiety of easons: anti-war, environmental, caring about our town and
the good people all over the world who fear the US miltary.

TOS: Can you tell our readers broadly what a data center is
‘and why do you and others oppose this one? And can you describe
the shape and size, to date, of the grassroots campaign against it?

PAGE 10
NTERVIEW WITH STOP

SDC: Everyone who doesn' directly profi from data centers
hates data centers,from the ight to the left. A data center s a huge
factory with hardly any workers, mostly just stacks and stacks and
stacks of computing equipment. So much electricity is needed to
run al this equipment This one will start of at 110 megawatts, which
is enough to power 300,000 homes. The equipment also generates
alot of heat,so it neads to be cooled down with lots of water. Large
data centers consume 5 millon gallons per day, equivalent to the
water use of a town populated by 10,000 to 50,000 people. Also, the
way data centers use electricty is unique, and is not something our
electrical grid is propared for. Whats known as “electricity har-
monics” can shorten the ifespan of everyone’s appliances that are
within miles of the data center

The campaign against the data center s vibrant and full of lfe.
The firt public meeting had 80 attendees, and 150 people showed
up to the first township board meating to oppose the data center.
It intergenerational, with meetings having an age spread of 3 years
old to the early gos. It a multi-racial crew at the helm making things.
happen. Many of the folks holding down difierent working groups
have deep rools here, thaugh we welcome transplants to bring their
new ideas and energy.

TOS: What is the structure of the campaign in terms of deci-
sion making, and how did you arrive at this structure? How has the
‘campaign handed the diversity of politcal backgrounds, prorites
and strategies within t?

SDC: The Stop the Data Center campaign has a spokescouncil
structure. {Editors Note: Wikionary defines a spokescounci as “An as-
sembly of people, each representing agroup o actvists, who meet o dis-
cuss and coordinate their actvities and make decisions by consensus” In
the caseof $top the Data Center, each working group sends epresentatives
1o the spokescouncil meeting | That means there is no one person or
group of people making decisions for others about what should be
done, and tactics are diversified across a wide spectrum, from social
media campaigns to n-person lobbying This structure has the bene-
it of being inclusive and non-coercive, alowing people from allwalks.
of fe to participate in the ways they see fit

Additionally, Stop the Data Genter organizers seek to offer food
and child care at many events, further increasing reach and acces-
sibiity. Thus, there are many small groups within the overall move-
ment that participants can plug themselves into. Here are some of
the groups that currently exist: lyering, Canvassing, Lobbying, Food
team (brings food to all events), Chid Care (provides childcare dur-
ing meetings and chid-centered activties and events so kids are
part of the movement tool), U of M affites, Social Media, DTE
pressure, Outreach, Poetry/Art, and Park Improvement/Eco Group.

TOS: After months of mobilzing against buiding the data
center at the original proposed site in Ypsianti Township right next
to the Huron River, the U of M recently announced that they are

THE OPENING STATEMENT

HE DA

A CENTER

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

considering developing the data center at a diferent site, near the
Willow Run airport. How does the campaign interpret this move,
and how do you plan to respond to it?

SDC: Our campaign does not view the change in sies as an
improvement and would oppose any proposed site for the center.
Moving the site to Willow Run feels ke pandering to a specifc type
of detractor who is concerned for the health of the Huron River but
not necessariy that of the most vulnerable communities in Washte-
naw County. However, this move has delayed the timeline for the
project by a whole year, which gives us more time to mount a de-
fense!

TOS: From door knocking in the neighborhoods araund the
proposed location for the data center, what have you leamed about
how Black, Brown, and working class people think about having a
data center as a neighbor?

SDC: Our campaignis made up of mostly working cass people,
with foks who are doing core organizing being a pretty mlti-racia
group. Part of our strategy to buid the movement has been canvas-
sing direct neighbors of the proposed sites, which are vast majority
Black working class people. This has been wildly successful, practi-
cally everyone who answers the door is glad to see us. Many folks
‘whowere canvassed have come out to meetings and gotten involved
in organizing We are going to needots of help, in the form of boots
on the ground work and also co-theorizing and strategizing, and we
are not going to leave West Willow neighbors out.

TOS: Why should our readers n prison in Michigan and other
states care about this data center? How do you think it would affect
imprisoned people or theirfamilies?

SDC: This data center affects all of us through our collective
dependence on the elecirical grid and accelerated miltarism and
surveilance. This new era of hundreds of billons of dollars being
spent to buid data centers in every corner of our world is one that
prisoners need to know about, as it wil change the world we are il
fing in. The stress on the grid il cause black outs and brown outs
in addition to increased rates. Right now, people who live nearby
data centers pay on average 243% more for electricity, baling out
the corporations. However, the electricity they are paying more for
islower quality, having to do with the harmonics of the electrical grid
being impacted by data centers, This causes small appliances to burn
out carler, and impacts overall grid heath. The huge increase in
power use also fuels global warming in a really signicant way: This
is a vicious combination of a weakened grid struggling to power in-
door cooling efforts alongside higher temperatures and more intense
and chaotic weather events.

The Al-powered ‘national security research” that wil take place
at this center willno doubt be put to eficent use scaling up surveil
lance and policing of domestic populations. Additionaly, it is kely
that actual policing in the communities around the data center would

PAGE 11
NTERVIEW WITH STOP

change. High-security faciites such as this often demand that police
presence be vamped up ta protect the "assets” and sensitive infor-
mation held at the center. Prisoners, despite being kept away from

TOS BOOK CLU

The Baok Club s back with a new round of books! We select two
books and our inside subscribers can g free copies if they wish.
In the past, some folks wrote reviews orreflections about the books
and we published them here in the newsletter. However, MDOG
now censors Michigan prisoners by blocking 70S f it includes
MDOC prisoner writings. But we'e stil nterested in what you have
to say!Ifyourd like to share a response to either or both of the books,
please send it our way and we can consider publishing it on our web-
site or as a zine. The next set of readings will be:

Unbuied Walls: Why lmmigrant Justioe Needs Abolition (2024) by
Siky Shah: Shah considers the relationship between immigration
policy and policies surrounding incarceration in the US. This is a
highlyreadable book that braids together historical and legal anaysis,
stories of individual organizers and actvists, as well as Shah's own
personal experience as an organizer. What gave us the idea to in-
clude this book i that it came up n our nterview with JR, a member
of the No Detention Centers in Michigan coaltion, which we pub-
lished in the Summer 2025 issue of 70S.

THE DA

A CENTER

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

us, are important parts of our communities, and we are going to
need everyone in the fight to stop the data center. B

#'7

The Dispossessed (1974) by Ursula K. Le Guin: Shah drew her
titefrom this science fiction novel.(*Those who bud walls re their
‘own prisoners. | am going to go fulfil my proper function n the social
organism. Im going to go unbuid walls") The novel juxtaposes an-
archist and capitalist cultures and thinks at length about imprison-
ment, making it an interesting companion to Shah's text

A you read, you might consider connections between the ways
these twotexts think about utopia, imprisonment, and socialinequal-
ity. How does Ursula K. Le Guin's representation of these concepts
in 1974 compare to the way Shah is conceptualizing them fifty years
later n 20247 How does Shah seem to feel about the possibiity for
a utopian reimagining of society in comparison to Le Guin? How
does Le Guin represent walls, and what do wallsepresent in Shah's
thinking?

If you are interested in receving free copies of these books
please write to us at the address below. W

THE OPENING STATEMENT is an abolitonist newsletter driven by
the voices and vsions of Michigan prisoners, as well as those on the
autside impacted by the prison system.

THE OPENING STATEMENT hopes ta foster ongoing discussion
‘against the violence of incarceration.

WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM OU. f you would like to
contribute to the ongoing discussion, please send us your thoughts
to the address below. Because MDOC has been ramping up cen-
sorship n recent years, we cannot promise to publish your contrib-
ution here. If you would ik to publish a critcal essay, reflection on
your own experiences, poetry, or artwork et us know what audience
youhave in mind and wel ry to connect you with anther publisher.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SUBSCRIBE, please write o the address.
below requesting a subsoription. Al subscriptions for prisoners are
free of charge. Current publication s quartary.

HELP SPREAD THE WORD! Share this issue with your burkie, your
friends, and anyone else who might be interested in this discussion

THE OPENING STATEMENT

and has an eye on liberation. ff they'd ke to receive a copy them-
selves, please have them write us directly. We are not able to add
someane to our subscription st without hearing from them directly.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO UNSUBSCRIBE, please let us know and
we will remove your name immediately. We understand that people
may choose to unsubscribe for any number oflegitimate reasons and
respect that choice, no questions asked!

coNTACT:

The Opening Statement
c/o MAPS
PO Box 8011
Ann Arbor, Ml 48107

FAMILY AND FRIENDS can find us at wwwmichiganabolition.org.

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