Friday, April 17, 2026
LWV-Downeast
Mass surveillance constitutes a threat to free speech. Commercial and government surveillance infrastructure has grown and continues to grow, encompassing license plate readers, location tracking, and facial recognition and other biometric data. How do these invasions of privacy threaten free speech? What protections should individuals and civil society adopt to protect civil liberties?
Special guests:
- Cindy Cohn, Former Executive Director, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), author of the book, Privacy's Defender.
- Hannah Cyrus, Digital Media Librarian, Bangor Public Library
- Cooper Quintin, security researcher and senior public interest technologist with the EFF Threat Lab and board member of Open Archive.
To learn more about this topic:
- “Maine Democrats flip their votes to put far-reaching data privacy bill in doubt” | Bangor Daily News, Michael Shepherd, April 2026.
- Privacy’s Defender: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Digital Surveillance | MIT Press, Cindy Cohn, March 2026.
- “ICE has spun a massive surveillance web. We talked to people caught in it” | NPR, Kat Lonsdorf, Jude Joffe-Block, & Meg Anderson, March 2026.
- “Why is the FBI buying people’s location data and how is it using the information?” | The Guardian, Sanya Mansoor, March 2026.
- “Refusal as Instruction: Equipping Patrons to Resist AI, Data Brokers, Big Tech, & More,” | Information, Technology and Libraries, Hannah Cyrus, March 2026.
- “From Flock to ICE, Here’s a Breakdown of How You’re Being Watched” | 404 Media, Evy Kwong, Jason Koebler, & Joseph Cox, March 2026.
- “Houlton’s surveillance cameras are gone, but where is the data?” | Bangor Daily News, Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli, February 2026.
- “Across the US, people are dismantling and destroying Flock surveillance cameras” | Blood in the Machine, Brian Merchant, February 2026.
- “ICE Is Going on a Surveillance Shopping Spree” | Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cooper Quintin, January 2026.
- “License Plate Readers and Public Surveillance”” | Maine ACLU, December 2025.
- “Location-tracking services bring useful data for Maine cities, ethical concerns for citizens” | Bangor Daily News, Kasey Turman, September 2025.
- Deflock: Find Nearby ALPRs
- ActivistChecklist.org, Digital Security Checklists for Activists
- Surveillance Self-Defense | Electronic Frontier Foundation
- “The Chilling Effects of Surveillance and Human Rights: Insights from Qualitative Research in Uganda and Zimbabwe” | Journal of Human Rights Practice, Daragh Murray, Pete Fussey, Kuda Hove, Wairagala Wakabi, Paul Kimumwe, Otto Saki, & Amy Stevens, February 2024.
Tune into the broadcast at 4:00 p.m., Friday, April 17, on WERU 89.9 FM Blue Hill, streaming at weru.org. If you miss the broadcast, check back here for the audio archive. Subscribe to our podcast: iTunes | Spotify | Android.