The Bay Area holds many profound identities: a hub for technological innovation, a liberal mecca, and also a playground for new surveillance technologies. The Bay Area culture is a loud and proud one, yet surveillance threatens to chill people’s speech and invoke a culture of fear instead. There are many angles to combat this threat, be it policy changes, technological guardrails, individual action, or community power. This documentary aims to highlight these aspects by following the lives of Bay Area residents who live this reality every day. 

Eva: Eva is the Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco. She focuses her work on providing privacy and security for vulnerable populations across the world, including the creation of a Surveillance Self-Defense Toolkit. 

Flower: Flower is an active community organizer in San Jose. Due to her own personal experiences with surveillance from police and individuals, she’s taken it upon herself to teach her fellow protestors how to remain protected from such restrictive measures. 

Lou: Lou is the president of BLACK Outreach SJ, a community organization based in San Jose. His mission is to build up trustworthy and resilient communities to reduce reliance on policing and surveillance. 

Priya: Priya is a former student protestor who now advocates for housing justice in Oakland. Her personal experiences with doxxing have informed her understanding of surveillance and systemic injustices.

Brian: Brian is the chair of the Oakland Privacy Commission and director of Secure Justice, a policy advocacy group in Oakland. He works with various cities across the country regarding citizen oversight and participation related to surveillance and data privacy.

Adrienne: Adrienne is a research fellow at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR). Her lived experiences as a former Amazon delivery driver have inspired her to advocate against worker surveillance and empower current drivers to share their stories.

"Watch the watchers" is a phrase that means turning the eye back on those in power and holding them accountable. When people are being watched and know they’re being watched by those in power, the people discipline and censor themselves, even if they’re unsure that they are being surveilled. This is important as it can be applied to the way in which people in authority can control our historically marginalized groups.

As a group filled with children of immigrants, BIPOC, women, queer folks, and activists, CPC aims to shed a light on how as encompassing and murky as surveillance can be- this level of oversight isn’t just a nice to have, it’s life or death. From surveillance of the civil rights leaders in the 1960s, to increased oversight on Arab Americans post 9/11, and to women’s location data being violated due to bodily regulation in 2024, surveillance impacts you, whether you know it or not. 

This issue is far from a Bay Area specific one. In southern states in the U.S., surveillance is being used to restrict reproductive rights and enforce abortion bans. TSA is deploying facial recognition technology across U.S. airports. Outside of the U.S., London has one of the most extensive surveillance camera set-ups in the world. This technology continues to evolve in cities across the world, at the expense of real people. 

To watch the watchers means to turn back the watchtower on those surveilling us. The urgency of the matter cannot be overstated. We all collectively must push for change, for ourselves and our communities.

CPC: The Citizens Privacy Coalition is a grassroots community organization primarily composed of young people of color passionate about social justice, founded in the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020. A year after its inception, CPC has been led by women of color in their 20s - today, it’s currently led by Kalesi Budei. We work to educate our community through creative projects that vary from social media posts explaining local privacy measures, to zines and comic books about privacy and surveillance tactics, and to free public workshop series aimed to engage residents in the battle for privacy rights. CPC joined San José Strong in 2021.

Nidhi (Director): Nidhi is a passionate advocate for ethical and equitable technology. She has been working in AI policy advocacy for the past 2.5 years, with a specific focus on placing prohibitions on cybersurveillance nationally and internationally. As a proud Bay Area native, she wants to protect the vibrancy and diversity of Bay Area culture that she loves so much. She believes that everyone has a right to privacy, and that people need to break through their perceived hopelessness about the situation to fight for that right. 

Kalesi (CPC Lead): Kalesi is the lead of CPC. Her background in local data privacy and surveillance policy as well as community organizing provides valuable insights into building out an outreach strategy that ensures accessibility. Her extensive experience in organizing has also been crucial in building community trust and buy-in, with many of our interviewees coming from CPC’s existing network that she has built up over the years. 

Priyanka (Producer): Priyanka is a filmmaker with 10+ years of social justice documentary experience. She believes a compelling narrative possesses the unique power to transcend geographical, cultural, and identity boundaries. Her stories center on character-driven narratives, shedding light on individuals and communities that are invisible or unheard. Through her work, she aims to amplify their voices.

Fundraising goals

Immediate goal: $9000 - Create a 15 minute sample as a proof of concept to continue applying to competitive grants. 

Stretch goals: 

$11,000 - Complete principal photography.

$16,000 - Compensate all production crew, including our fantastic film participants and volunteers.

$26,000 - Pay for post-production, distribution, and promotion.

Roadmap

Spring 2024: We first have the idea to make a 10 minute documentary about activism, surveillance, and the Bay Area. We expand the scope to make a longer documentary about how surveillance affects all residents in the Bay Area. We want to make it clear that surveillance isn’t an issue that affects just one political movement or group of people, but impacts all of us every day. 

Summer 2024: We interview individuals from local community organizations, policy advocacy nonprofits, and researchers. We hear stories of how these individuals have been personally impacted by surveillance and how they fight back against surveillance today. 

Fall 2024: We conduct follow-up interviews and additional filming across the Bay, following the stories of our main interviewees as they continue resisting surveillance in their daily lives.

Winter 2024: We begin editing and polishing our film.

Spring 2025: Our film is ready to be shared with the world!

Join the fight

1. Pledge: Any amount helps. Pick from our incentives, wishlist, or click the “Make a Pledge” button at the top of this page. 
2. Share this link: Share this link directly to people who you think would resonate with this film. 
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4. Spread the word: Share our campaign via social media, word-of-mouth, email, however you’d like! Surveillance is a big issue - let’s talk about it!