The algorithm is watching you: British-Israeli professor denied US visa

[muriel_volestrangler]

Eyal Weizman is the founding director of Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London, that undertakes advanced spatial and media investigations into cases of human rights violations. What follows is an edited version of a statement presented on his behalf in Miami this evening.

The following day I went to the US embassy in London to apply for a visa. In my interview the officer informed me that my authorisation to travel had been revoked because the ‘algorithm’ had identified a security threat. He said he did not know what had triggered the algorithm but suggested that it could be something I was involved in, people I am or was in contact with, places to which I had travelled (had I recently been in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, or Somalia or met their nationals?), hotels at which I stayed, or a certain pattern of relations among these things. I was asked to supply the embassy with additional information, including 15 years of travel history, in particular where I had gone and who had paid for it. The officer said that Homeland Security investigators could assess my case more promptly if I supplied the names of anyone in my network whom I believed might have triggered the algorithm. I declined to provide this information.

This much we know: we are being electronically monitored for a set of connections – the network of associations, people, places, calls and transactions – that make up our lives. Such network analysis poses many problems, some of which are well known. Working in human rights means being in contact with vulnerable communities, activists and experts, and being entrusted with sensitive information. These networks are the lifeline of any investigative work. I am alarmed that relations among our colleagues, stakeholders and staff are being targeted by the US government as security threats.

This incident exemplifies – in a far less intense manner and at a much less drastic scale – critical aspects of the ‘arbitrary logic of the border’ that the Forensic Architecture exhibition in Miami seeks to expose. The racialised violations of the rights of migrants at the US southern border are of course much more serious and brutal than the procedural difficulties a UK national may experience, and these migrants have very limited avenues for accountability when contesting the violence of the US border.

As I would have announced in today’s lecture, the exhibition is an occasion for Forensic Architecture to launch a joint investigation with local groups into human rights violations at the Homestead detention centre in Florida, where migrant children have been held in what activists describe as ‘regimented, austere and inhumane conditions’.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2020/february/the-algorithm-is-watching-you

Head of Turner prize-nominated Forensic Architecture barred from US visit

Forensic Architecture, uses modern technology such as remote sensing, 3D modelling and vessel-tracking to search for evidence of human rights violations. Its work includes investigations into a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, a joint-study with investigative journalism website Bellingcat into the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons, an inquiry into the Israeli bombing the city of Rafah in the Gaza strip, and the shooting by police of Mark Duggan, in Tottenham, north London, which triggered the biggest riots in modern English history.

In conjunction with the Miami exhibition, entitled True to Scale, Forensic Architecture is launching an investigation into the Homestead detention centre in Florida, where unaccompanied migrant children have been allegedly held in ‘prison-like conditions’.

Nick Waters, a senior investigator at Bellingcat, said on Twitter: “Eyal is a man who has consistently used his remarkable intellect to investigate abuses of power. Some of those abuses have included the US. The revocation of his visa is a travesty and should be reversed immediately.”

A spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection said its officers “have the statutory authority to refer any individuals for additional screening about whom we need more information to make a determination of risk. These referrals are based on multiple factors that could include a combination of an individual’s activities, associations, and travel patterns.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/20/head-of-turner-prize-nominated-forensic-architecture-barred-from-us-visit

(The Turner Prize is the leading contemporary art prize in Britain)

I can't help wonder if the 'algorithm' is also programmed to make life difficult for critics of the Trump regime, as well as providing an opening for fishing expeditions. A bit like "we won't make you appear in front of the Un-American Activities Committee if you name names".

[marble falls]

1. The snitch is in the software.