I created an interactive knowledge base around mass surveillance in Asheville if you want to learn more about what's happening locally
I've been trying to be more informed around the topic of increased surveillance and watched the May 12th city council session live on YouTube to see our local politicians completely disregard the feedback of their constituents.
After seeing a few bits pop up around the National Week of Action Against ALPRs it inspired me to do some more digging on the topic to be more knowledgable around what's happened in our area and where we might be heading since most all of the reporting I've seen so far around it has just taken regurgitated Flock/Axon talking points.
So I dug as far as I could find to paint a clearer picture of where Asheville is compared to other communities (especially ones that are terminating their surveillance programs), fact checked statements made by elected officials, flock, and axon representatives, and put together a historical timeline of what has taken place in Asheville so far.
I will say I am not a journalist, I just did my absolute best to make sure the statements where checked and linked for review, and I do disclose my own stance within the project so you can also equally weight how that might have influenced the outcome of this project along with the general mistakes that AI tools can also make along the way.
I've also made this post from an alt account not of fear of obfuscating my identity but more that I feel the work sits better on its own as a resource to the community without as many threads to my self or my individual thoughts.