Hey, you're listening to Unlimited Hangout. I'm your host Whitney Webb.

While the COVID-19 crisis drags on, and as the U.S. National Security State

drums up its new war and domestic terror, it's important to pay attention to the key areas

where both overlap and without a doubt, one of the main overlaps is the way they are both

being used to rapidly advance and escalate the U.S.'s existing surveillance state.

With COVID-19, the rise in the collection and use of biometrics as well as the mass

digitalization of everyday life have created a world that has more easily surveilled than ever before.

The explosive growth of the National Security Surveillance State has empowered its technocrats

and these perceived successes will inevitably fuel the further growth of the surveillance state,

especially its artificial intelligence components. In the case of the war on domestic terror,

longstanding efforts to target encryption and other privacy protections through congressional

legislation are advancing alongside other troubling trends such as law enforcement's rapidly

increasing use of surveillance technology, including those with predictive police and capabilities,

better known as pre-crime. To discuss this and more, I am joined today by Derek Brose.

Derek is a journalist, activist and speaker that writes for the last American vagabond in his

own site, The Conscious Resistance. He has spent years covering the progression of surveillance in

the U.S., particularly along the U.S.-Mexican border, and is also well known for his focus on

solutions, having authored books like How to Opt Out of the Technocratic State, and also having

recently hosted a solutions focus summit called The Greater Reset, which was launched in response

to the World Economic Forum's annual meeting late last month. Brose's recent work at the

Last American Vagabond is focused on the intersection of law enforcement and surveillance,

specifically the recent spike in law enforcement's use of facial recognition software.

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