For Indigenous Peoples, Surveillance Is Nothing New

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Friend,

The history of Indigenous surveillance is older than the United States itself.

Since the arrival of colonizers, Native Americans were tracked with the location-tracking devices of their time. In the 1700s, this meant citywide “lantern laws,” requiring Indigenous and enslaved Black people to carry lamps. If any street was too well-lit, white New Yorkers were deputized to intervene… often violently.
 

In more recent decades, the FBI spied on the American Indian Movement: COINTELPRO planted informants, bugged reservations, and jailed the group’s leaders. And in 2017, protestors at Standing Rock were surveilled by the security firm TigerSwan, which worked with law enforcement to monitor and undermine the movement using drones and social media.

Twenty-first century surveillance is deeply rooted in legacies of racism and colonialism. On Indigenous People’s Day and every day, we must confront this history in order to dismantle centuries-old systems of mass surveillance.
 
With thanks,
Fabian Rogers
Advocacy Associate
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Newslettercommunications staff