Ethics in Tech invites you to join us Thursday March 4 at 6:30 pm PST for a discussion on surveillance and Big Tech data collection. We are excited about our speakers, who for this event include:
Saira Hussain, Electronic Frontier Foundation: Saira is a staff attorney on EFF’s civil liberties team, focusing on racial justice and surveillance. Previously, she was a lawyer at the Criminal Justice Reform Program at Advancing Justice—Asian Law Caucus (ALC), where she focused on disentangling federal immigration enforcement from local law enforcement through policy advocacy, litigation, and coalition-building. She started at ALC as a Berkeley Law Public Interest Fellow in the Immigrant Rights’ Program, representing immigrants in deportation proceedings. In addition, Saira organizes with Survived and Punished CA to end the criminalization of survivors of gender-based and sexual violence.
Nathan “nash” Sheard, Electronic Frontier Foundation: nash is the associate director of community organizing at EFF, leading the digital rights group’s grassroots, student, and community organizing efforts. As the lead coordinator of the Electronic Frontier Alliance, nash works to support the Alliance’s member organizations in educating their neighbors on digital-privacy best practices, and advocating for privacy and innovation protecting policy and legislation.
nash’s work is informed by lived experience with aggressive and militarized policing in the United States, Honduras, and Palestine, including racial profiling, the effects of biased broken windows policing tactics, and police brutality. nash has worked extensively to help mitigate the damage of harmful interactions with law enforcement online and in over-policed communities. Before joining EFF, as co-founder of Black Movement Law Project and a member of Mutant Legal, nash spent close to a decade training communities in crisis on how to document police conduct, exercise their legal rights, counteract state repression and actively participate in their own legal defense.
Rev. Martin Todd Allen, Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples: Martin is an advisor to Ethics in Tech. He is associate minister at the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples, the nation’s first interracial church founded in 1944 by Dr. Howard Thurman and Dr. Albert Fisk. Previously, he worked as a prison, hospital, and military chaplain and currently works as a hospice chaplain in the South Bay. In addition, he serves on the board of directors of The Human Agenda.
Mike Rufo: Mike is an advisor to Ethics in Tech and a Bay Area activist, singer/songwriter, and sustainable energy consultant. Mike is a board member of Defending Rights and Dissent, a civil liberties organization and was previously a board member with the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology (CEERT). Mike has directed several national sustainable energy consultancies and is a lifetime achievement award (IEPEC) winner for his work on energy program evaluation and policy. He has a master’s degree in technology and human affairs and an undergraduate degree in environmental studies. Mike’s passions for civil liberties, social justice, the environment, and music come together in songs like “Spyin’ Eyes” that promote activism and transformation. Mike shares his songs at peace, civil liberties, and other activist events, including, of course, Ethics in Tech.
Brett Wilkins: Brett is an Ethics in Tech board member and a staff writer at Common Dreams. He is also a member of the international socialist writers’ group Collective 20. His work focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights.
And as always, Ethics in Tech follows our speakers with a lineup of uproarious comics. This time we’ve got:
Debi Durst: Forged in the crucible of improvisational theater at a young age, Debi has performed with every improv group known to humanity in the Bay Area. This begins with The Committee, Spaghetti Jam, Femprov, The Comedy Underground, The National Theater of the Deranged, Papaya Juice, The Dinosaurs of Improv, The Marsh Jam and currently The Bad Aunties. She produces San Francisco’s Comedy Celebration Day and The Big Fat Year End.
Barry Weintraub: Barry has been doing comedy since telephones had long and tangled cords on them. Now, he’s doing it into a camera on his laptop for people equally as anchored to the sofas in their own homes. Barry’s comedy, much like the nation as a whole, has never been greater.
Nina G: Nina is a comedian, professional speaker, and author of Stutterer Interrupted: The Comedian Who Almost Didn’t Happen. She has been featured in/on everything from NPR’s 51%, BBC’s Ouch, Psychology Today, Tedx, multiple day time talk shows, Howard (Stern) 100 News and even the Stuttering John Podcast. Nina shares her wit and wisdom with corporations, colleges, libraries, conferences, and community events. Her no nonsense approach to disability awareness and acceptance helps to bring institutions, communities and individuals to deepen their understanding of the disability and bring practical approaches to making a more inclusive society.
Your host for this event will be Ethics in Tech founder Vahid Razavi, an Iranian-American and technology veteran of Silicon Valley who has founded tech firms and advised and worked in senior management roles in Silicon Valley. He has published two books, The Age of Nepotism and Ethics In Tech and Lack Thereof. As a lifelong activist and humanitarian he has published hundreds of articles and videos on various social issues including the tech industry and social injustice. He has previously worked for companies such as Amazon Web Services, Fast Search, Exodus Communications, and Qwest Communications. He was the founder of cloud computing company BizCloud.
Ticket are $8-$12 and can be purchased here. We hope to see you Thursday!
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