EFF has built up a robust focus on digital civil liberties at the U.S.-Mexico border, including challenging the warrantless and suspicionless searches of electronic devices and the massive increase in surveillance infrastructure throughout the region. Our team has gathered firsthand knowledge of local tech concerns through a series of visits to communities on both sides of the border where we interviewed journalists and activists, and mapped and documented the proliferation of border surveillance tools. As a result of this work, EFF has created a traveling exhibit featuring information and photographs from several years of research and advocacy.
Join our panel featuring EFF Director of Investigations Dave Maass, EFF Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Guariglia, Todd Miller, Pedro Rios, and Petra Molnar as they explore digital civil liberties at the U.S.-Mexico border and the work that brought the exhibit to life.
Life and Migration Under Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border
Thursday, April 3rd
This event is LIVE and FREE!
Accessibility
This event will be live-captioned and recorded. EFF is committed to improving accessibility for our events. If you have any accessibility questions regarding the event, please contact events@eff.org.
Event Expectations
EFF is dedicated to a harassment-free experience for everyone, and all participants are encouraged to view our full Event Expectations.
Recording
We hope you and your friends can join us live! If you can't make it, we’ll post the recording afterward on YouTube and the Internet Archive!
About the Speakers
As investigations director, Dave researches and writes about surveillance technology, government transparency, press freedoms, the U.S.-Mexico border and immigration enforcement, prisoner rights, and other digital rights issues. He leads the Atlas of Surveillance project in partnership with the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he is a Reynolds Scholar in Residence.
Matthew Guariglia (EFF)
Matthew Guariglia is a senior policy analyst working on issues of surveillance and policing at the local, state, and federal level. He received a PhD in history at the University of Connecticut where his research focused on the intersection of race, immigration, U.S. imperialism, and policing in New York City. He is the author of Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York (Duke University Press, 2023) and the co-editor of The Essential Kerner Commission Report (Liveright, 2021). His bylines have appeared in NBC News, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, Slate, Motherboard, and the Freedom of Information-centered outlet Muckrock. Matthew also serves as a visiting scholar in the Department of History at Emory University and is on the advisory board for the peer-reviewed journal Surveillance & Society.
Petra Molnar
Petra Molnar is a lawyer and anthropologist specializing in the impacts of technologies at the border and in migration. She co-runs the Refugee Law Lab at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University and is a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center. Her research has appeared in many peer-reviewed journals and she has also written for Time Magazine, Al Jazeera, the New York Times and many other outlets. Petra has worked all over the world, from the US/Mexico border to Greece to Palestine, documenting harms perpetrated by high-risk technologies. This six year-long project culminated in her first book, The Walls Have Eyes: Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, published in 2024 and named a finalist for Canada’s Governor General Literary Award, Nonfiction.
Todd Miller
Todd Miller writes a weekly post for The Border Chronicle. He has researched and written about border issues for more than 15 years, the last eight as an independent journalist and writer. He resides in Tucson, Arizona, but also has spent many years living and working in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has appeared in the New York Times, TomDispatch, The Nation, San Francisco Chronicle, In These Times, Guernica, and Al Jazeera English, among other places. Miller has authored four books, most recently Build Bridges, Not Walls: A Journey to a World Without Borders (City Lights, 2021) and Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the U.S. Border Around the World (Verso, 2019).
Pedro Rios
Pedro Rios is director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border Program and has been on staff with AFSC since 2003. He oversees a program that documents abuses by law enforcement agencies, collaborates with community groups, advocates for policy change, and works with migrant communities to build collective leadership locally and throughout the border region. He is a steering committee member and board member of several organizations that advocate for humane and dignified policies for the Southern Border. These include the Southern Border Communities Coalition, the Friends of Friendship Park Coalition, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium. A native San Diegan, Pedro has worked on immigrant rights and border issues for over 30 years. Pedro has a master’s degree in Ethnic Studies from San Francisco State University. Pedro is also a photographer and writer, often showcasing his work in local publications.
