670 million reasons

Dear Citizens,

In case you missed it (and if so, why, dear Citizen) we’ve just shared an explainer on Palantir, along with a petition to get Palantir’s government contracts looked at ASAP. Why? In the UK alone The Nerve has uncovered at least 670 million reasons to body check (legally of course) Peter Thiel and co.

Here’s what else to read, do and sing along to this week.

👂🏽 ONE LISTEN: The Streets of Minneapolis 👂🏽

What we’re seeing out of the U.S. and Minneapolis is an outrage. Leave it to the great Bruce Springsteen to make sense of it better than any of us could:

“Citizens stood for Justice…”

(And not to be outdone… well, maybe just a little because it’s Bruce Springsteen… the Citizens’ own Ian Overton wrote a beautiful song in memory of Renee Good, here.)

🖥️ ONE READ: Nerdland Rising 🖥️

A lighter note for the nerds out there, did you know the Computer History Museum exists? Or that it has an online portal to over a century (!) of computer history? From Gizmodo’s Tom Hawking -

Perhaps the single most poignant item we came across, however, is a copy of Ted Nelson’s self-published 1974 opus Computer Lib/Dream Machines, which promoted computer literacy and the liberation Nelson hoped it would bring. The document is strikingly forward-thinking—amongst other things, it predicted hypertext, of which Nelson was an early proponent—but the technoutopianism on display seems both charmingly innocent and painfully naïve today. “New Freedoms Through Computer Screens”, promises the rear cover. If only they knew.

Read the whole piece here.

🐟 BONUS READ: First Fish Chronicles 🐟

Get into First Fish Chronicles, Emily Cherkin’s Substack “about dismantling the EdTech industry to save children, education, and democracy.”

This deep dive is part of her series on the questionable associations between parents associations and Big Tech, exposing how the US National Parent Teacher Association partnered with Meta, TikTok and YouTube - as those companies face lawsuits over harming children.

Deadly deportations in the US. Surveillance in Gaza. Palantir now deeply embedded in UK national infrastructure. We have questions.

✍️ Please sign and share our petition calling for a full Parliamentary debate on Palantir.

✊ ONE ACTION: The Streets of Minneapolis ✊

Back to ICE in the United States, a group of local Minnesota activists have put together this toolkit with ways to demand #IceOut of Minnesota. This includes social graphics for anyone around the world. They also have a letter you can copy paste to call for corporate action.

We also recommend reading Christina Pagel’s powerful timeline of escalation - tracing the funding, law and rhetoric that led us to this moment.

PS. Keep an eye on this: ICE + facial recognition.

✍️ ANOTHER ACTION: Defend Democracy in Parliament ✍️

Some tough news first: the European Court of Human Rights has rejected our appeal in the Russia disinformation and foreign interference case.

Exhale. Sob. Inhale. Sob. Exhale. Sob. Get a grip pep talk. New plan.

In the next two weeks, Parliament will decide whether to confront foreign interference in UK democracy, with an MP briefing on 2 February and a debate on 9 February.

Email yours and ask them to attend.

1. 🔎 Find your MP: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP
2. Write email subject: Please attend the Russia interference briefing (2 Feb) and debate (9 Feb)
3. Copy & paste this email:

Dear [MP’s name],

I’m writing as a constituent to ask you to engage with the upcoming parliamentary work on Russian interference in UK politics.

There is a cross-party MP briefing in Portcullis House on Monday 2 February, ahead of the petition debate on Monday 9 February calling for a public inquiry into Russian influence on UK politics and democracy.

Given recent developments and growing public concern about foreign interference, I hope you (or a member of your office) will attend the briefing and take part in the debate.

This issue matters to me, and I’d appreciate knowing your position.

Best wishes,
[Your name]
[Your postcode]

That’s all for this week.
Team Citizens

*PS - Join our Signal Chat if you haven’t already! There’s 350 people there now.