Surveillance State

It’s Hump Day! Sam speaks with Alec Karakatsanis, founder of the Civil Rights Corps and author of Alec’s Copaganda Newsletter on SubStack, to discuss his recent writings on police body cameras. First, Sam runs through updates on the US Presidential race, dropping inflation, Ilhan Omar’s primary W...
It’s News Day Tuesday! But first, Sam and Emma speak with Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, to discuss the events of the past weekend involving Iran & Israel. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Trump’s legal woes, Israel’s ongoing conflicts in...
It’s an All Calls Casual Friday! Sam is back from sunny Florida after his appearance on the PBD Podcast. Him and Emma are then joined by comedian Andy Kindler, host of the Thought Spiral podcast! First, they run through updates on a Jan 6 insurrectionist launching a defamation case against Fox fo...
Emma speaks with Trevor Aaronson, contributing writer at The Intercept, to discuss his recent podcast Alphabet Boys. Then, she’s joined by freelance journalist Zachary A. Siegel, to discuss his recent coverage in Bolts Magazine of the Chicago mayoral race. First, Emma runs through updates on decr...
Sam speaks with Matthew Johnson, interim director of Beloved Community Ministries, to discuss the demonstrations surrounding Atlanta’s “Cop City.” Then, Sam and Emma break down the biggest headlines of the day. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on the backlash to the officers responsible fo...
Emma hosts Adrian Hon, game designer and CEO of Six to Start, to discuss his recent book You’ve Been Played: How Corporations, Governments, and Schools Use Games to Control Us All. Then, she is joined by Alex Sammon, politics writer at Slate, to discuss the recent controversy surrounding New York...
Emma hosts Karen Levy, Assistant Professor of Information Sciences at Cornell University, to discuss her recent book Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance. Emma first runs through updates on Zelesnkyy’s congressional address, Senate Republicans obstructing Biden’s ...
Emma hosts Natasha Lennard, columnist at The Intercept, to discuss her recent reporting before, during, and after Roe V. Wade’s overturning by the Supreme Court. Then, Emma is joined by Greg Casar, candidate for Congress in Texas’s 35th District, to give us an update from the campaign trail. Firs...
Emma hosts Devon Carbado, professor at the UCLA School of Law, to discuss his recent book Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment. First, Emma runs through recent news from Ginni Thomas’ communications with John Eastman about overturning the election, to the Fed raising ...
Sam and Emma host Mark Joseph Stern, staff writer at Slate, to preview the incoming SCOTUS opinions of the week. First, Sam and Emma preview primary Tuesday, the ever-mounting success of Starbucks unions, and remind us that much like Liz Cheney, Bill Barr is NOT our friend. Then, they’re joined b...
Emma hosts Treva B. Lindsey, professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the Ohio State University, to discuss her recent book America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Struggle for Justice. First, Emma dives into the right pitching the same nonsense solutions to gun violence, ad...
Emma hosts Brian Hochman, associate professor at Georgetown University, to discuss his recent book The Listeners: A History of Wiretapping in the United States. Then, Emma is joined by journalist Talia Lavin to discuss her recent piece in Rolling Stone ”The Buffalo Shooter Isn’t a ‘Lone Wolf.’ He...
Sam and Emma host Khiara M. Bridges, professor at Berkeley Law School, and Michelle Oberman, professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, to discuss the bombshell leaked SCOTUS brief that would overturn Roe V. Wade. Prof. Bridges first joins to clarify what it actually was that was leaked, ...
Emma hosts Ken Klippenstein, investigative reporter at The Intercept, to discuss his recent piece “LEAKED: NEW AMAZON WORKER CHAT APP WOULD BAN WORDS LIKE “UNION,” “RESTROOMS,” “PAY RAISE,” AND “PLANTATION”.  Ken and Emma begin by summarizing the incredible culmination of the Staten Island Amazon...
Emma hosts James Kilgore, Research Scholar at the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois, to discuss his recent book Understanding E-Carceration: Electronic Monitoring, the Surveillance State, and the Future of Mass Incarceration, on the technological advancements in the surveil...
Sam and Emma host Tony Messenger, Metro columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, to discuss his recent book Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes The Poor In The Name Of Justice, on how municipalities across the US have instituted a system of debtors’ jail, trapping poor folks into a ...
Sam and Emma host Kate Crawford, Research Professor at the University of Southern California Annenberg, to discuss her recent book Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence, on our relationship with big tech, and the concept of the AI industry as a continuat...
Sam and Emma host Rosa Brooks, law professor at Georgetown University, to discuss her recent book Tangled Up In Blue: Policing in the American City, and her experiences as a part-time volunteer reserve police officer in Washington, D.C. Professor Brooks discusses how she came to the topic; follow...
Sam hosts Heidi Boghosian, the executive director of the A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, to discuss her recent book, “I Have Nothing To Hide: And 20 Other Myths About Surveillance and Privacy.” They explore the importance of taking action as individuals, fighting for the autonomy to reveal informa...
Sam and Emma host Spencer Headworth, professor of Sociology at Purdue University to discuss his recent book, Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance, on how welfare law enforcement has crippled public assistance programs. Professor Headworth begins by walking through what t...
Sam and Emma host professor of African American studies Carol Anderson to discuss her latest book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America on how the right to bear arms has been a means to suppress black Americans. Anderson details how black Americans throughout history have organiz...
Sam and Emma host journalist Cory Doctorow to discuss his new book “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism” on the issue of tech monopolies, antitrust laws, and what we can do to reign in Facebook and Google. They explore big tech’s self-portrayal as mind manipulators, how their power comes from ...
Sam and Emma host author and activist Victoria Law to discuss her new book, “Prisons Make Us Safer”: And 20 Other Myths about Mass Incarceration, on how our perception of incarceration has been wrong from the start. Sam, Emma and Victoria explore our carceral state and how racism and social contr...
Bernard E. Harcourt (@BernardHarcourt), the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of  Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, joins us to discuss his new book, ‘The Counterrevolution: How Our Government Went to War Against Its Own Citizens.’
Journalist Mike Mariani (@MikesMariani) joins us to discuss his latest piece in GQ, “The Would-Be Terrorist vs. the FBI.”