IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017 - 26

cable forms of marginalization and
continued colonization occurring at
this very minute, in this country, in
the grip of a technologically facili-
tated apartheid.
Our need as individuals and as
a community to expose for debate
the savage techno-cide occurring
on a second by second basis in all
our communities across Australia
and the world is now apparent. In
many rural and remote commu-
nities in Austra lia, the connec-
tion between policing and public
space, using sur veillance cam-
eras in petrol stations, shopping
centers, automatic tell machines
(ATMs), banks, post offices, and
medical centers, is directly attrib-
uted to targeted control of Aborig-
inal people.
Australian government agen-
cies, namely Juvenile Justice, the
Ministry of Justice, and the Depart-
ment of Community Services all con-
tribute to the multitude of ways in
which technology is used to control
wel fa re, education, and commu-
nity services in the country. These
departments identify, reward, or
punish those who are unaware of
the hybrid nature of these visual,
auditory, and data driven intercon-
nected systems. In other instances
citizens may be only too aware of
being monitored if they are wearing
mandatory GPS bracelets for punitive
social detention reasons.
We are in the grip of an oppres-
sion that is so per vasive, and
so insidiously gradual, designed,
pur po seful, and expedient, that
most of the world's population now
accepts this monitoring activity
as an everyday and acceptable
way of being. Since the onset of
the Internet, an abuse of our civil
rights has occurred with the imple-
mentation of one key force, the
globally connected and system-
atic process of colonization of pri-
vate space [6].

HAYES, ALEXANDER (2017). HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.5549149.V1.

School
(Google Classroom)
Entertainment
(iTunes, Spotify,
NetFlix)

Professional
(LinkedIn,
ResearchGate,
Twitter)

Family
(Reward Schemes,
AirBnB)

Social
(Facebook, Twitter)
Individual

Dating
(Tinder, Grindr, RSVP)

Health
(Medicare, Centrelink)

Banking
(ANZ, Commonwealth)

Transport
(Opal, NRMA)
Telecommunications
(Telstra, Optus)

FIGURE 1. Panotican As Corporation.

into the future... the most
important component of the
network is the node... the
best networks have the best
nodes... the best nodes are
empowered individuals."
-Tim Klapdor [2]
We must therefore seriously bring
into question technologies that ren-
der our physical forms immobile, our
voices mute, and our spirits locked
into heads up displays, body worn
video recorders, bracelets, embed-
ded RFID chips, and countless other
emergent technologies.

Spiritual Dispossession
In October 2015, a leading Austra-
lian Aboriginal Elder, Patrick Dodson,
a Yawuru man and Senator of the
Australian Parliament [3] from
Broome, Western Australia, made ref-
erence in his address at a Higher
Degree research retreat hosted by

26

the National Center for Indigeous
Studies (NCIS), Australian National
University, to the lack of contempora-
neous debate on emergent technolo-
gy as a force of oppression within
Australia [4].
Dodson was bringing forward a
topic which is rarely critically debated,
and that is instead largely drowned
out by a rising tide of political and
social injustices affecting the Aus-
tralian Aboriginal community.
The most important issues fac-
ing Australian Aboriginal communi-
ties are the dispossession of their
lands as a direct result of govern-
ment policies and intervention, the
lack of power of veto on mining
activity from international consor-
tia, the incarceration and detain-
ment of individuals as young as 12
for 90 days on spurious charges of
terrorism, and the tragedy of ongo-
ing deaths in custody [5]. These are
just a few of the many, many despi-
IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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DECEMBER 2017
HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.6084/M9.FIGSHARE.5549149.V1
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - December 2017
