Surabhi Dhopeshwarkar School of Architecture and Planning University at Buffalo
TELECOMMUNICATION & SURVEILLANCE ACROSS BORDER Mapping risks for refugees (Urban design graduate research project)
This project focuses on a community of people, including immigrants and refugees, in the Great Lakes defined by the physical limitations and opportunities of communication technology and array of surveillance systems along the USCanada border. This project reads communication technology as a network literally constructed in a grid of cell towers. The network crosses the national boundary and certain clusters of cell tower (Map- Yellow and Orange Dots) along border can tap into both the countries network. These overlapping conditions of network coverage creates risk for refugees who are residing in refugee shelters (Map- White Dots), most of them are within the overlapping zone of 22 miles (min Cell tower coverage) to 45miles (max Cell tower coverage) can be tracked and there is a possibility of getting interrogated through their cell phones.
Agreement act: (Agreement between the Government of Canada and US for cooperation in the examination of refugee status claims) Summary: within the main land of US-Canada you are subject to follow the national law in the country you are physically in, but in these luminal zones of communication technology you may find yourself in the jurisdiction on country you do not believe yourself to be in. New York: No binding authority zone and that location information remain unprotected 3. THE CONSTITUTION IN THE 100-MILE BORDER ZONE
Arrays supporting the risks: 1. NETWORK BUMPING
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects Americans. The stakes In this green zones (shown in map), this is place where if you and I went there our cell phone arebe tap by US towers usually, companies like sprint, version, but sometimes we get connected to Roger which is a Canadian network company, we might get charged in terms of money. This is the different situation for refugees some of who may be trying to elude through US with safe 3rd country agreement act (Agreement between the Government of Canada and US for cooperation in the examination of refugee status claims from nationals of third countries) therefore we can read these network overlapping green spaces as both sides of luminal possibilities and luminal risks. Risks are also connected by other arrays 2. By the CELL PHONE LOCATION TRACKING LAWS BY STATE
Federal and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) & Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) authorities do not need a warrant or even suspicion of wrongdoing to justify conducting what courts have called a "routine search," such as searching luggage or a vehicle. This can be operating within 100 miles of any U.S. boundary 60% of US lives under jurisdiction of ICE & CBP 4. Border Patrol Head office locations
The project is about surveillance and resistance. It acts in highly controlled border zone now govern by both visible and invisible systems.
Thus as a study I looked at historic model of Underground railroad where different stations acted as Double agent Historic map
I am trying to think about alternate geographies in 2 different eras: first, the contemporary 21st century surveillance system and second the Underground Railroad (early1900s) Visible Surveillance system: This map shows the publically available information by government like locations of Police department, surveillance camera locations in Buffalo.
Invisible: I tried to trace the invisible systems which comprise the surveillance state in Buffalo. Those include radar, marine, ground sensors including other private and public technology.
The Underground railroad, [a highly organized system managed with the help of safe houses and coded signals through which fugitive slaves were transferred from one place to another, thus eventually moved north to freedom].The danger of (slave catchers) was always there, but the operators on the railroad provided a measure of safety and security to elude (escaped) from the surveillance of abolitionists by fostering an enclosed communication system with protected information and transactions by working in shadow (/silence) Shadows I mean here are the Churches which were prime locations of stations to camouflage the activities. The traces are followed through stories and how it was managed through coded signals like stitching quilt.
Design Program: Inspired by the spatial and signal practices of the Underground Railroad, this project proposes that in the 21st century Unity Island can become a site of covert (secret, undercover) for refugees, asylum seekers moving north… Eluding contemporary technology and surveillance systems, Unity island can be a site of hidden gateways of systems, responding to current Homeland security, ICE and Custom and Border Protection as well as Buffalo City Police governance.
-Other is color coded signals flowerbeds across pathway. SO if you find a 2 mixed color flower beds means at that spot you can connect to the mesh router to the underneath pathway. Spots where we have meeting areas. Pink flower area connect to Canadian towers; Blue you are NA protected. “Site: It can be seen and hiding at the same time” Going back to the Underground railroad era, Churches and Quilts worked, I hope this site will be one of the mean to help refugees and immigrant to find their freedom!
(This project is more like an unrealistic story. Proposing architecture as double agent. How different architecture resists different kind of surveillance. -Tress resists –visual or overhead surveillance -Underground resists cell phone and internet -Busy crowd of people resists agents Different types of control embedded in this island. This landscaped site is proposed as a cell phone dead zone. You can get connected to network only inside the building. So it escapes the refugee from possibility to be in the network bumping zones.
Respecting to the existing safe house station of Underground railroad on the site, the first plan is a generalized typical architectural plan of extension to the Broderick park, a public space, I am proposing a Museum of Counter Ethnography. The Counter Geography is a plan read through the lens of person who is trying to share secret information (Agent) to the needful immigrants who are trying to elude through USA. Understanding layered rival/ counter/ alternate geographies through the means of architecture as just one of the tool. At every location it is both. On one hand it is a museum of Counter Ethnography which functions like any other museum functions, on the other hand it is a site of the subversive exchange of information which can occur. The views are glimpses of how Landscape reinforce the activity, for Example -Shadowed curved pathway where people can hide from the sites of other people. -Walls of Expression, they look like placed randomly in green space, but they are the signally the underground path where you can reach to series of coded information.
As individual it is not possible to find solutions to every situation, but to understand the stakes of the surroundings and having a critical eye towards their effects on different people, spices, nature, economy and other such arrays, analyze the situation and try to make an argument as researcher/ academics. We are swimming in all this readily available information, but it is important to take our own stance, express our own assumptions. In this project I felt necessity to consider that we are under technologically equipped time and are bound with strict laws and regulations. But it is not affecting to common man as much as it is affecting refugees. They are not criminals, they are just trying to live a free life and have identity. Is it really possible to resolve their lives with all the legal process? May be not! So why not to design one such station which is Illegally legal .. Museum of Counter Ethnography!)
The project is more like an unrealistic story dealing with the issues of refugees residing in our neighborhood and tackling it with the Urban critical thinking approach. As an individual, it is not possible to find solutions to every situation but to understand the stakes of the surroundings and having a critical eye towards their effects on different people, spices, nature, economy, and other such arrays, analyze the situation and try to make an argument as researcher/academics. We are swimming in all this readily available information, but it is important to take our own stance, express our own assumptions. In this project, I felt the necessity to consider that we are under technologically equipped time and are bound with strict laws and regulations. But it is not affecting the common man as much as it is affecting refugees. They are not criminals, they are just trying to live a free life and have an identity. Is it really possible to resolve their lives with all the legal process? Maybe not! So why not design one such station which is Illegally legal. The Museum of Counter Ethnography!
