



The Walls Have Eyes
Surviving Migration in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
With a Foreword by E. Tendayi Achiume
A chilling exposé of the inhumane and lucrative sharpening of borders around the globe through experimental surveillance technology
Finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it was training “robot dogs” to help secure the U.S.-Mexico border against migrants. Four-legged machines equipped with cameras and sensors would join a network of drones and automated surveillance towers—nicknamed the “smart wall.” This is part of a worldwide trend: as more people are displaced by war, economic instability, and a warming planet, more countries are turning to AI-driven technology to “manage” the influx.
Based on years of researching borderlands across the world, lawyer and anthropologist Petra Molnar’s The Walls Have Eyes is a truly global story—a dystopian vision turned reality, where your body is your passport and matters of life and death are determined by algorithm. Examining how technology is being deployed by governments on the world’s most vulnerable with little regulation, Molnar also shows us how borders are now big business, with defense contractors and tech start-ups alike scrambling to capture this highly profitable market.
With a foreword by former UN Special Rapporteur E. Tendayi Achiume, The Walls Have Eyes reveals the profound human stakes of the sharpening of borders around the globe, foregrounding the stories of people on the move and the daring forms of resistance that have emerged against the hubris and cruelty of those seeking to use technology to turn human beings into problems to be solved.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this unsettling debut study, Molnar, an activist lawyer and international researcher on migration issues, draws attention to a recent proliferation of digital technologies used to surveil "people on the move" and prevent them from crossing borders. Even when migrants do manage to make a border crossing, Molnar asserts, these technologies determine whether to grant them asylum, deport them, or place them in detention camps. Video cameras, sensors, robotic dogs, drones, surveillance towers, and radar track people on land and sea; fingerprinting, DNA collection, voice recognition, and face-scanning document them; and artificial intelligence and computer algorithms utilize large data sets to screen refugees and assess their eligibility for asylum. Molnar spotlights the companies, among them NSO Group and Cellebrite, that sell surveillance technologies, as well as places where such technologies have been deployed: the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the West Bank in Israel, the border between Belarus and Poland, and refugee camps on the Greek island of Lesbos. She concludes with practical strategies for resistance, which include legal challenges and financial disinvestment from surveillance companies. As Molnar brings the panopticon-like structure of migrant surveillance into focus, the implications become increasingly stark ("In Hawaii... robo-dogs were targeting houseless people during the COVID-19 pandemic, reading their temperature"; "another start-up, Brinc, proudly pitched Taser-equipped drones to electrocute people at the U.S.-Mexico border"). This is a grave wake-up call.