Patrick Brian Smith

Screen grab of Netflix interface for The Perfect Neighbor, featuring an elderly white woman in shorts and a tank top speaking with police, as seen through a body-cam

This month’s Docalogue features 2 excellent pieces on The Perfect Neighbor - check out what @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social and Kelly Gates have to say about the film: docalogue.com/the-perfect-...

And always a pleasure to share a platform with Kelly Gates!

Some thoughts on The Perfect Neighbor (Gandbhir, 2025) and the structural racism that shapes both the murder of Ajike Owens and its aftermath. I ask whether the most radical gesture isn’t better evidence—but refusing the theatre of justice and forensics altogether... docalogue.com/the-perfect-...

Pleased to share this recording of Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud's book talk on The World According to Military Targeting www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWm2...

Check out the MST SIG's new spotlight in @jcmsjournal.bsky.social! Gary Kafer @gkafer.bsky.social and Patrick Brian Smith @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social take us through the history and future of @scmsmst.bsky.social. Read more here: quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/i...

"The World According to Military Targeting" asks how we came to live in a ‘closed world’ shaped by targeting logics. Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud shows how military doctrine, data, and AI remake politics through endless war—and the deep social violence this produces.

The World According to Military Targeting, talk w/ Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud talk and discussion on his new book The World According to Military Targeting

Upcoming talk with Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud (Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs) on his new book "The World According to Military Targeting" (MIT Press, 2025). Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-world-...

If you'd like to read the English version, do feel free to reach out!

The article examines AI-driven warfare by Israel in Gaza & the West Bank, framing it as a political ecology of militarisation. It argues big tech’s AI complicity signals a future where imperial states weaponise ecologies toward genocidal ends on a climate-changed planet.

Big tech, inteligencia artificial y ecología política de militarización digital - Ecología Política Big tech, inteligencia artificial y ecología política de militarización digital | En Profundidad | 70 Militarización | Ecología Política

New article co-authored with Patrick Brodie for this excellent issue of the Spanish language journal Ecología Política, focused on the theme of "militarisation." Our article is titled "Big Tech, AI, and the Political Ecology of Digital Militarisation"
www.ecologiapolitica.info/en-profundid...

War in the Smartphone Age, book talk and discussion with Matthew Ford YouTube video by Patrick Smith

Pleased to share this recording of Matthew Ford's
@warmatters.bsky.social book talk on War in the Smartphone Age: Conflict, Connectivity and the Crises at Our Fingertips, with respondent Miglė Bareikytė www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRDs...

75% of Reform UK’s donations have come from just three rich men Calls grow for donation caps as Democracy for Sale research reveals that three-quarters of Reform’s funding comes from a trio of wealthy donors

🔴 Nigel Farage’s Reform is more reliant on super-rich backers than any major party in modern British political history

75% of *all* Reform donations *ever* have come from just three rich men

Is this what democracy looks like?

New on Democracy for Sale
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-refo...

War in the Smartphone Age, book talk and discussion with Matthew Ford Matthew Ford on his new book War in the Smartphone Age: Conflict, Connectivity and the Crises at Our Fingertips + respondent Miglė Bareikytė

Pleased to be talking with @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social and Miglė Bareikytė about my book at @salforduni.bsky.social' Emergent Nonfiction Lab on 3 December at 16:00 Stockholm time.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/war-in-the...

Collateral Damages, book talk and discussion with Nadia El-Shaarawi Nadia El-Shaarawi on her recent book Collateral Damages: Tracing the Debts and Displacements of the Iraq War

Upcoming event at the Emergent Nonfiction Lab, Nadia El-Shaarawi will present her recent book Collateral Damages: Tracing the Debts and Displacements of the Iraq War! You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/collateral...

Means of Control, Byron Tau book talk and discussion YouTube video by Patrick Smith

Recording of recent talk with @byrontau.bsky.social on "Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State" (2024). Discussion bridges investigative journalism, critical media studies, + surveillance studies! www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT3s...

Just a reminder that this event with @byrontau.bsky.social is coming up soon: Wednesday, October 15 at 3pm GMT

Means of Control, book talk and discussion with Byron Tau Byron Tau on his recent book Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State

Pleased to announce this talk with @byrontau.bsky.social on his recent book "Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is Creating a New American Surveillance State." You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/means-of-c...

Just Evidence - World Records

"Just Evidence," the World Records volume that I edited with @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social and LaCharles Ward @blurrdblue.bsky.social, launches today! It asks: What does accountability look (and sound and feel) like? Read the intro here:
worldrecordsjournal.org/just-evidence/

Pleased to share the introduction from this special issue! More articles to follow in the coming weeks! worldrecordsjournal.org/just-evidence/

Laleh Khalili · Collective Property, Private Control: Defence Tech The United States was born in war and has waged a war of some sort in every year of its existence. Silicon Valley knows...

"The US was born in war and has waged a war of some sort in every year of its existence. Silicon Valley knows that war is good for business. And many of its most powerful
people want us to stop worrying about frivolities like ethics or ecology and love the bomb" www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Law’s capture of human rights focused open-source investigation Abstract. With new protocols emerging to regulate the field of open-source investigation, this article critiques their widespread deference to the requirem

Sasha Crawford-Holland, @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social, and Andrew Williams look at open-source investigation and propose tactics to counter epistemic injustice aimed at fostering pluralistic, decentralised, and solidarity-based OSI practices.

academic.oup.com/lril/article...

Volume 13 Issue 1 | London Review of International Law | Oxford Academic Publishes high-quality scholarship on international law from around the world. While no area of international legal interest is excluded, the journal prioritises non-doctrinal scholarship, including t...

Our new issue of the London Review of International Law is out with articles by Tanja Aalberts, @ingovenzke.bsky.social, Gavin Sullivan, Wouter Werner, Sasha Crawford-Holland, @patrickbriansmith.bsky.social, Andrew Williams, and the Medellín Group.

academic.oup.com/lril/issue/1...

New article that critiques dominant narratives in “media forensics," arguing for a decolonial reorientation grounded in Indigenous epistemologies. Examining the work of NRO, it calls for counter-hegemonic practices that challenge settler-colonial evidentiary regimes... csalateral.org/issue/14-1/f...

'Human rights OSI frequently privileges technoscientific and criminological modes of investigation over alternative methods of identifying or tracking violence and harm.'

Law’s capture of human rights focused open-source investigation Abstract. With new protocols emerging to regulate the field of open-source investigation, this article critiques their widespread deference to the requirem

Interesting new piece challenging some of the assumptions on OSI contributions to atrocity accountability, particularly relating to the privileging of legal deference: there is a growing risk of excluding accounts of suffering in order to appease legal practices and norms - tinyurl.com/yc4v6y9z

Two accepted panels on Palestine were targeted after the preliminary programme was published online: Technologies at war: The role of tech companies and the EU in facilitating war crimes and genocide in Gaza, and Cyber Surveillance and Data Violence in Palestine: Protection, Practice, and Legality. CPDP approached the panel organisers and advised them to remove the word ‘genocide’ in the titles and descriptions, including references to crimes and violations of international law. CPDP then unjustifiably singled out these two panels with a disclaimer that read: “The text of this panel represents the opinions of the Panel Organiser and not those of CPDP. The case before the ICJ regarding the categorization of Israel’s activities in Gaza has yet to be decided.” Upon the request of the panels’ organisers, the disclaimer was removed. Discussions about human rights abuses, atrocity crimes, or genocide do not require a court ruling to be legitimate. At the core of international law and human rights work is prevention — a responsibility that also extends to private companies, which are expected to identify and mitigate risks of contributing to such abuses. These obligations are clear under the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its provisionary measures orders, affirmed the responsibility of state and non-state actors to take actions in the face of a clear and imminent risk of genocide. Multiple UN bodies and experts, genocide scholars, and leading human rights organisations have already categorised the Israeli conduct in Gaza as genocide that has met all legal elements of this crime.

"We were excited to have a panel accepted on the role of technology in genocide in Gaza at this year’s Computers, Privacy & Data Protection (CPDP) conference in Brussels. However, CPDP then requested that Access Now & others remove the word “genocide” from panel titles & descriptions. We declined."

This event is coming up next week! With Mark Griffiths (@casesofyou.bsky.social) and Kali Rubaii. You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/late-moder...

Law’s capture of human rights focused open-source investigation Abstract. With new protocols emerging to regulate the field of open-source investigation, this article critiques their widespread deference to the requirem

A new co-authored piece that critically examines open-source investigation’s increasing reliance on—and deference to—the law. Written with Sasha Crawford-Holland and Andrew Williams. doi.org/10.1093/lril...

Those exploring the environmental consequences of conflicts throughout their lifecycle may well be interested in this event on 29 May.

Pleased to share details for this forthcoming event at the Emergent Nonfiction Lab. You can register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/late-moder...