This site is a reference, not an organization. These are the people doing the organizing:
- CAMS (Communities Against Mass Surveillance): the Asheville coalition formed during the RTIC fight. Education, zines, events, and the accountability campaign: release the Axon contract, publicize the audit logs, clarify ICE data-sharing. Announcements often flow through Sunshine Labs’ Instagram.
- Sunshine Labs (@sunshinelabsavl): Patrick Conant’s civic-tech and transparency shop; ran the Sunshine Over Surveillance campaign. Sister project Sunshine Request files and publishes public records requests; browse before you file, and then use the Records Center: seventeen pre-written requests, addressed and ready.
- SASSI (Southerners Against Surveillance Systems & Infrastructure): regional research collective; surveillance primers, study groups, and the pre-vote teach-in at Firestorm.
- GAP of Asheville: government accountability watchdog; wrote the definitive pre-vote demand for oversight.
- DeFlockNC: statewide network behind the Hillsborough, Chatham, and Pittsboro wins; DeFlock national has the map, records-request guides, and council-advocacy playbooks.
- Firestorm Books (1022 Haywood Rd): where the events keep happening.
- The Final Straw Radio: Asheville-based radio covering this organizing, on Asheville FM 103.3.
Four things you can do this month
- Tuesday, Aug 25: make the vote count. Council votes on ending the Flock contract; the resolution leaves APD’s 162 other plate readers and the Axon plan untouched. A guide to building your own comment from what’s on this site, with one worked example, and how to speak or write (written comment by 9 a.m. Tuesday): Tuesday, August 25: Make the Vote Count. The longer exit checklist: Getting Flock Out.
- Show up. Council meets Aug 25 (5 PM, City Hall); the Public Safety Committee meets Sept 24 (11 AM, virtual). See Speak at Council.
- Take the tour. APD runs public RTIC tours every other Thursday, 2–4 PM (828-259-5881). Go with questions from the Promise Tracker and write down the answers.
- Ask the candidates. Not one questionnaire this cycle asked about surveillance. See Election 2026 and put the question to them directly, in public, on the record.