Kristen Collins
Political theorist thinking about surveillance. Senior Fellow, FA Hayek program at the Mercatus Center, GMU. Host of Virtual Sentiments, a podcast on the today’s most pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThe Washington Post just laid off its entire award-winning photo team. They were our eyes in places we'll never see. It's a horrifying loss at a time when lying governments, propaganda and AI slop are on the rise.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThis is the cycle: Governments give surveillance contracts-->Stock goes up-->Right-wing CEOs get rich and donate to right-wing candidates-->Politicians give more contracts to surveillance company. This is the cycle we need to break, and it needs to start with ending the government contracts.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThe last time he started talking like this, his allies minimized the risks and we ended up with January 6. This time we must take him literally and seriously. These comments are a five-alarm fire for democracy. In a functioning republic, he would be impeached and removed from office today.
- Trump: "These people were brought to our country to vote, & they vote illegally. The Republicans should say, we should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that I won that show I didn't win. You're gonna see something in Georgia"
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsIt’s entirely legal to record LE officers from your car. So they’re brazenly, illegally terrorizing this woman for exercising her constitutional rights. Yet we know that none of these officers be held accountable. We know this administration encourages this behavior. This is police state stuff.
- This is just insane. It’s only a matter of time before DHS kills another innocent person here. (clip via MPR and @davidjbier.bsky.social on X)
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsAgain: It was never the surveillance they cared about ut thought was bad, it was that the "wrong people" were doing it. They fucken love data funneling when it's them and their friends. www.cbsnews.com/news/tiktok-...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsStudents said “they believe the monitoring software has created a sense of fear among students who worry looking something up online can get them into trouble at school, and even if their school district means well, the constant digital surveillance creates more stress, not less.”
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsSince last year, we’ve been reporting on ICE extensively. But every week brings new information, and it’s getting harder to keep track of what’s happening, let alone remember what’s already happened. So here’s a quick thread to help.
- First time submitting something to a journal where I was required to explain whether and to what degree I used AI. I think this is the right move but admittedly it’s partly because I have never bothered to try using chatbots for my research/writing and love that this justifies my continued refusal
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsBorders also keep you in
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsI really want people to check in with the organizations that have been pushing back on surveillance for 10+ years. Just to be blunt, there are a lot of folks who realized yesterday that surveillance is bad and many are suggesting well-intentioned but misguided strategies for fighting it talk to us
- Reposted by Kristen Collins
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThere's apparently body cam footage of Alex's murder. Do people know this? This lets you know that a demand for body cams is USELESS and in fact just a way to give more money to the killers.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsNew: Unsealed court docs detail Big Tech’s yearslong, secret race to ingest the collective works of humanity, including Anthropic’s project to “destructively scan all the books in the world.” Gift link: wapo.st/4rjXAMQ
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsNEW: Police officers are being told to “be as vague as permissible” about why they are using the Flock surveillance system in order to not leak sensitive information via public records requests, according to records obtained using a public records request.
- If you’re paying attention to LLMs or AI and anything Yann LeCun here is surprising to you, you should get new news sources. (Not a knock, glad he’s talking about all this.) www.nytimes.com/2026/01/26/t...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsHey all, if you're like me, you've probably been wondering how you can help people in Minnesota. A reached out to some friends and they recommended giving money to either the Immigrant Law Center or any of the mutual aid orgs listed on Stand With Minnesota. I'll be giving to both. Links below
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsAlso, may I say that I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.
- Reposted by Kristen Collins"The growing decentralized resistances in Minneapolis(. . .)have built up their own direct connections and sources that have formed interconnecting information-sharing networks outside of these highly controlled, authoritarian-adjacent news media institutions."
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsM. Gessen, gift link: The soviet secret police too "were ruled by quotas... Fundamentally, the terror was random. That is, in fact, how state terror works. The randomness is the difference between a regime based on terror and a regime that is plainly repressive"
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsI think a lot of us get hope wrong. Hope, I do not believe, is an emotion. In fact, hope makes space for lots of emotions to exist alongside it. You can DO hope scared, angry, sad etc... Hope doesn't find us. We make hope through action and struggle. It's a practice of living and is re-made daily.
- Reposted by Kristen Collinsnot that they care, but this separation will scar her for life
- ICE detained a 2-year-old girl in Minneapolis and put the child on a flight to a detention center in Texas, despite a court ordering her release: www.startribune.com/agents-detai...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsICE detained a 2-year-old girl in Minneapolis and put the child on a flight to a detention center in Texas, despite a court ordering her release: www.startribune.com/agents-detai...
- If you couldn’t make it to our panel on Bill Galston’s great book on passions and politics last December, now’s your chance to watch from the comfort of your (hopefully) cozy, snowstorm-prepared home!
- In case you missed it, we have published a recording of our event with William Galston on his book, Anger, Fear, Domination: Dark Passions and the Power of Political Speech. Check it out! @ieres-gwu.bsky.social @lkatfield.bsky.social @kristenrosec.bsky.social
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsI met an absolutely lovely academic who asked whether my department back home is affected by ICE -- a question dramatizing how little info is getting out. For the record, the small example I chose: My dept has a carpool to pick up grad students of color who can't safely commute to campus alone.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThis country is in the middle of a third Red Scare, as @qjurecic.bsky.social wrote in the Atlantic a few weeks ago. There's no better evidence for it than the trial record from this case. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/u...
- Carney speech was as great as everyone has been saying (though these days my bar’s so low idk) but I am particularly eager for @jcherniss.bsky.social ‘s reaction to the Vaclav Havel references
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsI went to Minneapolis last week. What I saw was horrifying and inspiring in equal measure. Gift link to my latest column: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/o...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsReminder: Troops are still deployed in the nation’s capital under the Trump administration’s direction. As they have been since August.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsOver the weekend, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security shared posts with a song, "We'll Have Our Home Again." I dug into the group that performed and popularized it. Its cofounder said his goal was to create "the seed of an eventual government." www.splcenter.org/resources/ha...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsBREAKING: Hundreds of sensitive U.S. records obtained by WIRED undercut the Trump administration’s claims portraying Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua as a unified terrorist force invading the country. Intelligence agencies spent much of 2025 unsure TdA even functioned as an organization on U.S. soil.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsFree to read, but if you subscribed it would really help me out. Thanks.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsBREAKING: We've found 40+ cases of agents using banned chokeholds & other moves that can cut off breathing People have had seizures. They passed out. “I felt like I was going to die” said 16-yr-old citizen Admin won't say whether any agents have been punished www.propublica.org/article/vide...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsNEW: Civilians have had apparent seizures. One had his eyes roll back. Another had ribs broken. “I felt like I was going to pass out and die,” said a 16-year-old citizen put in a chokehold. The government won’t say if any agents have been punished.
- Reposted by Kristen Collins“Since July, #immigration agents have shot at least six people behind the wheel of a vehicle… In each instance, the playbook is the same: the agent claims self-defense, asserting they ‘feared for their life’ as a vehicle was ‘weaponized’ against them.” @foxmike90.bsky.social @cato.org @ms.now
- “But the biggest effect (of the rise of LLMs) is that peer review now becomes more about discernment or taste.” This is a really great piece, and I’m only half-joking when I say, “Welcome to theory!”
- I just finished a three-year term as an editor at an international relations journal. I began at the start of the LLM era but ended right in the middle of it. Our volume of submissions tripled and our desk reject rate rose to 75%. I have some thoughts. open.substack.com/pub/hegemon/...
- Reposted by Kristen Collinsit's not a mistake they're behaving this way; it's the purpose of sending them out into the city like this--to transform a system of government and a way of life that promises free movement and equal protection for all people into one that's premised on hierarchy and restriction enforced by violence
- Reposted by Kristen Collinsbsky.app/profile/davi... this is repression, occupation, and very clearly recognizable as an effort to replace a federal system of rights that in theory *could* protect individuals from the violence of the state with one that forces their submission via violence or threats of violence and abduction
- Reposted by Kristen Collinsthis kind of straightforwardly tyrannical behavior from government officials isn't, of course, unknown in US history, even recently, but it's worth saying again that it fundamentally violates the US's whole system of government, which binds agents of the state and citizens alike to the rule of law
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsSo, yeah. While my point has been that what’s popular should not dictate what movements fight for it’s also the case that getting rid of this abominable organization is popular. And can be made more so through the consistent rhetorical and organizing efforts already taking place & expanding.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsI see this take around from time to time and totally disagree. ICE just murdered a woman standing up to them. No Kings is among the largest protests in history. The complacency is coming from elites in media, business, universities, and the Democratic leadership
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsAOC: “I understand that VP Vance believes shooting a young mother of three in the face three times is an acceptable America that he wants to live in, & I do not — That is a fundamental difference between VP Vance & I — I do not believe the American people should be assassinated in the street”
- Reposted by Kristen Collins[This post could not be retrieved]
- I’ve seen some posts asking why ICE agents weren’t wearing body cameras. Maybe they should have been, but we should be wary of thinking there will be technological solutions to structural abuses and failures of accountability, see this great propublica report www.propublica.org/article/how-...
- Unfortunately videos do little to protect the truth. They must always be interpreted, and the established authorities will always have power on their side to not only sell their version of events but do what they can to protect the agents of the state, regardless of how weak their case is
- Reposted by Kristen Collinsputting it behind a paywall is not "turning it off" lol what www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThink about the mindset, and the expectation of immunity, of someone who texts this to friends.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsIt can be hard to imagine how to defend oneself against an overwhelming force like ICE. But a few enterprising hackers have started projects to do counter-surveillance against ICE, and hopefully protect their communities through clever use of technology. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsWe've removed the paywall from this guide so everyone can access it. 👇 Stay safe.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThis is the ninth shooting by ICE since September (I did not know that). All of them were into vehicles.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsFederal policy prohibits law enforcement from shooting into moving vehicles unless the driver is an imminent threat to others. Trying to flee is not a sufficient threat unless there's reason to believe the person is violent.
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsAs news breaks in Minneapolis, we’re uplifting this story by our friends @unraveledpress.com during the Chicago surge. Agents shot and killed an unarmed 38-year-old father in Sept —and their initial narrative of events was quickly disproven by witness videos. unraveledpress.com/what-happene...
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsNew: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant “This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...
- Reposted by Kristen Collins
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsBetter yet, disestablish all of DHS, and undo the nightmarish idiocies that we created in a panic 25 years ago. Reestablish the INS, get rid of ODNI, fix the damage from the Patriot Act, etc.
- So if first it’s tragedy, then it’s farce, what comes next?
- Reposted by Kristen Collins“We have entered an even more dangerous period of American imperialism than many suspected.… the recent [national security strategy’s] promise to reinforce Latin and South America as a U.S. sphere of extractive influence has been borne out. But its effects are unlikely to remain in one place.”
- Whereas every metro ad in dc: “hey what about the military-industrial complex? pretty neat”
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsSomewhere out there is a guy about to make an entire career out of saying what Trump is doing is Good because unlike the deep state coups of the past this is all out in the open and will subject Maduro to liberal due process rights
- POV: the world is scary and sad but the best girl has chosen you
- Reposted by Kristen CollinsThe big variable is *not* success or failure of the military action; it's the out-party's reaction. Which in this case has started out pretty negative. That's short-run. Medium run, which typically comes quickly, is that rally effects don't last.
