The Architecture of Surveillance: When State Power Becomes a "Power Over" Threat

A recent Prism report reveals a chilling escalation in state-level surveillance. From Kansas revoking birth certificates to Texas and Tennessee quietly compiling databases of trans residents, these shifts represent more than administration. They signify the operationalization of invisible, hidden, and visible power to dismantle an entire community's safety.

In Rooted Together, we discuss how power dictates destiny. When the state leverages visible power (laws and registries) to track bodies, it creates a "power over" dynamic that doesn't just regulate — it erases.

Architecture of Surveillance: Decoding the Nexus

• Invisible Power: Cultural "savior scripts" and narratives frame trans existence as a threat to justify tracking.

  
  

• Hidden Power: Departments of Public Safety and Attorneys General collect back-room data without public debate or oversight.
  

• Visible Power: Legislatures enact laws to cancel legal documents, making it impossible for trans people to exist legally in their own states.
  

  

  A person at a rally wears a backless lace top with the bold message "Trans Rights Now" painted in red on their back, advocating for transgender rights.

  
  

Mycelium of Resistance: Parallel Governance

When the State becomes toxic, the community — our mycelium — must create its own shared network. Parallel governance builds community-led institutions to fill the voids a hostile or abandoning government leaves behind.

For nonprofits and mutual aid groups, responding to this surveillance requires moving beyond traditional advocacy — a fruitless effort when the state uses its tools to actively harm communities. We must instead build parallel systems of safety.

1. Decentralized Identity and Mutual Aid

Mutual aid groups like Operation Lifeboat are already practicing parallel governance by focusing on evacuation infrastructure. Instead of waiting for the state to grant rights, these groups exercise "power to" by facilitating relocation, secure housing, and underground healthcare networks.

• Action: Pivot from service provider to infrastructure builder. Create resource-sharing networks that bypass state-controlled data and registries.

  
  

2. Power-Conscious Cybersecurity

Surveillance thrives on state-owned tools. Parallel governance requires digital sovereignty. Groups are now adopting privacy-first protocols — using Signal, encrypted databases, and decentralized financial tools — to ensure community aid lists never become state lists for persecution.

• Action: Implement data minimalism. If you don't collect the data, the state cannot seize it.

  
  

3. Restorative Interventions and Power With Solidarity

The Prism report warns that this surveillance serves as a test case for authoritarian control over all bodies. Nonprofits must respond with transformational solidarity. Build "power with" the trans community by treating trans-led mutual aid as the frontline of a broader defense of democracy, not a niche issue.

• Action: Philanthropy must fund movement infrastructure — legal readiness, digital security, and physical safety — rather than simply transactional programs.
  

From Survival to Sovereignty

Parallel governance renders the architecture of surveillance obsolete through community-led resilience. By building institutions that take care of people where the government won't, we peacefully undermine authoritarian control.

A strategy only succeeds when people believe in it. In the face of state lists and surveillance, we must believe in each other — in the mycelium network that stands firm, stays grounded, and leads with heart.

Are you ready to dismantle the architecture of surveillance in your community?

• Access the Shared Power Library: Explore our full suite of open-access resources to operationalize equity-based interventions. Explore the Library.
  

• Go Deeper with Rooted Together: Reserve your copy of Rooted Together: Democratizing Power for the Collective Good. By joining the reservation list, you unlock exclusive access to the Noticing the Threads diagnostic — a specialized toolkit for identifying hidden power accumulation in real-time. Reserve your copy and unlock the diagnostic.