Our annual party conference will be Saturday, September 21st at Encuentro 5 in Boston. The conference will focus on planning, expanding our platform and organizing how-tos. We will have time for lightning talks and possibly a small number of panels. Formal sessions will start at 10am and end around 5:30pm. We plan to video stream the conference.

Registration

Registration is $10. Youth under 18 and anyone who is not a citizen or permanent resident are free due to campaign finance rules. You can pay in advance or just tell us you will attend if you prefer to pay at the door, are not a citizen or permanent resident or are under 18.

Site

Encuentro 5 is at 9A Hamilton Place, Boston, MA 02108-4701. It is in downtown Boston near the State House and easily accessible by public transit. Only a minute walk away from the Park Street MBTA station, it is at the intersection of the Red and Green lines. It is a few stops away from the commuter rail and Amtrak stations and the South Station Bus Terminal. Unfortunately, it is not wheelchair accessible.

Schedule

Time Session 9:00am-10:00am Breakfast, Meet & Greet 10:00am-10:30am Year in Review / Where We Stand as a Party? 10:30am-11:15am MassMesh: Building a People’s Internet 11:15am-noon Building a Just Economy: Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantee and Other Alternatives noon-1:00pm Lunch & Crypto How-To 1:00pm-1:45pm Surveillance in Our Neighborhoods: RING DOORBELLS – What Can We Do? 1:45pm-3:00pm Platform Development, Part 1 3:00pm-3:30pm Lightning Talks 3:30pm-4:45pm Platform Development, Part 2 4:45pm-5:30pm What Should be Our Plan for 2020? 5:30pm-6:00pm Cleanup

Talks

MassMesh: Building a People’s Internet – James Vorderbruggen of MassMesh

MassMesh is building a community-controlled, democratic Internet Service Provider that protects your privacy and treats all bits equally. Find out about their progress and how you can help.

Building a Just Economy: Universal Basic Income, Job Guarantee and Other Alternatives – Desmond Ravenstone and others

Our economy is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the very rich, resulting in lower incomes for most and declining life expectancy. Discuss different policies Pirates have proposed to make the economy work for everyone.

Surveillance in Our Neighborhoods: RING DOORBELLS – What Can We Do? – Micky Metts of agaric.coop

Ring sells a very particular message: while you shouldn’t trust your neighbors, you can trust Amazon to help police them. When police partner with Ring, Amazon’s home surveillance camera company, they get access to the “Law Enforcement Neighborhood Portal,” an interactive map that allows officers to request footage directly from camera owners. Police don’t need a warrant to request this footage, but they do need permission from camera owners. Neighbors functions as a fear and peer pressure-driven advertisement for a fancy, Amazon-owned camera system. But in practice, Neighbors reinforces the racist biases of its users, and actively puts people of color at risk in communities where the app is being used.

Will it be streamed?

We plan to video stream the conference. Check back here on the day of the conference for the stream. We would appreciate it if you would register to help defer the cost of the conference.