# Nasser's Blog > Nasser Eledroos is a technologist who builds technology people can trust. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Subscribe URL: https://nasser.blog/subscribe/ Last updated: 2026-02-09T19:29:14.000Z ## Want to be the first to know? New posts on tech, policy, and the places they collide — delivered to your inbox. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam, no fluff. Published with [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=nasser.blog). ### Topics URL: https://nasser.blog/topics/ Last updated: 2026-07-21T15:09:22.000Z _No content available._ ## Posts ### Massachusetts prosecutors run their offices on software from the dial-up era URL: https://nasser.blog/dial-up-justice/ Last updated: 2026-08-06T15:36:16.000Z ***Coming soon:** [***The Massachusetts Prosecutor Data Project**](https://prosecutordata.org/?ref=nasser.blog)***!** **More than six million criminal charges from ten of the state's eleven District Attorneys, requested under the public records law, are being made comparable for the first time.* **Sign up at* [**prosecutordata.org*](https://prosecutordata.org/?ref=nasser.blog)**. What follows is the case for why the project needs to exist.* [Learn more ](https://prosecutordata.org/?ref=nasser.blog) Massachusetts has decided to lead the country on artificial intelligence. Over the past two years, the state has put a hundred million dollars into a new [AI Hub](https://aihub.masstech.org/?ref=nasser.blog), placed a [ChatGPT assistant](https://commonwealthbeacon.org/the-codcast/what-it-means-that-a-state-ai-assistant-will-handle-your-data/?ref=nasser.blog) on the desks of forty thousand state employees, and directed every agency to work out what the technology can do for the public's business. The public is warier than its government: two thirds of Massachusetts voters [tell pollsters](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/20/business/massachusetts-artificial-intelligence-poll/?ref=nasser.blog) they are more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence.[\[1\]](#fn1) Massachusetts has not extended its technology modernization to the offices with the most direct power over ordinary life in the Commonwealth: the eleven District Attorneys. The state elects one for each county or small group of counties, and each runs an independent office that answers, between elections, to no governor, no mayor, and no oversight board.[\[2\]](#fn2) Their Assistant District Attorneys (ADAs) decide every day who gets charged with a crime, who gets offered a way out of one, and who gets left alone. All eleven District Attorneys' offices run on a shared database called DAMION, which holds the record of essentially every criminal case in the state and is roughly twenty-five years old.[\[3\]](#fn3) Even the offices that use it every day do not defend its age. The Massachusetts District Attorneys Association (MDAA), the nonprofit through which the eleven offices share funding and technology, describes DAMION in its [request for proposals](https://www.commbuys.com/bso/external/bidDetail.sdo?docId=BD-26-1017-1017C-1017L-125927&external=true&parentUrl=bid&ref=nasser.blog) for a replacement as "implemented approximately 25 years ago" and "nearing its end of life." The [State Auditor went further](https://www.mass.gov/audit/audit-of-the-massachusetts-district-attorneys-association-november-17-2025?ref=nasser.blog) this past November, reporting that the case management system used by all eleven offices "is obsolete and… may soon no longer be supported by the software manufacturer."[\[4\]](#fn4) When DAMION came online in the early 2000s, most Americans with internet at home still connected through a screeching dial-up modem, and the iPhone was still years away.[\[5\]](#fn5) [AOL shut down its dial-up service](https://help.aol.com/articles/dial-up-internet-to-be-discontinued?ref=nasser.blog) last fall, by which point about one American household in a thousand still used it. DAMION remains in daily use by every District Attorney in Massachusetts. --- 1. In July 2026 the MassINC Polling Group surveyed 1,264 registered Massachusetts voters, with the survey in the field from June 23 to July 1 and a margin of error of 3.7 points. Sixty-five percent of those voters said they are more concerned than excited about artificial intelligence, and seventy-five percent said they supported the frontier-AI safety legislation then pending before the Legislature. One disclosure worth making plainly: the poll was paid for by Anthropic, which is itself an AI company. The poll and its full crosstabs are on [MassINC Polling Group's site](https://www.massincpolling.com/our-work/massachusetts-voters-support-state-oversight-of-powerful-ai-models-to-mitigate-risks-of-catastrophic-impacts?ref=nasser.blog). [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. Unless the elected District Attorney chooses to create one. Suffolk County briefly had a [Discharge Integrity Team](https://commonwealthbeacon.org/criminal-justice/an-awkward-handoff-at-suffolk-das-office-2/?ref=nasser.blog), created in 2019 to review fatal police encounters; its creator left office without releasing its reports, and the backlog passed to her successor. A body like that exists at the elected's pleasure and dissolves the same way. [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. DAMION is the offices' loose acronym for the District Attorney Management Information Office Network. The system's current vendor is [Tyler Technologies](https://www.tylertech.com/?ref=nasser.blog), and the offices maintain it through their shared nonprofit, the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association. [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. The State Auditor released the [audit of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association](https://www.mass.gov/audit/audit-of-the-massachusetts-district-attorneys-association-november-17-2025?ref=nasser.blog) on November 17, 2025\. [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. DAMION's exact launch date is not public; the request for proposals to replace it describes the system as approximately twenty-five years old, which places its start in the early 2000s. The [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/chart/broadband-vs-dial-up-adoption-over-time/?ref=nasser.blog) tracked how dial-up remained the way most American home internet users connected until the mid-2000s, when broadband finally overtook it; dial-up use peaked at about forty-one percent of adults in 2001\. The Census Bureau's [2024 American Community Survey](https://data.census.gov/table/ACSDT1Y2024.B28002?ref=nasser.blog) counts 127,668 households that still connect by dial-up alone, about one household in a thousand. AOL turned its dial-up service off for good on September 30, 2025\. [↩︎](#fnref5) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2026/07/Damion_1-2.jpg) Screenshot of the case management system used by the Massachusetts District Attorneys. From the [Audit of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association](https://www.mass.gov/audit/audit-of-the-massachusetts-district-attorneys-association-november-17-2025?ref=nasser.blog) (November 17, 2025) ## What a prosecutor decides, and who can check it Once someone is arrested in Massachusetts, no one has more power over what happens to them than the prosecutor. If you are ever arrested in Massachusetts, for shoplifting or for driving on a suspended license, the officer who arrests you can recommend charges but does not decide them; an ADA does.[\[1\]](#fn1) The ADA decides whether you are charged and with what, whether to ask a judge to jail you while the case is pending, what plea deal to offer, and whether to drop the matter entirely; a judge can rule only on what the prosecutor chooses to bring. DAMION is where every one of those decisions is recorded, when it is recorded at all. After years of working inside and alongside these offices, I have come to think of that bundle of decisions, the charging power, as the largest unreviewed power in Massachusetts government.[\[2\]](#fn2) As a general rule, no court will second-guess a prosecutor's decision about whom to charge. The United States Supreme Court has held that, so long as a prosecutor has probable cause, the decision whether to prosecute and what to charge "rests entirely in his discretion."[\[3\]](#fn3) The Court left one narrow opening: a person can try to prove that prosecutors singled them out unfairly. But proving that claim requires records comparing their case against everyone else's, and no such records exist, because no office is required to keep them. In Massachusetts, the one reliable way to see how prosecutors use the charging power is the state's [public records law](https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleX/Chapter66/Section10?ref=nasser.blog). The District Attorneys' files, policies, and data fall under the law, and the law reaches all the way into DAMION itself: offices have answered records requests by running queries against the database and producing the results.[\[4\]](#fn4) The law's reach has limits: the courts are exempt, and so, for now, are the Legislature and the Governor's office.[\[5\]](#fn5) Among the institutions that decide who gets prosecuted in Massachusetts, the District Attorneys are the ones whose data the public can demand most directly, and even that right lags other states; Florida and Connecticut now require their prosecutors to [publish case data](https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/CJAB/CJDT?ref=nasser.blog) without anyone having to ask.[\[6\]](#fn6) | Who decides your fate in the system | Subject to the public records law? | | ----------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | Police departments | Yes | | District Attorneys | Yes, including the DAMION database | | Sheriffs and the Department of Correction | Yes | | Parole Board | Yes | | The courts | No, exempt | | The Legislature | No, exempt; the November ballot question would change this | | The Governor's office | No, exempt; the same question would change this too | You do not need to share my politics to care about whether prosecution records are public. Right now the offices get to describe their own work on their own terms, because no one outside the offices can check the description against the record. Every other participant in the debate over prosecution, reformer and traditionalist alike, is asked for evidence; the offices alone are taken at their word.[\[7\]](#fn7) ## Introducing the Massachusetts Prosecutor Data Project This year I requested the records from every office at once. Beginning in February, I sent a public records request to each of the eleven District Attorneys, asking for data on the cases the office filed and resolved from the shared DAMION system. Ten of the eleven offices produced records. The eleventh, Bristol County, did not respond fully, and that failure is now on appeal before the state's records authority. **What the offices sent back has become the Massachusetts Prosecutor Data Project:** more than six million criminal charges, reaching back decades in some counties, cleaned and matched into a single record that lets prosecution in Massachusetts be compared county to county and year to year for the first time. **The county-by-county research begins publishing soon; if you want it as it lands, sign up at [prosecutordata.org](https://prosecutordata.org/?ref=nasser.blog).** --- 1. For many lower-level cases there is one stop before the prosecutor: a clerk magistrate decides at a ["show cause" hearing](https://www.mass.gov/how-to/respond-to-a-notice-of-hearing-on-an-application-for-criminal-complaint?ref=nasser.blog) whether a criminal complaint issues at all, usually on an application from the police. Once a complaint issues, the case belongs to the District Attorney's office. [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. I make this argument at length in an academic paper I am now finishing, about how prosecutors' offices see, and fail to see, their own decisions. Several of the stories in this essay, including the two office stories further down, come from the interviews I conducted for that paper. I am not alone in the assessment: Angela J. Davis's book [*Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor*](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/arbitrary-justice-9780195177367?ref=nasser.blog) (2007) makes the case at book length, and the Supreme Court cases in a later note show how thoroughly the law defers. [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. The quoted words come from a 1978 Supreme Court case called [Bordenkircher v. Hayes](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/434/357/?ref=nasser.blog), which held that so long as a prosecutor has probable cause, the decision to prosecute and what to charge belongs to the prosecutor alone. And in [United States v. Armstrong](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/456/?ref=nasser.blog) (1996) the Court held that charging decisions enjoy a "presumption of regularity," and that a person who claims they were unfairly singled out must first show evidence comparing their case to other people's cases before a court will even order the records opened. [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. The public records law requires agencies to produce records they hold; it does not require them to create new ones, and offices have sometimes argued that running a database query would mean creating a new record. Two things answer the argument. The offices' own association, in its written response to the [November 2025 State Auditor's report](https://www.mass.gov/audit/audit-of-the-massachusetts-district-attorneys-association-november-17-2025?ref=nasser.blog), stated plainly that "MDAA and the District Attorneys are required to respond to all requests for information pursuant to the public records law." And practice agrees: the DAMION extracts this project rests on were produced by ten offices as public records. [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. The courts are exempt from the Massachusetts public records law; the Secretary of the Commonwealth's [guide to the law](https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/public-records/download/guide.pdf?ref=nasser.blog) explains its boundaries. The courts' exclusion is longstanding and structural, rooted in how the law defines whose records it reaches. Those boundaries are live politics again this year, because a [question on the November 2026 ballot](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/17/metro/massachusetts-ballot-questions-certified-galvin/?ref=nasser.blog) would extend the records law to the Legislature and the Governor's office, two other longstanding exemptions. The judiciary would remain outside the law either way. [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. Florida's law, passed in 2018 as [section 900.05 of its statutes](https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2024/900.05?ref=nasser.blog), requires every elected prosecutor in the state to report case-level data on charges, on declinations, and on outcomes, and the state [publishes the results](https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/CJAB/CJDT?ref=nasser.blog) on a public dashboard. A declination is a prosecutor's decision not to bring a charge at all. Connecticut passed a [similar law](https://law.justia.com/codes/connecticut/title-51/chapter-886/?ref=nasser.blog) in 2019\. Transparency that depends on an office's goodwill rather than on a statute has proven fragile by comparison: Philadelphia's District Attorney has kept a [public data dashboard](https://data.philadao.com/?ref=nasser.blog) running since 2019, but Cook County's pioneering [case-level data](https://datacatalog.cookcountyil.gov/browse?q=state%27s+attorney&ref=nasser.blog), first released in bulk in 2018, froze the day State's Attorney Kim Foxx left office, and Manhattan's District Attorney took its dashboard down in 2025\. Statutes outlast administrations, although Massachusetts's own 2018 experience shows that a statute only delivers what its implementation delivers. [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. The pattern is documented. Ronald Wright's study of prosecutor elections, ["How Prosecutor Elections Fail Us,"](https://kb.osu.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/70b67e4b-4dec-5807-a1f5-3fce0774d683/content?ref=nasser.blog) found that incumbent prosecutors rarely face challengers and that campaigns turn on scraps of information rather than on any record of how the office used its power, which leaves the offices' own accounts of their work effectively uncontested. [↩︎](#fnref7) Do you want to hear more ****Massachusetts Prosecutor Data Project?** [Learn more ](https://prosecutordata.org/?ref=nasser.blog) ## The transparency Massachusetts ordered in 2018 Massachusetts already promised itself a clear view of its criminal justice system once, in its [2018 criminal justice reform law](https://malegislature.gov/Laws/SessionLaws/Acts/2018/Chapter69?ref=nasser.blog). That law, the largest overhaul of the system in the state's modern history, ordered the construction of a single "cross-tracking" system: one database fed by every agency, from the police who make an arrest to the parole board that ends a sentence, with the District Attorneys named on the list, so the public could follow how people move through the system instead of guessing from each agency's separate reports. MassINC's research director [called the law's data provisions](https://theappeal.org/coronavirus-massachusetts-missing-data-hampers-jail-release/?ref=nasser.blog) "among the best in the country."[\[1\]](#fn1) --- 1. Ben Forman, the research director at the think tank MassINC, told the criminal justice publication [The Appeal](https://theappeal.org/coronavirus-massachusetts-missing-data-hampers-jail-release/?ref=nasser.blog) in April 2020 that when the law passed it "had all these data provisions that I thought were among the best in the country," and, after two years of waiting, that the pace of implementation was "appalling." The data portion of the law is [credited largely](https://commonwealthbeacon.org/criminal-justice/state-slow-to-improve-criminal-justice-data-collection/?ref=nasser.blog) to former Representative Byron Rushing of Boston, who gave his own verdict on the implementation in 2021: "They did nothing. They don't want to do it." [↩︎](#fnref1) The surprising part is that the cross-tracking system was actually built. It is a [state website](https://www.mass.gov/info-details/commonwealth-of-massachusetts-criminal-justice-cross-tracking-system?ref=nasser.blog): you choose a question from a menu, about who is in custody, who is being admitted or released, or who returns, and it counts people for you. This summer I downloaded all eleven of the data extracts its public tools will produce and compared what the system publishes against what the 2018 law ordered. My test of the cross-tracking system surfaced three problems. - **The state undercounts how many people return to prison.** The official measure does not start its clock when a person walks out of prison; it starts months later, when the person finishes parole supervision, and anyone who comes back during those months is never counted. Counted from the day of actual release, the one-year return rate for people released in 2022 is 20.8 percent, not the official 14.7.[\[1\]](#fn1) - **The closer you look, the less you are allowed to see.** Broad questions get answers; the website will tell you how many people are in custody statewide. But ask a question with a face on it, like how many Black women in their twenties were held pretrial in Suffolk County, and the answers vanish: in the detailed views, roughly seven of every ten rows are hidden by privacy rules, and when I requested the most detailed table the tools would build, crossing eight characteristics at once, only two of its 6,573 rows came back with nothing hidden.[\[2\]](#fn2) - **The District Attorneys are not in the system at all.** Eight years after the Legislature ordered every agency linked, the offices that decide who enters the system have never been connected, and the state board that oversees the law reports "no plan or schedule" to add them, because connecting the prosecutors depends on upgrades to DAMION.[\[3\]](#fn3) --- 1. The official measure is set by [state regulation](https://www.mass.gov/regulations/501-CMR-1800-data-collection-and-reporting-standards-for-criminal-justice-agencies?ref=nasser.blog), and it only starts counting once a person has finished parole supervision. Anyone who returns to custody while still under supervision falls outside the official number entirely, which is how the official rate ends up lower than the rate you get by counting from the day a person walks out. The full analysis of how far the two counting methods diverge will be in the audit this project publishes. [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. The hiding is a standard privacy practice called small-cell suppression: when a group is so small that publishing its count might identify an individual person, the count is withheld. The practice itself is reasonable; the scale is the problem. In the single-topic detailed views, roughly seven of every ten rows are suppressed: 71.6 percent in the custody-by-offense view, 70.1 percent in the pretrial view, and 75.2 percent in the recidivism view. In the most detailed cross-table the tools would produce, spanning eight characteristics at once, the headline count was suppressed in about two thirds of the 6,573 rows, and only two rows in the entire table came back with no suppression at all. [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. The Justice Reinvestment Policy Oversight Board is the state body assigned to watch over the 2018 law's implementation. Its [fifth annual report](https://www.mass.gov/doc/2023-jrpob-annual-report/download?ref=nasser.blog), from June 2023, says on page 3 that "no plan or schedule is available for ingestion of data from the Attorney General's Office or the Offices of the District Attorneys, which… depends on upgrades to the District Attorney Management Information Office Network (DAMION)." The board's [June 2025 report](https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/HD4873.pdf?ref=nasser.blog) asks for updates on the same missing pieces. A full audit of the cross-tracking system, measured clause by clause against the statute, will be one of this project's first releases. [↩︎](#fnref3) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-22-at-11.27.37.png) [The cross-tracking system](https://criminaljusticecrosstracking.mass.gov/?ref=nasser.blog), built in response to the 2018 criminal justice reform bill, serves as the Commonwealth’s solution to creating a research tool for criminal justice data. I am not the only one who considers the 2018 law's data promise unkept. When Boston Indicators and MassINC assessed the reform five years after passage, their first recommendation was to "fully implement the data and transparency provisions of the 2018 reform law," and their judgment was blunt: the law had arguably positioned the Commonwealth to have "the finest criminal justice data infrastructure in the United States," and yet "the information available to researchers and the public has not appreciably improved since 2018."[\[1\]](#fn1) ## What happens when the data gets out The rare times prosecution data has reached the public, it has changed what the country knows. The clearest case is Massachusetts's own: economists at Rutgers, Texas A&M, and New York University used Suffolk County's own DAMION records to measure what happened when prosecutors declined to press nonviolent misdemeanor charges. For borderline cases, the kind one prosecutor might charge and another might not, being left unprosecuted cut the likelihood of a new criminal complaint over the next two years by 53 percent, and the benefit was largest for people with no prior record.[\[2\]](#fn2) I can vouch for the data because producing it was my job: I worked inside the Suffolk District Attorney's office as its technologist, and the extracts the researchers relied on came out of DAMION's underlying Oracle database. Suffolk's is not the only county's data to carry published research. Duke University researchers [tracked plea bargaining](https://wcsj.law.duke.edu/publications/plea-tracking-in-the-berkshire-county-district-attorneys-office-part-one/?ref=nasser.blog) with the Berkshire County DA's office across two 2022 reports, and the Urban Institute published a [case study](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/drug-diversion-and-treatment-program-northwestern-district-attorneys-office?ref=nasser.blog) of the Northwestern District's drug diversion and treatment program. Measurement changes prosecutors' offices from the inside as well as from the outside. In one office whose staff I interviewed last year, every attorney who asked a judge to jail someone before trial had to record the reason at that moment, choosing from a dropdown menu the office designed into its case management system. When the office's leaders finally read those reasons across their caseload, they learned that, by the office's own count, its attorneys were detaining forty-three percent of the nonviolent misdemeanor defendants its own written policy said should normally go home.[\[3\]](#fn3) Nobody had known until the menu existed. The office retrained its attorneys and kept watching the numbers until the numbers moved.[\[4\]](#fn4) Most prosecutors' offices record no reasons behind their decisions and run no checks on them, so what the dropdown-menu office learned about itself could be learned almost nowhere else.[\[5\]](#fn5) At another office whose staff I interviewed, the information technology director discovered, entirely by accident, that one of the office's prosecutors appeared to have been closing cases in ways office policy forbids: no supervisor noticed, no audit existed to notice, and the discovery happened only because the director built himself a report nobody asked for. His explanation is the whole problem in one sentence: "Nobody—I don't know if nobody cared or nobody caught it." That sentence describes the ordinary American prosecutor's office, and, for the years I was inside one, it described mine. ## The offices' objection, answered Ask a District Attorney's office why the public cannot understand its data records, and the standard answer is that the data is too messy to mean anything. After months inside the data, I can say exactly how far that answer goes. For straightforward questions, like what was charged and what happened to the charge, the data is good, and more than six million charges resolve into consistent, comparable outcomes across ten counties. Past those basics, the quality of DAMION data depends on each county's habits, because every office uses the shared system its own way. One county delivered no bail data because it did not use DAMION to track the bail requests it made before District Court. Another office records nearly every non-conviction under one catch-all code, regardless of the true outcome. A third recorded thousands of successful diversions, cases resolved through programs instead of conviction, as "plea," which made its conviction rate look higher than it was until this project separated them.[\[6\]](#fn6) That variation should not exist. All eleven offices prosecute under the same criminal code and enter cases into the same statewide system; discretion in charging is the design, but discretion in record-keeping is not. Messy is not the same as meaningless, and the offices treat their own records as meaningful every day. Suffolk County's office told the state's highest court that staff spend an estimated nine to eighteen thousand hours a year manually keying case data into DAMION.[\[7\]](#fn7) The District Attorneys' association compiles office data into a child-welfare report that state law requires it to file with the Legislature, a report the State Auditor just found inaccurate and incomplete.[\[8\]](#fn8) Middlesex County [publishes its case data](https://www.middlesexda.com/transparency-through-data?ref=nasser.blog) on its own website. The offices use these records to run their business, justify their budgets, and answer lawmakers. ## The replacement is being decided now The District Attorneys are now purchasing DAMION's replacement, which makes this the moment for the public to pay attention. In fairness to the offices, they did not choose this situation. The MDAA has been asking the state for money to replace DAMION for years, and the auditor's central recommendation was not that the offices try harder but that the funding finally come through; eleven offices have been running the Commonwealth's prosecutions on a system everyone, including them, agrees is at the end of its life.[\[9\]](#fn9) The sympathy runs out at the association's silence about its own procurement. The MDAA announced the purchase in February and released its full request for proposals in March. The document never mentions the 2018 law that ordered the cross-tracking system, and none of its 118 reporting requirements or 44 named system interfaces connects the new system to it. When prospective bidders asked what the project would cost and who would pay for it, the association declined, twice and in writing, to answer, a silence worth weighing against the hundred million dollars the state found, quickly, for artificial intelligence.[\[10\]](#fn10) Whatever the offices purchase will determine what the public can know about prosecution in Massachusetts into the 2050s. A database that never records a fact can never disclose it. The last system lasted twenty-five years, and unless something changes, the offices will choose its successor alone, the way they chose the last one. The Massachusetts Prosecutor Data Project is my attempt to give the public a voice in that choice. The county research begins publishing soon, the audit of the cross-tracking system follows, and all of it arrives first at [prosecutordata.org](https://prosecutordata.org/?ref=nasser.blog), where you can sign up. And to the eleven offices, the invitation stands: talk to me about your data and your practices, because your records are imperfect and you are best placed to improve them. The state is about to spend years and millions replacing the software you work in every day, and the public deserves a say in what the replacement records and what it publishes. DAMION remains in daily use in every office in the Commonwealth, and its successor is being decided right now. --- 1. Boston Indicators and MassINC published ["Criminal Justice Reform in Massachusetts: A Five-Year Progress Assessment"](https://www.bostonindicators.org/reports/report-detail-pages/criminal-justice-reform-in-massachusetts?ref=nasser.blog) in January 2024\. The quoted passages come from its first recommendation and from pages 31 through 35\. [↩︎](#fnref1) 2. The study is ["Misdemeanor Prosecution,"](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/138/3/1453/6998589?ref=nasser.blog) by Amanda Agan, Jennifer Doleac, and Anna Harvey, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics in 2023\. The same analysis found a 60 percent reduction in the number of new criminal complaints over two years, alongside the 53 percent reduction in the likelihood of any new complaint. [↩︎](#fnref2) 3. The interviews were conducted in 2025 for the paper mentioned above, and the office is kept anonymous both there and here. The forty-three percent figure is the office's own internal measurement, told to me in interviews, and no outside auditor has checked it. I repeat it with that caveat because it is one of the only measurements of its kind in the country; in nearly every other office, the same number is simply unknown, because nothing records it. [↩︎](#fnref3) 4. Legal scholars have argued for decades that internal office policy is where prosecutorial discretion is actually governed. Norman Abrams made the case in 1971 in ["Internal Policy: Guiding the Exercise of Prosecutorial Discretion,"](https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/uclalr19&i=15&ref=nasser.blog) and Marc Miller and Ronald Wright, who studied the New Orleans district attorney's reason-coded screening database in ["The Black Box,"](https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/bitstream/handle/10339/16121/Wright%20Black%20Box,%20The.pdf?ref=nasser.blog) concluded that inside a prosecutor's office "internal norms function like law." [↩︎](#fnref4) 5. Marc Miller and Ronald Wright, who studied the rare exception, put the rule this way in ["The Black Box"](https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/bitstream/handle/10339/16121/Wright%20Black%20Box,%20The.pdf?ref=nasser.blog): prosecutors in most offices "may not have to record their reasons anywhere or explain their reasons to anyone, even to themselves." The Urban Institute's [2018 national survey](https://www.urban.org/research/publication/collecting-and-using-data-prosecutorial-decisionmaking?ref=nasser.blog) of state prosecutors' offices documents the same absence of decision-reason data across the country. [↩︎](#fnref5) 6. The project's methodology notes document each of these flaws county by county, including how each one was detected and what correcting it did to the numbers. The notes publish alongside the county research at [prosecutordata.org](https://prosecutordata.org/?ref=nasser.blog). [↩︎](#fnref6) 7. During the pandemic, in the case over emergency jail releases (SJC-12926), the Suffolk County District Attorney's office filed a [written response](https://www.mass.gov/doc/sjc-12926-response-of-the-suffolk-district-attorney/download?ref=nasser.blog) describing its own data operations. The filing says that manually transcribing case information into DAMION consumes "an estimated 9,000 to 18,000 staff hours annually, resulting in high rates of data error, delay," and that the office's warrant counts disagreed with the state's central criminal records system by as much as eleven percent. [↩︎](#fnref7) 8. This is Finding 2 of the same [November 2025 State Auditor's report](https://www.mass.gov/audit/audit-of-the-massachusetts-district-attorneys-association-november-17-2025?ref=nasser.blog). For the years audited, the report that state law requires was missing two counties' data entirely for fiscal year 2022, and a transcription error misstated nine cases in fiscal year 2023\. [↩︎](#fnref8) 9. The audit's recommendation, verbatim: "MDAA should obtain funding to procure a new CMS that meets the needs of all 11 DA offices with regards to operations, tracking, and reporting." The association's written response committed to "continue to request funding to purchase a new CMS," and the word "continue" carries a documented history: [CommonWealth reported](https://commonwealthbeacon.org/criminal-justice/audit-faults-data-system-used-by-das/?ref=nasser.blog) that a decade ago the Legislature paid for a consultant's needs assessment that priced a replacement at $6.74 million, then never funded the purchase, and the District Attorneys later paid for a second study out of their own budgets. [↩︎](#fnref9) 10. The request for proposals is [bid number BD-26-1017-1017C-1017L-125927](https://www.commbuys.com/bso/external/bidDetail.sdo?docId=BD-26-1017-1017C-1017L-125927&external=true&parentUrl=bid&ref=nasser.blog) on COMMBUYS, the state's public purchasing website, where anyone can read it. The Massachusetts District Attorneys Association announced the procurement on February 27, 2026, and released the full request on March 23\. A full-text search of the request and its requirements matrix finds no mention of Chapter 69 of the Acts of 2018, of the Juvenile Justice Policy and Data (JJPAD) Board, a separate body whose reporting duties the auditor said the current system cannot support, or of a cross-tracking interface. The request's body does require the new system to include "all fields required for mandatory statewide reporting," citing the state data-standards regulation and the Public Records Law as examples, but no requirement anywhere in the document names the cross-tracking system. On cost, the vendor question-and-answer document records two written questions about budget; both received the same answer: "The MDAA will not be sharing a project budget as part of this solicitation." As of late July the bid was still listed as open, two months past the award date the document itself had projected. [↩︎](#fnref10) ### New Year, Same Me URL: https://nasser.blog/new-year-same-me/ Last updated: 2024-12-31T13:36:30.000Z We’ve all heard the cliché: a new year means a fresh start. Weirdly? I enjoy setting intentions for the year. Our worlds are vast, and we each explore different life experiences at different times. Often, we compare those experiences with others — my graduation party versus yours, my 30th birthday versus yours, and so on. Don’t tell me you didn’t think about food at someone else’s graduation party, or (even) a wedding. There are so few moments everyone on Earth shares in real time. The start of a new year, however manufactured, is one of them. It can be good or bad, that’s our choice, but it’s a collective moment all the same. I think that creates a chance to set new goals and have them reinforced externally. I’d like to list a few of mine for this upcoming year! 1. **Quit subscription media.** I just read Liz Pelly’s [The Ghosts in the Machine](https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/?ref=nasser.blog) in Harpers. It exposed how platforms like Spotify use fake artists and stock music to reduce royalty payouts, while prioritizing profit over genuine creativity. Adding to this, companies like Adobe, Microsoft, others, pour resources into AI tools, further detaching from authentic storytelling and artistry while actively profiting off it in their training datasets. I’m appalled by how these systems exploit creators while devaluing their work and feel like my discomfort has reached a boiling point. 2. **Run a 100K race.** In 2024, I completed my first 50K (31 mi) ultra-marathon in Grand Junction, Colorado, after tackling a 25K (15 mi) trail race in Doi Inthanon, Thailand at the end of 2023\. Trail running has reshaped my body and mindset, offering a kinder way to see the world and reconnect with nature after years spent working in front of screens. A 100K (62 mi), however, is a different beast — some races allow 24 hours or more to finish and you can't just hobble your way along for that time. My friend ran one and finished in 22 hours, which is incredible. I want to push myself that far, because we can do hard things! I didn’t know I could run more than 10K (6 mi) without stopping until September 2023\. Who knows what I can do by September 2025. 3. **See at least one friend I haven’t seen since before COVID.** This new year marks five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. My younger brother is now the age I was when it began. There are enumerable friends that I haven’t seen, for lots of reasons — people moved away, remain COVID-conscious, lost touch, lost shared third-spaces — and it’s been on my mind. I read somewhere that friends in your twenties are an accident, and in your thirties are a full-time job. Relationship-management is work, but it is how we stay connected with people we care about. I’d like to practice that more. 4. **Get my *Overseas Citizen of India* (OCI) status.** I recently learned that children of former Indian nationals can apply for OCI, which allows visa-free travel, property ownership, and employment rights in India. I’ve been reconnecting with my ancestral roots (heck, I’m writing this from India right now), and I’m thankful my parents taught me Hindi while I grew up in the U.S. I would love for this to open new doors for me. 5. **Create things, even bad things.** I often feel like I have spent my life collecting hobbies. In middle school I learned how to use industrial machinery and make objects like CO2 race cars and clocks out of wood. Into high school I trained in Indian classical music, learning and performing the tabla. In college I taught myself how to take 19th century tintype photos using a large format camera from the 1940s. I’ve collected more skills, even if only slightly pursued, over the last three decades. I would like to take some time and make things — songs, wooden gifts, photos — even if they’re bad. At least I wouldn’t feel frustrated about not doing anything with interests I have, and who knows: maybe a person or two might appreciate it too. 6. **See two US National Parks.** The natural beauty within the National Park system is, truly, incredible. Two friends gleefully took me on a quick drive-through visit to Arches National Park this year and I quickly realized that these parks really deserve my time and attention, slowly. This coming year, I’d love to finally visit Zion National Park, and one other that I’m leaving open to discovery. 7. **Organize 1 *affordable-ish* friend group trip.** Going back to #3, I think group friend hangouts require, especially among older friends who might have met in college, extra work and care to continue connecting with. It also requires some initiative, which at least among my closer friends hasn’t been the easiest to come by. I’m going to try to right that! And am endeavoring to one, reasonable and domestic get together that is relatively cell-phone free and in nature. 8. **Be more responsible about finances and use technology to help.** I’ve tried various budgeting apps with mixed success, so this year, I’ll return to “old-school” spreadsheets and add a Python twist for monthly planning. Who knows — maybe I’ll even integrate an unsupervised classifier or an LLM to spot spending patterns. 9. **Begin the path to a PhD.** It increasingly feels like I’ve hit a career ceiling at this intersection of policy and practice. I’d like to deepen my expertise in how technology shapes society, particularly in areas like criminal law, privacy, AI ethics, and digital equity. A PhD would allow me to contribute more effectively to the systemic change I’m passionate about — whether through designing interventions in public systems, using public data to hold government accountable, shaping global technology policy, or mentoring the next generation of leaders in public interest technology. This year, I aim to clarify my research goals, identify programs that align with my interdisciplinary interests, and start reaching out to faculty. 10. **Write more, a lot more.** This post is part of this intention I am setting for 2025\. Social media has reduced us to 1080p photos and 280 characters. We are so much more than that. My brain is filled with so much! *Hopefully it might interest you, too.* ### Three Points Between You and Your Vote URL: https://nasser.blog/pa-voter-registration-dpi-barrier/ Last updated: 2024-12-10T21:48:08.000Z **It is election day, and Pennsylvania's 19 Electoral College votes could determine who becomes president.** The state has swung back and forth — Donald Trump won it in 2016 [by 44,292 votes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%5FUnited%5FStates%5Fpresidential%5Felection%5Fin%5FPennsylvania?ref=nasser.blog), then Joe Biden took it in 2020 [by 80,555](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%5FUnited%5FStates%5Fpresidential%5Felection%5Fin%5FPennsylvania?ref=nasser.blog). In a state where such small margins decide elections, every vote matters. When my friend Dr. Dana Calacci tried registering to vote there in August, the state website wouldn't accept her signature photo. As a new resident and Penn State professor of computer science, she found this alarming — if she was having technical difficulties, what about everyone else? In a state of more than [9 million voters](https://www.pa.gov/en/agencies/dos/resources/voting-and-elections-resources/voting-and-election-statistics.html?ref=nasser.blog) and [19 Electoral College votes,](https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/allocation?ref=nasser.blog) even a small technical barrier could block hundreds or thousands of new residents from registering. When elections are decided by tens of thousands of votes, these seemingly minor glitches take on new significance. ## Election security and modernization in Pennsylvania After the 2020 election, Pennsylvania faced intense debate over election fraud. While courts rejected most fraud claims, there were some real cases: a [judge](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-philadelphia-judge-elections-convicted-conspiring-violate-civil-rights-and-bribery?ref=nasser.blog) and a [congressman](https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/former-us-congressman-and-philadelphia-political-operative-pleads-guilty-election-fraud?ref=nasser.blog) were convicted of falsifying voter records. These incidents, combined with wider [disputes](https://www.npr.org/2023/02/07/1155185836/pennsylvania-voting-officials-are-still-fighting-election-deniers?ref=nasser.blog) about election integrity, led to [stricter](https://www.ydr.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2022/08/23/voter-fraud-is-rare-in-pennsylvania-but-allegations-flew-after-2020/65376026007/?ref=nasser.blog) voting rules in Pennsylvania. The state has worked to balance voting access with security. In 2016, Pennsylvania's Department of State launched an online registration system to modernize the process. The system helps organizations run voter registration drives and manage records efficiently. It allows approved organizations to build their own registration software, potentially connecting with systems like NGP VAN for voter outreach. The requirements have evolved between [March 2020](http://web.archive.org/web/20241105022526/https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/dos/old-website-documents/web-api/PA%20DOS%20Web%20API.Specification.1.5.2.pdf) and [May 2024](http://web.archive.org/web/20241105022338/https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/dos/resources/voting-and-elections/web-api/PAOVERWebAPISpecifications.1.9.pdf), reflecting new security and accessibility needs. ![](https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdS_F1RTTZid0drQgT0brs5ytPS7OQwjDyRENLbcgjdnO6BttmtXvyMsYQBVPPymXouoAbXKMY7MDrUTB2uda_UA7o7SkCSe84nMDdsyYJwDx2urJRAquv568g0NGon6UBbH7oUlbfKchmlo61C6k7noGo?key=o7d-vvQCVy_ZMQbA_PIXfjDe) This 2017 chart maps out Pennsylvania's voter registration steps. It comes from the [2024 technical specification document](http://web.archive.org/web/20241105022338/https://www.pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/dos/resources/voting-and-elections/web-api/PAOVERWebAPISpecifications.1.9.pdf). ## New residents faced registration hurdles Dana's case highlights a common problem: new residents without Pennsylvania driver's licenses must upload signature photos instead. This especially affects people moving to Pennsylvania in fall — college students, recent graduates, and professionals. They have the right to vote but face a time crunch with the October 21 registration deadline for the 2024 election. You would think you could just take a phone photo of your signature and submit it. But until recently, the system rejected these photos, claiming the image quality wasn't high enough. This is what Dana sent me: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-04-at-22.49.33.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-04-at-22.49.43.png) Pennsylvania's voter registration website in August 2024, showing how it rejects signature photos taken by phone. The problem was technical but revealing: the system required 75 DPI (dots per inch) — a printing measurement meaningless for digital photos. Most phone cameras use 72 DPI. To register, voters needed to use special software to adjust the photo’s metadata (which is what Dana did) or access a scanner. Both options create unnecessary barriers. ## Technology that “just works” is in the public interest When Dana contacted Pennsylvania officials about this problem, they initially seemed unaware. Yet their own technical documentation showed this was a deliberate requirement. While there are other ways to register, like [Vote.PA](http://vote.pa/?ref=nasser.blog) who would mail you a form for your signature, we shouldn't need workarounds. Government services like voter registration should be as easy to use as any modern website. If we can shop online with our phones, we should be able to register to vote just as easily. The system should simply check if a signature photo is clear and large enough (by verifying the photos dimensions and file size, for example), not enforce arbitrary technical rules. **Working with the ACLU of Pennsylvania, we got the Pennsylvania Department of State to fix this issue.** If you encounter similar problems registering to vote, please [contact me](https://nassers.space/contact/?ref=nasser.blog). ## Why 72 DPI, though? You might wonder why phones use 72 DPI at all. Turns out that it's a slice of computing history from 1984 when Apple built the original Macintosh. Each pixel on each screen was made to [correspond](https://eclecticlight.co/2022/07/30/explainer-pixel-density-and-display-resolution/?ref=nasser.blog) to traditional typography measurements — where 72 points is one inch. This was intentional: it was a bridge between paper and screen, allowing designers to work digitally by employing the same measurements they had used in print. The screens of today are far superior — smartphones are easily well above 500 pixels-per-inch (PPI), computer displays routinely pass 200 PPI. Yet, like the floppy disk "save" icon that remains in software long after floppy disks have disappeared from our lives, 72 DPI continues to appear in our photo files by default. It's simply a standardized reference point linking our digital today to its paper-based yesterday. The number itself is now arbitrary, which makes Pennsylvania's 75 DPI requirement doubly bizarre — they were rejecting photos of signatures on a three point swing of a dead metric. ### Where There Is Nothing URL: https://nasser.blog/namibia-photo-essay/ Last updated: 2026-01-12T00:58:53.000Z Flying into Windhoek, Namibia, you're greeted with a window view of sweeping sand dunes as far as you can see, hardly a cloud in sight. The experience doesn't stop there—you're also met with turbulent winds that made for one of the most stressful landings I've ever experienced. Namibia is beautiful, known mainly for its namesake, the Namib desert. The name "namib" comes from the [Nama](https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nama-people?ref=nasser.blog) language, implying “an area where there is nothing.” Ironically, it is in nothing that the most wonderous something can be found. This is where my journey began, on an eleven person group tour with [Chameleon Safaris](https://www.chameleonsafaris.com/?ref=nasser.blog) in Windhoek, that would span 7 days and 2,500 kilometers across the country. 🏜️ ***Chameleon Safaris, honestly, rules.** They're a tour group operator based out of Windhoek. If you book your flights and a Chameleon safari, that's just about all you'll need. They handle your airport transfers, your accommodations, and your guide cooks for you. You just have to be fine with losing the luxury of a flexible itinerary. --- # Day zero, the arrival After getting to my hostel, [Chameleon Backpackers](https://www.chameleonbackpackers.com/?ref=nasser.blog) (also run by the safari company), I realized that aside from the famous photos and videos of sweeping sand dunes, I actually knew next to nothing about the former Imperial German colony, once known as German South West Africa. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/8_1Karte2_detail.jpg) Map of German South West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika), no year. Colonial Picture Archive, University Library Frankfurt. I was surprised, then, to learn that North Korea would be the gateway to understanding Namibia's history in person. The [Independence Memorial Museum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence%5FMemorial%5FMuseum%5F%28Namibia%29?ref=nasser.blog), dedicated to Namibia's anti-colonial resistance and national liberation movement, was designed and constructed by [Mansudae Overseas Projects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansudae%5FOverseas%5FProjects?ref=nasser.blog), a North Korean firm that builds projects in foreign countries using North Korean designers and [socialist realist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist%5Frealism?ref=nasser.blog) design patterns. [Monumental Diplomacy - 99% InvisibleIn downtown Windhoek, Namibia — at the intersection of Fidel Castro Street and Robert Mugabe Avenue — there’s an imposing gold building with an affectionate nickname: the Coffee Maker. This notable structure was built to commemorate Namibia’s fight for independence from apartheid South Africa, which…![](https://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2016/06/cropped-favicon_512-270x270.png)99% Invisible99pi![](https://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2022/09/namibian-art-museum-728x501.jpg)](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/monumental-diplomacy/?ref=nasser.blog) Critically acclaimed podcast "99% Invisible" has an entire episode dediated to this structure, and the diplomacy efforts of North Korea through the construction of overseas monuments. I had never seen anything North Korean with my own eyes before, so my curiosity was immediately piqued. The run-down symmetrical architecture looked mesmerizing yet out of place in central Windhoek. Underneath the building, you find the entrance to the museum. You'll also find three murals above the doorways on each of the foundational columns, depicting the struggle for independence. Knowing the North Korean context taints the experience a little, I must admit. You're simultaneously aware that the stories depicted are those of the Namibian peoples' fight against German, English, and later Apartheid South African occupation, but also a platform for North Korea to tacitly express disdain for the colonial powers of old. Clever game they play. I snapped some photos. I returned to my hostel and attempted to get some rest before the first day of the safari. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/IMG_1388.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/IMG_1392.jpeg) # **Days One and Two: The "Roads" Less Traveled** Aside from a few central arteries, most of the ways you drive around Namibia are graded dirt roads. Driving is the only way around—there is no public transportation. If you're driving yourself, opt for the 4x4 rental vehicle. The suspension and undercarriage of your 2WD rental sedan will get absolutely wrecked. We started our day driving up to Otjiwarongo, stopping for supplies and a tiny lunch, before continuing onward to Etosha National Park. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/Screen-Shot-2023-01-16-at-4.59.38-PM.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/IMG_1409.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/IMG_1410.jpeg) Etosha National Park is known for its great game viewing opportunities, particularly at the many waterholes found throughout the park. During the dry winter months, many species rely on these permanent water sources. Visitors can see large groups of zebra and springbok mingling with oryx and bathing elephants at the larger waterholes. Some camps even offer floodlit waterholes where you can spot rhino, elephant, and lion drinking from the same spot. Etosha is home to four of the "Big 5": elephants, lions, leopards, and rhinos. (The fifth, the Cape buffalo, prefers wetter habitats and isn't found here.) The park also features rare and endangered species such as the black-faced impala and the cheetah. The vast Etosha Pan, a large dried-up salt pan, provides a stark backdrop for game viewing. Unfortunately for us, we visited in Summer, when rainfall is abundant in northern Namibia and animals are reluctant to visit watering holes. This makes game viewing challenging, but we still spotted some from our vehicle. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8660.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/IMG_1412.jpeg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8712.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8718.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8814-Enhanced.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8781.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8693-Enhanced.jpg) Some of the wildlife we were able to view from the safari vehicle that took us all across Namibia. The roof of the vehicle popped up, allowing us to stand on our seats for a better view. All photos by me. --- # **Days Three and Four: The Enormity of Nothing** In a [2016 essay for The New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/travel/namibia-road-trip.html?ref=nasser.blog), my cousin Sarah Khan wrote that "Namibian soil is the souvenir that reappears when you least expect it, bringing with it a sand storm of memories." I probably found it in every crack and crevice of my technology and belongings for a week and a half after I left Namibia. We began our trek into the desert by heading southwest from Etosha, making curated stops along the way to visit Native Damara, Kavango, Tswana, Herero, and Himba people. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/Screen-Shot-2023-01-19-at-5.26.43-AM.png) Day three involves us leaving Etosha National Park, driving through Damaraland, and eventually arriving in the former colonial city of Swakopmund. Admittedly, I am not a huge fan of "Native-gazing" activities that tourists partake in during their visit to Africa—it feels both reinforcing of white supremacy, and also of the post-colonial economic destitution that colonial institutions placed on Natives who weren't allowed self-determination. Therefore I will not be sharing any photos of those moments that I reluctantly experienced. Instead, I'll share a little about the Herero people and these beautiful dolls I found that they make and sell as a tourist commodity. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8821.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8822.jpg) ### **A Brief History of German South West Africa** The colonization of Namibia by the Germans began in the late 19th century. In 1884, the German Empire claimed the territory as a protectorate and established the colony of German South West Africa. The German government encouraged settlement by Germans and sent thousands of farmers and merchants to the colony. They brought new technology and infrastructure—railroads and telegraph lines—but also imposed their culture and laws on the indigenous people. The German colonial administration implemented racist policies. The indigenous people, particularly the Herero and Nama, were subjected to forced labor, dispossession of their lands, and suppression of their culture. They promoted German as the official language and suppressed local languages. The legacy of this remains visible today. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8895.jpg) An old trailer, painted on with cave-drawing styled glyphs, showing Himba people living in Damaraland. #### Sexualization towards domestication In Damaraland, German settlers acquired land from the Herero to establish farms that they then hired Herero people to work on. At that time, our guide explained, the Herero dressed as the Himba continue to do today, with garments covering lower genitalia for both sexes and leaving breasts exposed for women. In Western societies, the objectification and sexualization of women has been perpetuated by media, advertising, and power dynamics. In contrast, many traditional cultures, such as the Himba, have different attitudes towards nudity. For the Himba, exposed breasts signal maturity and are not considered sexual. The Himba have a different understanding of modesty and the human body than Western societies do. When these factors clash in tourism, you find that visitors may view the nudity and traditional customs of the Himba as unique and intriguing—something different from their own culture. But the Himba's nudity should not be objectified. It's part of their culture and way of life, not entertainment or spectacle. The Herero once dressed as the Himba do now, but no longer. German colonizers forced the Herero people to wear Victorian-style clothing, including long dresses, petticoats, and Victorian hats. This was a way for the colonizers to assert dominance over the Herero. They were forced to wear these clothes as part of being "civilized" into German society, and so they could eventually be domesticated for the colonial labor force. The [Herero and Nama genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero%5Fand%5FNama%5Fgenocide?ref=nasser.blog), the first genocide of the 20th century, was a consequence of tensions brought on by German colonization. Between 65,000 and 100,000 Herero and Nama died as a result of starvation, imprisonment, and concentration camps set up by the German Empire to confine them in the Namib desert. The Herero genocide remains a tragic reminder of the devastating consequences of colonialism and the belief in racial superiority. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8856.jpg) A doll of a Herero woman, set up at a roadside shop in Damaraland. At nightfall, we arrived in Swakopmund, a beautiful German colonial city established in 1892\. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/Swakopmund.jpeg) Hohenzollernhaus (House Hohenzollern) in Swakopmund. The building, one of the oldest surviving, was constructed about a decade after the port's founding. It features a neo-Baroque style, which was directly imported from Bavaria. It was once a hotel, known as the Hohenzollern Hotel, and was declared a National Monument in 1972 while Namibia was still under South African occupation. [**Georgio*](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Swakopmund.jpeg%5F?ref=nasser.blog)**,* [**CC BY-SA 3.0*](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/?ref=nasser.blog)**, via Wikimedia Commons.* On the agenda was dinner and rest, before we set off the next morning to witness one of the great wonders of southern Africa. 0:00 /0:15 1× Satellite visual of the area just south of Swakopmund. The sweeping area known as Sandwich Harbour begins just after Walvis Bay. The Sand dunes stretch for hundreds of miles, taking on a red hue the further south you go. ### **Meet Me Where the Sand Meets the Ocean** Just south of Walvis Bay, at the edge of the South Atlantic Ocean, is Sandwich Harbour. The ocean crashes into dunes that rise hundreds of feet. Orange sand, blue water, empty sky—I kept looking around trying to understand what I was seeing. The silence was the strange part. No birds, no traffic, just wind and the occasional wave breaking. Everything felt oversized and slightly unreal, like standing inside a photograph. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC8907.jpg) What surprised me most was that people drive on this. A new guide met us in Swakopmund and had five of us pile into his tiny 7-seater 4x4 SUV. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9012.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/img054-3.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9015.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9363.jpg) Sweeping view of the sand dunes as a sight in of itself, but moving across it at a blistering speed with the vehicle we were in was an added delight. **The photo of the vehicle was taken on a Fuji GA645Zi camera with Kodak Gold 200 film.* We made many stops in Sandwich Harbour to find new vantages. It was here that I learned the trick of digging your bare feet about 4 inches into the sand to keep them cool—the scorching heat was otherwise unbearable. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9083.jpg) Newlyweds Mohammed and Noor, on their honeymoon from the United States and on our group tour, posing for a photo with me. Somehow, despite us both being around seven thousand miles from home and meeting for the first time, we still had a mutual friend. It really is good that the ocean is there, because if not for it I am certain our driver would have been lost. 📸 A warning! Cameras and sand don't mix. I was traveling with two cameras into Sandwich Harbour: a Nikon D850 DSLR and a Fuji GA645Zi medium format film camera. The Nikon camera body and lens is weather sealed, so as long as I was careful with lens changes, the sand would not leave lasting damage. And indeed, things are fine! Unfortunately, I wasn't careful enough with the Fuji, and there is sand in the device. I'm hopeful I can use some industrial strength compressed air to remove it, but until then the camera is "beached." ⚠️ Make sure that the equipment you bring is at least [weather-sealed](https://photofocus.com/photography/six-tough-as-nails-weather-sealed-cameras-that-take-on-mother-nature/?ref=nasser.blog), and even that may not be enough! ⚠️ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9338.jpg) Me, posing for a photo taken by Noor. --- # **Days Five and Six: There Is Always More Sand** After our adventure-filled morning in Sandwich Harbour, we made the journey across the Namib desert to Desert Camp, just outside Sesriem, Namibia. The 300km journey had us passing through the [Tropic of Capricorn](https://www.britannica.com/place/Tropic-of-Capricorn?ref=nasser.blog), where we stopped for photos. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/IMG_2047.jpeg) Signs on the side of a dirt road at the [Tropic of Capricorn](https://www.britannica.com/place/Tropic-of-Capricorn?ref=nasser.blog), the most southerly latitude at which the sun can appear directly overhead at noon at the December solstice. [Desert Camp](https://goo.gl/maps/JzHbKDvnF8VnNJWT8?ref=nasser.blog) is located just outside the entrance to Sossusvlei. It's simple but comfortable, with great views at sunset. If you're luckier than I was, stay there during the new moon so the night sky stuns you with stars. The next morning was day five. We departed before sunrise at about 5am to beat the queue into the National Park and were rewarded with beautiful sunrise views of the landscape before us. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9468.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9487.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9497.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9498.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9572.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9577.jpg) Documenting the journey into Sossusvlei, Namibia. Our destination is to view the golden red sand dunes that tower over the roads. ### **The Postcard Is Real** After a brief 45-minute drive into the park, we made our first stop ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9618.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9624.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9626.jpg) An oryx antelope grazing near dunes that people are boldly climbing. Sand is incredibly difficult to climb, I've learned. You've seen these dunes on desktop wallpapers and in travel magazines. I had too, for years. Standing in front of them, I kept thinking: so this is what that looks like in person. The red-orange sand against the blue sky is exactly as saturated as the photos suggest. These dunes are some of the tallest in the world, and the wind has been shaping them for millions of years. Each ridge casts a hard shadow in the morning light. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9692.jpg) The [satellite view](https://goo.gl/maps/o9LAxFiHULMm8iAA9?ref=nasser.blog) does not appreciate the scale of these dunes, and the way they just tower on around you as far as the eye can see. This photo was taken at Dune 45, named so because it is 45 kilometers of the road that connects the Sesriem gate and Sossusvlei. As you stand in the middle of it, the scale doesn't quite register. The dunes go on in every direction, shifting color as the sun moves. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9771.jpg) This was taken near Deadvlei, meaning dead marsh. The Tsauchab river formed the clay pans in this area after flooding, creating a haven for camel thorn trees. Drought later caused sand dunes to cover the pan, cutting off the river, forming the clay earth. These are the dunes of childhood desktop wallpapers, the ones I imagined when I stared at screensavers, the ones I drew with colored pencils as a kid. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9673.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9684.jpg) A visit to the sand dunes wouldn't be complete without a photoshoot. Mohammed poses for some portraits in front of a tree of unknowable age. Our next stop was Deadvlei, the famous clay pan that provides an equally stark contrast to the bright orange dunes of Sossusvlei. The Tsauchab river formed the clay pans after flooding, allowing camel thorn trees to grow. When the climate changed, drought hit the area, and sand dunes blocked the river. The trees died, but because it's too dry for them to decompose, they remain standing in the pan—black against the white clay, estimated to be around 900 years old. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9746.jpg) The only dune we could gather enough strength to climb up. This was taken around 9am, when the sun was still low enough to produce dramatic contrast in the sand. The camera is equipped with a polarizer and a 4-stop ND filter—both of which I consider crucial to letting showcasing the hues and drama of the views before you. We hiked up a neighboring dune first to have a vantage of the surrounding area, before hopping down into the clay pan. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9775.jpg) One of the members of our tour group, Irina, poses for a photo in the dramatic landscape. Deadvlei is on the bottom right. Nikon 24-70mm. Be extremely careful with your electronic equipment. I brought a 200-500mm super telephoto lens for dramatic portraiture, and I have to admit I was more than a little nervous each time I swapped lenses. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC9884.jpg) Super telephoto lenses are great for combining landscape and portrait photography in the Namib, as they'll compress the foreground and backgrounds and still provide an opportunity to showcase your subject without taking too much from the surroundings. Here, Phiwokazi poses for a photo. Photos showing Deadvlei online tend to be heavily edited—while the contrast is stark, the clay pan has an orange-red hue to it, not the near-white that an online image search might lead you to believe. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2023/01/_DSC0014.jpg) The trees of Deadvlei. 📽️ Fun fact! The Bollywood film [Ghajini](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ghajini?ref=nasser.blog) had a song called ['Tu Meri Adhoori Pyas Pyas'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBTo0okmUNA&ref=nasser.blog) that was filmed here. # **Wrapping Up an Extraordinary Visit** Namibia is unlike anywhere I've ever visited. And, although I say this about a great many places I have spent time: I would like to go back. The photographic opportunities are near endless. I think it would be lovely to explore more of the sand in the Winter season and at more dramatic times of day and night. I can only imagine how incredible it would be to spend an evening under the stars in Sossusvlei, or Sandwich Harbour, and take night sky time-lapses of the stars. Even more fun would be to do what Sarah did and road trip in a 4x4 vehicle from Cape Town, allowing more time to explore the areas that stood out to me with all the gear that I can fit into a vehicle. If you have questions or want advice on your Namibian trip planning, feel free to reach out. 💼 ****Where to stay in Namibia:** \- Windhoek: Avani Windhoek () \- Etosha: Taleni Etosha Village ([www.etosha-village.com](https://etosha-village.com/?ref=nasser.blog)) \- Swakopmund: Hotel Pension A La Mer ([www.pension-a-la-mer.com](http://www.pension-a-la-mer.com/?ref=nasser.blog)) \- Sesriem/Sossusvlei: Desert Camp ([desertcamp.com](https://www.desertcamp.com/?ref=nasser.blog)) ### Mauna Loa, Climate Science's North Star URL: https://nasser.blog/mauna-loa/ Last updated: 2026-01-12T00:30:06.000Z When you grow up about as far as you can from the middle of the Pacific, you're socialized to understand it as a place of potential leisure, rather than someone's home. I fell in love with the Big Island of Hawai'i, but I continue to curse myself for how little I knew about its exploitation. Take a moment to think about what you know about Hawai'i. What do you know about the man who supposedly "discovered" it, Captain James Cook? ![Landscape photo from a volcano, showing the rough rocky terrain from a late-20th century eruption.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/11/20210731-DJI_0244-HDR-Pano.jpg) The view looking north from \~11,000 feet on Mauna Loa. Directly in front are lava fields, likely from a late-20th century eruption, hardened to rock. On the horizon you see the Kohala Mountains on the left, and Mauna Kea on the right. On the day this photo was taken, a large wildfire burned near southern Kohala, near Waimea, creating a dense smog covering hundreds of miles. Photo by me. ## A Short Recap of Enlightenment Sciences Captain Cook lived and breathed during the heyday of the European Enlightenment. In 1660, the Royal Society was founded in London and received its royal charter from King Charles II two years later. A little over a century after that, in 1769, the ambitious young Captain Cook was commissioned to journey to the middle of the Pacific, to Tahiti, to observe the transit of Venus. Enlightenment astronomers understood that Venus could help them measure the scale of the solar system. Edmund Halley (namesake of the famous comet you can next see on July 28, 2061) explained as much in 1716\. Venus occasionally crosses the Sun's face, visible from Earth as a jet-black disk drifting slowly among the Sun's real sunspots. Halley reasoned that by observing the transit times from different locations on Earth, astronomers could determine the distance to Venus using parallax. The rest of the solar system's scale would follow. > "But after all the only conclusion they made was that as we had so much to do with the sun and the rest of the planets whose motions we were constantly watching by day and night, and which we had informed them we were guided by on the ocean, we must either have come from thence, or be some other way particularly connected with those objects..." > > \~ John Ledyard, [Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage](https://www.loc.gov/item/05039321/?ref=nasser.blog) Halley was following the work of astronomer Giovanni Cassini. Between 1671 and 1673, Cassini used parallax to determine the distance to Mars by coordinating observations from Paris with measurements taken by his colleague Jean Richer in French Guiana. He could compute the distance because he knew the baseline: the distance between the two observers. Cassini then used Kepler's orbital mechanics to calculate the distance from Earth to the Sun. But even then, neither he nor his successors could pin down the true size of the solar system. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/11/20210709-_DSF0008.jpg) The Milky Way Galaxy, as viewed from the parking lot around 9,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory. Photo by me. The size of the solar system remained one of the central mysteries of 18th century science. Astronomers at the time knew the Sun was orbited by six planets. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto had yet to be found. They knew the relative distances between planets, but the absolute measurements remained unknown. Venus crossing the Sun is rare. In our lifetimes, it happened in 2004 and again in 2012\. It won't happen again until 2117\. Halley knew in the early 18th century that he would not live 60 years to see the next one. The task fell to Captain Cook. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/11/20210731-DJI_0255-HDR-Pano.jpg) An aerial photo taken a few hundred meters above the surface, from the Mauna Loa Observatory parking lot. This photo was taken facing north east just before sunset. The miles long one lane road is the only road up and down the largest active volcano on Earth. Photo by me. Cook reached Tahiti eight months after setting sail from Plymouth in August 1768, navigating the HMS Endeavour around Cape Horn. He was not alone in the effort; over 150 individuals journeyed to far regions of the world to prepare for the astronomical event. Here lies the problem: most locations these expeditions "visited" were already inhabited by indigenous peoples who had little contact with European colonial empires. This is where Enlightenment science and colonial conquest become entangled. [Captain Cook and his crew](https://www.captcook-ne.co.uk/ccne/themes/shipsandcrew.html?ref=nasser.blog) of nearly one hundred officers, marines, and civilians made many stops on the way to and from Tahiti, claiming Pacific lands for the British Empire regardless of who already lived there. The islands of Hawai'i were among them. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/11/20210731-_DSF0735.jpg) The Kohala Mountains from Mauna Loa, at dusk. Photo by me. ## Discovering what, exactly? In the West, the period from the 1400s until about the 1700s CE is usually called the "Age of Discovery." The term implies that the history of the Americas, or the "discovered world," didn't exist until European contact. In 1935, legal scholar von der Heydte [wrote about this problem](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/abs/discovery-symbolic-annexation-and-virtual-effectiveness-in-international-law/AE5E7EBA8FD98EB2A0CA87ABC886FBEE?ref=nasser.blog) when analyzing the Falkland Islands dispute: > The problem we have to deal with...cannot be characterized by the opposition of the two notions of "discovery" and "possession" under such a general conception as "acquisition of sovereign rights," but by opposition of "symbolic annexation," on the one hand, and "effective occupation" on the other, under the general title "possession." [\~ von der Heydte, 1935](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2190420?ref=nasser.blog) In other words, a sighting or "discovery" might confer rights, but occupation was what transferred land to imperial ownership. Native rights were irrelevant. Charles C. Mann [explains it well](https://www.depauw.edu/news-media/latest-news/details/22503/?ref=nasser.blog): in the colonizer's eyes, Native populations lived in an eternal, unhistorical state. This is sometimes called "[Holmberg's Mistake](https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/opinion/that-first-thanksgiving.html?ref=nasser.blog)"—a strange term that implies these actions were accidental, as if that could excuse genocide, slavery, and the ongoing occupation of Native Hawaiian homelands. The logic runs: discovery produces change, change creates history, and these people are eternal, without history. A fallacy. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/11/20210731-_DSF0752-Pano.jpg) A southeast view of Mauna Loa Observatory, with a guiding laser being used by one of the space telescopes. If you stay there long enough, you can see the telescope, and the laser, move at night. Photo by me. ## Contemporary Occupation, and Science By the 19th and 20th centuries, these European land claims became the foundation for westward "expansion" in the United States. Once independent, America began building the legal basis for its own territorial growth. The first major case was [*Johnson v. McIntosh*, 21 U.S. 543](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/21/543/?ref=nasser.blog) (1823). The Supreme Court held unanimously that Native Americans do not own the land they live on, ruling that "the principle of discovery gave European nations an absolute right to New World lands." The facts: members of the Illinois and Piankeshaw tribes sold land to Thomas Johnson in the 1770s in what is now Illinois. After American independence, the tribes sold the same territory to the federal government, which then sold it to William McIntosh. The Court ruled for McIntosh. This case introduced the Doctrine of Discovery into American law and established federal dominance over Native affairs. Two subsequent cases—*Cherokee Nation v. Georgia* (1831) and *Worcester v. Georgia* (1832)—completed what's called the "Marshall Trilogy." Together, these three rulings laid the groundwork for Native American forced removal, including the Trail of Tears, and provided legal cover for stripping Native people from their homelands. This was the framework under which the occupation of Hawai'i was later justified. By the mid-1800s, American law permitted colonists to remove Native Americans from their homelands and claim ownership. The term "Manifest Destiny" first appeared in 1845 as philosophical justification for American expansion. The reasons for "discovery" were often described as divine or resource-driven. What's often erased is how science developed hand-in-hand with imperialism. I believe in looking to the stars, but I wish we did so with more awareness that the settler colonial state has expanded alongside astronomical science. Western space science remains bound up with settler colonialism. ![A photo of the sun setting on the horizon, with clouds directly in front. In the foreground are 4 large telescope facilities used for night sky gazing and other astrophysics research.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/11/20210624-_DSF6238.jpg) View looking west from the summit of Mauna Kea in what's called "Astronomy Precinct." From left to right, the Subaru telescope, the W. M. Keck Observatory, and the NASA infrared telescope on the far right. Photo by me. # The Present Day 2022 marks 244 years since Captain Cook became the first European to visit Oahu in January 1778\. It also marks 124 years since the United States [annexed the then-sovereign nation](https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/joint-resolution-for-annexing-the-hawaiian-islands?ref=nasser.blog) of Hawai'i in 1898, after American sugar plantation owners and other agents overthrew Queen Liliʻuokalani in [January 1893](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/january-17/americans-overthrow-hawaiian-monarchy?ref=nasser.blog). The path to truth and reconciliation is not simple—just as it's nearly impossible for the international scientific community to find another mountain so remote from light pollution and so high up with such thin atmosphere from which to observe the stars. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/image-2.png) A closeup of the [Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)](https://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/?ref=nasser.blog), taken by my friend [Ben Garbow](https://bengarbow.com/?ref=nasser.blog) with his Bronica SQ on Fuji Provia 100F film, in Summer 2021\. This is one of many telescopes part of a 525 acre region known as "astronomy precinct," on the summit of Mauna Kea. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/IMG_0904.jpeg) Behind-the-scenes of using the Bronica SQ on top of Mauna Kea. The Mauna Kea Observatories conduct major astronomical research and make science more accessible to students from nearby University of Hawai'i at Hilo. Since 1958, researchers have taken air samples at the Mauna Loa Observatory, making it one of the most important sites for climate science. Charles Keeling established this framework for modern climate research just as Hawaii was about to become a U.S. state. Monitoring at Mauna Loa produced groundbreaking results within months of starting. When Keeling first climbed the volcano in November 1958, he found that carbon dioxide concentration was gradually but steadily rising. Then, through the summer, CO2 levels dropped. The pattern repeated the following year. Keeling found it intriguing. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/image-3.png) A view of [**Pu'u Kalepeamoa*](https://bigislandhikes.com/mauna-kea-puu-kalepeamoa?ref=nasser.blog), also known as "Sunset Hill," which is a cinder cone near the [Onizuka Center for International Astronomy Visitor Center](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onizuka%5FCenter%5Ffor%5FInternational%5FAstronomy?ref=nasser.blog) (also known as Hale Pōhaku). Taken by my friend [Ben Garbow](https://bengarbow.com/?ref=nasser.blog) with his Bronica SQ on Fuji Provia 100F film, in Summer 2021\. This was a 90 minute exposure! In his autobiography, Keeling noted: "we were witnessing for the first time nature's withdrawing CO2 from the air for plant growth during the summer and returning it each succeeding winter." They had recorded how the northern hemisphere breathes—releasing carbon dioxide when forests lose their leaves in winter, inhaling as leaves return each summer. The regular measurements supported a hypothesis that atmospheric carbon was rising year over year due to growing global population and industrialization. Keeling compiled these measurements into a graph with an upward trend he called the "\[Keeling Curve\](https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/)." The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego updates it daily. You'll find it referenced at every United Nations Climate Change Conference. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/image-1.png) A chart showing the carbon dioxide concentration, as measured atop Mauna Loa Observatory at \~11,000 feet above sea level. At the time of this writing the measurement was 414.55 ppm. The seasonal breathing of CO2 was just one of Mauna Loa's revelations. Over the following 60 years, the observatory documented something far more alarming: a sharp rise in carbon dioxide levels driven by fossil fuel combustion. NOAA and Scripps researchers take great pains to ensure their findings are unimpeachable. Climate science has been one of the most contested issues in American politics since Keeling first presented his results to the American Philosophical Society in 1968\. According to [Monmouth University polling](https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll%5Fus%5F050624/?ref=nasser.blog) from 2021, roughly one in four Americans did not believe climate change was happening at that time. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/20210812-_DSF1717-1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/20210630-_DSF6280.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/20210630-_DSF6281.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/IMG_0937.jpeg) Friends posing for stars atop Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Photos by me. As countries pursue decarbonization and try to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Mauna Loa Observatory must remain an unimpeachable pillar of truth in the fight against climate crisis. I wish the now conveniently apolitical science could find a way toward truth and reconciliation with the painful history on which the observatories on Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea sit. I don't have an answer for how truth and reconciliation should begin. But perhaps one could do as I have: take the time to listen to Native Hawaiians, who have shared plenty about their own experiences, as long as you're listening. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/10/20210630-_DSF6271.jpg) The Milky Way on a clear night, from the visitor center parking lot. Photo by me. ### Campaign Finance Contributions Clarify Elections URL: https://nasser.blog/how-campaign-finance-contributions-demystify-elections/ Last updated: 2024-12-09T03:54:57.000Z Polling is an unalienable part of our political process in the United States. In national elections, like for Congress or President, we look to polls and our pollsters for guidance on how populations of people otherwise inaccessible to us feel about the candidates they will choose between, and how that may tilt the balance of power. Polls are conducted on all geographic levels, from national polling down to local city and municipal elections. Accurate polling in local elections is largely dependent on resources and reaching likely voters who may be unlikely poll respondents, especially in Massachusetts. Not reaching a representative cross section of the population means there may be an incomplete picture of the results to come, leading to surprise victories like Rep. Ayanna Pressley beating out former-Rep. Michael Capuano in 2018\. In my opinion, there are ways these political eventualities can feel less like a surprise and more rooted in on-the-ground facts. Campaign finance data is one way to demystify local elections, and create a ground truth in the absence of polling resources. And let's face it: running a political campaign is expensive, so the act of donating to a campaign can speak volumes. When we define "campaign finance data" we are really looking for a list of individual contributors who have donated to an individual or a political action committee representing an individual. These individual contributors have to report information such as their name and address to the candidate, and it is the candidate's responsibility to file paperwork passing along the donor's information as well as the amount they've contributed to the political campaign. If we're looking for information about Federal elections, we go to the [U.S. Federal Election Commission (F.E.C.) website](https://www.fec.gov/data/?ref=nasser.blog) and search for committees/candidates, and filter the resulting spreadsheet(s) to individual contributions. If we're looking for information about State elections within Massachusetts, then we can go to the [Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance](https://ocpf.us/Home/Index?ref=nasser.blog) (O.C.P.F.). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/ma-7-2018-donations.PNG) Map of all individual contributions (where the FEC had an address available) made to Michael Capuano and Ayanna Pressley over the course of the 2018 Massachusetts 7th Congressional primary election. Capuano is in orange, Pressley is in red. The larger the circle, the more money that was donated. # The 2018 MA-7 Primary Election Using the 2018 election of Rep. Ayanna Pressley as an example, I can demonstrate how it really should have come as no shock that she would win the Massachusetts 7th Congressional election. The [last poll of the race](http://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2018/08/Crosstabs-2018-08-WBUR-MA7-Primary.pdf?ref=nasser.blog) was conducted by MassInc. Polling Group from July 27 through 29 of 2018, with the results being [released on August 2nd](https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/08/02/wbur-poll-capuano-pressley-7th-district?ref=nasser.blog) on WBUR. The poll showed that Capuano had a 13-point lead over Pressley, 48 percent to 35 percent, with 15 percent undecided. A 13-point lead is typically interpreted as insurmountable, and [Rep. Pressley's shock](https://twitter.com/jessemermell/status/1037159771416276992?ref=nasser.blog) to winning the seat had left no doubt that the campaign recognized this possibility going into the primary election. ![A MassInc/WBUR poll released August 2nd, 2018, showing then-Rep. Capuano holding a 13-point lead over then-Councilor Pressley for the MA-7th Democratic primary.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/image.png) A MassInc/WBUR poll released August 2nd, 2018, showing then-Rep. Capuano holding a 13-point lead over then-Councilor Pressley for the MA-7th Democratic primary. Despite this 13-point lead, the campaign finance data from the F.E.C. tells a different story. You want to temporarily put aside the dollar amounts the donations consist of, and look at the volume of donors for this analysis. If we take a donation to represent an individual's support for a candidate, then you can see that the reality is far different than the MassInc/WBUR poll. For all individuals who donated at least $1 to each of the two committee's, Pressley recevied 49.2 percent of the individuals and Capuano received 51.1 percent of individuals. That already says that the race is closer than people realize. Now, I hope you're thinking what I did: *"but Nasser, I could've donated to either candidate and still not been able to vote for them, wouldn't that change the numbers?"* To that I say: *"well, you're absolutely right!"* If you filter to only those donors who are within the [borders of the MA 7th Congressional District](https://malegislature.gov/Redistricting/CurrentDistricts/Congressional?ref=nasser.blog), effectively retaining only those contributors who theoretically have the ability to vote for the candidate(s) in question, you paint a different picture. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/ma-7-2018-donations-2.PNG) Map of all individual contributions made to Capuano and Pressley over the course of the 2018 Massachusetts 7th Congressional District (in blue) primary election, filtered for only in-district donations. Capuano is in orange, Pressley is in red. Suddenly, you find that 62.9 percent of in-district donors gave to Pressley, and 37.5 percent to Capuano. This closely resembles the primary results where Pressley received 58.6 percent of the votes to Capuano's 41.4 percent to win the primary election. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/MA-7th-CF-Charts.png) You can also underlay a layer of the percent of people living in a particular area that are Black or African American according to the U.S. Census A.C.S., to visualize how voters who identify as such may have chosen to contribute to a particular campaign (given that the contribution data does not collect any demographic information). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/MA7th-2018-BAA-Pop.png) Side-by-side map of Capuano vs. Pressley from the 2018 Democratic primary. The gray dots each represent the reported address of an individual who contributed to a candidate's campaign. The green/blue shading in the background represents the population residing in a [Census tract](https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/education/CensusTracts.pdf?ref=nasser.blog) that identifies as Black or African American in Census data. A darker blue means a higher percentage of the resident population that is Black or African American. We clearly see that Rep. Pressley carried the Black donor-base in Boston, and her election and subsequent victories were undoubtedly supported by them. As seen in the analysis above, campaign finance contributions can be an enormously useful proxy to determine how a candidate is faring within the district they are seeking office. This is especially useful in smaller jurisdictions within which opinions may rapidly form as election date approaches, or little polling has been conducted to identify voter sentiment. If the specific race you're following is even lucky to have a poll conducted, chances are it could quickly become out of date or, depending on how it was conducted, produce sampling errors showing a result that does not reflect the sentiment of the participating voters. --- # Looking Ahead: the 2022 Elections There is no question that this year's upcoming election is one that will have a lasting impact for the rest of this decade and more in Massachusetts. [The Globe aptly described](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/09/metro/massachusetts-banner-election-year/?ref=nasser.blog) this year as a "a banner election year," adding "are many more open seats than usual, from the state’s highest office to its most obscure, and that means a mass of bottled-up political ambition now has somewhere to go." My above analysis then begs further questions as to whether this model, that campaign finance data is in many ways an indicator of how a race is faring, is applicable in this banner election year. There are many races I can focus on, but I'll examine two local Boston-area elections. 🤔 Do you have an local election you'd like me to examine? Write to me: [nassers@protonmail.com](mailto:nassers@protonmail.com) ### State Senate 2nd Suffolk District I think the election for the 2nd Suffolk District for the Massachusetts State Senate is undoubtedly one of the state's most interesting local races. First, you contend with the fact that the incumbent, State Senator Sonia Chang-Díaz, is running for Massachusetts Governor: leaving the seat wide open. Second, with the U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 decennial census fully wrapped up and Governor Baker having signed the state's new legislative maps into law on November 4, 2021, the redistricting process has changed the boundaries within an intensely segregated Suffolk County. Take a look below. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/Second-Suffolk-Difference-Map-1.png) This map shows the results of the redistricting process in Massachusetts. In red, you'll find part of the Second Suffolk Senate District lost, and in green you'll find the areas gained after the decennial census and the 2021 redistricting law. The new Second Suffolk State Senate District is outlined in black. A higher resolution map with zooming capabilities can be found [here](https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/nasser.eledroos/viz/MassSecondSuffolkStateSenate2022Redistricting/Map?ref=nasser.blog). As you can see, much of the South End has been decapitated from the Second Suffolk Senate District, along with a big chunk of Jamaica Plain and a small part of Hyde Park going as well. Gained is the rest of Hyde Park, Mattapan and Bowdoin. The Second Suffolk Senate District in effect further entrenches ever so slightly into neighborhoods whose residents further identify as Black or African American. Running for the open seat are State Reps. Elugardo and Miranda, and the Rev. Culpepper. In my opinion it's too soon to say how things will pan out, so I'll aim to perform an in-district donor analysis later in the summer. But one thing remains clear, the change in district will have an interesting and measurable effect on the outcome of the election. Take a look at the campaign finance contributions thus far with the interactive dashboard below. Zoom in and out, and change the date range using the slider on the left hand side. --- ### Suffolk County District Attorney I would be remiss if I didn't discuss my former employer, the Suffolk D.A.'s office. Where in 2018 we saw a remarkable five candidates vying for the head of that office; this time around we have only two: Baker-appointed interim-D.A. Kevin Hayden, and Boston City Councilor Ricardo Arroyo. Policy-wise I have a bit more to say, but I'll save that for another time. In terms of campaign finances, it couldn't be more lopsided at the moment. With about five months to go, Councilor Arroyo maintains a sizable lead of in-district donations compared to D.A. Hayden, with 70.27% to 29.73%. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/image-8.png) Pie chart showing who has received what percentage of in-district donations made to each of the Suffolk D.A. candidates, from January 1st through April 5th. Whether that tracks in votes remains to be seen. Besides, most of us are still emerging from our winter cocoons, and could find that the energy to engage in the political process lies still ahead of us. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2022/04/image-9.png) Map of donors to the Suffolk County District Attorney candidates from January 1 to April 5, 2022\. Councilor Ricardo Arroyo is in green, and D.A. Kevin Hayden is in yellow. The larger the dot, the more money that was donated by an individual. At some point in the future, I will compare the 2018 and 2022 Suffolk County District Attorney elections to understand how the campaign finances have differed from election to election, and if the 2020 protests against police have had any measurable say in the coffers of District Attorney candidates. --- ### Wrapping Up There is no question that campaign finance data provides a valuable and objective ground-truth to the horse race that is the political process. What I've demonstrated above is only the tip of the iceberg, and in subsequent articles I'll go into some of the other types of things we can learn. In a Commonwealth [reluctant](https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/27/trial-courts-decline-standardize-data/v7TNcfVQtxo1o7NqoIQPrN/story.html?ref=nasser.blog) [to](https://www.mass.gov/doc/early-impacts-of-an-act-relative-to-criminal-justice-reform-november-2019/download?ref=nasser.blog#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A53%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C69%2C645%2C0%5D) [change](https://twitter.com/shiraschoenberg/status/1511330027249586183?ref=nasser.blog) and [insistent](https://commonwealthmagazine.org/criminal-justice/we-need-to-strengthen-mass-hate-crimes-law/?ref=nasser.blog) on [maintaining](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/01/03/marijuana/state-legislature-pressured-ease-burden-criminal-records/?ref=nasser.blog) [bureaucratic roadblocks](https://hls.harvard.edu/content/uploads/2020/11/Massachusetts-Racial-Disparity-Report-FINAL.pdf?ref=nasser.blog) as an affront to technocratic governance, the level of detail found in the campaign finance data and the frequency by which it is updated provides me a modicum of comfort: this Commonwealth has the power to build technologies that improve governance structures, it just needs to find the will to do so. ### 2021 Boston Mayor Campaign Contributions URL: https://nasser.blog/mapping-the-2021-boston-mayoral-campaign-contributions/ Last updated: 2024-12-09T03:55:24.000Z Feeling inspired by Bobby Constantino's 2018 [analysis of donations to candidates running for Suffolk County District Attorney](https://bobbyconstantino.com/blog/2018/09/01/residents-of-suffolk-countys-most-prosecuted-neighborhoods-are-trying-to-tell-us-something?ref=nasser.blog), I've been feeling compelled for some time to similarly analyze the contributions made by individuals to the candidates running for Mayor of Boston in 2021. For the 2021 Boston Mayoral race, there were 39,970 donations in total that I was able to pull from the [Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF)](https://www.ocpf.us/?ref=nasser.blog), which helpfully maintains the Commonwealth's public election campaign contribution ledger in tab-delimited text files. Each record contains information about the contributor, such as an address, occupation, the candidate they donated to and the amount they gave them. The data provided by OCPF also contains campaign expenditure information, but for the purposes of this work I excluded that information. The nearly 40,000 donations span 2019 through September 4th, 2021 – which explains why former Mayor Marty Walsh might be included in the below table. **About half of all donations are in Suffolk County, MA.** They're listed below in parenthesis. | Candidate | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Grand Total | | ---------------------- | ------------- | -------------- | --------------- | --------------- | | Andrea Joy Campbell | | 1,654 (865) | 4,935 (2,544) | 6,589 (3,409) | | Annissa Essaibi George | | 64 (46) | 2,797 (1,594) | 2,861 (3,409) | | John F. Barros | | | 1,662 (823) | 1,662 (823) | | Jon Santiago | | | 1,884 (804) | 1,884 (804) | | Kim Janey | | | 3,380 (1,658) | 3,380 (1,658) | | Martin J. Walsh | 4,347 (2,174) | 3,297 (1,430) | 87 (45) | 7,731 (3,649) | | Michelle Wu | | 5,725 (3,256) | 10,104 (5,421) | 15,829 (8,677) | | Robert Cappucci | | | 33 (12) | 33 (12) | | Grand Total | 4,347 (2,174) | 10,740 (5,597) | 24,882 (12,901) | 39,969 (20,672) | > **Note:** The above numbers may not be all contributions made to any particular candidate – instead, take the above to represent the data sample by which I created the maps you're about to see. # Boston Contributors We'll stay small. There are folks from around the state, and indeed the country, who have contributed to candidates running for Mayor of Boston. Looking just at Boston however, here's what folks who are donating to the following candidates list as their address: ## Andrea Campbell Councilor Campbell seems to have a modest and diverse backing. JP and Roslindale have been healthy supports for her. But also Dorchester, the Back Bay and parts of Charlestown. She leaves much to be desired in West Roxbury, Southie and Neoponset/East Fields/Adams Village. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/09/image-2.png) ## Annissa Essaibi George If you compare Councilor Essaibi George to Former Mayor Walsh, you'll see that there's quite a lot of similarities: she's picking up the white working class vote. Where she differs, however, is that folks Downtown and in the Back Bay are not behind her – instead choosing to cast their support overwhelmingly for other candidates. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/09/image-3.png) ## John Barros The City's former chief of economic development is doing strong in the Newmarket area, with a scattershot of support around Dorchester, the West and East ends. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/09/image-4.png) ## Jon Santiago Rep. Santiago has dropped out of the Mayoral race, but I still felt it important to examine the kind of support he's been getting. Donors to his campaign are strong in and around the South End, particularly near the Boston Medical Center campus. The North End also had strong support for him. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/09/image-5.png) ## Kim Janey The interim Mayor is doing strong among communities of color in Boston. She also has a healthy support from the Back Bay, Downtown and North End. Outside that however, she doesn't seem to have much fiscal support – with only a handful of folks donating from West Roxbury. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/09/image-6.png) ## Marty Walsh Our control group, you could say, to understand where donors for Mayor Walsh list as their address at the time of donation. Mostly white, mostly affluent and residential neighborhoods – along with strong business community support. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/09/image-7.png) ## Michelle Wu Councilor Wu has been receiving, without question, the strongest grassroots support. The median donation for her campaign has been $25, orders of magnitudes lower than the other candidates. This suggests that her political momentum has spurred even the unlikeliest of donors to contribute small amounts to her campaign. She has strong support in the West End and North End in Downtown Boston, as well as the Back Bay, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Charlestown and East Boston. She's not performing poorly in the other neighborhoods, either. Even her modest numbers from Allston/Brighton, Southie, Dorchester and West Roxbury are more than some of the other candidates have raised. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/09/image-8.png) I'll let you draw any further conclusions from the above. ### The 2020 U.S. Census Redistricting Data URL: https://nasser.blog/accessing-legacy-census-data/ Last updated: 2024-12-09T03:55:40.000Z On August 12th, 2021, the U.S. Census Bureau released detailed data about the population of the United States. This data is released in two formats. The data that has already been released is what's called a “legacy format,” which means it will be made available to states and the public, through the Bureau’s website, as zip files. Data wizards will need to import these files into a database and build relationships between the various files to query and extract data from them. The same redistricting data will be released by September 30th through the [Census Bureau’s online web tool](https://data.census.gov/?ref=nasser.blog). The September release will be in format that will make it easier to view and download the tables from the P.L. 94-171 data. # The P.L. Data The data format already made public, known as the "legacy format," is typically released by the end of March according to Statute. We'll be referring to it as the "legacy data" in this article. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, [this was pushed](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/statement-redistricting-data-timeline.html?ref=nasser.blog) to September 30th, 2021\. This delay would impede the redistricting process that occurs once every ten years in the United States, which is why the Census Bureau indicated they would release the data in the legacy format by August 12th, so they could begin to organize and embark on the redistricting process before the more neat and accessible API data would be released in September. ## What the Legacy Data Contains The legacy data format [is available on the Census Bureau website](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/01-Redistricting%5FFile--PL%5F94-171/?ref=nasser.blog). Each U.S. State has one zip file corresponding to it. Each zip file contains four distinct files. The legacy data contains six tables, five that contain population characteristics and one that contains housing characteristics ([read more about that here](https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/technical-documentation/complete-tech-docs/summary-file/2020Census%5FPL94%5F171Redistricting%5FStatesTechDoc%5FEnglish.pdf?ref=nasser.blog)). Those six tables are split across the four `.pl` files. Files 1 to 3 have the actual census data for each table. The geographic header, or the `geo` file, contains the identifiers such as the county/precinct IDs or FIPS codes. When you download a state's file, you should see something like this inside the zip file: ![image showing Windows File Explorer and four .pl files from the Census Bureau legacy data](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/08/image.png) The contents of the P.L. 94-171 data for Massachusetts. While the contents of these files differ, they will all have the same number of rows. The `LOGRECNO` column header in each file indicates the row number across each legacy data file. ### Geographic Info The Census Block is the smallest, or most specific, unit of spatial data by which Census information is organized. Yet, in the legacy data that is not the only data type we have access to. The Census has already done the hard work of structuring the data across every level of geography it typically uses. That means that information might be duplicative. Meaning, that each of the six tables is broken down by spatial level. Those are: 1. State 2. County 3. Census Tract 4. Census Block Group 5. Census Block 6. [Census Voting District](https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/reference/GARM/Ch14GARM.pdf?ref=nasser.blog) So, in order to access one of these specific spatial levels, you would need to create a subset of the larger combination dataset corresponding to the level of granularity you're seeking. This is coded in the `SUMLEV` column in the geographic header file. # Making the Legacy Data Usable It's as simple as combining the columns across the four files to create the full P.L. 94-171 legacy data file. Here's what the workflow would look like: 1. Read in the four legacy data files (we'll be working in R) 2. Combine the four files into a single file, and subset the resulting dataset by a geography level. 3. If need be, strip the data to only the desired variables for analysis. 4. If need be, combine the resulting data with [tigris](https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/tigris/index.html?ref=nasser.blog) shapefiles for mapping. **There are two distinct ways I've found that work well.** I'll quickly walk through both of them. ## Using the PL94171 Package Created by [Cory McCartan](https://mobile.twitter.com/CoryMcCartan?ref=nasser.blog) and [Christopher Kenny](https://mobile.twitter.com/Chris%5FT%5FKenny?ref=nasser.blog), the `PL94171` package for R streamlines access to P.L. 94-171 data. [It's available on GitHub here.](https://github.com/CoryMcCartan/PL94171?ref=nasser.blog) Using the directory where I've stored the Massachusetts legacy data as an example, it's quite simple to import and use `PL94171` to interface with the newly released data. ```R library(PL94171) # `data/ma2020.pl` is a directory with the four P.L. 94-171 files for Massachusetts pl_raw <- pl_read("data/ma2020.pl") ``` The above code block should be sufficient for creating a large list of four objects. Each object is an individual P.L. 94-171 file, but with `PL94171`, you're able to subset the entire list of four files according to one spatial/geographic level to access all the relevant information using the corresponding `SUMLEV` code. ```R > print(pl_geog_levels) # A tibble: 85 x 2 SUMLEV SUMLEV_description 1 040 State 2 050 State-County 3 060 State-County-County Subdivision 4 067 State-County-County Subdivision-Subminor Civil Division 5 140 State-County-Census Tract 6 150 State-County-Census Tract-Block Group 7 155 State-Place-County 8 160 State-Place 9 170 State-Consolidated City 10 172 State-Consolidated City-Place within Consolidated City # ... with 75 more rows ``` So, if you wanted to filter the data by the Census Tract, you'd do the following: ```R > pl <- pl_subset(pl_raw, sumlev="140") # subset the data to census tracts > print(dim(pl)) # print the dimensions of the resulting matrix [1] 1620 397 ``` That's it! You have usable data. If you wanted to further process the resulting dataset, you can use the `pl_select_standard` [function ](https://corymccartan.github.io/PL94171/reference/pl%5Fselect%5Fstandard.html?ref=nasser.blog)with `clean_names = TRUE` in order to get both "standard set of basic population groups" and renamed columns to more comprehensible names. ```R pl_select_standard(pl, clean_names = TRUE) ``` ## Using the Census Bureau's R Import Scripts Normally, we'd be using the Census API or another library to access the relevant data in R. But while that information is not yet available in that format, the the Census Bureau released R import scripts that [can be found here](https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/about/rdo/summary-files.html?ref=nasser.blog#P1). ![image showing Windows File Explorer and four .r import scripts files from the Census Bureau.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/08/image-1.png) The contents of the R import scripts data for the legacy census data. The above folder shows the five scripts available to us. Parts 1 to 3 allow us to create dataframes with just the individual files; `geohd` lets us access the geographic header information mentioned above, and the `pl_all_4...` file lets us access the entire dataset, and combine it into a single, very large dataframe. I've found it to be quite simple to simply point your variables to where the four `.pl` files are located and simply run through the entire script. At the end, you should have an environment that looks like this: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/4e/4f/4e4f0220-cfc9-4cbc-9c19-31bb8c164f2a/content/images/2021/08/image-2.png) R Studio environment values and data after running the \`pl\_all\_4\_2020\_dar.r\` script. In `combine` we can see that there are 398 columns with 166351 rows. Just as the `PL94171` package, you can subset this data to one spatial/geographic level to access all the relevant information using a corresponding `SUMLEV` code. > Note: unlike the PL94171 package, this will only subset the dataframe you choose. So if you subset `combine`, the other dataframes will not be effected. In R, you can just use dataframe indexing to create a subset: ```R # index to where SUMLEV == 140 ctract <- combine[combine$SUMLEV == 140,] # Drop any columns where all values in the column are now null str(ctract %>% select(where(not_all_na))) ``` That's it! Happy wrangling!