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  • For a century, the weapons industry has helped shape St. Louis — from the McDonnell Douglas fighters that once symbolized American air power to Boeing’s sprawling factories today. But when thousands of machinists walked off the job this year, something cracked in “Fighterland, USA.” In this episode, we head to the picket line to hear[...]
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How a Scottsdale Zoning Fight Shed Light on Policing and Power

A routine zoning fight in an Arizona town exposed deeper questions about democracy in the age of AI.

Words: Laicie Heeley
Pictures: Marius Kriz
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  • When a 77-year-old Vietnam vet and former city councilman takes on a luxury apartment development in Scottsdale, Arizona, it sounds like classic NIMBY politics. But this fight isn’t just about height limits or desert views — it’s about who gets to decide the future of a community. The developer, Axon, isn’t your average builder. It’s[...]
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When a 77-year-old Vietnam vet and former city councilman takes on a luxury apartment development in Scottsdale, Arizona, it sounds like classic NIMBY politics. Yet this fight isn’t just about height limits or desert views — it’s about who gets to decide the future of a community. The developer, Axon, isn’t your average builder. It’s one of the most powerful policing tech companies in the world — the maker of tasers, body cameras, drones, and AI-driven surveillance systems now becoming popular in police departments and border agencies across the country.

As the fight over zoning unfolds, it exposes a deeper question about democracy in the age of data: When private companies control the tools of public safety, who’s really watching whom? From Scottsdale City Hall to the Arizona statehouse, and from real-time crime centers to school surveillance systems, this episode traces how a battle over apartments reveals the hidden architecture of America’s growing surveillance state — and the quiet ways local democracy is being rewritten in its shadows.

Guests: 

Bob Littlefield, Former Scottsdale City Council member; president of Taxpayers Against Awful Apartment Zoning Exemptions (TAAZE); Barry Friedman, Professor of Law at New York University; Susan Wood, Scottsdale resident and community activist; Betty Janik, Former Scottsdale City Council member; Detective Julie Smith, Peoria Police Department; Representative Alexander Kolodin, Arizona State Representative (R–District 3)

Additional Resources: 

The Policing Project, NYU

Atlas of Surveillance, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Author bio

Laicie Heeley

Editor in Chief

Laicie Heeley is the founding CEO of Inkstick Media, where she serves as Editor in Chief of the foreign policy magazine Inkstick and Executive Producer and Host of the PRX- and Inkstick-produced podcast, Things That Go Boom. Heeley’s reporting has appeared on public radio stations across America and the BBC, where she’s explored global security issues including domestic terrorism, disinformation, nuclear weapons, and climate change. Prior to launching Inkstick, Heeley was a Fellow with the Stimson Center’s Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program and Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Her publications include work on sanctions, diplomacy, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, along with the first full accounting of US counterterrorism spending after 9/11.

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