I think it’s a good statement, short and to the point. The replies are absolute poison though, hasbara bots really honing in on them. Feds will try and make something stick but it doesn’t sound like he was even a member.
I think it’s a good statement, short and to the point. The replies are absolute poison though, hasbara bots really honing in on them. Feds will try and make something stick but it doesn’t sound like he was even a member.
One of the DSA chapters I was in had some things going down before I joined. I didn’t know what it was but learned a bit through my time there. In short, they were infiltrated and some members got put on some list. And that’s just DSA, way before the more visible Palestine movement.
I know of some people during the occupy movement who had their calls tapped and put on list.
Orgs/people in them will be targeted and hit regardless no matter how tame, minor, powerful etc. I think covering your ass is fine, especially because this person wasn’t an active member and it’s just libel, but being so scared of feds that you end up burying your head in the sand is turbo lib shit. We all knew feds were a thing before organizing, we should have been had opsec and failsafe plans for things like this. If everytime someone on our side, even if not in an org, does something like this and gets condemned for being tired of waiting. Then what movement are we building? I vaguely remember Aaron Bushnell getting condemned for his choice in resistance.
I think this event will change things, I’ve seem mostly positive takes personally, and maybe organizing can change for the better to be at least more secure when[it’s not if because if we’re serious then they’re coming] the fed fight comes.
Like I said, it’s good they covered their ass and the statement is relatively tame but this is something we all should’ve been thinking about decades ago.
Yeah I don’t think there’s a reason for an aboveground political org to put a target on its back to explicitly support this guy but you’re 100% correct. Anecdotally I’ve also heard of infiltration, in both anarchist direct action groups and more tame socialist groups. And with DSA in particular I constantly see people behaving like wreckers, though it’s hard to distinguish kids getting into petty drama and taking it too far from fed wreckers sometimes.
Opsec concerns… it’s going to be hard. Every other door has a goddamn ring camera on it. Almost everyone carries a smartphone everywhere. Traffic lights all have cameras. And you can’t erase the past, if you’re already on a list from being related to DSA or food not bombs or doing local mutual aid, are you just inviting further scrutiny on your org by being involved? I guess the idea is to blend in. But it’s hard to not end up on the radar of local cops if you’re doing anything remotely cool, and already being on their radar seems like a mighty fine way to get popped when doing any more serious actions. We need mass mobilization I guess, it can’t just be the same old activists doing everything.
I will say though, it’s at a point where its probably more important to do something than to not get caught (though both is ofc the goal)
Opsec is very hard these days. But it’s harder for them to find bodies to infiltrate people than it is for them to just login to a website and pull any info they need. Going offline or even off of public social media is one of the easiest ways but this should be org discussions
yeah I just don’t see going offline as a total solution at all (I assume you don’t either)
I mean yes it’s a good thing to do but you still exist in the built environment with all the things I mentioned and more all surveilling you, and you don’t even get to reap the benefits of modern communications. I think you need community buy in on some level to deal with some of these. mass shaming and defacing of cameras would go a long way. We are at a point where not having a phone or taking even mild precautions makes people think you’re a drug dealer. That level of penetration of society means cops can just look for anyone they can’t track rather than find a needle in a haystack. or at least I fear we’re there.
people thought it wouldn’t be effective.