Gideon Oliver spoke to me of the devastating effect this kind of surveillance has had on activists. “People fear that detectives are following them around. They panic. It’s a movement-dismantling tactic.” Most Occupy protesters are new to activism and are emotionally unprepared to deal with this kind of intimidation. Nor, so far as I have seen, are they inclined to seek the advice of older activists who were under surveillance in the 1960s and 1970s, before the protections of the original Handschu Decree, which prohibited political spying, were put in place. Those activists nevertheless found ways to continue their political work.
From
an article on the NYPD's Intel Division.
[more inside]
posted by eviemath
on Oct 23, 2012 -
34 comments
Since at least February, the St, Paul police and the FBI have been trying to
infiltrate protest groups planning to demonstrate and the RNC. Apparently they were successful because they have begun
arresting protestors before the convention actually starts. They even went after the press. I have to wonder if any
MeFites were busted?
posted by Xurando
on Aug 30, 2008 -
57 comments
Sacco & Vanzetti. Two anarchists executed in Massachusetts in 1927. Their guilt was and is widely disputed.
'Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927, a date that became a watershed in twentieth-century American history. It became the last of a long train of events that had driven any sense of utopian vision out of American life. The workings of American democracy now seemed to many Americans as flawed and unjust as many of the older societies of the world, no longer embodying any bright ideal, but once again serving the interests of the rich and the powerful. '
posted by plep
on Jun 19, 2005 -
67 comments
Protest Warriors Clash • Gil Kobrin of the
Protest Warriors went down "under a hail of black boots" belonging to anti-Bush peace activists. "It wasn't much of a contest. ProtestWarrior's contingent numbered 13, the other side in the hundreds. If they won any hearts and minds, no one said so." Meanwhile, DC activist group
Anarchist Resistance issued their call to action: "There's nothing left to salvage in this empire that is the U.S. government. It's time to bring it down." AR is listed as a resouce by the Internet Liberation Front who
Kos reported "hacked and defaced six Republican websites" yesterday. Some commentary on civil disobedience by
Thoreau &
ActUp.
posted by dhoyt
on Jan 20, 2005 -
88 comments
Need the antidote to the
current administration? 133 years ago,
Mikhail Bakunin laid the groundwork for anarchism as a rational political system in his seminal work
God and the State.
Strongly critical of the dehumanizing effects of religion, Bakunin famously paraphrased Voltaire when he proclaimed, "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him."
If you can't make hide nor hair of the President's words, perhaps Bakunin's rationalism is what you're looking for.
posted by Netzapper
on Jan 7, 2005 -
43 comments
If you've participated in an anti-war rally, or helped organize a demonstration, the
FBI may have a file on you. The FBI claims that they are only weeding out anarchists and other "extremists." But the ACLU and some legal scholars are warning of a return of
Hooverism. Attention pinkos: You can run, but you can't hide, because you're probably on the
no-fly list.
posted by PrinceValium
on Nov 23, 2003 -
39 comments
The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy. We will be a community of freedom-loving individuals and families, and create a shining example of liberty for the rest of the nation and the world.
posted by BirdD0g
on Oct 16, 2002 -
68 comments
Crimethinc is a new publisher that’s getting a bit of mainstream
press mostly on the basis of a book called
Evasion, which is a nonfiction account of a latter day Huck Finn
cum Hayduke. (Any store that uses an Evan Dorkin comic to
illustrate a point gets my dollars.)
posted by raaka
on Apr 11, 2002 -
2 comments
