If the meetings are open to the public then anyone can attend (i.e., "spy") on them. Labeling that as "mass spying" is idiocy the Guardian (and other illiterate Brit tabloids) do to piss off their readers and sell subscriptions.
> The records also showed undercover agents surveilling a virtual meeting at Hunter College in New York [...] ; a meeting at a labor center in Minneapolis
> The documents indicate that agents made audio recordings of the events.
For anyone else wondering, neither NY nor MN are on the list of states that require two-party consent for recording.
I went shopping at Spirit Halloween in the Gaslamp Quarter, but they were sold out of the Sexy Demagogue and Sexy Valedictorian costumes. So I had to settle for Sexy Construction Worker with a NERF Drill. I think it’s a knockoff of Bob the Builder, actually.
Vet /screen everyone. Cross check personal references, have an onboarding period before introducing new members to anything sensitive, do background checks if you’re concerned about it. There are already experienced community leaders and activists in your network; ask them how they establish trust. Make vetting part of recruitment and onboarding processes, and make recruitment work a self sustaining perpetual process with a team of people to support it. After you establish trust, use it.
Accept that you aren't going to always outsmart infiltrators and guard your information silos accordingly. Have processes for auditing threats, removing members. Avoid creating large group chats or exposing names/ contacts without consent. Keep working groups small, and don’t include people who aren’t actively participating. Use encryption, use pseudonyms. Use the basic tools available (Signal, GrapheneOS, Tails, Tor, etc). Don’t retain things like chat history or files you don't need. Give members basic training on social engineering techniques, cyber security (or honestly just how to use a computer 101), operational security, and how to recruit.
Ultimately, retain a good legal defense. You probably aren't doing anything illegal anyway, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a good lawyer and a plan… legal ground is shifting, and you will never have more resources than a motivated agency task force. Get a dash camera, and non-evil doorbell camera. Have a group of friends who will check in on you regularly. If you are discussing illegal shit, don’t do it around people or devices you don’t completely trust. Retain plausible deniability.
Actually one of these stories I found super amusing, apparently back in the day the Australian government got it into their head that all they really needed to break up the communist Indonesian government under Sukarno was a cunningly deployed pamphlet pointing out the contradictions in their philosophy.
So they made the pamphlet, had agents distribute it at a communism convention, and uh nothing came of it. Because everyone else there had similar pamphlets.
No wonder, the uncontested first place in the communist-killing contest belongs to communists. The only problem is that the breed of commies that gets to the top are absolutely ferocious, and don't only kill communists.
We need to make it unappealing to act upon the intelligence gathered through means that weren't a part of legitimate criminal investigations. Introduce consequences for those who do the collection at the local, state, and federal level. Require these findings be destroyed. In other words, all of the stuff we didn't do when COINTELPRO was uncovered.
The more we do in the next two-to-three years, the less we'll have to worry about in the long run.
"We" did do all of that when COINTELPRO was uncovered, at least ostensibly. We had committees, we changed laws, we established judicial ovesight, we "reformed" the system.
As Snowden demonstrated later, none of it mattered. This government has engineered itself to be for all intents and purposes immune from the will of the people. And that was back when the government at least pretended to care about the rules, and "checks and balances" and the like.
> The documents indicate that agents made audio recordings of the events.
For anyone else wondering, neither NY nor MN are on the list of states that require two-party consent for recording.
Thanks for reminding me I left that part out.
Reminds me of when people wouldn’t listen to others because they had tattoos.
Accept that you aren't going to always outsmart infiltrators and guard your information silos accordingly. Have processes for auditing threats, removing members. Avoid creating large group chats or exposing names/ contacts without consent. Keep working groups small, and don’t include people who aren’t actively participating. Use encryption, use pseudonyms. Use the basic tools available (Signal, GrapheneOS, Tails, Tor, etc). Don’t retain things like chat history or files you don't need. Give members basic training on social engineering techniques, cyber security (or honestly just how to use a computer 101), operational security, and how to recruit.
Ultimately, retain a good legal defense. You probably aren't doing anything illegal anyway, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a good lawyer and a plan… legal ground is shifting, and you will never have more resources than a motivated agency task force. Get a dash camera, and non-evil doorbell camera. Have a group of friends who will check in on you regularly. If you are discussing illegal shit, don’t do it around people or devices you don’t completely trust. Retain plausible deniability.
( probably a three letter agency plant )
Actually one of these stories I found super amusing, apparently back in the day the Australian government got it into their head that all they really needed to break up the communist Indonesian government under Sukarno was a cunningly deployed pamphlet pointing out the contradictions in their philosophy.
So they made the pamphlet, had agents distribute it at a communism convention, and uh nothing came of it. Because everyone else there had similar pamphlets.
We need to make it unappealing to act upon the intelligence gathered through means that weren't a part of legitimate criminal investigations. Introduce consequences for those who do the collection at the local, state, and federal level. Require these findings be destroyed. In other words, all of the stuff we didn't do when COINTELPRO was uncovered.
The more we do in the next two-to-three years, the less we'll have to worry about in the long run.
As Snowden demonstrated later, none of it mattered. This government has engineered itself to be for all intents and purposes immune from the will of the people. And that was back when the government at least pretended to care about the rules, and "checks and balances" and the like.
And previous governments? What of those?
Is it only the Trump government that has ever acted in ways you don’t support?