What me worry? The Rise of the S urveillance S tate & What We

can DO About it

I. What is terrorism?Who defines it?

Is destroying property the same as attacking

civil society for political motivations?

Terrorism: a definition

• It’s associated with unlawful use of violence, or threats of violence by non-state agents

• It’s intended to instill widespread fear in civil society beyond those targeted

• It’s used to force change in government policy or causes economic loss for corporations

Do these two acts represent the same thing?

II. S ome history of targeting political movements

Angola 3

III. Growth of the ‘Intelligence’ industry

Private / Governmentrevolving door

Almost 4,000 gov.’t agencies created or reassigned

*Muslims/People of Middle Eastern descent * Animal Rights /Environmental groups

* Political activists : Anarchists in particular

*Muslims/People of Middle Eastern descent * Animal Rights /Environmental groups

* Political activists : Anarchists in particular

What about right wing/anti-choice groups?

• Militias

• Anti-choice activists

• White supremacists

• Religious fundamentalists

Are extremist actions by the right labeled terrorism?

? WHY ?

IV. S ome cases and what they reveal

Spying in my FBI cases

• Collected 1,200 pages from 2001-2008

• “environmental terrorist” , “animal rights extremist” or “domestic terrorist”

• Investigated in 13 field offices in 9 states

• Five informants since 2001

• Under various intense surveillance during this time including: physical, electronic, video and photo.

• ‘Pen registers and ‘trap & traces’

• ‘Trash covers’ were done on two occasions

Spying in my FBI cases

• All known relations were investigated

• S ubpoenaed all utilities, mortgage and bank records

• Investigated by IRS for tax evasion.

• Visits to business & home

• Threats of grand juries

• ‘Randomly’ searched at airports every time. Trouble flying

• Information was shared between private security & state agencies

‘Intelligence’ agencies information gathered is wide

but not deep

Information learned from looking at 1,000’s of pages of FBI F.O.I.A.’S

* Informants are their best sources.

* Agencies are taking too much information to develop critical analysis around it.

* They push a lot of duplicate & redundant paperwork

* ‘Intelligence’ information gathered is wide, not deep.

Information learned from looking at 1,000’s of pages of FBI F.O.I.A.’S

They don’t understand horizontal /decentralized politics or organizing structures.

They do sloppy work.

Even with their vast resources they still have limits on how or what they will allocate them too.

Private security & gov’t. agencies are revolving doors of personnel and projects.

V. What we CAN do

What we can do I

Don’t be afraid Don’t be afraid Remember the counter-terrorism complex is the largest most

inefficient bureaucracies ever created.

The ‘worst’ things we fear only happen to a vastly small

number of people.

If you are targeted it can be a scary, but remain calm.

If we give in to fear they have already won

Movement work * Solidarity: Reach out & support those

targeted or imprisonedEspecially communities beyond radical subculture

* Practice appropriate security culture 99% of our movement is above ground.99

* Don’t let the state divide us

* Bad behavior is bad behavior Remove problematic people

* Don’t believe the hype! Facebook, Apple & Twitter knows more than the state!

Organizing work* Attend/ Conduct ‘Know Your Rights” trainings

* S upport diversity of tactics in movements It takes all kinds of actions to resist Power.

* Maintain transparency within the public sphere. There is protection in wider communities

* Lawyer up Find friendly lawyers that can be called upon. The state understands them.

* Use the media (grassroots & corporate)

* Keep organizing for liberation

DON’T GIVE UP

DON’T GIVE IN

RES IS T REBEL

CREATE BUILD

scottcrow.org

Facebook

Twitter@scott_crow