The Poisonous Tentacles Of The State.

      We are all aware of the fact that we live under a state surveillance society. Every day we see the apparatus of the overt side of the surveillance, CCTV in all avenues of our lives, we know that we are profiled by where we draw cash, where we spend it, etc.. However we should be very aware that there is another side, the covert surveillance, the snooping in our private affairs unknown to us. Like it or not, the poisonous tentacles of the state reach into all aspects of our private life. Your texts, phone calls, your contacts on social networks and Internet viewing. Without being paranoid, to what extent are our actions, unknown to us, being shaped by agent provocateurs, paid servants of the state?

  

This from Anarchist News:

        One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents.

       Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in the English-speaking “Five Eyes” alliance. Today, we at the Intercept are publishing another new JTRIG document, in full, entitled “The Art of Deception: Training for Online Covert Operations”.

     By publishing these stories one by one, our NBC reporting highlighted some of the key, discrete revelations: the monitoring of YouTube and Blogger, the targeting of Anonymous with the very same DDoS attacks they accuse “hacktivists” of using, the use of “honey traps” (luring people into compromising situations using sex) and destructive viruses. But, here, I want to focus and elaborate on the overarching point revealed by all of these documents: namely, that these agencies are attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate, and warp online discourse, and in doing so, are compromising the integrity of the internet itself.

Read the full article HERE:

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POLICE CAN'T BE TRUSTED.

        There will lots of people and groups handing out advice to the Occupy Wall St. movement and no doubt some of it will be positive advice and some will be destructive. However this open letter from "anarchists" is probably the best advice they could get, I sincerely hope they read, digest and act on the sound advice contained in the article. Of course it is not just Wall St occupation that should read and act upon the letter, but all those occupations present and to come, and I have no doubt that there will be many more in the not so distant future, be it street, factory, school, public building or community, the advice holds good.

Short extract of the open letter from: CrimethInc. Ex-workers Collective.

   

Police can’t be trusted.

        They may be “ordinary workers,” but their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class. As long as they remain employed as police, we can’t count on them, however friendly they might act. Occupiers who don’t know this already will learn it first-hand as soon as they threaten the imbalances of wealth and power our society is based on. Anyone who insists that the police exist to protect and serve the common people has probably lived a privileged life, and an obedient one.

Don’t fetishize obedience to the law.

         Laws serve to protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful; obeying them is not necessarily morally right—it may even be immoral. Slavery was legal. The Nazis had laws too. We have to develop the strength of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of the laws.

To have a diversity of participants,

      a movement must make space for a diversity of tactics. It’s controlling and self-important to think you know how everyone should act in pursuit of a better world. Denouncing others only equips the authorities to delegitimize, divide, and destroy the movement as a whole. Criticism and debate propel a movement forward, but power grabs cripple it. Th e goal should not be to compel everyone to adopt one set of tactics, but to discover how different approaches can be mutually beneficial.

Don’t assume those who break the law or confront police are agents provocateurs.

       A lot of people have good reason to be angry. Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; some people still remember how to stand up for themselves. Police violence isn’t just meant to provoke us, it’s meant to hurt and scare us into inaction. In this context, self-defence is essential. Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow in league with the authorities is not only illogical— it delegitimizes the spirit it takes to challenge the status quo, and dismisses the courage of those who are prepared to do so. This allegation is typical of privileged people who have been taught to trust the authorities and fear everyone who disobeys them.

READ THE FULL LETTER HERE.

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