How to Organize Safely in the Age of Surveillance

"Yet as Americans assemble their own movements to protect and support immigrants, push back against the Department of Homeland Security's dangerous incursions into cities, and protest for civil rights and policy changes, they face a federal government that possesses vast surveillance powers and sweeping cooperation from the Silicon Valley companies that hold Americans' data. That means political, social, and economic organizing presents a risky dilemma."

"How do you bring people of all ages, backgrounds, and technical abilities into a mass movement without exposing them to monitoring and targeting by a government-and in particular Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, agencies with paramilitary ambitions, a tendency to break the law, and more funding than some countries' militaries. Organizing safely in an age of surveillance increasingly requires not only technical security know-how,"

"Organizing safely in an age of surveillance increasingly requires not only technical security know-how, but also a tricky balance between secrecy and openness, says Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital civil liberties. "You may want to limit access to some information to a smaller group of people, and you need to consider the platforms you are using, so that when law enforcement shows up to Google with a subpoena, there's nothing sensitive it can hand over," says Galperin."

Millions of Americans are pursuing grassroots organizing as a bottom-up response to limited faith in federal remedies. Organizers face powerful federal surveillance and corporate data cooperation that risks exposing participants to monitoring and targeting, especially by ICE and CBP. Building safe movements requires technical security measures and careful decisions about platform choice, access control, and the balance between secrecy and public visibility. Limiting sensitive information to smaller groups and choosing platforms that minimize releasable data can reduce risk. Organizing potency depends on public collective action, so security measures must be practical and inclusive for varied ages, backgrounds, and technical abilities.

Read at WIRED