[liberationtech] Guidelines For Emergency Revolution Technology Deployment?

[Shava Nerad]

On Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 12:39 AM, Threedev <zerothreedev at gmail.com> wrote:

> Greetings LibTech:
>
> I was looking online for any information on what activists and
> individuals can do in regards to technology deployment if there was
> ever a sudden flareup in protests and mass chaos that could lead to
> clashes with governments, or a similar situation like that. I was a
> bit concerned about the lack of ideas or a guide that one could follow
> if something were to happen. For example, if Israel were to go crazy
> and attack the Gaza Strip again, would there be some sort of plan in
> place in which groups could send encrypted communications technology
> to Palestine quickly and efficiently?
>
> I don't know if something like this already exists, or if this is
> something that should be created, but I think something like this
> should be made and drawn up if something like this hasn't been done yet
>

In addition to a plus on previous comments I have to say there's a tendency
in activist circles for there to be thoughts on who you can rely on and who
you know in a crisis that you can pull together with, as ad hoc as that is.
 Part of this is that any published emergency planning "if there was ever a
sudden flareup..to clashes with governments" means that publishing specific
deployment plans means that the governments are going to -- with asymmetric
force and resources -- plan specifically against those particular plans.

So the less resourced side, even when they are not a guerrilla force per
se, has to be agile and be sure that their plans are fresh.  This was true
in non-violent campaigns with Gandhi and MLK and so on (I describe formal
systemic non-violence in my organizing classes as a strategy for
asymmetrical civil warfare aiming for social change that minimizes
casualties and time to social reintegration on the cessation of
hostilities...it tends to blow peoples' minds open...:).  And plans were
always leaking anyway, but only in real time.

This is not really all that paranoid per se, it's just the same sort of
dance that political campaigns and such go through.  It's just that in this
sort of situation it's a bit more critical -- more is at stake and there's
more real risk than in most electoral situations in much of the US (there
are still situations in the US -- or were until quite recently -- where
electoral politics could end up with people in ditches, including
journalists/bloggers).

I remember making this point when I moved to North Carolina in the late 80s
from Massachusetts.  I got confronted by some folks there as having moved
from that place with "all them co-rupt politicians."  I pointed out that
the difference between North Carolina and Massachusetts is that if a
reporter investigates corruption in Massachusetts, the politician goes to
court and conceivably even goes to jail.  In NC, often as not, the
journalist comes to a bad end, whether it's the politician or the mill boss
or whoever who puts him down.  And they stopped bugging me, because...I was
right.

I tend to believe it gets a little better every year.  The net helps and
hurts.  It makes some things more revealed and transparent and it throws up
a lot of chaff.

But when we publish plans here so that everyone can read them?  *EVERYONE*
reads them.

yrs,
-- 

Shava Nerad
shava23 at gmail.com
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