[liberationtech] Minorities & privacy/surveillance

[J.M. Porup]

Shava Nerad:
> Have you looked for information specifically on COINTELPRO and the civil
> rights movement?  It might not be indexed under surveillance (a good deal
> of the activity was sabotage and harrasment, too) but having grown up under
> the FBI's eye, it's hard to imagine there isn't literature.
> 
> Part of the problem with scholarship on the surveillance in that generation
> is the conditioning to not speak out on the part of many subjects (for many
> reasons),

There is a tendency to blame victims who have been violated for that
violation, as though it were somehow their fault. To admit rape
traditionally has been a source of shame. I think we see something
similar (not the same, obviously) with being put under surveillance.

For instance, here in Chile I am under intense physical surveillance by
the Chilean secret police. Why? Presumably because the FBI or CIA has
asked them to babysit an American dissident in exile (me).

Have I committed any crime? No. Do I have anything to be ashamed of? No.
Will I continue to speak out on surveillance issues and against American
imperialism in the region? Yes.

And yet for many, to admit being under surveillance is risk people
thinking you're a criminal, e.g. "Well the US gov't doesn't persecute
people for political speech [LOL], so he must have done something wrong,
so he probably deserves it."

Let's be clear: being put under surveillance is to be condemned,
Kafka-like, to live in an open-air prison. It's time people stepped
forward and spoke openly about this abuse.

I for one will not remain silent.

Jens