Category: South East England

South East Eng­land

Snowy Beagles

In bliz­zard con­di­tions (well a lit­tle light snow any­way) we went to the Pevensey Marsh Bea­gles, who hunt hares, this week. It did­n’t take too long for them to realise they had no chance of hunt­ing with us around. They went back to the meet and hung around look­ing grumpy while we prac­ticed crack­ing whips and cracked open the brandy cof­fee.

In bliz­zard con­di­tions (well a lit­tle light snow any­way) we went to the Pevensey Marsh Bea­gles, who hunt hares, this week. It did­n’t take too long for them to realise they had no chance of hunt­ing with us around. They went back to the meet and hung around look­ing grumpy while we prac­ticed crack­ing whips and cracked open the brandy cof­fee.

On the way to the hunt we took a diver­sion to East Sus­sex WRAS with an injured pheas­ant we found.

Our friends at South Coast Hunt Sabs had their Lan­drover stolen this week, so if you can spare a few quid to help them get anoth­er, then head to the Go Fund Me page below. In the mean­time, they are still get­ting out — we even let some of them into our trea­sured Landy!

https://www.gofundme.com/new-sabbing-vehicle-for-scoast-sabs

 

Twyford Down ‘Operation Greenfly’ audacious direct action anniversary today

Today (22/5/16) is the 23rd anniver­sary of Oper­a­tion Green­fly at Twyford Down — one of the most excit­ing and auda­cious direct actions of the 1990s. Twen­ty-one years ago, the govt were try­ing to bull­doze a road through the most pro­tect­ed land­scape in Eng­land and a mas­sive direct action cam­paign erupt­ed to stop them, which kick­start­ed the 1990s roads protest move­ment.

Today (22/5/16) is the 23rd anniver­sary of Oper­a­tion Green­fly at Twyford Down — one of the most excit­ing and auda­cious direct actions of the 1990s. Twen­ty-one years ago, the govt were try­ing to bull­doze a road through the most pro­tect­ed land­scape in Eng­land and a mas­sive direct action cam­paign erupt­ed to stop them, which kick­start­ed the 1990s roads protest move­ment. We had an anony­mous tip off that the road builders would have to close the whole of the M3 motor­way over night to erect a ‘bai­ley bridge’ over it, to move the huge quan­ti­ties of ‘spoil’ (chalky guts of Twyford Down) and spread it all over the water mead­ows below. They called this huge­ly impor­tant and strate­gic manoeu­vre ‘Oper­a­tion Mar­ket Gar­den”. So we launched “Oper­a­tion Green­fly” to counter them.

They hired secu­ri­ty guards from all over south­ern Eng­land, sur­round­ed the site with razor wire, and had 100s of police pro­tect­ing the site. How­ev­er, as night fell and the motor­way was about to close, some 200 pro­test­ers elud­ed police, went cross coun­try and approached the site from an unpro­tect­ed angle, mirac­u­lous­ly tram­pling down the razor wire, and flood­ing onto the site, occu­py­ing the bridge!

For many peo­ple it was one of the most mirac­u­lous and empow­er­ing actions we’d ever pulled off. We occu­pied that bridge all night, drum­ming on the met­al struc­ture to keep our spir­its up and ward­ing off the “forces of dark­ness”, with the noise echo­ing across the water mead­ows and the silenced motor­way. Fire breathers added extra dra­ma. Huge­ly stir­ring and unfor­get­table. They had to draft in cops from all over south­ern Eng­land, and prise every­one off the bridge, cut­ting all the lock ons, tak­ing hours. Over 50 arrests result­ed with all of us being spread across police sta­tions in the south.

They man­aged to just about get the bridge across the motor­way before it reopened at 7am. How­ev­er, they could­n’t com­plete the job and had to re-close the motor­way 2 weeks lat­er, caus­ing major delays to their con­struc­tion pro­gramme.

Were you there? What are your mem­o­ries of that night?

 

Call out to get involved in a research project on sexual violence in activist communities

Was your sex­u­al abuser a high-pro­file activist? Have you felt unable to speak out about it?

Was your sex­u­al abuser a high-pro­file activist? Have you felt unable to speak out about it? Or have you spo­ken out about it only to be accused of mak­ing it up and/or divid­ing the move­ment? Did your anti-state activism and/or expe­ri­ence of police bru­tal­i­ty rule out going to the police? Were you able to kick out your abuser using oth­er meth­ods? Did the account­abil­i­ty process back­fire? Did your abuser just move on to a dif­fer­ent group and do the same thing to some­one else? Was the trans com­mu­ni­ty so small that you didn’t want your part­ner to lose it? Do you want to be involved in tak­ing action and chal­leng­ing sex­u­al vio­lence in activist com­mu­ni­ties?

We want to hear from sur­vivors who iden­ti­fy as women, gen­der-queer or trans who are ready to talk about their expe­ri­ences of sex­u­al vio­lence with­in cur­rent or past organ­is­ing in rad­i­cal social jus­tice move­ments in the UK. This may have hap­pened once or mul­ti­ple times, we are inter­est­ed in hear­ing from folks with a vari­ety of expe­ri­ences of sex­u­al vio­lence includ­ing unwant­ed touch­ing, flash­ing, harass­ment, stalk­ing, sex­u­al assault and rape.

Sal­vage is a col­lec­tive of aca­d­e­m­ic-activists, sur­vivors and activists. We got togeth­er through a work­shop on sur­vivor-led approach­es to gen­dered vio­lence and abuse at AFem 2014. This is our first research project. We aim to devel­op resources, infor­ma­tion and prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tions to work towards cre­at­ing effec­tive chal­lenges to gen­dered vio­lence, abuse and harms with­in social jus­tice move­ments and com­mu­ni­ties.

If you are inter­est­ed in get­ting involved and/or want more infor­ma­tion about this research project:

Web: https://projectsalvage.wordpress.com/research

Twit­ter: @Project_Salvage

Plane Stupid activists on Heathrow runway in climate protest

13th July 2015

12 cli­mate change activists from anti air­port expan­sion direct action group, Plane Stu­pid, got onto the north run­way at 03:30am this morn­ing at Heathrow Air­port by cut­ting through a fence, in a peace­ful protest against pro­pos­als to build a new run­way.

The pro­test­ers say that going ahead with the recent Air­ports Com­mis­sion rec­om­men­da­tion that a third run­way should be built at Heathrow will make it impos­si­ble for the UK to meet its cli­mate change tar­gets.

The skies above Heathrow are already the busiest in the world, and demand for flights is dri­ven by air fares that are kept arti­fi­cial­ly low by gen­er­ous tax exemp­tions. The activists say that if the avi­a­tion indus­try paid more of its envi­ron­men­tal costs then there would be no press­ing need for a new run­way. Nine of the top ten most pop­u­lar routes out of Heathrow are short haul, includ­ing des­ti­na­tions such as Paris, Man­ches­ter and Edin­burgh which all have exist­ing rail alter­na­tives.

Ella Gilbert, an activist from Plane Stu­pid who is on the run­way, said:

“Build­ing more run­ways goes against every­thing we’re being told by sci­en­tists and experts on cli­mate change. This would mas­sive­ly increase car­bon emis­sions exact­ly when we need to mas­sive­ly reduce them, that’s why we’re here.We want to say sor­ry to any­one whose day we’ve ruined, and we’re not say­ing that every­body who wants to fly is a bad per­son. It’s those who fly fre­quent­ly and unnec­es­sar­i­ly who are dri­ving the need for expan­sion, and we can­not keep ignor­ing the ter­ri­fy­ing con­se­quences of fly­ing like there’s no tomor­row.

No ifs, no buts, no third run­way. And we mean it.”

Updates — https://twitter.com/planestupid

Didcot Camp Action Round Up: 18 actions against the fossil fuel industry

Block­ades, shut­downs, lock-ons, love-ins, tripods and nanas…..Reclaim the Power’s day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try today (1 June 2015) saw 18 dif­fer­ent actions draw­ing the dots between big ener­gy firms, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, pub­lic rela­tions com­pa­nies, oil arts spon­sor­ship and the frack­ing indus­try.

Let’s take a run-down of the day’s events…(more text and pics com­ing soon!)

Action 1: 9.04am – Npower’s debt collection and pre-payment meter office in Leeds blockaded

We’ve all had the threat­en­ing let­ters from ener­gy com­pa­nies demand­ing pay­ment for bills we can’t afford – and today we hit back. Reclaim the Pow­er groups vis­it­ed RWE Npower’s offices in Leeds and block­ad­ed the front doors. Many house­holds are forced onto pre-pay­ment meters which are more expen­sive than direct deb­it accounts.

Action 2: 9.08am – Delegates at World Coal Association conference locked out of Institute of Directors

The coal indus­try are try­ing to con­tin­ue burn­ing fos­sil fuels by dan­gling the promise of Car­bon-Cap­ture-and-Stor­age tech­nol­o­gy. Con­fer­ence del­e­gates at a World Coal Asso­ca­tion event found all five entrances to the exclu­sive Insti­tute of Direc­tors blocked this morn­ing. There no arrests but lots of marigolds.

Action 3: 9.09am “Wind not gas” protest at DECC

Cheeky pro­test­ers high­light­ed the con­tin­ued fos­sil fuel bias with­in the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change by blockad­ing its steps. Rowan Tilly explained, “Against the advice of their own Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, the gov­ern­ment has approved the con­struc­tion of up to 30 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions, and intends to go ‘all out’ for shale gas – with up to two thirds of the UK licensed for frack­ing. This new dash for gas is reck­less­ly at odds with our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions on cli­mate change and must be resist­ed, for both the sake of our­selves and future gen­er­a­tions.

“We are now find­ing our­selves at a stage where we don’t know where gov­ern­ment ends and cor­po­ra­tions begin and unless we act now we will soon find our­selves be locked into infra­struc­ture which will burn car­bon for years to come whilst killing off renew­able ener­gy, with polit­i­cal deci­sions ruled by prof­it and act­ing in igno­rance of the bla­tant dan­gers of cli­mate change. We sim­ply can’t afford to let this hap­pen.”

Action 4: 9.10am – Invesco’s Revolving Door between government and Drax

Con­tin­u­ing this theme, Reclaim the Pow­er activists vis­it­ed the offices of Invesco – the invest­ment man­age­ment com­pa­ny which owns 26% of Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire. New DECC junior min­is­ter Andrea Lead­man worked at Invesco for 10 years before tak­ing up her post in gov­ern­ment. The revolv­ing doors were lit­er­al­ly blocked and ban­ner dropped above the Lon­don Wall road.

Action 5: 9.30am – Polishing a turd: office occupation of Media Zoo

Pub­lic rela­tions firm ‘Media Zoo’ rep­re­sent chem­i­cals giant Ineos – who have recent­ly pledged £640 mil­lion invest­ment in frack­ing. Eight activists occu­pied their offices in Impe­r­i­al Wharf, Lon­don car­ry­ing a ban­ner ban­ner read­ing, ‘Frack­ing is Shit. You can’t pol­ish a turd.’ They used arm tubes lock ons to stay put. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed around lunch time.

Mediazoo’s web­site boasts exten­sive expe­ri­ence of deal­ing with “indus­tri­al dis­putes”, “fatal acci­dents” and “child labour”. They are con­sult­ing Ineos on PR and media strat­e­gy. The CEO of Ineos Upstream Gary Hay­wood said, “I want Ineos to be the biggest play­er in the shale gas indus­try.” Medi­a­zoo were respon­si­ble for what UNITE described as Ineos’s “cam­paign of fear” dur­ing the dis­pute at Grange­mouth oil refin­ery in Scot­land when 1400 work­ers fought cuts to pay, jobs and pen­sions.

Action 6: 9.45am – Anti-nukes visit Carmargue PR firm

As well as rep­re­sent­ing RWE Npow­er, pub­lic rela­tions firm Camar­gue also spin the work of Hori­zon Nuclear Ener­gy. 12 pro­test­ers tar­get­ed the firm’s offices in Soho. Clare Jones said, “The pub­lic has a right to be informed about the real dan­gers of nuclear – from can­cer to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to cli­mate change. For the cost of build­ing one nuclear pow­er sta­tion you could build over 1000 off­shore wind tur­bines.”

Action 7: 10.25am – Energy UK lobby group blockaded

Ener­gy UK is the trade body for the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies. They have lob­bied the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the ‘Capac­i­ty Mar­ket’ into the recent Ener­gy Act (2014) – which uses pub­lic mon­ey to sub­sidise new gas pow­er sta­tions. Three peo­ple block­ad­ed the entrance, includ­ing two in an arm tube lock on.  There were two arrests.

Action 8: 10.30am – Big Six Love-in at Oxfordshire Conservative Party headquarters

Big 6

Action 9: 10.55am – RWE Npower headquarters in Swindon blockaded

Action 10: All morning – Subvertising in Oxford

Action 11: The Bill of Wrongs at British Gas HQ near Oxford

Action 12: 12.11pm – Lancashire Nanas link fracking and gas-fire power stations at Didcot B

Cuadzilla puppet

Action 13: 1.00pm – Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ rebranded by Shell

Shell rebrand

Action 14: 1.00pm – Avonmouth Biofuel plant invaded

Action 15: 1.30pm – “No stone left unfracked” Tripod fracking rig erected at London City Hall

Boris Saya

Action 16: 1.41pm – Edelman PR firm deliver first fracked baby (trigger warning)

Action 17: 2.00pm – Blockade of Cuadrilla offices in Lichfield (again!)

Cuadrilla HQ

Action 18: 2.30pm – Occupation of Imperial College’s Department of Mining

Reclaim the Power — Didcot and beyond!

 

Five days to go — here we come Didcot!

Programme’s up and packed full of treats.

In less than a week’s time Did­cot Mass Action Camp 2015 will be in full swing and we’re count­ing down the days and rar­ing up for a wicked week­end.

Set-up and start: Fri­day 29th May
Fin­ish: Tues­day 2nd June 2015
Face­book event here

We’ve got a packed sched­ule this year includ­ing the ‘Min­istry of Dis­sent’ — a one-stop shop for skilling up and tak­ing action with train­ers on board all day.  There’ll be the good peo­ple of Bar­ton Moss speak­ing about how to set up an ener­gy co-op and activist friends from Roja­va will be talk­ing about how to set up an entire autonomous region!

A range of train­ings are sched­uled from organ­i­sa­tions work­ing on the front­line of social change in the UK right now, includ­ing Lon­don Black Revs and UK Uncut, with Fuel Pover­ty Action tak­ing on the ‘Big 6’  and com­mu­ni­ty mobil­is­ing with DPAC (Dis­abled Peo­ple Against Cuts), and we’ll hear news about what’s com­ing up with the Paris cli­mate talks in Decem­ber, and from friends in the Rhineland about hold­ing off Big Coal there in August. Clos­er to home, we’ll also be hear­ing from Frack Free Lan­cashire about the immi­nent deci­sion in June, and how we can come togeth­er to say no to frack­ing — not now, not ever.

There’s also a com­e­dy dou­ble bill and music in the evening and time for us to dance and play, and get ener­gised and ready for our big day of action on Mon­day.

Check out the full pro­gramme here.

The site will be announced on Fri­day the 29th — keep your eyes on our web­site , Face­book and Twit­ter

Vol­un­teers want­ed!

Every­one’s invit­ed to get involved in mak­ing this camp awe­some, and there’s a wide range of vol­un­teer roles avail­able that we’re look­ing to fill.  Specif­i­cal­ly this includes:

  • kitchen crew
  • expe­ri­enced child-min­ders
  • qual­i­fied first-aiders
  • expe­ri­enced tran­quil­li­ty/well-being crew
  • media savvy peo­ple to help out in the media tent
  • gate and comms
  • wel­come tent crew
  • water and plumb­ing
  • a ded­i­cat­ed crew of TAT-down on Tues­day (tak­ing down camp)

If you’re up for help­ing with any of these roles then please let us know via our Face­book page or drop us a line at info@nodashforgas.org.uk   — thanks!

 

BarnCamp in June — subverting tech, computers & media activism


Barn­Camp is a low-cost rur­al DIY skill-shar­ing event open to every­one, includ­ing UK activists, cam­paign­ers, peo­ple involved in social and com­mu­ni­ty groups, and any­body else with an inter­est in tech­nol­o­gy and how to sub­vert it to put it to good use. This year it’s run­ning from 19th to 21st June.

Brought to you by Hack­tion­Lab, Bris­tol Wire­less and FLOSS Man­u­als, Barn­Camp 2015 will be the sixth edi­tion of our sum­mer camp at High­bury Farm in the beau­ti­ful Wye val­ley. Barn­Camp is three days of work­shops, dis­cus­sions, demos and prac­ti­cal how-to ses­sions look­ing at how tech­nol­o­gy can be use­ful (and dan­ger­ous) for cam­paign­ers, com­mu­ni­ty activists and gen­er­al trou­ble mak­ers.

The week­end includes:

* Three days of work­shops and open space ses­sions.
* Four nights camp­ing in the beau­ti­ful Wye Val­ley.
* Food from Fri­day through to Sun­day (9 meals).
* Indoor and camp­fire­side enter­tain­ment.

We have lim­it­ed places so please book your place on-line today at  https://barncamp.org.uk
 barncamp2015@hacktionlab.org

Earth First! Summer Gathering, August 2015

Update: see earthfirstgathering.org for an inspir­ing and excit­ing pro­gramme and more.

Excit­ing plans are tak­ing shape.  Get involved by com­ing along to the EF! Win­ter Moot in Bris­tol.

Email: sum­mer­gath­er­ing AT earthfirst.org.uk

Update: see earthfirstgathering.org for an inspir­ing and excit­ing pro­gramme and more.

Excit­ing plans are tak­ing shape.  Get involved by com­ing along to the EF! Win­ter Moot in Bris­tol.

Email: sum­mer­gath­er­ing AT earthfirst.org.uk

Earth First! Winter Moot (Bristol): 20th-22nd February 2015 /full programme

A week­end gath­er­ing for peo­ple involved or want­i­ng to know more about eco­log­i­cal direct action around the UK includ­ing fight­ing open­cast coal, frack­ing, GM, nuclear pow­er, new road build­ing and quar­ries with dis­cus­sions and cam­paign plan­ning — empha­sis on the tac­tics and strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty sol­i­dar­i­ty and sus­tain­able activism.

Shar­ing sto­ries, skills, tac­tics, updates & analy­ses of the rad­i­cal eco­log­i­cal move­ment

Cost scale £20 to £30 . This includes full veg­an meals and accom­mo­da­tion. Arrive Fri­day evening (pro­gramme starts at 7pm), leave Sun­day (ends by 4pm). It will be an indoor floor sleep­ing space so bring a warm sleep­ing bag and mat to…

Kebele Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre 14 Robert­son Road Eas­t­on Bris­tol BS5 6JY
Train—To Sta­ple­ton rd , two stops from Bris­tol TM then 7min walk —

Earth First! is a net­work of peo­ple and cam­paigns who fight eco­log­i­cal destruc­tion and the forces dri­ving it. We believe in non-hier­ar­chi­cal organ­is­ing of Direct Action, to con­front, stop and even­tu­al­ly reverse the forces that are respon­si­ble for the destruc­tion of the Earth and its inhab­i­tants. EF! is not a cohe­sive group or cam­paign, but a con­ve­nient ban­ner for peo­ple who share sim­i­lar philoso­phies to work under and doing it our­selves rather than rely­ing on gov­ern­ments or indus­try.

For info or offers southwest.earthfirst@riseup.net www.earth­first.org.uk

Down­load the (ready-to-print) fly­er

 

Pro­gramme sub­ject to change:

Starts 7pm Fri­day with din­ner, fol­lowed by films & an intro to EF!

On Sat­ur­day, break­fast is before the 9:30am start with cam­paigns round-ups and legal & secu­ri­ty work­shops.  After lunch we’ll be look­ing at strate­gic think­ing (see below) and at 5 explor­ing the rela­tion­ship between Reclaim the Pow­er and EF!

On Sun­day we’ll con­tin­ue those explo­rations from 10am.  After lunch, there’ll be a work­shop on sus­tain­able activism, and a chance to get involved in organ­is­ing the EF! Sum­mer Gath­er­ing.  Please stay for that if you can and get involved. 

 

Work­shops include:

“Intel­li­gent Resis­tance: strat­e­gy and its imple­men­ta­tion in the mod­ern world”

Sum­ma­ry: Strong strat­e­gy has always been a key ele­ment of suc­cess­ful resis­tance move­ments. Whether it be the anar­chist move­ments of rev­o­lu­tion­ary Spain, or the con­tem­po­rary fight against frack­ing, a sol­id strat­e­gy is proven to be indis­pens­able.‘Intel­li­gent Resis­tance’ is a basic intro­duc­tion to strate­gic thought and action and looks to pro­vide those in atten­dance with a prac­ti­cal set of the­o­ret­i­cal tools to take away and apply to their own move­ments and prac­tice.

“Sus­tain­ing Resis­tance: avoid­ing ‘Burn out”

This is a taster work­shop from a much longer ten day work­shop and offers a range of tools, col­lec­tive and per­son­al, which can make our activism more effec­tive and help us avoid burn out stay­ing in for the long haul.

Reclaim the Pow­er meets Earth First!”

How can Earth First! and Reclaim the pow­er coex­ist in the future strug­gles and is there a need for col­lab­o­ra­tion between oth­er camps or a con­sol­i­da­tion of resources?

Legal Defence Mon­i­tor­ing:

A taster ses­sion in how to be an effec­tive LDM on actions and demos.

Cam­paigns go-round:

Dates for your diary and what resis­tance is going on around the world and your back yard..

Live Streamers Make Great Informants

from We Cop Watch

There are many ways to effec­tive­ly doc­u­ment the move­ment while pro­tect­ing the space, its move­ments and people’s pri­va­cy. Live Stream­ing is gen­er­al­ly NOT one of them.

from We Cop Watch

There are many ways to effec­tive­ly doc­u­ment the move­ment while pro­tect­ing the space, its move­ments and people’s pri­va­cy. Live Stream­ing is gen­er­al­ly NOT one of them.

A com­mon issue with Stream­ers is their dis­play of enti­tle­ment, often cit­ing the val­ue of bring­ing the move­ment to the peo­ple. But Stream­ers have a hard time admit­ting that the police find their work more valu­able then demon­stra­tors.

In a world of voyeurism and exhi­bi­tion­ists, Stream­ers often get car­ried away, inter­pret­ing their role as being a nar­ra­tor for the move­ment. They often film peo­ple with­out their con­sent, plac­ing more val­ue in pre­sent­ing to their view­er­ship, then pro­tect­ing the group that is already tak­ing risks by just get­ting out into the street to protest.

 

live-streamers-make-great-informants_1-800x428

One of the biggest prob­lems with stream­ing is that it gives real time infor­ma­tion to the police as far as what peo­ple are present, the group’s inten­tions, as well as its loca­tion and routes. Embed­ded Stream­ers give police a tac­ti­cal advan­tage when try­ing to con­duct mass arrests.

An even more trag­ic con­tract Stream­ers impose on demon­stra­tors is the raw, unedit­ed, archived video that is often made pub­lic and avail­able online for law enforce­ment to use lat­er to help iden­ti­fy and tar­get peo­ple.

Before we move to “Stream­er Solu­tions” lets review some “Stream­er tac­tics” that are favor­able to law enforce­ment, and almost always at the expense of the peo­ple.

Very Poor Stream­er Eti­quette:
Call­ing Peo­ple out by Name on Streams.

Peo­ple don’t go to protests for oth­er peo­ple to call them out on streams that are put up per­ma­nent­ly online for law enforce­ment to review.

Film­ing Peo­ples’ Iden­ti­ties on Streams

Law enforce­ment use streams to tar­get and iden­ti­fy peo­ple for repres­sion and arrest

Nar­rat­ing your Inter­pre­ta­tion of what Kind of Action is Tak­ing Place

Stream­ers often divulge per­son­al opin­ions rather than facts when nar­rat­ing about actions. Are you pre­pared to be a wit­ness for law enforce­ment in the future?

Film­ing Direct Actions

Every­thing you film, can and will be used against pro­test­ers if law enforce­ment has any­thing to do with it.

Nar­rat­ing Logis­tics and Tac­tics

At the height of Occu­py Oak­land, Under­cov­ers were being called into cer­tain FTP protests because of the “no Live Stream­ing” / “no Twit­ter­ing” tac­tic.

live-streamers-make-great-informants_2
FTP march­es are ongo­ing Fuck the Police march­es that take place in Oak­land and across the Bay.

Nar­rat­ing Group Routes

Police have a much eas­i­er time arrest­ing peo­ple in the streets when they have Stream­ers nar­rat­ing the group’s routes. You don’t need Under­cov­ers and heli­copters when you have a front-row seat.

If you want to be help­ful to the move­ment, be hon­est about your inten­tions. Is your view­er­ship more impor­tant than the peo­ple you are stand­ing with? Do you want to be doing some­thing that ben­e­fits the police over the peo­ple? Every action, every mass mobi­liza­tion, has a sto­ry that can be told. But folks need to either start hold­ing “non stream­ing” actions again, or stream­ers should stop oper­at­ing as infor­mants for the police.

If any of these issues are con­cern­ing to you, maybe con­sid­er NOT “Live Stream­ing” your next protest. Pick up a still cam­era, con­duct some audio inter­views, heck shoot some video. There’s no rea­son why you can’t go home after a protest and pro­duce some con­tent that is use­ful and not harm­ful. But in case it’s not in your blood to con­sid­er oth­er peo­ple on that lev­el, here are some good Live Stream tac­tics.

“Good” Livestream Tac­tics

  • Stand hun­dreds of feet away from the group so the low qual­i­ty record­ing doesn’t pick up con­ver­sa­tions or peo­ples’ iden­ti­ty.
  • Don’t film peo­ples’ iden­ti­ty with­out their con­sent.
  • Don’t nar­rate inten­tions, tac­tics, loca­tions, or des­ti­na­tions.
  • Wear a bright shirt that says “Live Stream­er” or “Infor­mant.”

More “Real Good” Livestream Tac­tics

  • Live Stream an event, pan­el, or dis­cus­sion where all par­ties con­sent.
  • Live Stream a demo or action where all par­ties involved con­sent.
  • Live Stream your inter­ac­tions when being stopped, ques­tioned, or harassed by law enforce­ment. (maybe put your chan­nel on pri­vate!)

Be safe out there, and make it safer for the mass­es by con­sid­er­ing them when you point a cam­era at them!