The first step in recognizing security risks in a community is working towards creating a security culture. Below we have compiled some relevant materials and links that should be used in conducting security workshops and educating activists that you work with. As our direct action movement becomes more effective, government harassment will only increase. To minimize the destructiveness of this government harassment, it is imperative that we create a “security culture” within our movement. Violations of security culture include behavior is inappropriate because it intensifies government harassment, jeopardizes the freedom of other activists, and destroys the trust within the movement.
Security Culture: What is it, Why we need it and How to Implement it…
Luddites; liberationists; abolitionists; union organizers; revolutionaries… From large uprisings challenging the entire political structure, to isolated environmental and social struggles, people have constanly worked to create a better world. To government the response has always been to jail activists and revolutionaries using the courts and the police forces at hand.
As direct action movements become more effective, government surveillance and harassment will increase. To minimize the destructiveness of this political repression, it is imperative that we create a security culture within our movement.
This pamphlet is essential reading for anyone who is associated with groups that advocate and/or utilize sabotage, theft, arson and more militant tactics. The advice herein also applies to anyone who is associated with groups that practice civil disobedience, especially since membership often overlaps and gossip travels freely between groups.
Even if you have never picked up a monkeywrench or been arrested, even if you think you have nothing to hide, these guidelines will enhance your personal safety as well as the movement¹s overall effectiveness. Surveillance has been set up on all sections of political movements in the past. Governments in the western industrialized world have targeted groups that have advocated sabotage and groups that have not, movements that have been militant and movements that have been markedly pacificst. The government¹s security machinery serves political and economic objectives, and there are over 250 political prisoners in Canada and the US that can testify to this from firsthand experience. By adoption a security culture, we can defeat various counterintelligence operations that would otherwise disrupt both mainstream organizing and underground resistance.
SO WHAT IS A SECURITY CULTURE?
It¹s a culture where the people know their rights and, more importantly, assert them. Those who belong to a security culture also know what behaviour compromises security and they are quick to educate those people who, out of ignorance, forgetfulness, or personal weakness, partake in insecure behaviour. This security
consciousness becomes a culture when the group as a whole makes security violations socially and morally unacceptable in the group.
WHAT NOT TO SAY
To begin with, there are certain things that are inappropriate to discuss.
These things include:
-Your involvement or someone else¹s involvement with an undergound group
-Someone else¹s desire to get involved with such a group
-Asking others if they are a member of an underground group
-Your participation or someone else¹s participating in any action that was illegal
-Someone else¹s advocacy for such actions
-Your plans or someone else¹s plans for a future action
Can you see a pattern? What all of these are stating is this: it is wrong to speak about a specific individual’s involvement (past, present or future) with illegal activities. These are unacceptable topics of discussion regardless of whether it is rumor, speculation or personal knowledge. Please note: no one is claiming it is wrong to speak about direct action in general terms. It is perfectly legal, secure and desirable that people speak out in support of mokeywrenching and all forms of resistance. The danger lies in linking individual activists to specific actions or groups.
THREE EXCEPTIONS
Read the full article Here: http://www.securityfreak.info/security/security-culture/
