Author: Slingshot robot #1

What’s Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis by Malcolm Harris
No Option But Sabotage: The Radical Environmental Movement and the Climate Crisis by Thomas Zeitzoff
Theory of Water: Anishinaabe Maps to the Times Ahead

by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
North Stars of Emancipation: California’s Diverse Food and Farming Movements in Times of Racial Reckoning by Antonio Roman-Alcalá
How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza by Adam H. Johnson

Nasty Work by Ericka Hart

Marxism and Witchcraft by David Kubrin

Limits by Giorgos Kallis 

Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin

Trans Girl Suicide Museum by Hannah Baer

People Under Hitler by Wallace Dueul

Let the Record Speak by Dorothy Thompson

France on Berlin Time by Thomas Kernan 

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily Bender and Alex Hanna

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehesi Coates

Abolition. Feminism. Now. by Angela Davis, Erica Meiners, and Beth Richie

Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the plan of San Diego 

by James Sandos

Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies

by Anitra Nelson & Frans Timmerman

Against Ecological Sovereignty by Mick Smith

Economism: Bad Economics and the Rise of Inequality by James Kwak

Fiction / Poetry:

Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

The Most Spectacular Mistake by Anatalia Vallez 

The Giveaway: The Clay Blackburn Story by Owen Hill

Unicorn Rescue Society (series) by Adam Gidwitz

2666 by Roberto Bolaño

Ringolevio, a Life Played for Keeps by Emmett Grogan

Grievers, Maroons, and Ancestors (trilogy series) by adrianne maree brown

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Everyone deserves access to abortion care when and where they need it — without judgment, stigma, or shame. Because of abortion stigma and the ongoing threat to abortion access, it is difficult to find reliable and clear information on abortion, a common medical process that one in four women in the U.S. will have before age 45. There is no “right” or “wrong” reason to choose to have an abortion, and it’s okay to have several. You are trusted with understanding your life and your needs. 

“An unintended pregnancy is not a weakness or a moral failing but an inevitable occurrence in a society hell-bent on keeping you as vulnerable and unprotected as possible. You didn’t fuck up. You’re not irresponsible. You don’t need to bear any ‘consequences’ or be punished.” — Hannah Matthews (@hannahmsays)

These resources can help you get started determining what type of abortion might work best for you, where to find an appointment, and organizations that can support with appointment costs or practical support for travel if you need to leave your home state to receive care. 

Types of Abortion

Medication Abortion: Mifepristone, a pill, is usually taken with an abortion provider while at the clinic, while Misoprostol, another type of pill, is taken 24-48 hours later inside your own home. 

Procedural Abortion: In pregnancies less than 14 weeks, a pregnancy can be removed in a process called vacuum aspiration. In pregnancies between 14-24 weeks, the pregnancy is removed through suction in a procedure called Dilation & Evacuation (D&E). (See wetestify.org/abortion-explained)

Self-Managed Abortion (SMA): The process of inducing an abortion on one’s own. 

Abortion Access (How to Find Available Appointments or Receive Medication Abortion Pills By Mail)

• I Need An A (ineedana.com)

• Plan C (plancpills.org)

Abortion Funds (Financial & Practical Assistance)

• National Network of Abortion Funds (abortionfunds.org)

• National Abortion Federation Hotline (1-800-772-9100)

• Indigenous Women Rising (iwrising.org)

• Jane’s Due Process | For minors living in Texas (call or text 1-866-999-5263)

Legal Resources

• Repro Legal Hotline (reprolegalhelpline.org)

Other Resources

• Abortion On Our Own Terms | Self-managing abortion with pills (abortiononourownterms.org)

• M+A Hotline | Clinicians with information about self-managing an abortion or miscarriage (mahotline.org)

• We Testify | Abortion 101 (wetestify.org/abortion101) | Abortion Storytellers (wetestify.org/stories)

• SisterSong | Reproductive Justice (sistersong.net/reproductive-justice)

• All Options Talk Line | Peer-based counseling & support (all-options.org/find-support/talkline)

We might broadly define consent as a wholehearted and mutual ongoing agreement between parties and/or individuals towards a common goal. Consent lies at the crux of radical imaginings. Practicing consent is all the more important since we did not consent to capitalism. In a world of non-consent, consent becomes radical.

But what is consent? We often hear about consent in terms of sexual praxis. Consent is saying “yes,” asking/waiting for the emphatic “yes,” and listening to “no.” It is practicing boundaries, both towards oneself and others. However, consent is more than that. Consent is an ongoing and nuanced exchange. Consent can be ephemeral and allows itself to be invoked, revoked and tailored to complex, evolving situations. Consent is a conversation and demands a back and forth. Consent challenges us to lay our desires bare at the feet of our lovers and comrades while centering their desires with our own.

Consent may best be defined as a harmonious understanding between all parties involved. Some things we can do to be better at consensual, harmonious engagement include:

• Being honest about our own desires and limits

• Sticking to our own boundaries

• Honestly acknowledging the boundaries of others

• Sticking to their boundaries

• Predicting changes in boundaries when possible

• Asking for continuous feedback

• Giving continuous feedback

• Being open and enthusiastic about receiving feedback!

We can practice these principles anywhere, anytime – not just with lovers. Consent and its practice allows us to reverberate within pleasurable, harmonious and truly revolutionary moments, rather than to become trapped within our individual mental prisons. Consent dares us to imagine affinities that encompass yet surpass sex. The revolutionary possibilities are endless. Consent is merely the beginning.

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Being here in our bodies and present is essential for good sex as well as resisting the Empire. The body is the first and most foundational place to occupy. If we are not embodied, we struggle to feel our own needs and desires, lose track of our edges, and our yes’s and no’s. As sex educator Ariel Szabo says, “Disembodiment blunts the signals consent relies on. Desire gets confused with obligation, fantasy, or performance. Your body’s signals arrive late, muted, or not at all. …numbness masquerades as neutrality, freeze looks like agreement, and people pleasing passes as generosity. It doesn’t stop with you. If you can’t feel yourself, you will struggle to feel another. This is why the Empire has purposefully created a culture of disembodied people. They want a population where people don’t feel the ways they take from the people and the land without consent.” 

The Empire actively encourages and produces disembodiment, because a disembodied populace becomes quickly complacent, easier to control. When we are disembodied, desires can be easily fed to us. The disembodied person easily accepts “tomato” as the pale, mealy, corporate-grown product at the supermarket in the middle of winter, not knowing the juicy asymmetrical cleaved lusciousness and jeweled variety of ones grown in our own garden. If we accept hegemonic definitions of sex, what are we missing? 

The point of this article is not to suggest that everyone should love “heirloom tomatoes,” if you follow the tomato metaphor. Some people don’t even like tomatoes or sex! The point is that you have a smorgasbord of options. Some people are asexual (Ace), some are hetero monogamous, some are queer, some are poly. Let us not forget the joy of solo sex! The point is that each of us does what brings us pleasure. By defining sex positively, as a mutually pleasurable energetic exchange, everything other than that is something else: complacency, freezing, coercion, violence.

When we embrace embodied mutual pleasure as a guiding principle, presence, communication and play become our guides. Let us slow down, experiment, and stumble our way into ecstacy. For an easy, low pressure, low stakes way to experiment, look up the work of Betty Martin and the Three Minute game to feel for yourselves the difference between giving and receiving, taking and allowing, and practice saying yes and no. 

These are dark times. It is, in fact, the world that is crazy – despair and anxiety are natural responses to watching society destroy itself for the wealthy and powerful. But by reaching out to each other, we can find the courage to stay engaged with the world, to survive, and to fight back. Mental health and mental health crises vary a lot between people, and are often intertwined with class, race, gender, and activism. These suggestions are generic, but may be useful for yourself or others. If you find yourself or someone you love having delusional thinking or consider self-harm or other violence, these suggestions probably aren’t enough. Remember that it is okay to reach out for professional help!

Day-to-Day:

• Our brains are connected to our bodies, so physical health can help with mental distress. Eating healthy food on a regular schedule and getting enough sleep are necessary for mental stability and sustained activism. Exercise, dance, and physical movement help, too. So can fresh air and having a stable, calming place to stay. Try to recognize if you’re missing one of these, and if that’s causing distress.

• An important component of mental health is the ability to know ourselves, understand our needs, and be able to talk about them to the other people in our lives. This can be really challenging and can often take guidance from others who have learned how to do it with one another.

• It can help to have language for mental crisis that feels comfortable and makes more sense than the dominant medical language. Transmission of language often happens in groups. Talk to friends about the different ways you can feel “off” and develop your own shorthand to describe them.

• Joining a mutual support group of peers listening to and helping peers as equals can be validating, while not necessarily endorsing your feelings. You can form one yourself or join an ongoing group. 

• If possible, find a therapist or counselor who supports your self-determination. Ask about confidentiality if someone else — such as your parents, boss, or governmental program — is paying.

• Drugs and alcohol usually make mental health problems worse. 

• Psychiatric drugs such as those for depression or bipolar disorder can help some people reduce distress and maintain stability, while other people with similar symptoms may experience distress or harm from the same drugs. Figuring out what works for you can be a process because people differ.

• Nature and wilderness can be our greatest healers. Spend some time outside the city to get centered. Get away from pollution, which is in itself mind-altering. Look up “Ecopsychology” to learn more.

• Allow social, political, and environmental crises unfolding around you to radicalize you, rather than driving you to despair. Actually articulate the world you would want to be living in; work towards it. Remember change happens collectively – look for ways to plug in. Small acts like talking to neighbors or submitting art to Slingshot can help you feel political agency between larger or more radical actions.

During a Crisis:

• Many communities have 24 hour a day crisis hotlines or crisis centers. Call 800-SUICIDE if you’re thinking about killing yourself or 800 646-HOPE to reach a rape crisis line for survivors of sexual violence. Warning: if you call and say you want to kill yourself police may arrive at your door. 

• Things that can help your mental health day-to-day might not be as effective when you’re in crisis. Review the above reminders, and try to eat, exercise, journal, etc., but it’s okay if that isn’t helping.

• Distracting yourself from depressed or anxious thoughts can help: listening to music, making art, washing dishes, doing a project alone or with others. Embrace sensation: use your hands or massage your fingers. Hold onto an ice cube, or take a hot or cold shower. Give yourself time to gather resources.

• Some current emotional crises may be caused by traumas from the past, which may need to be emotionally and consciously processed in order not to keep recurring; that processing might take time.

• When in crisis, it may help to realize that the feeling will eventually pass and your life will begin to feel manageable and meaningful again later. Depression may feel like lack of feelings and a lack of connection to feeling. Anxiety may feel like rapidly cycling concern for what might happen. Both inhibit your ability to perceive and understand the world correctly. Your perceptions of hopelessness are NOT accurate. Avoid making drastic decisions or hurting yourself while unable to correctly perceive reality. 

• It’s okay to reach out; it can help to discuss disturbing mental states with others you trust. Remind yourself that there are people in your life who want to discuss this with you. Conversely, if you have a loved one in crisis, the most helpful thing is to make it clear that you care and be there to listen. They may not be able to call or ask for help — it can be very helpful to keep calling them every day or two to check-in, even if they don’t answer the phone or seem to want help. It is okay to want to be alone, so just make it clear that you care. It’s also important to get support for yourself. Caring about someone who is in crisis is in itself a big challenge. Capitalism wants us to struggle as individuals, but we’re in this together! 

Our dependence on our phones isn’t an accident. We depend on them logistically for our navigation, payment, and communication. But our phones and the apps they contain are also designed to build emotional dependence — there are entire teams of top-of-their-field psychologists, engineers, sociologists, and designers getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to make apps even just a little bit more addictive. The emotional and logistical dependence on our phones intertwine in a mutual feedback loop, making it difficult to reduce either. 

Every interaction we have with our phones deepens opportunities for state surveillance. Our online activity creates a database of our interests, purchase history, friend networks, location, and activism that the FBI of yesteryear could only have dreamed of. But the biggest problem, as with any addiction, is how something that is fun and useful in small doses can start to take more and more of our time and attention, preventing us from doing other things that we value. So what is there to do?

Reducing Emotional Dependence

For most of us, the apps that most deeply build psychological dependence on our phones are social media apps and games. These often take, in some ways, the place of cigarettes in our society today — we do them on a quick break, or when we need to ‘unwind’. But like nicotine, they mostly sate the need that they themselves create. After unwinding in this way, do you feel deeply rested and reset?

If there is an app that you feel wastes your time, or you dislike how much you use, just delete it! You can always re-download it. Note down in your organizer the date and time you deleted the app, and why. If you redownload the app, note that down too. It’s helpful to understand our own patterns of use, to help us understand where we use “tools” or “toys” out of necessity or fun, versus out of psychological dependence.

Think about other activities you can do when you would have used your phone. If you delete an app, it’s easy for some other app to quickly replace it. Be realistic about what might feel fulfilling and restful while deprogramming, in those times and in that headspace. Watching landscapes slide past, noticing the people around you, thinking about your present, past or future, having a conversation with a friend or stranger, reading: each of these might feel more wholesome or restful than your phone. Your Slingshot organizer may be able help you… Don’t you think the edges of the date pages could use additional intricate doodles? Or perhaps you can journal a bit, filling in past date entries with what you remember doing, seeing, eating, or thinking on that day? Use the blank pages in the back to write poetry or outline a manifesto or draw art. Let your boredom be a canvas, a portal to discovery, not something to avoid.

These activities won’t feel as stimulating or give you the same dopamine rush as the apps you’re used to. It’s normal to feel a sense of confusion or loss in this process. Perhaps at some deep level the bright, shifting light of the screen feels like a flickering fire: a thousand generations of finding safety and community in campfires draws us inexorably to this bright cold flame. Try changing your phone’s settings to have the display be in black and white, or switch to a dimmer, less attractive color palette.

We can also feel emotional dependence on the instant knowledge and communication phones provide. What if we can’t respond right away to a friend or loved one? It’s so easy to ask a question to AI like Siri or Google and get an affirming answer! Like puppies or young children, we become anxious without the constant presence of that communication or knowledge. Try consciously pushing your limits more often — if you don’t know something, discuss it rather than looking up ‘the answer’ right away. Delete search bars and AI assistants from your phone and download the Wikipedia app, so if you do need to look something up, you will break that instant gratification loop, finding your own answer and giving yourself context along the way. And try setting aside a specific time of the day to answer your messages. Let friends or loved ones know you might not respond quickly outside of that time.

Reducing Logistical Dependence

Logistical dependence is hard in a different way. Practical uses for our phones are often the most problematic sites of government and corporate surveillance, and reinforce emotional dependence by repeatedly forcing us back to our screens. 

Try leaving your phone on airplane mode when you’re not using it (this also saves battery!). See how long you can go between phone charges; try to go longer and longer. Even better, leave your phone at home for an errand, for an afternoon, for a day. Pay with cash, not contactless or apps. Use a watch.

Use paper and pens, use your organizer. Practice navigating with paper maps or from memory. If you write down important contacts, you can ask to borrow a friend or stranger’s phone if you need to call someone. Meet people and post flyers in radical spaces. Do math by hand. Write lists, take notes.

Freedom is never easy, not at first. It is slow, clumsy, disorienting. But always, always worth it.

The systems of oppression operated by the 1% are vulnerable — they are unsustainable and they can be defeated — but they won’t crumble on their own. People just like us help with protests, riots, middle of the night missions and other acts of resistance. Affinity groups are small direct action cells — usually 4-8 people — who share attitudes about tactics and who organize themselves during actions for effectiveness and protection. Affinity groups can organize actions or make them better once the actions are underway.

Many affinity groups choose a legal support person for each action who stays at another location to avoid possible arrest, so they can handle things if members of the group are arrested. Jail aims to isolate and disempower us so we’ll sit down and shut up. But when we support each other, we can resist and return to the streets stronger. Here are some brief tips for being a jail support person.

Before the action

• Agree on a phone number that accepts collect calls to call if someone gets arrested and then be at that number.

• Make a list of the real full name, arrest history, outstanding warrants, emergency contacts, and other special needs of each member such as kids that need childcare, medical needs, doctor’s names, etc. Note if a person’s chosen name is different than the one on their ID and if there is a concern that they might be held in housing that does not match their gender identity. 

• Discuss scenarios for bailing people out of jail if necessary. If bail is high, some people may want to use a bail bond, which involves losing 10% of the bail. Other people might be okay waiting a while in jail to save money and because bail bond companies prey on the poor. Paying bail puts resources into the state and may incentivize arrests. Some people may have money available to pay bail in cash and the support person needs to know how to get the money. Groups can also prioritize people to get bailed out first based on who may be injured, gender non-conforming, have childcare responsibilities, risk losing their jobs or other factors. 

During the action / if an arrestee calls

• Remind people that phones may be tapped and conversations in police cars or jail cells are recorded, so it is best to avoid discussion of the circumstances of anyone’s arrest. 

• Write down arrested people’s booking and arrest numbers, jail #, charges, bail, expected release time, special needs, information about injuries, and upcoming court dates. It can help to keep a log and write down the time and date and all (non-incriminating) relevant information which can help if there is a lawsuit or criminal trial later. Write legibly! 

• If someone is arrested you can notify loved ones and the other group members.

• If someone calls from jail, you can pass on messages form the outside which is a huge morale booster. Being in jail can be scary. Ask if they are okay and offer emotional support to arrestees (and their family and friends.)

• When you know someone has been arrested but they haven’t called, you (along with a lawyer in some cases) can call the jail to locate them so the system knows someone is looking out for them and so you can inform their family and friends and feed pets or pick kids up from school, etc. Lawyers may be able to invoke the right to remain silent / not be questioned without representation.

• Arrange travel home when people get released. Often the support person and other affinity group members wait outside jail for members to be released, and greet them with food, donuts, and hugs.

• In some cases a support person can help organize demands for prisoners to be released or notify the media and government officials about unlawful arrests and police violence. 

• Once people are released, write down relevant information about the arrest, police misconduct and other relevant information while it is fresh in everyone’s mind.

Info from Midnight Special Law Collective (www.midnightspecial.net).

Panic and paranoia are counterproductive — stop wondering what will happen, or why nothing’s happening. If we’re going to survive the ongoing collapse of capital and empire, we need to be able to identify our goals and catalyze the conditions they require. 

Communities under threat from repressive institutions have been coming together for emergency self-defense and found out that they ended up with something even more important — a renewed sense of community care, trust in neighbors and inspiration. 

Rapid response networks aim to document, obstruct, and expose to public scorn harmful federal, police and government repression. They can take the form of individual escorts, neighborhood watches, horizontally organized information sharing networks, or entire sub-communities ready to act effectively as they see fit. 

Effective networks are composed of many different types of people from all walks of life: neighbors, coworkers, classmates. Anyone who frequently occupies, passes by, or visits endangered areas can provide eyes on the ground. Networks reach out to out high risk community members and figure out where support is most needed. Some communities conduct security trainings, legal support sessions, or mutual aid distribution for affected community members.

Existing networks have developed the SALUTE reporting protocol for information sharing via Signal or another encrypted messaging platform when anyone in the network witnesses potential police, ICE or other government repression: 

Size (ex. 5 enforcement officers) 

Activity (ex. stopping random people and demanding IDs) 

Location/direction (ex. heading west from 123 Revolution Road, Berkeley CA) 

Uniforms (ex. dark blue vests that read “POLICE” across the back) 

Time (ex. 12:45PM February 11^th)

Equipment and weapons (ex. they have helmets, vests, and batons)

Core response roles

Those nearby when something is reported message the group that they are on the way. Those who arrive can verify what is happening, and fill different roles (listed in order of importance)

• Cameraperson 1: Films and gathers information about victims
• Note-taker: Captures handwritten notes (including the victims’ full name and date of birth, as well as their immigration identification number or other relevant information)
• Cameraperson 2: Films cameraperson 1
• Dispatcher Liaison: Maintains communication with a hotline or group chat, ensures that all documentation/photos/videos are sent to coordinator(s)
• Community liaison: Explains the roles that volunteer responders play to community members, gather information from surrounding people
• ICE/police liaison: Attempts to obtain identifying information from ICE or police, deescalate the situation, and move ICE or police away from observers 1-3

Security considerations

Do not post videos of ICE or police raids where victims are visible or identifiable on social media without obtaining explicit consent from the individual affected or their families. Be ready for ICE or police to quickly escalate to violence or direct aggression towards observers.

These suggestions from the National Lawyers Guild “Know Your Rights” guide summarize the rules to which the police are theoretically subject. Be careful: the police, the courts, and the government can and do ignore these rules when they feel like it. Sometimes, police retaliate against people for exercising their rights. These tips may help you later on in court, and sometimes they won’t. Even though the state can’t be counted on to follow its own laws, it still may be helpful to know what these laws are so you can shame particular state agents or deal with particular situations. Use your best judgment — if you aren’t doing anything wrong, there may be no reason to be excessively paranoid or escalate a potentially innocent and brief encounter with a police officer who is just saying “hi” into an ugly situation by acting suspicious and refusing to say “hi” back. The point is to avoid giving information.

Providing this information isn’t intended to scare you into inactivity or make you paranoid. In the current context, the vast majority of radical projects proceed with no interference from the police. The police hassle and arrest people because they hope that such repression will frighten everyone else into submission. We can take reasonable precautions while continuing the fight for liberation. 

Never Talk to the Police

Anything you say to an FBI agent or cop may be used against you and other people — even if the questions seem routine or harmless. You don’t have to talk to FBI agents, police or investigators on the street, if you’ve been arrested, or if you’re in jail. (Exceptions: Your name, date of birth and address are known as “Booking questions” which are not included in your right to remain silent. In some states you can get an additional minor charge for refusing to identify yourself after a police stop based on reasonable suspicion). Only a judge has the authority to order you to answer questions. Many activists have refused to answer questions, even when ordered by a judge or grand jury, and subsequently served jail time to avoid implicating others. It is common for the FBI to threaten to serve you with a grand jury subpoena unless you talk to them. Don’t be intimidated. This is frequently an empty threat, and if they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. If you do receive a subpoena, call a lawyer right away.

Once you’ve been stopped or arrested, don’t try to engage cops in a dialogue or respond to accusations. If you are nervous about refusing to talk, you may find it easier to tell them to contact your lawyer. Once a lawyer is involved, the police sometimes back off. If you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer other questions until you have a lawyer. Don’t lie to the police or give a false name— lying to the police is a crime. The police are allowed to lie to you — don’t believe what they say. If you’ve been arrested, don’t talk about anything sensitive in police cars, jail cells or to other inmates — you are probably being recorded.

What To Do About Police Harassment On The Street

If the police stop you on the street, ask, “Am I free to go?” If yes, walk away. If not, you are being detained but this does not necessarily mean you will be arrested. Ask, “Can you explain why you are detaining me?” To stop you, cops must have specific reasons to suspect you of involvement in a specific crime. Police are entitled to pat you down during a detention. If the police try to further search you, your car, or your home, say repeatedly that you do not consent to the search, but do not physically resist. 

What To Do If Police Visit Your Home

You do not have to let the FBI or police into your home or office unless they have a search warrant. If they have an arrest warrant you may limit entry if the person surrenders outside. In either case, ask to inspect the warrant. It must specifically describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized. You do not have to tell them anything other than your name and address. Tell the police that you can not consent to the search unless it is also inspected by a lawyer. If the officers ask you to give them documents, your computer, do not consent to them taking it. Physically trying to block them from searching or seizing items may escalate the situation. You have a right to observe what they do. You should take written notes of their names and what they do. Have friends act as witnesses. 

What To Do If Police Stop You In Your Car

If you are driving a car, you must show police your license, registration and proof of insurance. You do not have to consent to a search or answer questions. Keep your hands where the police can see them and refuse to consent (agree) to a search. Police may separate passengers and drivers from each other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions. 

What To Do If You Are Arrested

Repeatedly tell the police “I am going to remain silent, I would like to see my lawyer.” If you suffer police abuse while detained or arrested, try to remember the officer’s badge number and/or name. You have the right to ask the officer to identify himself. Write down everything as soon as you can and try to find witnesses. If you are injured, see a doctor and take pictures of the injuries as soon as possible.

Searches at International Borders

Your property (including data on laptops) can be searched and seized at border crossings without a warrant. Do not take any data you would like to keep private across the border. If you have to travel with electronic data encrypt it before crossing and make an encrypted back up of any data before crossing in case your computer or phone is seized. 

Police Hassles: What If You Are Not A Citizen?

In most cases, you have the right to a hearing with an immigration judge before you can be deported. If you voluntarily give up this right or take voluntary departure, you could be deported without a hearing and you may never be able to enter the US legally again or ever get legal immigration status. Do not talk to the ICE, even on the phone, or sign any papers before talking to an immigration lawyer. Unless you are seeking entry into the country, you do not have to reveal your immigration status to any government official. If you are arrested in the US, you have the right to call your consulate or have the police inform the consulate of your arrest. Your consul may help you find a lawyer. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.

Police Hassles: What If You Are Under 18 Years Old?

Don’t talk to the police — minors have the right to remain silent. You don’t have to talk to cops or school officials. Public school students have the right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings and publishing independent newspapers as long as these activities do not disrupt classes. You have the right to a hearing with your parents and an attorney present before you are suspended or expelled. Students can have their backpacks and lockers searched by school officials without a warrant. Do not consent to any search, but do not physically resist. 

Common Sense Activist Security Measures

Don’t speculate on or circulate rumors about protest actions or potentially illegal acts. Assume you are under surveillance if you are organizing mass direct action, anything illegal, or even legal stuff. Resist police disruption tactics by checking out the authenticity of any potentially disturbing letter, rumor, phone call, or other form of communication before acting on it. Ask the supposed source if she or he is responsible. Deal openly and honestly with the differences in our movements (race, gender, class, age religion, sexual orientation, etc.) before the police can exploit them. Don’t try to expose a suspected agent or informer without solid proof. Purges based on mere suspicion only help the police create distrust and paranoia. It generally works better to criticize what a disruptive person says and does without speculating as to why.

People who brag about, recklessly propose, or ask for unnecessary information about underground groups or illegal activities may be undercover police but even if they are not, they are a severe danger to the movement. The police may send infiltrators/provocateurs posing as activists to entrap people on conspiracy charges of planning illegal acts. You can be guilty of conspiracy just for agreeing with one other person to commit a crime even if you never go through with it — all that is required is an agreement to do something illegal and a single “overt act” in furtherance of the agreement, which can be a legal act like going to a store. It is reasonable to be suspicious of people in the scene who pressure us, manipulate us, offer to give us money or weapons, or make us feel like we aren’t cool if we don’t feel comfortable with a particular tactic, no matter why they do these things. Responsible activists considering risky actions will want to respect other people’s boundaries and limits and won’t want to pressure you into doing things you’re not ready for. Doing so is coercive and disrespectful — hardly a good basis on which to build a new society or an effective action.

Keep in mind that activists who spend all their time worrying about security measures and police surveillance will end up totally isolated and ineffective because they won’t be able to welcome new folks who want to join the struggle. We have to be aware of the possibility of police surveillance while maintaining our commitment to acting openly and publicly. Smashing the system is going to require mass action as well as secretive covert actions by a tiny clique of your trusted friends.

More info contact the National Lawyers Guild: 415 285-5067 or 212 679-5100; read The War at Home by Brian Glick or Agents of Repression by Ward Churchill

Support for people in prison can include books-to-prisoners projects that mail free books, or individually becoming pen-pals with a person in prison. Some people focus on political prisoners, while others see the entire prison-industrial complex as illegitimate and criticize the way that it targets marginalized communities. A key way we can support people inside is by communicating with them. In an email-dominated world, writing an old-fashioned letter on paper can be surprisingly rewarding for you as well as an incarcerated person. Here are some tips.

• When writing to people in prison, put their prisoner number on the first line of the mailing address to get it through.

• Make sure to put a return address on your letter. If you are writing to a prisoner you don’t know, it may be best to use a PO box or other address that doesn’t disclose where you live.

• If you’re writing to an incarcerated person, keep in mind that the prison officials or other authorities will read your letter. Don’t discuss anything sensitive. If the person is waiting for trial or sentencing (or on appeal), it may be better not to discuss the details of their case.

• Prisons prohibit mailing items like food, money, and sometimes books — ask your pen-pal for the rules.

• Don’t make promises you can’t keep, such as offering to find a lawyer to take their case, sending them money or expensive items, offering them housing on release, organizing a support campaign, etc. Being let down when you’re locked up can be especially devastating. 

• Be clear about your intentions. If you’re not looking for a romantic relationship, it can be helpful to all involved to say so right off. It’s also important to stay consistent if you commit to writing to a pen-pal. For you, this may be a simple correspondence, but for a person in prison, this level of contact can be a big deal. 

• While the state locking people up is shitty, it doesn’t follow that all people in prison are angels. They are people just like everyone else, and can be flawed or manipulative. Use reasonable caution and treat them like you would another pen-pal.

• Be careful about accepting collect phone calls from jail — prison collect calls are usually absurdly expensive.

• Many prisons across the country now use a specialized email system called Jpay. You can set up a free account at www.jpay.com or using the Jpay app. Unfortunately, prisons exploit people inside and outside by charging “stamps” to send Jpay emails. They’re about 7 cents per stamp, and you can gift stamps to your pen-pal. As always, these emails are monitored, so be careful what you write.