Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our freedom
In the wake of the October 15th raids, there are a few key points regarding security and dealing with the Police and media that demand restating. Too many people who should have known better ended up saying things they shouldn't have to the Police, whether directly or via the corporate media.
Soon after the raids, those being called in for questioning were reminded on Aotearoa Indymedia that "There is no such thing as a harmless conversation when it comes to police questioning." This lesson, however, was apparently not learnt.
There can be no doubt that being asked questions with a gun to your face is one of the scariest things that can happen to someone, and so I won't delve too much further into those specific situations, except to say that the main thrust of my argument still holds true - not saying anything is always a better option for the overall safety and liberty of everyone concerned.
Too many people however, when confronted by Police without firearms (whether at their houses or after being called in for questioning) still talked. Too many people talked to the media, armed with only microphones. The excuses for this have been varied, from thinking one was doing the right thing, to not thinking at all, however in all cases talking had a negative effect, whether directly or indirectly.
The Police intelligence gathering in Operation 8 had two aspects - information gathered specifically to aid in the prosecution of those individuals arrested on October 15th (and any further arrests that Police stated they wished to make), and information gathered to help in building an overall picture of the Tino Rangatiratanga, anarchist and activist movements and communities across Aotearoa with a sinister eye to the future.
Some people answered simple questions like "Do you know person X?", thinking that either the fact that they knew them didn't matter, or assuming that the Police already knew the answer was in the affirmative. In doing this, they assisted Police to further enhance their maps of who is connected to who, who works with who. Regardless of whether or not it had relevance to Operation 8 in specific instances, it certainly will help them in investigating any future activity.
When confronted by Police at your house, if they don't have a warrant, make sure they leave your property immediately. No ifs, no buts. Don't answer any questions, don't let them walk around your back yard uninterrupted, don't leave them alone unwatched until they're gone. If they have a warrant, then let them in and watch them for as long as possible (theoretically, you should be able to watch the entire search, but Police aren't exactly known for obeying the rules). While watching, make sure you don't tell them anything. Don't answer questions, don't engage in idle chit-chat. Cops aren't friendly except for when they think that will help them in finding out the answers to their questions - if they're being nice, it's not because they're nice people, it's because they want to lull you into talking. Don't fall for their trap.
If you feel like you need to answer a call for questioning, either talk to a lawyer first, or if you can get a pro bono lawyer, take one in with you. Again, don't answer anything. Don't sign anything either, there is no requirement for you to do so. Try to recall everything they ask you - it could prove useful for working out their lines of enquiry, or discovering the extent of their surveillance.
Perhaps the worst example of talking to the media during the aftermath of Operation 8 was the front page story in The Press in Otautahi/Christchurch, with quotes from somebody claiming to be a friend of one of the people called in for questioning. This friend was quoted as saying things which should obviously not have been said to anyone, let alone a journalist from a large media organisation. A saying which is apt here is "If you don't know anything, don't talk about it. If you know a little, say even less."
This isn't a game. This isn't about your moral indignation that you have "nothing to hide". Operation 8 was not the usual bullshit charges of Disorderly Behaviour seen at a protest, where one could have a reasonable expectation of being found not guilty, if the charges ever reached trial. The potential charges in Operation 8 could have resulted in some serious, long term jail time, and even the lesser Arms Act charges still carry a potential of up to four years. This isn't a game, and those talking to the Police or the media are risking the liberty of those they claim to call friends. The coercive arm of the state arrived on our doorsteps – and will potentially use the information gathered for many years to come. Inviting a cop in for a cup of tea undermines the good work you and many others have been doing, and can put waste to organising that has taken months or years of effort to do.
At the end of the day, it comes down to a simple question of where you stand. Do you stand with those fighting for justice and liberty, or with those who seek to repress it? If you stand with the former, then it should be second nature that we do not do anything to help those who stand with the latter. One of the lessons learnt since October 15th is a very simple one, one of who can be trusted, and of who breaks trust placed in them. It would do us all well to remember that.
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Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
This reminds me of stories told during my childhood of when an Irishman was picked up for drunkeness by the police he had no id on him and uttered not a peep during his 24hrs in the cells.
The cops let him on his way a little more sober but certainly none the wiser as to who they had in their cells.
This behaviour would require quite a mind shift in at least part of the population and would indicate an expectation of brutality continuing on behalf of the authorities.
As everything E is able to be traced with great ease think twice about what you write.
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
Great advice Asher. I have both the images below printed out and posted on my wall. I’d also like to remind people that they can’t say anything to the cops and media - who are never our friends because their aims are completely contrary to ours - if they don’t know anything. Before you have a conversation about something, ask yourself, do I need to know this? Does this person need to know about this?
http://www.mobgenworld.com/viral/attachments/Eh.jpg
http://www.crimethinc.com/tools/downloads/pdfs/dont_talk_to.pdf
I hope that activists remind themselves that they operate in a system that is hostile to their aims, and need to behave accordingly.
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
Another great post Asher. I'm still to learn one lesson that my Dad tried to teach me:
"It is better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
great article
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
Kia ora
I absolutely agree about talking to police. But the media is a bit more complicated, especially for those of us who consider ourselves both activists *and* media. I am reminded of the discussion at a Greens AGM about whether I should be allowed to stay for parts of the meeting that were open to non-party eco-activists, but closed to the media.
The question then was does Indymedia count as media? Does Scoop, whose coverage of the Oct 15 arrests and the aftermath has been sympathetic, count as media? Does the Listener journalist, who is an old friend of the some of the arrestees, count as media? Did my comments to the Capital Times, which resulted in a sympathetic article about activism in Poneke, fall foul of Asher's suggestion not to talk to the media?
Strypey
Re: Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our
Hey Strypey,
I never said don't talk to the media at all - hell, I did some media interviews for local solidarity group stuff (and an interview with an Aussie anarchist magazine).
There were/are some very valid reasons to be talking to the media on this, no doubt. What I want to make perfectly clear though is the difference between using the media and being used by them, and, more importantly, between using the media to raise issues of importance (for example, some of the stuff about Tuhoe history that has come out, or discussions around the militarisation of the Police) and talking to the media about the specifics of these cases.
People have said things to the media which could be used in court against those who they claim are their friends. People have said things to the media to try to show the innocence of some of the accused (their friends) by selling out others of the accused (who, one assumes, they don't know). This sort of thing is disgusting, and those who do it should have no part to play in our communities.
Re: Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our
well said strypey
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
the evidence to date , after the removal of media hype and anti-establishment bullshit, is that some of the 17 detainee's if not all, were in vovled in criminal activities that crossed the line of expected civilized behaviour. it is against the law for a civilized citizen to threaten another with murder, it is against the law to be in possesion of unlicenced firearms and excessive ammunition. if the detainees have a lilly white record, then during a trial of their peers they have nothing to fear as they will be aquitted.
I am annoyed that certain citizens of nz, feel that the only way that they can get their just deserts is by taking it at the end of a gun.
Please be warned that those citizens who would use a gun to settle past grieviances , nzérs as a whole are a laid race, very easy going when at peace, but when aroused to full anger and fury, we are the most adaptiable and feroucious of fighters, prepared and willing to accept any cost or causualty to protect our country, religious beliefs, democracy and way of life.
Do not threaten us, do not take up the gun and for god sakes get over yourselves.
the only thing hindering you in achieving success in to days society is the god damn chip on your shoulder about greiviance that are being sorted out in the approprate places, the courts.
whitey can't go home to europe because we aren't europeans we're nzérs. yet used to that fact, get used to the fact that nz to day is not nz of the 18th century, move on and look to the future, not backwards to the past.
things are changing slowly and surely.
yes your not riding around in a rolls and living in remurea, but then neither am i!
work hard, continue your education, retrain, get that higher paid job,save your pennies, buy your stake in nz, just like the rest of us do.
if you sit on your ass, on the dole, bleating about hard up you are then fuck all is ever going to happen is'nt it.
if you steal from whitey and get caught, then you haven't got an excuse to complain about what happens to you, have you.
the key to success in the 21st century is what you make of your opportunities, if you do nothing you get nothing. if you work hard and train hard you getsomewhere. if you spend all your cash then you go broke.
it doesn't matter whether your a maori, a samoan, a honkey, an asian, an indian, a muslim etc, make the most of your opportunities, dont expect others to give it to you.
Ideological Internalisation
"the key to success in the 21st century is what you make of your opportunities, if you do nothing you get nothing. if you work hard and train hard you getsomewhere. if you spend all your cash then you go broke."
My friend: your mind has been corrupted by an engrained ideology. Ideological thought is that which is unconscious of its origins in productive life.
This is precisely what the capitalist system has trained minds such as yours and mine to think. Such ideology has been effected by capitalist institutions such as mass media as a potent way of obscuring the real cause of inequality (i.e. capitalist social relations).
Unfortunately this system - one designed solely to promote the extraction of surplus-value from labour power - is constructed so that those who "work hard" will not "get somewhere" but will "work hard" until their labour power has lost its use and vitality.
The solution you offer to the majority of us at the bottom of the capitalist ladder reflects the degree to which you have internalised capitalist values.
For example you write "work hard, continue your education, retrain, get that higher paid job,save your pennies, buy your stake in nz, just like the rest of us do." The "solution" you provide is ideological and has as its agenda (conscious or no) the preservation of capitalist social relations.
You appear to presume the autonomy of the legal institutions. For example you write "the only thing hindering you in achieving success in to days society is the god damn chip on your shoulder about greiviance that are being sorted out in the approprate places, the courts." Yet the "courts" are also the domain of capitalist production relations and reflect the objective of preserving such.
Finally, you appear to mistake the word "laid" for the word "apathetic" when you write "nzérs as a whole are a laid race, very easy going when at peace..." New Zealanders are about as "laid" back as an American Sargeant in Iraq. However, New Zealanders are certainly apathetic and it is such apathy I am convinced which has and will continue to inspire courageous grass-roots movements across the country to challenge the laws that ultimately preserve inequality.
I urge you and others that have internalised the ideology of the status quo to seriously ask yourselves where these thoughts that we tell ourselves originally come from. If it was our parents that instilled these values, we need not hate them in order to change ourselves but rather we need to see them as others as produced by a tremendously effective and penetrating ideology.
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
You might want to skip the comment above - no one has been charged with murder or attempted murder - so you have a few factual difficulties there.
Most would say issues regarding Maori & Pakeha were't too much of an issue in the 18th C or 1700s. A few pesky whalers but maybe you're thinking of the 19th C and the Declaration of Independence or Treaty of Waitangi.
Either way you don't know what you are rambling on about - how about you read a book.
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
hard work gets most of us nowhere. 70 or 80 % of most nations are working class and regardless of how hard they work cannot all be absorbed into the 20% middle class nor the 10 or 15 % ruling class.
they win if they keep us chasing after a better life which is simply not on offer for most of us. we need to be aware that we are being used and exploited to benefit the rich. we need to be realistic. our children will mostly have a worse standard of living than we have had. trickle-down economics are lies. stop believing the blatant mistruths about things being basically fair if you just work hard. the only thing you can be assured of if you work hard is that someone else will reap the reward.
we cannot all be chiefs in this privilege system we have. most people get close to the minimum wage and some people are paid a lot more than that to be wardens for the rest of us slaves.
there is no workable social solution for significantly improving the situation for most people besides revolution. get the basics right. abolish inequality as this is what spawns all the social problems we face.
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
"Hard work never killed anyone."
"Hard work will make you rich."
Two more capitalist myths perpetrated by the ruling class, who don't do any real work.
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
you liberal/socialistic/communistic claptrap is sooooooooooo pre1990's
i would have thought that you lot had got over yourselves with the collapse of communisium.
it failed because it went against basic human nature, we are all greedy buggers'who want more for less.
people have tried social engineering in the past and it does not work.
the only thing tht does work is to better yourself.
Re: Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our
1. Liberalism, socialism and communism are not the same thing.
2. Most people on the Left celebrated when USSR 'Communism' (not 'communisium') collapsed as it was a totalitarian reactionary ideology that emerged when Stalin and his political allies betrayed everything that the Russian Revolution was about.
3. Human nature is about collective solidarity and community, not greed.
4. The main thing work does is to better the pockets of the Capitalism Class through the exploitation of your labour.
Re: Where do you stand? Shutting the fuck up to not risk our fre
I was used on TV saying i was glad people were released. It was framed in the usual bullshit way and i wasn't particularly stoked afterwards but the fact someone arrested saw that in prison meant something (whether they took it warmly or saw it as stupid)
the way i heard about the raids the morning they happened was over national radio where the story was read out in a bit of a piss-taking tone and they quoted someone from 128 describing the police taking avocados and clothes etc as evidence.
But i agree, not talking is always better. Usually at an action if you get the oppurtunity to clearly articulate yourself using sound bites and contextualizing the situation, its unlikely to get used.