The EFF's Guide to Attending a Protest
For quick reference, we've created a handy guide designed to be printed, folded, and carried in your pocket (PDF download). Now, more than ever, citizens must be able to hold those in power accountable and inspire others through the act of protest. Protecting your electronic devices and digital as...
Be mindful of local risks. In trying to end the Stop Cop City protests, the Georgia attorney general has declared all of these self-protection tactics to be criminal intent. Not bringing your phone to be tracked at the protest, or bringing a burner, is enough to get arrested in Georgia.
https://georgiarecorder.com/2024/02/12/georgia-ag-claims-not-having-a-phone-makes-you-a-criminal/
Granted, it’s just a scare tactic, and I don’t think any of this would hold up in court. But simply being arrested for something like this is enough to ruin some people’s lives.
I’m not trying to dissuade anyone at all, but I think people should know what they’re getting into. This AG has his eyes on the governor’s mansion, and he’s going completely off the rails to make a name for himself.
Thats not going to hold up in court. But, yes, police will make up reasons to illegally detain you
If you are detained and questioned by police, you have a right to remain silent, and to speak with an attorney before and during any questioning. It is best to say “I want my attorney and I choose to remain silent” and then refuse to answer questions until you have a chance to talk to a lawyer.
It should be noted that failure to identify does not fall within your right to remain silent. You will be arrested if you don't ID yourself with name and DOB. They have to be able to figure out if you're wanted to conduct their investigation. But that's the most that is required and you should probably shut up after that.
Should really be prefaced by: Don't bring your phone. Write the phone number you plan to call if arrested on your lower arm in sharpie. If for some reason you have to bring your phone, read the following.
Even if your phone is OFF, it can still track you from the towers and transmit your audio (this is documented in court cases bringing down the mob). It's built into the chips themselves, at a lower level than the operating system. Do not bring your phones to protests.
Matrix and XMPP don't hide metadata (who you're talking to, when, and how often). This is OK if your users are all on the same private server that you self-host/trust. But in practice most users will be on the Matrix equivalent of Gmail, and you'll be sending this metadata to the largest server in plaintext for every conversation involving one of those users.
I also have trouble where iOS "instant" notifications in SimpleX aren't delivered--hopefully this gets fixed.
In this case, I think it matters that you can selfhost a server under your control. And to potentially have redundant servers. Maybe even disabling federation to be sure the big ones don't get the metadata.
Also while the court ordrs have shown that Signal doesn't collect much metadata now, it does not mean it is not capable of it - which is what matters in a life-threatening situation. Like, all the traffic goes through a single point - there is still trust involved.
Some of this is good advice but I recommend evaluating every protest, having a real plan for transportation and a buddy system, and trying to be as secure as possible by default and only making exceptions when necessary.
Most of the guide is about phones and how they can leak information. The only surefire way to prevent your phone from leaking location information to show you were at a protest is to leave it at home. That should be your default. The next option is to use a burner, but you must be very careful about when you charge your burner and turn it on, as you never want it to be on near where you live or work. Cell signals can be triangulated to a few block radius. The next option is put your phone in airplane mode and turn it off. Your phone is now an emergency device, you won't turn it in at the protest unless a safety critical situation develops, such as being separated from your group by police or other right wing violence. Under no circumstances should you use your main phone to coordinate day-of at any event. If you are an organizer, use a burner to do this. This is also a reason to not use Signal for day-of coordination, as it will pressure you to either turn your burner on at home so that you can coordinate or associate your signal account with other devices traceable to your home or work. Walky talkies are best but Signal alternatives like davel suggested are also better.
Also, cover your face and wear sunglasses.
Don’t bring anything with a modem and you’re good to go.
There is a lot of valuable info in TFA beyond that: how to dress, interact with others, etc. Would be good to read the whole thing if interested.
Thank you. I don't know what I was thinking, posting this (edit: on lemmy.ml anywhere on the internet) where any useful advice will immediately be countered with "no no don't pay attention to that, I just thought about it for 3 seconds and I'm pretty sure I have a better answer than whatever the people whose whole job and organization is this." I won't repeat the mistake.
Edit: You know what, it's really unfair of me to single out lemmy.ml for this. People who are convinced they don't need to read the article and are experts already because they figured out not to bring their phone to a protest, and need to share their wisdom in the comments instead of reading the article and learning things, are common in every corner of the internet's globe I think.
I bought my transit ticket with a credit card, and they picked me up. Can I give them your number, will you be my lawyer now?
😀 signal? sure??? 🤣 🤣 🤣
What valuable criticism. 👍
More trustworthy than WhatsApp.
A lot of people are still coordinating their protest activities through Facebook. Recommending signal or matrix is a step up, full stop.