Puget Sound Prisoner Support is a Seattle-based anarchist anti-repression collective which has been active in the Pacific Northwest since 2015. Our primary aim is to help radicals in the Seattle area resist repression from the police and courts while providing support for activists subjected to incarceration. We offer jail support trainings for affinity groups and protest organizers, help people find lawyers, offer guidance while navigating the legal system, and organize a monthly prisoner letter writing night in Seattle which has been running for almost 10 years. Additionally, PSPS also issues community warnings when State agents are seeking information about ongoing organizing in the Pacific Northwest.
In late August, we were contacted via email (psps@riseup.net) by an individual stating that the Puget Sound Joint Terrorism Task Force (an arm of the FBI) had attempted to contact them and another activist by leaving business cards at their residence, as well as the residences of both of their parents – one of which in another state. After meeting with this person, we learned several things that are of importance for the Pacific Northwest radical community.
In our conversation with this person, we learned that the other individual secured a lawyer and agreed to a meeting with an FBI agent. We were told that at this meeting the FBI agent asked about protests against Cop City Lacey as well as Palestine solidarity protests. The FBI agent also asked about different Telegram channels and Signal groups.
While it can be tempting to speculate on intentions and investigations, it is more important that we stick to information that we know. What we know is that the FBI is investigating protests against Cop City Lacey, as well as protests and political action in solidarity with Palestine and Atlanta. We also know that one individual sat down with their lawyer and the FBI.
As a community-facing anti-repression organization, we applaud the original individual’s choice to alert us to FBI attempts to intimidate and squeeze information out of each other. State structures attempting to repress our movements succeed when we stay silent in the face of it. Unity and solidarity are our greatest strengths at successfully resisting their attempts to coerce and control our movements. This often looks like a wall of silence when FBI agents knock on doors seeking information, and refusing to meet with them. While it may feel intimidating, it is crucial to you and your comrades’ safety that you not answer questions from Federal Agents or any other cops. It is perfectly legal to just shut the door when they come knocking. There is nothing to be gained and everything to lose by sharing information with agents.
Resistance to repression also looks like alerting the community at large so that our friends and comrades are not surprised when an FBI agent inevitably comes knocking. If you are contacted by the FBI or any other state or federal agency we ask that you make that communication public. The actions of the state do not need to remain secret and we are all safer if they are communicated broadly.
Lastly, we want to make sure to state that you never have to meet with an FBI agent. We urge all radicals to refuse to speak with any FBI agent or law enforcement investigator, even in the company of your lawyer. If your lawyer is urging you to speak with an FBI agent and cooperate with their investigation, you can and should say no and consider finding another lawyer. Often, non-radical or non-movement lawyers do not understand the added importance of refusing to cooperate because their imperative is to keep you safe as their client and they are not always thinking about the safety of our broader community. Your lawyer works for you and if you do not want to throw your comrades under the bus you don’t have to. You can contact us directly, or the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild to find options for representation – not all lawyers are the same so please do your homework! The National Lawyers Guild maintains a federal defense hotline to contact if you are approached by a federal agency: massdef@nlg.org or (212) 279-2811.
If you or someone you know has been contacted by the FBI in the Pacific Northwest regarding protest activities, we strongly urge to contact us at psps@riseup.net.
These reports signaled the City’s intent to acquire three separate technologies: Acoustic Gunshot Location Systems (AGLS), CCTV cameras, and Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) software. While these reports are incredibly vague, those of us who have lived in Seattle for long enough can read between the lines.
The city claims these technologies will be targeting “gun violence, human trafficking, and persistent felony crime […] concentrated at specific geographic places”, beginning in the Chinatown-International District, Aurora, Downtown, and Belltown.
The City intends to combine these three separate technologies into a surveillance network that syncs CCTV footage with police location, 911 calls, and incident records. A closer look at these reports will show why we should all be concerned about the City’s impending acquisition of these technologies.
Acoustic Gunshot Location System (AGLS)
Anyone aware of Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell knows that he has been a big proponent of ShotSpotter. Harrell has been pushing the technology for the past 10 years, at least as long as the company has been donating to his campaign funds.
Shotspotter is probably the most well-known of a class of systems the City is calling Acoustic Gunshot Location Systems (AGLS). As written in the SIR, AGLS use “microphones placed in a defined geographic area that are programmed to detect the sound of gunshots and alert police and 9-1-1 when and where the incident has taken place.” In other words, these systems dispatch police and EMS to locations of loud noises it classifies as gunshots.
These systems mostly use a combination of machine learning algorithms and human analysts to evaluate whether the loud noises its microphones pick up are actual gunfire or simply car backfires, fireworks, or other sounds. Training materials for ShotSpotter shows that its analysts have broad discretion in how they classify recordings.
Regarding privacy in public areas, the report claims that “audio recordings are only made if a sufficiently loud enough audio signal is detected (around 120 decibels)”. It continues, “[i]n the event that human conversation is inadvertently collected (for example, screaming that rises above 120 dB), SPD will work with the AGLS vendor to have those audio files and associated locations deleted from the system.”
One sentence in the report is key:
While the current literature on AGLS does not support its efficacy as a means to improve the speed and quality of police response, nor a means of enhanced reporting, no research to date has addressed the application of AGLS in the context in which SPD intends to deploy it as a component of a broader forensic tool to support criminal investigations. For that reason, the existing research on AGLS alone is not helpful.
To break this down, the City is preemptively admitting that it is aware of themanyreports on AGLS showing that these technologies do not help police respond to gun-related incidents. Instead, it wants to use AGLS as a means to alert police of and collect forensic data on possible gunfire events.
Yet, past incidents already show how AGLS are (mis-)used by police as a “forensic tool”. Cases in both Chicago and Rochester show that alerts were reclassified as gunshots by analysts after ShotSpotter was contacted by police.
As an alerting system, ShotSpotter exacerbates police violence by sending police on high alert into our neighborhoods. A 2021 report by the Chicago Office of Inspector General showed that “evidence of a gun-related crime” was only found in “9.1% of CPD responses to ShotSpotter alerts”.
But for each of the other 90.9% of alerts, police are still dispatched. A video from 2023 showed a heavy SPD response to a 911 caller alleging shots fired, showing officers pointing their rifles toward an unarmed man in crisis. Officers finally left after a tense standoff with intervening community members. Every false positive is another possibly deadly encounter.
In Chicago, a ShotSpotter alert has already led to an officer shooting and killing 13-year-old Adam Toledo in 2021.
CCTV Cameras and Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC)
Just as concerning though, are the other two technologies the City is requesting: CCTV cameras and Real-Time Crime Center (RTCC) software.
The SIR proposes to not just install city-owned CCTV cameras, but also to allow “privately-owned security systems […] to voluntarily share video of storefronts and areas where the public has access” with the City. This would be a massive expansion of police surveillance, giving police potentially real-time surveillance video from any/every business concerned with petty theft or houseless people.
These feeds would then be integrated into Real-Time Crime Center software, which “provides a centralized location for real-time information and analysis” and “integrates dispatch, camera, officer location, gunshot detection, 911 calls, records management systems, and other information into one ‘pane of glass’ (a single view).”
Additionally, the RTCC software for CCTV cameras “can also provide in-application video analytics that use machine-learned algorithms to analyze camera feeds and, using object recognition, locate specific items, people based on clothing, or vehicles based on description”.
Consider Fusus, the RTCC software that most closely matches the capabilities laid out in the SIR. (Other RTCC products by Genetec and Flock support most of the same basic features)
The Fusus camera registry allows business owners and community members to grant varying levels of access to privately-owned cameras, including Ring doorbells. Depending on the level of access granted, camera feeds can be “shared all the time, automatically activated by a trigger, or only on emergency alert.” So in many cases, instead of having to get a warrant or ask camera owners to send over video files, police will have perpetual live access to video from participating cameras.
Training materials from the Atlanta Police Department show the ability to search camera footage for vehicles (by type, make, color, etc), people (by gender, clothing color, whether the person is wearing a hat or bag, etc). Keep in mind that these criteria will only continue to develop as time goes on. Users can also choose to be notified whenever any person or vehicle matching the criteria are detected in the search area.
Fusus also has the ability to turn every camera into a license plate reader. This would continue the massive ALPR expansion that was proposed in December. Along with the alarming amount of information that can be inferred from aggregating a person’s travel patterns, experts worry about the dangers ALPRs pose to immigrants and people seeking reproductive care.
The software can also integrate with an ever-expanding list of third-party police technologies such as ShotSpotter to stockpile even more data.
Aside from the enormous incursions on privacy these technologies would bring, you would be hard-pressed find a worse group of people to give this power to than the Seattle Police Department. In just the past five years, one officer was fired for using internal police data to try to get a date, while another was fired for using police databases to stalk his ex-girlfriend. This isn’t to mention the multipledomesticviolence investigations into officers in the department.
Conclusion
Taken together, these technologies paint a picture, not of a safer city, but of a compassion-less city dictated by economics under the eye of unblinking cameras.
We oppose any and all forms of police surveillance, urge those living in Seattle to question their desires for “public safety” and interrogate what that actually means, and to stand in solidarity with our marginalized neighbors who will surely be the targets of this new form of police terror.
On Friday, November 3rd two FBI agents visited a house in Olympia, Washington. They asked for a specific person, but the person who answered the door refused to talk to them and turned them away.
The FBI are always and forever our enemies. They are liars and manipulators. Never let them in without a warrant. You have no legal obligation to speak to them. Never ever speak to FBI agents, or any other cops, unless it is to get a business card, to tell them to leave, or that they can talk to your lawyer.
This information was compiled from public arrest documents regarding incidents in the Seattle area and does not involve sensitive or personal information beyond names already made public by the state. We provide our observations of these cases to highlight the dangers of not following security practices, as well as to inform the community that one of the defendants has cooperated with the authorities.
We’re presenting this information so that people may understand the severity of recent cases as well as how the state builds cases against people involved in social justice movements. We do not intend to shame anyone for bad security practices, outside of direct cooperation with the state. We are simply presenting ways to keep communities better informed and guidelines to protect each other from state repression.
Snitches and Sleuths
This situation involves 3 criminal investigations, which took place at both the state and the federal level. The known defendants are: Jacob Greenberg, Danielle McMillan, and Justin Moore. There are several other people mentioned in the documents who are identified as Suspects 3-5; Conspirators 3 and 4 in the state and federal documents respectively. We do not know, and do not want to know, the identities of these individuals and have nothing to add to this write-up besides what was available in law enforcement compiled documents.
It is impossible for us to know how widespread this investigation is. We became aware of it in September 2020 with the arrests of Jacob Greenberg and Danielle McMillan. Neither of these individuals have gone to trial at this point, so all accusations made by the state are unproven allegations. We discuss Greenberg’s case because it allows us to identify McMillan as the cooperating defendant in Moore’s case, as we have detailed below.
On October 16th 2020, the King County Prosecutor filed charges against Greenberg and McMillan. Greenberg was charged with:
Reckless Burning in the First Degree for an alleged barricade fire on 11th and Pine on September 26th;
Assault in the First Degree for an alleged baseball bat attack on a police officer outside the East Precinct on September 23rd;
Attempted Arson in the First Degree for an alleged Molotov cocktail attack on the East Precinct on September 1st.
McMillan was charged with:
Attempted Arson in the First Degree for the September 1st attack.
The charging documents against Greenberg and McMillan detail exact movements of a black bloc that formed during a protest on the night of Sept 1st. The document specifically notes the amount of time that officers were able to surveil the crowd while it grew in size. It notes that S1 (suspect 1) was wearing distinctive black clothing and describes in detail what this individual was wearing, it does the same for S2. S1 is later identified as Jacob Greenberg and S2 as Danielle McMillan. Throughout the description of the event, identifying clothing is used to track the suspects (S1 through S5) through the crowd for the duration of the event. S3, S4, and S5 are never identified by name but are addressed as being in connection to the events that led to the criminal charges for Greenberg/S1 and McMillan/S2.
From the charging documents:
Identifying the Suspects
Before diving into this, a word about social media rumors that the state is lying about all/most of this: It’s important to know that the police lie, and the prosecutor’s office lies too. They make up stuff all the time, and they have each other’s back when they do. When we have encountered and could prove that the state was lying, it was never to this degree or this amount of fabricated evidence. It is an unfortunate reality that after reading possibly hundreds of charging documents from the 2020 uprising cases around the country, the conversations detailed in these documents do not seem outlandish or inconceivable. That being said, it’s impossible to know if any of the evidence they are bringing against these individuals is false, and if it is, which specific parts. So, we are presenting it to you here as it was presented by the state. Speculation and rumors about the veracity of individual claims is generally an unsafe and ill-advised practice.
According to public documents, on the night of September 23rd a phone was recovered by SPD after an attack on an SPD officer outside the East Precinct. On September 26th, Jacob Greenberg was arrested at 11th and Pine for allegedly pouring lighter fluid on a burning barricade. Another phone was recovered from Greenberg during that arrest. Search warrants obtained by SPD for both of those phones showed they had the same phone number. Much, if not all of the following investigation is based on what was found on those two phones.
On one of these phones there are lengthy Signal and Facebook messenger conversations with S2, later identified as Danielle McMillan. According to SPD, the phone records go back only until August 31st, which could mean that Greenberg and McMillan were newly acquainted. This is an inference, but one that is backed up by some of the banter between them shown in the charging documents.
In these conversations Greenberg and McMillan discuss at length the events for which they were later arrested. While McMillan’s name is not recorded in her Signal profile, a picture of her wearing a black mask is. According to the document, SPD was able to single out McMillan in surveillance footage of a Molotov attack on the East Precinct because she detailed her actions in text messages with Greenberg. In these messages the two discuss alleged attacks on SPOG for a planned Labor Day march.
SPD used a few different angles to identify McMillan. One was the explicitness with which she detailed her movements with Greenberg both on that night and other nights. One of the first things that SPD used (according to them) was a few messages that indicated what McMillan might do for work and then a facebook messenger conversation between the two from Sept 21st-25th. The FB messenger conversation is with an account for “Danielle McMillan” where they discuss McMillan not being able to go to demos for a little bit because of being sick. The two also openly discuss the first phone that Greenberg lost on September 23rd and how to “lock down” accounts to stay safe.
By using information from McMillan’s FB profile, SPD was able to request her information from Department of Licensing as to her last registered address and vehicle. That vehicle, which was registered to McMillan, was seen in the neighborhood on the night of the Molotov attack, according to SPD. They were able to locate and surveil her vehicle while in the area of Cal Anderson Park, even documenting when and to where the vehicle was moved over the evening. These movements aligned with a conversation between McMillan and Greenberg where she discusses moving the car because of police presence. This information verifies that SPD is using sophisticated yet increasingly common surveillance tools to monitor the movements of individuals and vehicles. We have articulated how your phone can be used against you if you are participating in protest culture, this is a good moment to understand that your car can be as well.
The final piece of information regarding the identity of S2 as McMillan is a public Instagram account located by SPD in October last year that is the professional account of a real estate agent named Danielle McMillan with the phone number posted. That number is the same as the one being used to communicate with Greenberg over Signal.
Take-Aways
A large amount has already been written about phone security, so we can link to separate articles here and here. Phone security has nothing to do with supposed illegal activity; phone security is something that everyone should be practicing at all times. This investigation shows that easily obtained search warrants for phones allow the police, state and federal, access to your vast amounts of private information. While there are ways to “lock your phone down”, our advice is to, on top of technical security methods, always live under the adage “if you don’t want it read back to you in court, do not send it in a text message”. Leave your phone at home if you’re participating in demonstrations and don’t discuss things that could seem sensitive or private over the phone even if you’re using a secure messaging application like Signal.
We have no reason to believe that the Signal messaging that was being used on Greenberg’s phones failed, or in some way did not grant the security it says it provides. Signal is only as useful as you are careful; when a state or federal law enforcement agency physically has a phone it is easy for them to gain access to everything that is on that phone, including unsecured browsing and app history. If the messages are still on your phone, sending them through Signal means nothing. The alleged text discussions that the government documents cite may not have been available if disappearing messages were utilized. This is why we stress the importance of your personal privacy and security being looked at as a holistic entity. No single action will keep you “safe” and your information private. Rather we want to encourage the cultivation of a security culture where we support each other in using safer practices all the time.
Security is not a retroactive act, whether you are trying to stop your messages about protest activity being read by the government, or a fascist from exposing your identity. Social media and phone security cannot be fully achieved after a breach has happened-it is a preemptive and consistent activity. There are security lessons here for everyone, whether or not you are taking direct action. We are not celebrating or encouraging anyone to break the law. Rather, we want the community to be safe and smart. It is often impossible to know what the state will consider to be incriminating, either of you or of someone you know.
Federal Case
On November 23rd 2021, the US Attorney’s office for the Federal District of Western Washington filed a criminal charge against Justin Moore of Renton, WA. He was charged with 1 count of Unlawful Possession of Destructive Devices stemming from his alleged involvement with bringing a case of Molotov cocktails to a demonstration at Seattle Police Officers’ Guild (SPOG), on Labor day (Sept 7th) 2020.
The charging document for Justin Moore involves several “conspirators” (Listed in the document as Conspirators 1 – 4). C1 is Jacob Greenberg and C2 is Danielle McMillan. There are multiple conversations found through the subpoenaed phones where C1 and C2 discuss possible actions with 2 other people who are identified as being known to C1/Greenberg and C2/McMillan through Instagram accounts. Two accounts in particular are highlighted and enter into the document as C3 and C4. They are not identified in the document, but almost certainly the identity of these individuals is known to investigators, or soon will be.
Social media is one of the easiest and most common ways for a host of bad actors to access your identification. Whether it is the police or fascists, social media is a weak link in almost everyone’s privacy plans. No matter how well you think your accounts are “locked down,” there are a myriad of ways for investigators to ascertain your identity. The best way for someone to keep their information private from those who would wish to harm them is to not use social media at all. For some this may feel like an impossible task. But we ask that you consider the consequences when deciding to engage in online banter about your politics or activities both personal and professional.
Although identified in federal charging documents only as C1, we know C1 is Greenberg because C1 is identified as being arrested on September 26th for setting a dumpster on fire and losing a phone on September 23rd while allegedly assaulting an SPD officer. C2 is easily identified as McMillan because the conversations detailed in the federal document directly match those from the state case against Greenberg, which explicitly name McMillan. This is a good example of how investigations can and do overlap.
Conversation between McMillan(Still identified as Mariel) and Greenberg from state charging documents.Conversation between Conspirators 1 and 2 in federal charging document.
According to the federal documents, before the Labor Day demonstration, C1/Greenberg, C2/McMillan along with C3 and C4 discussed detailed plans via text message for the event, including procuring supplies and information. C3 and C4 have not been identified in the documents (we do not know, and we do not want to know who they are, or who anyone suspects they are). On the day of the demonstration, SPD and federal investigators used a few different surveillance methods to gather information on the crowd. They specifically mention that livestreams were important to their investigation and name RebellionBaby and Malcontent Tango in the document. Malcontent Tango screenshots reoccur in the document many times. Besides these photos, SPD and FBI agents were monitoring the crowd using audio and video surveillance recorded by undercover officers. Officers were among the crowd, and observing the crowd from remote locations.
The federal charging document states that SPD found the container of Molotov cocktails on the ground after the event and used their own documentation and livestream footage to follow the person carrying the container throughout the event. Two notable moments were a picture obtained by what we suspect was an undercover SPD officer in the crowd of someone alleged to be Moore, identified by a piece of red clothing sticking out from under his sweatshirt. This is later used in the document to match with Malcontent News’ livestream of people in Judkins Park after the event had concluded. The livestream footage is watermarked with Malcontent News’ logo, and allegedly shows protest participants hanging out after the conclusion of the event.
Theoretically, none of this specific surveillance had led to the identification of Moore. But it still ended up being deeply important to the criminal case once the feds had identified Moore. That identification came from someone in the charging document referred to as Witness 1, Moore’s roommate in late 2020, possibly into 2021. Witness 1 and Moore had a domestic dispute on May 28th 2021, and Renton PD was called to the residence. It was then that Witness1 informed responding police that Moore was involved in the SPOG demo and many other events. Witness1 also identifies Moore as “Potato.” Nicknames have become popular in the protest scene since the beginning of the 2020 uprising, but we want to remind people that nicknames provide zero security when someone also knows your legal/dead name, or when everyone knows you by the same nickname. After the Renton police got this information from Witness1, they alerted the FBI.
The FBI served a search warrant on the residence and a vehicle alleged to belong to Moore a month later in June 2021. As far as we are aware, neither Moore nor Witness1 attempted to make this raid known to the broader community. Failing to alert the community of attempts to investigate people in the movement, or those formerly in the movement, leaves those people isolated and the bigger community in the dark. We implore everyone to make any and all attempts to investigate a crime, by either state or federal law enforcement, known to the broader radical community. This means doing more than vague social media posts or twitter threads, and is one of the things that we as an anti-repression group aim to facilitate. Even if someone has fallen out of favor with the bigger scene, knowing they are being investigated is a safety precaution for everyone involved, currently or previously. Silence and isolation are our enemies in the fight against state repression.
Bad-Jacketing
In the days following the Labor Day SPOG rally, social media was full of people attempting to identify someone seen in footage wearing brown gloves and carrying alleged incendiary devices, claiming they were a cop. Now, Justin Moore is accused by the state of having worn brown gloves and bringing Molotovs to the Labor Day SPOG demonstration. The theory that this person was a cop was offered with little to no basis outside of supposed actions the person with brown gloves did, or the way they looked in a photo, and resulted in heightened attention to this individual and their possible identity. While it is unlikely this was decisive in helping the authorities build a case against Justin Moore, we think it is important to make a note about these types of accusations. Accusing someone of being a cop, informant or snitch is a grave declaration and should be done with the utmost sincerity and seriousness. When significant proof exists that someone is working with the authorities against social movements it is important to come forward with the evidence, as we have attempted to do here. Calling out dangerous or predatory behavior is very important, especially in the moment, but we can and should address those behavioral issues without resorting to accusations of state involvement. We would also like to point out that there is substantial and detailed undercover surveillance from inside the demonstration in this charging document, so the after-the-fact accusations of the person in the video being a plant or a cop were not successful in keeping anyone safer that day, today, or any day in between.
This does not mean that the actions of others inside the movement do not have the capacity to harm both individuals or communities at large, but that labeling those actions as being committed by snitches or cops without serious and well-documented proof is harmful to protest communities. Many with experience in radical movements call this type of accusatory behavior “bad jacketing” and recognize that it can help the police and FBI repress us by sowing distrust and suspicion. The FBI used unsubstantiated accusations about participants in social movements as a way to sow distrust as part of its COINTELPRO campaign. A safer tool for dealing with suspicious or inappropriate behavior is to name the behavior rather than make an accusation that the suspicious person is a cop. For more information about the history of “bad jacketing” we encourage you to read this piece: https://twincitiesgdc.org/badjacketing/
Snitching
The federal document goes on to say that C2/McMillan met with federal investigators three separate times over the course of Fall 2021. It states that “Conspirator 2 provided information in hopes of obtaining consideration as to a pending charge of Attempted Arson in the First Degree in King County Superior Court and/or as to potential federal charges.” This backs up the assertion that C2 is McMillan, as this is the state charge she is facing from the alleged Molotov attack on the East Precinct mentioned above. C2/McMillan identified herself, as well as C1, C3, C4 and Moore at the demonstration at SPOG in photos shown to her at meetings with federal investigators.
When McMIllan was arrested in 2020, we at PSPS reached out and offered our (non-legal) resources to help her through her court battle, as we do with all defendants that we can establish contact with. We never did any public support for McMillan, but we internally gathered funds and resources for her after she outlined the costs of losing her job, having to move, and finding legal counsel. After that our interactions with McMillan were brief, and we never provided more direct support besides an encouraging email as she moved through her legal process. When we read the federal charging document for Moore we believed that C2 was McMillan, but reached out to her in an effort to show good faith and the possibility that we were wrong, or that the prosecution had misconstrued her involvement. Accusing someone of cooperation, especially of this magnitude is a very big deal and we wanted to reach out to her before making a public statement. McMillan responded to our request to talk by directing all further communication through her lawyer.
Snitching, or cooperation, is one of the biggest threats to radical and revolutionary communities. It tears at the very fabric of one of the core tenets that holds us all together — trust. For this reason we as an anti-repression collective and as part of a larger ecology of anti-state movements stand by the decision to never offer support or comfort for those who decide to turn on their friends and comrades to save themselves. The forces that can be brought down on someone as the state closes in can be overwhelming, and that is one of the reasons we try to contact all defendants before that pressure has come to pass and offer support and solidarity. It is our hope that knowing that people have your back will help those wavering under the weight of federal and state investigators, that targets of state repression will be buoyed by that support and stick to the ethics that keep the broader community safe. But, once someone has made the decision to cooperate, they must live with that decision and be cut off from our support. It is a heartbreaking reality of the upper hand that law enforcement can gain when investigating resistance communities and we hope to continue to fight against it with all our might.
Thank you for continuing to support us through the years so that we may support you all if and when the time comes that you need it, let’s hope you never do.
In solidarity, the Puget Sound Prisoner Support Collective.
PSPS (@) riseup (dot) net
@PugetSupport on twitter
There have been reports of at least two attempts by the FBI to make contact with people in the Seattle community this past week. These attempts at repression can be challenged by our collective refusal to speak to law enforcement.
Do not talk to the FBI or any other law enforcement agencies that may approach you. If you are contacted, reach out to the NLG hotline at (206) OK TRY ME or email Puget Sound Prisoner Support at psps(at)riseup(dot)net.
“FBI visits are scary and stressful and disruptive. All this can have a serious chilling effect on movement activity.” We interviewed our legal correspondent about what you need to know if an FBI agent visits you at home, work, or on the street. https://t.co/x2kHPcb9wo
Puget Sound Prisoner Support (PSPS) is an anti-repression collective based in Seattle. For 5+ years we have provided jail and legal support for people who have been arrested at protests and demonstrations. We walk people through the legal procedure of arrest, court proceedings, bail if necessary, getting in touch with a lawyer also if necessary, and in general help people understand a confusing legal system. We do not provide legal support for people who get arrested for civil disobedience; rather, we provide an “emergency service” for when participants of a protest or demonstration get arrested. We offer a safety net for people to land in when the unexpected happens and things go wrong. We’ve supported friends and strangers alike, bailed people out, showed up at court proceedings throughout trials, and helped with fundraising to cover legal costs. Our major caveat is that we do not offer support to anyone who would endanger our communities by way of cooperating with the police, the courts or any other governing agency. No snitching, plain and simple.
The nature of our work has changed over the last 5 years as the anarchist and radical milieus have shifted in the Seattle area. We worked primarily by word of mouth up until very recently. Frankly, we used to know enough of the crews and they knew us that we didn’t need to ’advertise.’ Recently, we found that the newer formations of more formal organizations and the accompanying growing radical left meant that we needed to more broadly put ourselves out there as a resource. Hence the new @pugetsupport twitter and increased public engagement. A lot of the more formal crews and groups in the area have their own jail support structures, and we deeply applaud this. Our work has almost always focused on helping unconnected, newer or unaffiliated people stay out of legal trouble by not being alone through the process. Cops, District Attorneys and the feds love to focus on people that they think might be more peripherally involved and therefore less invested, experienced and more susceptible to pressure. We are primarily here for those folks.
The FBI in particular has a long and active history of targeting anarchists in the Pacific Northwest. We are hoping to create some workshops and open events about the history of the use of the Grand Jury to target anarchists soon. We recently realized that people who are newer to the area or the scene may not be aware of this history of repression, or our collective response to it. Our aim is to reinvigorate some of the security culture that was built in that time, and to learn from the wins and losses of that older movement. With that, we would like to address what we see as a deep necessity to be open and transparent about investigations that are happening in our area, including visits from the FBI or other federal agencies. In the meantime, here is a zine and resource list on Grand Juries.
Every instance of state surveillance should be viewed as a threat not just to ourselves but our networks that stretch beyond what we may think of as those who are affected. Sometimes even the smallest detail opens up bigger and broader nets for the state to cast in an attempt to try to get information. In openly tracking what is happening around door knocks and other surveillance activities, we can both foster support for those targeted and directly impacted, and allow for lessons to be passed on about how to respond if an agent is at your door, work, etc. It is from a culture of open sharing and dialogue that safer communication can come from those targeted as well, allowing them to say what happened, instead of rumors and misinformation circulating. A lack of transparency allows for possible mistrust, and also helps the state sow that same mistrust even deeper and weaken us. It is also important to track what alphabet agency is knocking (FBI, SPD, DHS, JTTF, CBP, etc.) for the purposes of at least examining where and with what the state seems to be attempting to exert power. If we see patterns or know who to watch out for, the community/milieu/whatever at large is safer than if people on the fringes are picked off one by one to try and move in on more and more individuals.
With all that in mind, here is a statement from Ezra, a member of the local community, recounting from his perspective a conversation he had with FBI and CBP agents, which we will be responding to:
Greetings comrades.
On January 2nd, 2020 I was visited by an FBI agent and a CBP agent. They arrived at my home the day after I bought a plane ticket to Sulaymaniyah, Iraq to join the YPG as an International Volunteer. In what was frankly a moment of fear I allowed them to speak with me about the intentions of my visit. I allowed them to come inside and they spoke with me about my trip for approximately half an hour, and left. Immediately afterwards, I told my comrades what happened and what was discussed. I’ll be the first to admit I should have turned them away, but I wanted to make it clear to them that I wasn’t joining ISIS or anything like that. I understand that this may damage the trust that our community has in me, and I will respect whatever consensus is reached. I hope the community will prioritize a culture of security and trust, and that the success of Antifascist, anti-capitalist struggle is maintained. You can reach out to me for any questions in regards to this before I leave.
Love and solidarity, Ezra B.
This visit was brought to our attention via a third party and not from Ezra. When we did reach out to Ezra, he was very amenable to the idea of having a sit down conversation about the visit and possible responses to it. There were several issues we found inside of our conversation that lead to the desire for a public statement. Namely, a 30 minute conversation with the FBI is a serious situation that everyone needs to know about in order to make their own decision about. Secondly, we felt that Ezra while acting in good faith, should have spoken to more than just his “comrades” about the situation. A lack of public engagement leaves large holes for possible misinformation and distrust, and leaves the rest of us in the dark about possible repression. One telling fact from his encounter is that a CBP agent was with the FBI, something we have not encountered here in the Seattle area and is good information for those doing anti-repression work or individuals currently attempting to dodge authorities.
This statement is not an attempt to chastise Ezra, but to bring to light that a person inside our community was visited by federal agents and decided for their own reasons to have a sit-down conversation with them and then neglected to inform the broader community around him. We are reproducing his statement here in an effort to dispel rumors, and give the broader community of anarchists a chance to make up their own minds about their future involvement with Ezra. We don’t know what was said inside this conversation, and we never will. We do know that non-cooperation with the state has been a long-standing mantra of the anarchist community, and that in this instance, regardless of intention, that idea was broken.
If you are visited by the FBI, JTTF, CBP or any other organ of the state repression apparatus, please let the broader community know. You do not need to out yourself or identify yourself in any way. We are all safer when a brief statement of day, approximate time, and the agencies involved are made public. Here is a link to an article from 2017 when FBI agents were knocking on peoples’ doors in Olympia, WA . PSPS is always here as a resource to help facilitate this, and anonymous posts can be easily made to pugetsoundanarchists.org. Secondly, if you are visited, please do not speak with the officers in any capacity. Close the door, walk away, say nothing and get yourself out of that situation. Contact a lawyer, us, or both and let people know what has happened. The state has a monopoly on fear, and that fear is a huge part of these interactions. Anyone who says they are not afraid when an agent knocks is lying, we all are. But we can move through that fear together, we can shoulder it among all of us and make the weight less for each of us. To do this though, we must inform each other and extend those small tendrils of trust. We are all in this together.
You can reach out to Puget Sound Prisoner Support via email at psps (at) riseup (dot) net or via twitter @PugetSupport
