Security

As animal liberation activism fights against fundaments of the exploitative, hierarchical and violent society, it will always have to face repression. The movement is being repressed every day - and someday it may be you. So be prepared. There is no need to be worried all the time or be so scared that you don't want to be active at all. You should just consider that being active might draw the police state's attention on you, so when you act, always have some security thoughts as well on your backmind. Security is a personal habit you have to work on. For example, some people encrypt all their e-mails, they are aware of the fact that phones and rooms can be bugged and conversations can be eavesdropped. Some people have high computer security standards (using TOR, PGP, TrueCrypt..) to protect their privacy against intruders. Be aware that the state has an interest to know who connects with whom, who organizes what and they want to find "leaders" within a movement. So consider your behaviour in public as well. Only give them the information about yourself which you don't mind them to have.

If you think "I have nothing to hide, everything I do is legal, so why should I waste time on security?", consider this: having some security standards doesn't mean you have something to hide. As a matter of fact, many people doing only legal stuff get imprisoned and repressed for their political activism. Security is as well self-protection as well as protection of the movement. If we want to stay able to act, we have to protect ourselves from the repression with which they try to silence us. Security is a protest against the state violating our privacy and criminalizing us. We have to face repression and do our best to protect ourselves.

For more information you find a text about computer security in the "material" section.