05/19/2015
The "ACLU of Southern California" are not our allies. They're actively helping the cops recuperate dissent into less threatening directions through extremely creepy and manipulative behavior. Read more below, especially if you might be currently sharing movement spaces with them, or considering joining movement spaces in which they play a part.
Some things to consider before you answer that call from the old "Freedom Can't Protect Itself" crowd that has been flyering all over campus for months now. Info below via On Resistance Radio: https://www.facebook.com/onresistance/posts/1588544144695945
Another take on the same subject: http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=45f22534e9ad91358069d400b&id=0e01e3ab92 .
"GET [ACLU]E:
THE ACLU AND THE LEGAL AUTHORITARIAN INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX. ACLU doesn't FTP. ACLU advises POLICE on how to MINIMIZE their BRUTALITY and APPEAR RESPONSIVE TO SOCIAL ACTIVIST discourse which UNDERMINES RESISTANCE. LEGAL ACTIVISM MEDIATES the POLICE giving them to tools to MAINTAIN LEGITIMACY when that power needs to be ABOLISHED.
Here's a set of documents which further clarify the damage that the ACLU SoCal does whenever it inserts itself into struggles between the State and communities.http://stoplapdspying.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/PRA-ACLU.Beck_.pdf . Two quick noteworthy points that even a cursory scrolling-through will reveal:
1) So the first half of this set of documents are conversations about LAPD crafting policy for its future use of drones. Look at how many times Chief Pig Mike Downing uses the phrase "I was referred to you by Peter Bibring [who is a senior staff attorney with ACLU SoCal]." Whatever your thoughts on ACLU's ostensible strategy of making overtures to pigs to ensure that they keep getting invited to the table to perform their reformist sorta-pushback (pfffff), here THEY ARE to some extent IN CONTROL OF WHO GETS TO BE AT THE TABLE IN THE FIRST PLACE. And they kept the table small at a time when there was a huge amount of LA-area organizing around drones. They were not only courting the LAPD; they were building the court and putting a moat between it and community groups: they had an active role in limiting initial policy discussions to a select group of pigs, national nonprofits, and one (non-local) academic.
2) On PDF page 14, note that Bibring's friendly overture to Downing includes references to ongoing casual meetups: "As always, I'm happy to come by your office, or meet you nearby for a cup of coffee." Thus begins a long series of communications in which Bibring eagerly solicits feedback and welcomes Pig concerns about an ordinance that he subsequently (in finished form) introduced in grassroots forums as an effective means of curbing the sprawl of the Surveillance state. And then realize that BIBRING CLAIMED THE ACLU LACKED THE TIME TO OUTREACH TO LA-AREA ANTI-SURVEILLANCE ORGS FOR FEEDBACK ON THE DRAFT ORDINANCE, and further claimed that the ordinance was crafted solely on the basis of internal statewide ACLU conversations."
(Context on point #2: the second half of this document batch, starting with Page 14 is correspondence between Peter Bibring and Chief Pig Downing about a model ordinance that the ACLU was crafting at the time, and which it has since been aggressively peddling across the State of California, couched within a report entitled "Smart Decisions on Surveillance: A Guide for Communities." Here is a counter-report which was produced after the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition was blindsided by the ACLU:http://stoplapdspying.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Coalition-Analysis-of-ACLU-Surveillance-Report.pdf . )
