SECURITY GUIDELINES FOR MOVEMENT ACTIVISTS
 excerpted from:
 WAR AT HOME: Covert Action Against US Activists and What We Can Do About It
 Copyright (c) 1989 by Brian Glick
 Published by South End Press, 116 St. Botolph St., Boston MA 02115.  

 from PeaceNet via The NY Transfer 718-448-2358 & 718-448-2683



 GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH INFILTRATION

 1. Be careful to avoid pushing a new or
hesitant member, or one facing personal,
financial, or legal problems, to take risks
beyond what that person is ready to handle,
particularly in situations which could result in
arrest and prosecution. People in positions of
legal or other jeopardy have proven especially
vulnerable to recruitment as informers.

 2. Deal openly with the form and content of
what anyone says and does, whether the person is
a suspected agent, has emotional problems, or is
simply a sincere but naive or confused person new
to the work.

 3. Establish a process through which anyone
who suspects an infiltrator (or other covert
intervention) can express his or her fears
without scaring others. Experienced people
assigned this responsibility can do a great deal
to help a group maintain its morale and focus
while, at the same time, consolidating
information and deciding how to use it. This plan
works best when accompanied by group discussion
of the danger of paranoia, so that everyone
understands the reasons for following the
established procedure.

4. Take steps to alert other activists any time
an agent or informer admits their role or you
have a concrete and verified basis for certain
knowledge. (Make sure you have not been taken in
by a snitch jacket.) Act immediately and use
every available means, including photographs,
aliases, identifying traits, and a description of
methods of operation. In the 1960s, some agents
managed, even after their exposure in one
community, to move on and repeat their
performance in others.

 5. Be very cautious in attempting to expose
a suspected, but unadmitted, agent or informer.
The best approach depends on the nature of your
group. A close-knit, self-selecting group of
experienced activists, especially one which
contemplates illegal activity, should exclude
anyone who is not fully trusted by everyone
involved. If the stakes are high, don't be afraid
to trust your intuition.

 An open, public organization trying to reach
out and involve new people faces a very different
situation. Here, an attempted exposure carries
enormous risks. The suspect may claim to be the
victim of discrimination and may falsely finger
his or her accusers as agents. In the process,
activists may be turned against one another and
lose the mutual trust and respect which is vital
to any successful organization. New members and
potential recruits may be scared away. The
group's attention and energy may be so diverted
that it is no longer able to move effectively
toward its main goals.

 Activists who suspect infiltration of a
public political organization should carefully
evaluate alternatives to attempted exposure. The
appropriate response depends on the kind of agent
or informer you think you are dealing with.

 A suspect who seems to play a passive, or
even a constructive role may secretly be
undermining a group's work or passing information
to the FBI and police. In this situation, it
often is most productive to discreetly limit the
suspect's opportunities without making your
suspicions public. Take steps to deny access to
organizational funds, financial records, mailing
lists, office equipment, planning and security
committees, discussions of illegal activity, and
meetings that plan criminal defense strategy. Go
public if you later catch the person in the act
(but not merely with incriminating evidence which
could have been planted or forged).

 A different approach is required if the
suspect is an active disrupter or
provocateur. In this case, it is most
constructive to confront the form and content of
what the suspect says and does, without making an
issue of why he or she says or does it. Start
with a discreet private talk, since the suspect
could be merely naive or misguided. If the
harmful behavior persists, you probably will have
to take it on in an open group discussion. Plan
in advance how to limit the risk of disruption
and demoralization. If you need to exclude or
expel the suspect, be sure to inform other
activists of your decision and reasons.



 GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE

 1. Verify and double-check all arrangements for
housing, transportation, meeting rooms, and so
forth. Don't assume movement organizers are at
fault if something goes wrong.

 2. Don't believe everything you hear or read.
Check with the supposed source of the information
before acting on it. Use a neutral third party if
necessary. Personal communication among estranged
activists, however difficult or painful, could
have countered many FBI operations which proved
effective in the 1960s.

 3. When you discover bogus materials, false media
stories, or forged documents, publicly disavow
them and expose the true source, insofar as you can.

 4. When you hear a negative, confusing, or
potentially harmful rumor, don't pass it on.
Instead, discuss it with a trusted friend or with
the people in your group who are responsible for
dealing with such matters.

 5. Don't gossip about personal tensions,
rivalries, and disagreements. This just feeds and
amplifies rumors. Moreover, if you gossip where
you can be overheard, you may add to the pool of
information that the FBI and police use to divide
our movements. (Note that the CIA has the
technology to read mail without opening it and
that telephones, including pay phones, can be
tapped by a computer programmed to record
conversations in which specified words appear.)[f-133]

 6. Be sure to make time in group meetings for
open, honest discussion and resolution of
"personal" as well as "political" issues. This is
the best way to reduce tensions and hostilities
and the urge to gossip about them.

 7. Warn your parents, friends, neighbors, and
others who may be contacted by government agents.
Consider telling them what you are doing and why
before they hear the FBI's version. Provide them
with materials which explain their legal rights
and the dangers of talking with the FBI. Offer to
connect them with lawyers and support groups.



 GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH HARASSMENT THROUGH THE LEGAL SYSTEM

 1. Don't talk to the FBI, and don't let them in
without a warrant. Keep careful records of what
they say and do. Tell others that they came. (For
more detailed advice and information, see the box
on page 58.)

 2. If an activist does talk, or makes some other
honest error, explain the serious harm that could
result. Be firm, but do not ostracize a sincere
person who slips up. Isolation only weakens a
person's ability to resist. It can drive someone
out of the movement and even into the hands of
the police.

 3. If FBI or other government agents start to
harass people in your area, alert everyone to
refuse to cooperate. Warn your friends,
neighbors, parents, children, and anyone else who
might be contacted. Make sure people know what to
do and where to call for help. Get literature,
films, and other materials through the
organizations listed in the back of this book.
Set up community meetings with speakers who have
resisted similar harassment elsewhere. Contact
sympathetic reporters. Consider "Wanted" posters
with photos of the agents, or guerrilla theater
which follows them through the city streets.

 4. Organizations listed in the back can also
help resist grand jury harassment. Community
education is important, along with child care and
legal, financial, and other support for those who
protect a movement by refusing to divulge
information. If a respected activist is
subpoenaed for obviously political reasons,
consider trying to arrange for sanctuary in a
local church or synagogue.

 5. If your group engages in civil
disobedience or finds itself under intense police
pressure, start a bail fund, train some members
to deal with the legal system, and develop an
ongoing relationship with sympathetic local lawyers.

 6. If you anticipate arrest, do not carry address
books or any other materials which could help the
FBI and police.

 7. While the FBI and police are entirely capable
of fabricating criminal charges, your
non-political law violations make it easier for
them to set you up. Be careful with drugs, tax
returns, traffic tickets, and so forth. The point
is not to get paranoid, but to make a realistic
assessment based on your visibility and other
relevant circumstances.

 8. When an activist has to appear in court, make
sure he or she is not alone. The presence of
supporters is crucial for morale and can help
influence jurors.

 9. Don't neglect jailed activists. Organize
visits, correspondence, books, food packages,
child care, etc. Keep publicizing their cases.

 10. Publicize FBI and police abuses through
sympathetic journalists and your own media
(posters, leaflets, public access cable
television, etc.). Don't let the government and
corporate media be the only ones to shape public
perceptions of FBI and police attacks on
political activists.



 GUIDELINES FOR COPING WITH EXTRALEGAL FORCE AND VIOLENCE:

 1. Establish security procedures appropriate to
your group's level of activity and discuss them
thoroughly with everyone involved. Control access
to keys, files, letterhead, funds, financial
records, mailing lists, etc.

 2. Keep duplicates of valuable documents,
records, files, computer disks, etc. in a safe
place separate from your home or office.

 3. Remember that cars are easily broken into
(especially trunks) and that trash can easily be
rifled and searched.

 4. Make a public issue of any form of crude
harassment. Contact your congressperson. Call the
media. Demonstrate at your local FBI, police, or
right-wing organization's office. Turn the attack
into an opportunity for explaining how domestic
covert action threatens fundamental human rights.

 5. Keep careful records of break-ins, thefts,
bomb threats, raids, brutality, conspicuous
surveillance, and other harassment. They will
help you to discern patterns and to prepare
reports and testimony.

 6. Share this information and your experiences
combatting such attacks with the Movement Support
Network and other groups which document and
analyze repression and resistance countrywide.
(See resource groups listing in back of book.)

 7. If you experience or anticipate intense
harassment, develop contingency plans and an
emergency telephone network so you can rapidly
mobilize community support and media attention.
Consider better locks, window bars, alarm
systems, fireproof locked cabinets, etc.

 8. Be sure that some members are well trained in
first aid. Keep medical supplies up-to-date and
know how to contact sympathetic doctors and
nurses and get to the nearest hospital.

 9. Make sure your group designates and prepares
other members to step in if leaders are jailed or
otherwise incapacitated. The more each
participant is able to think for herself or
himself and take responsibility, the greater the
group's capacity to cope with crises.

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