A PSA - Be a harder target.

It's a shame that under this current administration, someone sporting a Nazi swastika or adjacent tattoo is now considered "an American patriot" and deserving of a pardon and given even a position in the White House, and everyone else can go and fuck off while the US Government is systematically weaponized against its citizens.  

That said; members of our Indivisible group shared these images / memes.  

We're here.  We're at this point where it is happening to us.  It's not paranoia or hyperbole, we have to be pragmatic of our personal public image; about what we post or comment on social media, what is in our profiles, what is on our mobile devices, how we move about, etc.  

Start with your cyber footprint. 

1. There is no law that states you MUST put your actual, personal data in an online Email or social media profile.  
1. Remove your home address
2. Change your birth date
3. Change your profile name.  
4. Change your profile photo if is it is your face.
5. Turn on multi-factor authentication
6. Change your password(s)
   
7. Delete anything in your profile that can directly link to the real you   
2. If you are using a social media platform like Facebook for activism, certainly change your profile as in the first bullet point.
1. Systematically go through your posts, your photos, etc.  Delete anything with your face, your home, your family.  
2. If you decided to delete your account, way 48 hours.  Facebook has a global trove of back-up servers. Waiting 48 hours will ensure whatever you delete will be propagated globally to be deleted off the back-ups. 
3. Likewise, scrub your Google account(s).
3. Remove social media apps from your phone.  
1. Install a browser like Firefox or the like.
2. Connect to the social media platforms using the browser.
3. This removes any back-doors that these apps install on your mobile device.   
4. Unsubscribe
1. Unsubscribe from protest-adjacent Email servers that fill your inbox
2. Same for political party spam.  
   
5. Make a Protest Plan
1. Even for small events, make a point to inform trusted contacts of what your are going to do
2. Where you will be doing it
3. How long you expect to participate. 
4. If there is trouble at a rally, use your smart phone to record the conflict
   
6. Travel smart
1. If you have visibly protested and are planning to travel that requires a government check-in (TSA, US Customs, etc), let your trusted contacts know you when are going to be traveling
2. By what means (plane, train, boat, car).  
3. Make a point to check in with them upon arrival and prior to return, and when you have returned.
4. Clean your phone of incriminating information before you leave or obtain a "burner phone" before your go. (I am going to obtain a "dumb" phone in the future to use when I go to long-distance rallies and protests, and for extended travel.)  
5. If you use your smart phone, evaluate and clean your password files.  Anything no longer relevant, delete! 
   

This is horrible, I know.  But we're here.  It's work. Yes. And time consuming. Yes. But do a little each day to clean your footprint and in no time, you can rest easier knowing that you made yourself a harder target for this administration burgeoning dictatorship of morons to find absentmindedly stumble upon you down the road.

Tom Nichol's words continue to proof out - He wrote in the Atlantic the day after the election - "Paradoxically, however, Trump’s reckless venality is a reason for hope. Trump has the soul of a fascist but the mind of a disordered child. He will likely be surrounded by terrible but incompetent people. All of them can be beaten: in court, in Congress, in statehouses around the nation, and in the public arena. America is a federal republic, and the states—at least those in the union that will still care about democracy—have ways to protect their citizens from a rogue president. Nothing is inevitable, and democracy will not fall overnight." 

Let's make it hard on them to silence our voices!  Resist! 

Onward

R