Abstract
Based on group interviews conducted in 2006 that included 71 social justice organizations, this paper analyzes the impact of surveillance on the exercise of assembly and association rights. We link these protected legal activities with analytic frameworks from social movements scholarship in order to further a socio-legal conception of political violence against social movements.
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Notes
Our interviewees were not able to disassociate completely their experiences of surveillance from their experiences of policing, most markedly from police violence: “Also it’s about how cops in the street make people feel ineffective, marginal.” Additionally they were not able to separate surveillance from the impacts of prosecutions, specifically from increasing sentences, the banning of political motivations from court proceedings, and grand juries.
We experienced two response rate issues. First, a number of organizations refused the interview on the basis that they were not under surveillance, despite our assurances that we wanted to hear from a spectrum of organizations including those which have experienced little or no surveillance. Some of these were organizations which we strongly suspect to be under surveillance. They insisted that the state would have no interest in them because “everything we are doing is above board.” Others were concerned that involvement in the study would cause them to come under surveillance.
Second, our study happened to begin just as the Green Scare was beginning in early 2006. A number of indictments, investigations, and grand juries were in progress, charging Non-Violent Direct Actions as “domestic terrorism” with proposed sentences up to 30 years. Moreover long-term infiltrators, extensive electronic surveillance, and cooperative indictees were appearing in court. Much of the Left disassociated itself from the accused movements and did not provide solidarity with the arrestees nor oppose the grand juries. The isolation and uncertainty of this time, along with the sudden severe criminalization of former grey-area activity, caused activists to feel unsafe in every space and relationship. To have a conversation, activists must now decide that it is worth the risk.
When asked to identify the issues they work on, they listed an average of 6. Anti-war/peace, globalization/international solidarity, economic justice, and environmental issues were each listed by 40–60% of our sample. Immigrant rights and prison/policing were each listed by 30% of our sample. Other issues included gentrification, animal rights, food/agriculture, gender and feminism, homelessness, union issues, 911 truth, voting issues, and media/arts.
Types of surveillance: (1) Direct: observation and visits by officers, such as writing down license plate numbers, and also raids, questioning, and burglary; (2) Electronic: phone, covert audio recording, email, web, computer, video and photo; (3) Undercover: undercover police, informants, infiltrators, and agents provocateurs; (4) Databasing.
After asking this question, the tape recorder was turned off and/or the interviewer left the room so that participants could coordinate their tallies so as not to count anyone twice.
Critical Mass is an international tactic in which a group of bicyclists travel city streets together to defend rights of bicycles, oppose automobilism, and have fun. Acting on the concept “We aren’t blocking traffic, we are traffic,” participants directly challenge traffic policy. In several US cities, Critical Mass has been criminalized, riders arrested, etc. see http://www.critical-mass.org/.
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Starr, A., Fernandez, L.A., Amster, R. et al. The Impacts of State Surveillance on Political Assembly and Association: A Socio-Legal Analysis. Qual Sociol 31, 251–270 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-008-9107-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-008-9107-z