Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

From Bikernet 4/4/2013 Post

 ALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL POSTS RULES FOR LEGAL LANE-SPLITTING-- This is ridiculous. Now we have Greg Covel, executive director of ABATE of California telling us "They are very reasonable" Who does he work for the CHP, he's suppose to be supporting us. Well there is another group not to belong to.


--Joseph Guarino
iamguarino@yahoo.com
Tombstone, AZ

From Bikernet 4/4/2013 Post

Acknowledgements

This book is for you if ...

• Anti-war or environmental activists
• Recreational drug users
• Participants in the underground economy or anybody who does business in cash
• Critics of local or national powers-that-be
• Anyone whose profession involves "sensitive" information or activities
• Gun owners or dealers
• Third-party or "fringe" political activists
• Hobbyists who work with dangerous materials
• Photographers/videographers
• Religious dissidents
• People with offshore or unconventional investments (including perfectly legitimate ones)

This book is NOT for you if ...

What exactly is a snitch?

The infiltrator/agent provocateur. This is someone (often a professional) who is inserted into a group for an active purpose, such as disrupting the group, or worst, talking formerly innocent (or at least formerly non-violent) people into committing crimes in order to bust them. Agents provocateurs may, among other things, try to turn non-violent protest into violent action, thus discrediting movements, giving excuses for crackdowns, and giving more publicity and power to government agencies.

The informer/informant. This snitch is often a legitimate member of a group or social circle who continues to be active while giving information to the police. This person may be acting under duress (to save his own skin after being arrested, for instance). This person may be hoping the cops will pay with money, drugs, or ongoing criminal immunity for her dubious "services." While this person isn't necessarily a professional agent provocateur, he may nevertheless try to talk friends into committing crimes so he can get more credibility or rewards from his police handlers.

What makes snitches so dangerous?

PART ONE

Recognizing and Avoiding Snitches

FIRST RULE:

Learn and practice
good security consciousness

• Don't talk about secret or illegal activities outside your group.
• Within your group, talk about them only to people who have a need to know.
• Keep groups small. Maybe even as small as a "cell of one."
Attorney safety tip:
A lawyer who consulted on this book says:
"When dealing with police, prosecutors or their agents, do NOT base your theory-of-the-game on TV, movies, or other sources. Or on constitutional theory you may have learned in school. The other side is playing for keeps and to them rules are irrelevant inconveniences. Ask Bradley Manning."
• If you use email, encrypt it. Not only that, but encrypt all email you possibly can, not just email containing sensitive material. Encrypt your cute cat jokes and your discussions of last night's favorite TV show (that way you don't call special attention to your most confidential exchanges).
• Do not post sensitive material on social media (a no-brainer, but apparently some still do it).
• Do not post sensitive material on social media even when your privacy settings allow only "friends" to see it. A 2012 court ruling said it's perfectly okay for those "friends" to turn around and show your allegedly private info to government agents.
• Do not talk to cops or indeed any government agents — about anything. Ever. The most innocent remarks can be used against you. The "nicest" cop is still not your friend. (We'll have more on this in Part Three and in the appendixes. This is extremely important!)
• Know the laws, potential sentences, and likely prosecutorial practices against any crimes you're committing. Do not be caught unprepared.
Tip from experience:
This comes from a friend of mine who spent "the worst two weeks" of his life in jail, courtesy of a snitch: "Don't hang with people who are dishonest or lie, even in small, unimportant things. They have no honor to lose and everything they say and do is based on profit or benefit to them."
• If you're a political activist, keep your nose clean in other ways. For instance, if you're an anti-drug-war activist, don't sell drugs on the side. Don't make yourself an easy target for spurious (or worse, real) criminal charges.
• Unless you actually want to be arrested to become a test case (a dangerous but sometimes useful tactic), then do everything you can to avoid giving anyone ammunition to tarnish you or your cause.
• Do your best to make sure your associates also follow good security practices.
• Get yourself away from associates who are blabbermouths, boasters, loose-lipped drunks, or "friends" who insist on posting their (and your) every activity on the Internet.
• We repeat: GET YOURSELVES AWAY from anybody who can't keep his mouth shut!

Recognizing a snitch

• A stranger or casual acquaintance tries to get you to do or advise on illegal activities.
• A friend suddenly starts pushing you to do or advise on illegal things.
• A person joins your group and statements he/she makes about his/her background just don't add up.
• A person joins your group and starts stirring up trouble and creating divisions.
• A person joins your group and is overly eager to be useful, to pay for the group's activities, to initiate activities, supply equipment, to escalate dangerous activities, etc.
• Someone goes out of his way to gain your trust, to be really buddy-buddy with you. Then, when you resist getting into dubious activities, he drops all interest in you (he's looking for an easier mark).
Advice from the underground
This ultra-basic piece of advice goes back at least to the agitators of the 1960s. Yet people still get entrapped by ignoring it: "You can always tell the FBI agent. He's the one who's trying to get you to bomb something."
• You're asked to do illegal or dubious business with a "friend of a friend." This is a big one. It's amazing how many "friends of friends" (where controversial activities are involved) are actually undercover cops.
• Someone asks you to do something illegal or dangerous that he could just as easily do himself or have done elsewhere.
• Someone starts agitating to have your group do something outside the group's purposes. ("Hey, we just run a little of this 'stuff' across the border and it'll make us a lot of money that we can use to do good.")
• An older, "more experienced" person joins your group or circle and soon becomes a counselor of sorts to the youngest, most edgy, most insecure, most angry, or most naive members. He "cuts them out of the herd" in order to pull them into illegal plots. (This is a classic tactic of the agent provocateur.)
• Anyone in your group starts agitating for violent action. People who agitate for illegal activities may be snitches; or they may be genuine fools who will attract snitches.

What makes snitches so persuasive?

• Snitches play on your trust and/or your desire to go along with others.
• They may appeal to your loyalty or your fear or some other emotion ("You won't do it? Wow, and here I thought you were one of us." "C'mon, if you had any guts you'd do this." "How are we ever going to change things if we don't take radical action?")
• They may literally "cut from the herd" the most naive, trusting, foolish, or discontent of your associates, isolate them, and psychologically manipulate them into committing crimes.
• They may pretend to be your friend. — especially a friend in need. ("I know you don't usually deal, but couldn't you just sell me a little from your stash?" "Look, just help me get this money out of the country; it's no big deal." "Hey, I know you have a machine shop in your garage; how about helping me cut down the barrel on this shotgun? I'll pay you.")
• They may actually be your friend — but a friend who has gotten into legal trouble and has turned to snitching to save themselves from a long prison sentence. (Same sorts of urgings as in the last bullet point, but this time coming from somebody for whom that wouldn't be characteristic behavior.)
• They may make it easy to commit crimes by not only pushing the idea, but actually supplying the funding, the equipment, the transportation, and the planning for the crime. They may come across as natural leaders ("Trust me, I know how to do this!")
• They may make hyper-strong appeals to your cause — then use the leverage they gain to make equally strong appeals for committing crimes.
• They often play upon a normal human desire to want to DO something - which is likely why, if you're a political person, you're a member of the group in the first place.
• And finally — let's never forget — some snitches play on that most basic instinct of all — S.E.X. Spy agencies have known this as long as there have been spy agencies. The KGB used to call it "the sparrow trick"; get a red-blooded heterosexual male up close with an attentive, manipulative female and said male will eventually whisper all manner of secrets into her ear. These days, it probably works the other way around, too. And no doubt homosexual attraction can blind eyes and loosen lips just as effectively.

"Mere" snitching vs active entrapment

Dangerous myths about
snitches and undercover agents

What to do if you believe a
snitch is personally targeting you

• Again, get away from the person
• Do not try to outsmart the person
• Do not feed the person false information (because if that person is an undercover agent this could be a crime in and of itself)
• Do not commit violence against the person
• Just get away — even if it means leaving a group
• If you think you've already said or done something compromising with this person, see a good lawyer and read the section of this booklet on how to conduct yourself if you get arrested.
• Another tip from this book's helpful attorney: "Consider making your OWN complaint to the authorities about this 'nutball' [the person you suspect of being a snitch]. This a) puts you on the record as NOT being in bed with the snitch, b) alerts the snitch and his handlers that you're aware of him and are thus less likely to be an 'easy target,' c) creates an appearance that you're not one of the bad guys - since you're not hiding anything, and d) maybe - with a little luck - the snitch ends up in jail himself for some time. I would not consider this 'do not try to outsmart' described above (which I agree with)." Of course, if he turns out not to be a snitch, you may have harmed an innocent person by calling the cops on him. It's a risk. But if the person really is an agent of the government, this can be a pretty good act of self-protection. Oh, and one of my friends who speaks from experience, points out that if you're going to report a snitch to the cops, it's best to do it through a lawyer. Otherwise you're talking to cops, which is a no-no.

PART TWO

A Snitch Uncovered

If you believe there's
a snitch in your group

• Document your suspicions.
• If possible, conduct some careful, subtle investigation to see if your suspected snitch's background and life matches her claims. Does she really live where she says? Has she been seen with police? Do her statements about her education or her friends hold up? If not, you may not have a snitch, but you have an untrustworthy person, for sure.
• Share your specific reasons for suspicion with people in the group that you trust. Yes, we know that snitches destroy trust, so be very careful when choosing one or two others to confide in.
• If you can do so without violating your state's law, quietly begin video or audiotaping all interactions with the suspected person. If state wiretapping laws forbid recording without the consent of all parties, then at least consider openly recording meetings to counteract any lies the snitch may tell his handlers.
• Start a 'Facts, Acts, and Circumstantial file.' After each incident write details down. Facts are the time, date, occasion, incident, characteristics of the person(s). Acts are what they did. Circumstantial is the impressions and anything odd about the situation. Use the FAC file and keep notes from unsettling situations and see if a pattern emerges. (Note: This item also appears in Appendix 2, where you will find details on how to do this, along with many other commonsense OpSec tips.)
• Do not make open accusations unless you have proof positive of snitchery or copness (as when New York Libertarian Party activists (see below) spotted a former "suspicious" member in the New York Times, helping the FBI with an arrest).
• Discuss with your most trusted associates what to do.
Here's one way to spot a snitch!
Online commenter BusyPoorDad writes:
Years ago, when the New York Libertarian Party was starting up, a new member joined and became active. He said he was from a low-income neighborhood, worked a manual labor job, and did not know much about politics. He looked the part but things just did not add up.
He knew how to set a table for a formal dinner, used the Robert's Rules very well, and fit in very well with the highly educated members. After about four months of working with us, he just stopped coming. This sort of thing happened a lot but there were no signs of discontent. He was always willing to do everything he was asked to help do (petition, run Nolan chart tables, etc.).
About a year later he was spotted in the NY Times holding on to someone arrested by the FBI for something.
His background just did not fit with him. We never saw him reading books, he talked about watching TV and working at a warehouse, but he was able to be cultured, had a good vocabulary, and really wanted to be part of everything.
• Just as your first individual move is to keep away from the suspect individual, the best group action may be to simply shut the person out. Stop talking with them. Stop inviting them to meetings. Stop asking them to be involved in projects. Freeze them out of all activities and discussions.
• In a serious case, you may end up having to shut down the entire group to foil a snitch or agent provocateur. If so, have a plausible excuse if you can.
• Always, always make sure that you and the other "on the up and up" members of your group remain on record as NOT advocating illegal, and in particular violently illegal, activities. Got a blog, a Twitter account, a Facebook page? Make your opposition to certain activities clear and public.
• Furthermore, make sure you stay on record as NOT advocating things that the snitch wants. Do not line up behind, or even pretend to agree with, that person's policy recommendations, strategies, or tactics. Remember, you may well be being recorded. You do not even want to appear to superficially agree with things an undercover operative is trying to talk you into.
• Again, finally, you may have to recognize that you can neither help nor save those who do not wish to be helped or saved. It may be that your final act has to be turning your files over to some other trusted member of the group and leaving. You always have a chance of finding another group. You're not going to have a chance to find another you.

HISTORICAL ways of dealing
with known snitches

• The IRA used to shoot betrayers in the kneecaps. It wouldn't kill them, but everyone who saw a former activist lurching down the street on destroyed knees knew what he was.
• The Mafia would famously send stool pigeons to "sleep with the fishes."
• Resistance groups, particularly during wartime, have been known to leave the bodies of betrayers in public squares with messages pinned to them — or even carved in them. While still saying it's a bad idea, it did have the effect of discouraging the general populace from working with the enemy. Today snitches and betrayers often see benefits and face nowhere near enough drawbacks for their dirty work.
• In the 1980s and 1990s, the African National Congress punished perceived collaborators with the monstrous method called "necklacing." They'd shove a gasoline-filled tire over a miscreant's neck and arms and kill the person by setting the tire alight.
• After World War II, many women who had slept with or otherwise collaborated with Nazis were humiliated by having their hair hacked off while mobs screamed, "Nazi whore!" This might not sound like much compared with beastly punishments like necklacing. But public humiliation, shunning, and the attack on their femininity was hugely degrading and psychologically damaging.

How do YOU treat an exposed snitch?

Repairing the damage snitches do

Beware of accusing someone
who might not be a snitch

PART THREE

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU GET BUSTED?

You may be pressured to become a snitch

Do NOT talk to cops. Period.

• No, you may not search my vehicle.
• No, you may not enter my home.
• I do not consent to any search.
• Am I free to go?
• On the advice of my lawyer, I cannot talk to you.
• I will not talk without my lawyer present.

The police officer is NOT your friend

The Prisoner's Dilemma

Mindset: The common territory
between snitches and victims

• Overly naive and trusting
• Unprepared for bad things happening to them
• Cocky and overly confident
• Loudmouthed or prone to blat information without thinking
• Prone to believe that "nice" cops really do want to "help" them (yes, it's another form of being overly naive and trusting, but it bears repeating because if you get caught because you trusted a rat you're more likely to turn around and trust that rat's handlers)
• Very good at rationalizing their own less-than-stellar behavior
• (Or conversely) So idealistic and starry-eyed that reality, when it hits, knocks them for a loop.

What happens if you refuse to snitch?

What happens if you become
a snitch — and regret it?

What happens to you if you
snitch and your friends find out?

The rest of your life if you do snitch

Appendix 1

The Reid Interrogation Technique^TM

By "Just Waiting"

Repeat the question before answering? That answer is a lie.

Little or no direct eye contact? You're evasive.

Too much direct eye contact? You're cocky and/or confrontational.

Change from "is" to "was" or "a" to "the"? You're changing your story to hide something.

Sit up straight, slouch, fold your arms in your lap, fold them across your chest? You're scared, you're cocky, you're defensive. Every movement, posture and expression has a meaning to LE.

Appendix 2

Some Commonsense OpSec

Addendum on note-taking (Facts, Acts, and Circumstantial)

Appendix 3

Line up a lawyer

How to hire the right lawyer

Appendix 4

Other helpful resources

Dealing with snitches

How cops deal with snitches

Online advice on dealing with police

An online guide to interrogation techniques

Books

• They are a member of an Outlaw Motorcycle Club that has actually killed someone. (Translated: earning the "One Percenter" tattoo ain't easy.)
• The most feared and respected riders roaming the blacktop, one percenters are a breed apart from all others. These individuals bow to no one, test the boundaries of all and give their devotion to few. [via SalemNews]
• Could include a member from: The Hells Angels, Outlaws, Banditos, Pagans, Warlocks, etc.
• How do you become a One-Percenter? "If you have to ask the question, you won't understand the answer. Only another one percenter can truly understand what belonging takes. [via]
• They are outlaws of culture. [via]

Some outlaw motorcycle clubs can be distinguished by a 1% patch worn on the colors. This is claimed to be a reference to a comment made by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) in which they stated that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, implying that the last one percent were outlaws. The comment, supposedly a response to the Hollister riot in 1947,[24][25] is denied by the AMA—who claim to have no record of such a statement to the press, and that the story is a misquotation.[26] As a result, some outlaw motorcycle clubs used it to unite or express themselves and are commonly referred to as "one percenters". According to the ATF they are also known as Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs or OMGs.[27]