Recipes for Disaster: an anarchist cookbook

Develop a private shorthand for communicating with your comrades in public. It's important to work out a way to communicate surreptitiously with your trusted friends about security issues and comfort levels while in public situations, such as at a meeting called to discuss possible direct action. Knowing how to gauge each other's feelings without others being able to tell that you are sending messages back and forth will save you the headache of trying to guess each other's thoughts about a situation or individual, and help you avoid acting strangely when you can't take your friend aside in the middle of things to compare notes. By the time you have convened a larger group to propose an action plan, you and your friends should be clear on what each other's intentions, willingness to run risks, levels of commitment, and opinions of others are, to save time and avoid unnecessary ambiguity. If you haven't been part of a direct action planning circle before, youll be surprised how complicated and convoluted they can get even when everyone does arrive prepared.

Security Culture 464

Develop methods to establish the security level of a group or situation. One quick procedure you can run at the beginning of a larger meeting at which not everyone is acquainted is the "vouched for" game: as each person introduces himself, all who can vouch for him

raise their hands. Hopefully, each person is connected to the others by some link in the

chain; either way, at least everybody knows how things stand. An activist who under- You can use a Polaroid camera to take stands the importance of good security will not feel insulted in such a situation if there photos that are too sensitive to be is no one present who can vouch for him and the others ask him to leave.

Meeting location is an important factor in security. You don't want a place that can be monitored {no private residences), you don't want a place where you can be observed all together (not the park across from the site of the next day's actions), you don't want a place where you can be seen entering and leaving or that someone could enter unexpectedly?^post scouts, lock the door once things get started, watch out for anything suspicious. I'll never forget exiting an ultra-high security meeting in a university basement only to discover that while we'd been locked in, a crowd of liberal student protesters had flooded the adjoining room to watch a slideshow?which all the organizers of the next day's militant black bloc had to wade through in embarrassment! Oops! Small groups can take walks and chat; larger groups can meet in quiet outdoor settings-?go

hiking or camping, if there's time?or in private rooms in public buildings, such as y^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^.^i^^ir^l artwork with library study rooms or empty classrooms. Best-case scenario: though he has no idea Polaroids by scratching and pressing you're involved in direct action, you're close with the old guy who runs the cafe across ^"^ ^^e photos as they develop: they'll ^ iiiTiir r ? come out with crazy colors and

town, and he doesn't mind lettmg you have the back room one atternoon tor a private designs in the picture.

party, no questions asked,

Be aware of the reliahility of those around you, especially those with whom you might collaborate in underground activities. Be conscious of how long you've known people, how far back their involvement in your community and their lives outside of it can be traced, and what others' experiences with them have been. The friends you grew up with, if you security Culture still have any of them in your life, are the best possible companions for direct action, 465

as you are familiar with their strengths and weaknesses and the ways they handle pressure?and you know for a fact they are who they say they are. Make sure only to trust your safety and the safety of your projects to level-headed folks who share the same priorities and commitments and have nothing to prove. In the long term, strive to build up

a community of people with long-standing friendships and experience acting together. You can make a hand-warmer out of a -.i ^ t -t ? . jj i j^ j. ^i i

, ? I ., r, ,. , With national and mtemational ties to other such communities.

used Polaroid film canister once you re done with it: break the cartridge open, take out the battery to use for something Oon't get too distracted worrying about whether people are infiltrators or not; if your security else, and connect the wires? it'll be nr ^- -^ r u ,^ ^^ t^ >. . i i ir-