There is a real issue with banning masks at protests
The Boston Tea Party: From Apprentices to Prosecutor Who Dumped Tea into the Sea, and on Social Media Who Followed Them
On December 16, 1773, a group of protesters in Boston donned handkerchiefs and smeared their faces with soot, disguising themselves as Native Americans, as they hurled tea into the sea. Some of the Boston Tea Partiers were apprentices who were worried about losing their jobs. Others were worried about retribution from the British crown. Most of the protesters who dumped tea into Boston Harbor are unknown, but the circumstances of their anonymity may never be the same.
Americans have the same ability to protest in anonymity as they have in America, though government officials are making it difficult for us to do so.
This article was published in conjunction with The Marshall Project which covers the US criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, then follow them on social media.
While today’s activists have more reliable communication tools than did Revolutionary War-era agitators, the Boston Tea Party’s ringleaders didn’t have to contend with surveillance technology, like Stingrays that impersonate cell phone towers to track nearby cell phones en masse, geofence warrants that let law enforcement request location data from companies about all the devices in a certain area (often without a warrant), professional social media monitoring firms that maintain scores of clandestine accounts to surveil activists, networks of automated license plate reading cameras that can track protesters’ vehicles, and even gait analysis technologies that can identify someone based on how they walk.
Digital Security: Protecting the Privacy of Left-Leaning Proton Users, Muslims, Black Hole Candidates, and Journalists
President-elect Donald Trump has promised to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He will put his political opponents and journalists in jail. A Republican-controlled government could further restrict abortion and transgender rights. Influential conservatives have called for a crackdown on left-leaning activist groups, a replay of Trump’s hardline attitude against protesters in his first administration.
The incoming Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are poised to use the US government’s vast surveillance machinery more than any other administration in the last few years, as they carry out all of those spoken and unspoken threats.
“Undocumented immigrants, Muslims, pregnant people, journalists, really anyone who doesn’t support him” need to reconsider their personal privacy safeguards, says Runa Sandvik, a former digital security staffer for The New York Times and the founder of the security firm Granitt, which focuses on protecting members of civil society. “Whatever platforms you’re on, whatever devices you have, you need to have a sense of what kind of data you’re generating and then use the controls available to limit who can see what you’re doing.”
Harlo Holmes is the director of digital security at the Freedom of the Press Foundation and he says that technology may be left as a last line of defense. “This is the last recourse of a lot of people in vulnerable positions,” says Holmes. “We’re just going to have to increase our efforts to make sure that people have the best tools in their hands and their pockets to maintain their privacy. And it’s going to matter more and more.
