Re: MEME: Leaderless Resistance

From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@messagenet.com)
Date: Sat Mar 15 2003 - 12:53:49 MST

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    I think it's unfortunate that the term (in the article) is bonded to
    'violence and mayhem'. I have been thinking recently of how to
    distribute legal responsibility and/or provide plausible deniability to
    network-coordinated protest groups, as in, for example, protest signs of
    single alphabet characters spelling out obscene/incendiary (o/i) slogans
    that, if held by individuals, would result in their quick arrest. (It'd
    be cumbersome to carry around an alphabet of signs, I was thinking some
    sort of electronic ink or large low-res LCD screens).

    Such slogans might exist only in the eyes of a camera, set for long
    exposure (a few seconds perhaps). A keen observer might notice
    something's up, but otherwise the o/i slogan first appears as a jpeg on
    the web, a clear slogan with a fuzzy crowd. It's missed during the
    actual protest. Maybe this would work best at night with big LED type signs.

    Of course, at that point you might just as well hold up an array of
    signs and flash thru the entire alphabet. Separate each sign and letter
    into photoshop layers and make any slogan you want. The difference
    between this and just photoshopping over normal protest signs seems
    quite subtle.

    It would be 'leaderless' since there's no single coordinator, indeed,
    just program a computer to spit out random o/i slogans and broadcast it
    to the demonstrators.

    This could be done with chanting, too. Small groups of people (being
    careful about timing) each chant out one word of a sentence which (if
    voiced by an individual) would be prosecuted as a death threat or
    incitement to riot.

    The only connection between such demonstrators would be a single URL
    which would be abandoned after the event. What are the laws that make a
    group guilty if every single member of the group is individually innocent?

    Of course, this won't apply if the crowd actually starts rioting itself.
    Hmmm, maybe a well-disciplined riot-starting seed group that stays
    nonviolent itself. It could be a weird century of protest :-)

            -Mike

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