There seems to be a lot of opinions floating around, and PSL members seem particularly vocal though I’ve heard some rumblings of SA from leadership.
Because of the constant risk of CIA infiltration I know all orgs need to be justifiably paranoid, though I’ve no idea if any are completely CIA captured. If any are I’d assume it’s CPUSA because of their prominence.
At first glance the RCA seems interesting (Edit: misread something earlier, fuck them Trots) but I don’t know enough about their OpSec yet. That’s why this seems a really valuable question to bring to the community. In theory I’d want to join one I can join under an alias in case of infiltration.
I run recruitment for my branch and there’s no fucking way you’d get through onboarding with a fake identity. If we couldn’t stop that, we’d be nothing but cops.
Do you demand ID? I don’t have social media and haven’t gone by my legal name in years, would I just get rejected on those merits alone?
In as long of an onboarding process as PSL has, it doesn’t seem like it should be difficult to suss people out. I don’t think cops are going to be able to discuss most leftist positions without revealing themselves as reactionaries pretty quickly. If it takes over a year of classes and showing up to do work just to become a member, it would be very surprising if a cop would even make it 6 months
Not really concerned specifically about legal names, since so many people in the party are trans and use their chosen names. That’s not an alias, it’s your name. If you’re trying to hide your identity, that breaks the fundamental trust needed to be comrades. Anonymity for some opens up enormous security vulnerabilities for everyone.
Sure, the initial recruitment is not the only filter for bad actors. You would eventually get sniffed out if you snuck through and you’d be unable to do anything in the meantime. If it turned out six months in you’d been lying about your identity, that would be a betrayal of your comrades and you’d be immediately removed. It’s all about collective security based on trust over individual security based on secrecy.
The org I work with encourages aliases as op sec and it has helped many of us from getting doxxed and attacked by reactionaries. I guess if you have some idea that everyone has to use their names and not an alias, one person doing that is breaking that rule and someone disharmonious, but I don’t understand how using aliases is somehow a trust issue if it’s something your comrades are aware of.
We need to be able to be public facing. In order to grow the revolutionary movement, we have to display the courage to be open with our names and faces. We give public speeches, go door to door and introduce ourselves, we advance our politics among our neighbors and coworkers. That just doesn’t work if you’re anonymous. There are some exceptions, of course - cases where a member’s specific circumstances require their involvement to be much less public for security or strategic reasons. But they aren’t secret to their comrades.
We also have a far better understanding of what people can bring to the struggle. If you know where someone lives, what their job is, where they went to school, etc, you know all of the levers they have available to advance the struggle.
Because how do you know who they really are? How do you know they’re not misrepresenting themselves in order to infiltrate? Maybe someone with great skill and patience could slip through PSL’s systems, but in an internally anonymous org, all it takes is walking in the door and saying everyone should call you Lizard. Anonymity is a gift to the state’s disruptive apparatus (under the current circumstances in the US) because it protects them from us much more than the inverse.
All the work we do is public facing and works directly with the community.
From a very brief surface view: First there is an onboarding process where the new person answers a lot of questions which include class background, work history, etc. they don’t need to give details of exactly where they worked or who they are related to but this process typically reveals a lot.
Then they will be volunteering with the org doing entry level stuff, this is hours of time spent with them where more sussing out happens.
Additionally there is a cadre program where each new recruit goes through mandatory internal education in a cohort of other new members and led by a couple of cadre mentors.
These things combined mean that within the first year, a newer person is spending dozens of hours with cadre who are all evaluating them and paying close attention, while the new recruit is never really given any responsibility or access to anything they could misuse.
All of those later systems are very similar to how PSL operates and that’s definitely the most important level of security.
Yeah it all works out if you have that. Over time trust builds from working and studying together and people become friends and there becomes an extra level of vouching at a certain point.
Didn’t PSL hand over a list of all members to the feds recently? That’s really my biggest concernI’ve been misinformed
No, what are you talking about?
Sorry friend, I read somewhere that after Elias Rodriguez was arrested the government requested a list of members from the PSL
They might have requested them, but they didn’t get shit.
Bless. i also found this Tweet from josh hawley
I was hesitant to join because I thought they handed over a list, I’ll be reaching out now to join. Thanks
How would they even know if they don’t demand ID?
Checking publically available sources. If they are skilled liars who want to break the party’s security protocol and expectations of comradely trust, then I suppose they can keep the lie going as long as they can deceive everyone around them.
It’s hard to think of a bigger betrayal of your comrades than lying to them about who you are from day one.
Tell that to Stalin and his alias lol
My main concern is any electronic records. Please tell me y’all don’t use Google docs or unencrypted email…
No, all encrypted stuff.