The New Yorker Protocol:

The New Yorker Protocol:

Surviving the Surveillance State

December 4, 2022
by Rose C.

Portland ranks among the Top 10 Most Surveilled U.S. Cities, according to Cybernews. Atlanta tops the list.

We live in a world where surveillance is a fact of life. Any encrypted software product may be backdoored, and even if it is not, you have no guarantee that the person on the other end does not have spyware such as keystroke monitoring or screen video capture running on their system. Encryption enthusiasts and amateur hackers, no matter how valiant, simply cannot compete with a nation-state in this game. Cf Pegasus.

Sneak and Peek, or “No Knock,” Warrants have been around since the Patriot Act was passed in 2001, but they receive scant attention from the media. What they mean is that you may have your home searched, and items removed from your home, without any official notice from law enforcement. Ditto for electronic files. If you file a FOIA request and the investigation in which you are named is still ongoing, you will not receive any confirmation that a warrant exists. (Pat Eddington, Cato Institute)

The most frightening aspect of these warrants is the potential for planting false evidence. The second most frightening aspect is the potential for planting surveillance devices for tracking and listening — as if cell phones were not effective enough.

Nothing to Hide?”

Like roughly 2/3 of the U.S. population, I reside within the 100-mile “border zone” where Border Patrol agents are granted additional authorities and the Constitutional protections of the Fourth Amendment no longer apply. You may think all of this is irrelevant if you are a law-abiding citizen.

The problem is that who you know can get you put on a list. It can also make you a target. To put it another way, we all know somebody who has a cousin who is a drug dealer.

Laws in this country are changing, and not (in my opinion) for the better. Roe v. Wade is gone, and civil rights for gays and lesbians may soon disappear as this country takes a hard shift right. Remember ICE? Children in cages? Forced sterilizations?

Come 2024, they may all be back.

If you don’t feel like being a freedom fighter, if your first priority is keeping your family safe and saving for your children’s college tuition, I am not here to judge. Just remember that in a world where power rules in place of law, abuse of that power is an inevitable consequence.

Get in a traffic accident with somebody employed by the surveillance state? What if one of them rapes your daughter? Or your son? When a large class of individuals are above the law, nothing good will come of it. This is especially true when the same individuals fear consequences from their actions. They tend to lash out and do everything they can to harm and intimidate witnesses and injured parties.

I am not an America-hater. Far from it. The country I grew up in gave me 40+ years of freedom in its purest form: freedom to explore, to create, to love and befriend those I chose, to work as much or as little as I liked. Freedom to just be. I am a GenXer. I don’t mean to talk like a crusty old-timer, but I believe I’ve seen this nation at its absolute best.

Or maybe the best is yet to come.

Nothing is fixed. Nothing is certain.

The combined 2022 budget of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the 17 different United States spying agencies (of which CIA and NSA are only two) is over $150 billion. For comparison, that is roughly one fifth of the Department of Defense 2022 budget of $742B. But remember, the DOD budget covers submarines, fighter jets, aircraft carriers, helicopters, tanks, nuclear weapons, and anti-missile defense systems, not to mention an active network of bases around the world. That’s a lot of people and hardware.

What exactly are we paying for? This remains largely unclear. Marijuana is now legal in 19 out of 50 states, but the DEA’s funding continues to grow. If you were an officer monitoring wiretaps and running undercover operations in Colorado or Washington State, where and to what were you reassigned? And as far as truly terrifying threats to health and safety, the surveillance state could be doing a much better job. We read about mass shootings in the news practically every week. It failed to prevent the violent attempted coup at our nation’s capitol on January 6, 2021. 

Your tax dollars at work, my friends.

Government salaries range from $20K (GS-1) to $147K(GS-15) — much less than the equivalent in the private sector. If we assume that wages (including benefits) average $100,000 per year, we would expect that the surveillance states employs as many as 1.5 million people in the United States. Keeping in mind, that is not accounting for slush funds to be distributed overseas, or James Bond style gadgetry, server space, or the cost of buildings and operations. But if we slash that number in half, that is still one federal domestic spy for every 440 U.S. citizens.

And that’s a lot.

Regarding terminology, “federal domestic spy” includes FBI informers, often recruited under duress or experiencing economic hardship. It does not include state or local police forces.

I am an extremely law-abiding citizen. That has protected me to some extent, but not completely. Somebody who has cheated on their taxes or who runs a warez server with their friends is at high risk of being “turned” and pressured by law enforcement to inform on others and further widen the surveillance network.

If you wish to minimize the risk that a conversation will be overheard, consider the New Yorker Protocol.

The New Yorker protocol consists of three simple steps:

  1. Assume good intent. I am not interested in contact with people for purposes of criminal profiteering (drugs or other contraband) or with groups that instigate violence. My philosophy is nonviolence except in the case of self-defense. I am only interested in working with people who share these values.

  2. Confirm receipt as soon as possible. If somebody emails you asking to meet for coffee, say, “Hey, I got your email. Swamped right now! Will be back in touch to coordinate a time.” If somebody you know leaves a signed, sealed note taped to your front door with instructions to communicate only by dropping messages in yonder hollow tree, then by all means, drop them a note asking, “Did I get the right tree?”

  3. Allow up to 90 days when making a major decision. Depending on the stakes involved, this might be anything from agreeing to meet somebody for the first time for coffee to participating in civil disobedience or leaking a story to the news media. If you feel certain of your course of action sooner than that, of course it is ok to let the other person know. Likewise, if you know you are not down for whatever the person is asking, don’t feel that you need to respond at all. The basic courtesy of acknowledging receipt (Step 2) is enough.

Two of these three steps come directly from the New Yorker writer’s guidelines for submitting unsolicited short fiction manuscripts. I was so taken with these guidelines (in particular, their clarity and brevity) that I submitted a short story almost on the spot. I don’t expect that it will get published, but I do appreciate that 90 days after sending it in I am free to re-submit wherever I like. I also appreciate that immediately after emailing my story as an attachment, I received an auto-responder email acknowledging receipt.

The New Yorker protocol should by no means be restricted to clandestine activities. I consider it an effective strategy for social and business networking as well.

Creating an expectation to observe and respect these simple guidelines is an essential first step to initiate an effective communications process that is platform- and technology-independent and minimizes surveillance risk.

 

 

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Portland Confidential: Part One of Several

Portland Confidential: Part One of Several

Hello, there.

I would like to explain what is confidential about this series. First and foremost, it is my name. I have an unusual first and last name combination, and I have had stalkers. For the purposes of this blog, I go by “Rose C.” That’s short for Rose City.

Here is my avatar:

Rose C.

If you don’t like it, I’m sorry. It was a public domain vector illustration that I adapted. People have many good and legitimate reasons for wishing to protect their privacy. To give just one example, this blog post gives advice to parents about how their children can avoid rape. It is based on personal experience.

The second reason I am using a pseudonym is that I may occasionally piss people off or cause strong reactions. I know we had over 600 unique visits on this site in the last week. Some of those may be ‘bots. Regardless, it appears that even though we do not advertise and rarely post on social media, real people do from time to visit our site. As a writer and creator, this makes me happy, I’d like to encourage it!

But you can’t be an honest journalist and never report anything negative.

For instance, right now I am typing this blog entry at Old Town Pizza in downtown Portland. So far, the experience has been only positive: good beer, a good slice, a comfortable corner booth to write at. It’s really nice, honestly, to find a space that’s not a strip club or a cabaret and still has affordable food and beverage in this neighborhood on a Sunday evening. Portland’s downtown isn’t what it used to be. It needs all our help to come back and thrive once more.

But perhaps something will go horribly wrong at this restaurant before I sign for the check! I cannot imagine what that might be, but I reserve the right to write a critical restaurant review if circumstances demand. That is another reason I choose to remain Rose C.

Something else you should know about PDX Local, if you have not visited before:

We have a number of different writers, and we welcome volunteers. We are not advertiser-supported. We accept donations, but to be honest there are a lot of other local organizations that can probably benefit more from your hard-earned cash. I will try to profile some of these in the weeks and months to come. Suggestions welcome.

We are free and independent media. We are here by choice.

Yours truly (that is to say Rose C.) has a contract job at a large and well-known corporation, but I would not call myself rich. Not by a long shot. I have a lot of credit card debt to pay off. Some of that is medical debt. Some comes from taking my ex-partner and his child along with me to South Korea on a business trip. Some comes from travel back to the East Coast to see friends and family. A lot comes from simply using credit to pay for all of life’s daily necessities (including groceries, utilities, and transportation) for approximately ten years, while I was toiling away as a startup founder, with enough money to pay my employees (including the aforementioned ex-partner) but not myself.

Do you hear the world’s tiniest violin playing here?

I don’t.

It’s been the ride of a lifetime, and it’s not over yet.

If my job vanished tomorrow (and I hope it doesn’t) I would go back to doing deliveries—driving for DoorDash and UberEats.

Restaurants are so important to our local economy. If they go away, I don’t know what Portland will become.

GALEXI

GALEXI

Your outfits are great. What gave you the inspiration?
Our spacesuits are just average clothes on our planet, Issia.
I felt that by sharing our customs, I could further inspire our listeners. Silver is transcendent!
And we’ve been heavily influenced by David Bowie, Bjork, T-Rex, Prince and Devo. Hence, outifts.??

How long have you been making music, and how would you describe your creative evolution?
I grew up going to a German Polka Club every week. So I was dancing to waltzes and polkas for most of my adolescence.  I didn’t start to work fanatically with music until my thirties.
Jo, however, has been singing since the crib. Legend has it she learned how to escape her cradle so she could re-load the stack of records.
Our creative process usually starts with a pad or synth progression just to get things rolling. I send that to Jo and she creates a melodic and lyrical story based on the mood. We work together to shape it into a song often with at least 15 iterations until we get it right.

I noticed you list both a Priestess and Scientist on your website. Do you believe it is possible to harmonize spirituality and rational knowledge in our current era of information overload? Can music play a role?
Yes!  Music is a perfect example. There is a concept that science and spirituality are separate but in fact, they are the same.  Look at Kirk and Spock! ? Whether the technology is Bach or today’s software, music inherently blends math and spirituality. To be more accurate, music IS the math of spirituality. On our planet, we’re able to heal disease with music. It’s a wondrous place!

What is the hardest thing about making music in quarantine?
There were so many challenges this year! Where to start…It was hard being separated from each other. I went from having weekly rehearsals to having to work remotely with The Priestess. We did lots of Zoom meetings. I think the limitations pushed us to grow our online fanbase and of course, we had to grow emotionally.

Your new single is called “I Won’t Dance for You.” Do you think music venues and dance clubs will be able to recover in Portland over the next year, or will it take longer for the scene to recover?

I love going to see live music and I so hope it recovers. Live music is so magical! Transformational. So I hope so and soooooon.  I love to watch the people dance! It’s sad to see some of favorite venues closed. I’m still sad that La Luna and Satiricon closed. Some places are holding on like the Alberta Rose—and we can support them now. Here is the link: https://shopalbertarose.square.site

 

 

 


If you had to choose, would you rather share a rocket ship with Ziggy Stardust, Barbarella, or Sun Ra?

So hard to choose! All great options. But Barbarella because there might be a hot tub and shag carpet!

Follow Galexi on Instagram and Facebook, and at www.galeximusic.com.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

It’s a shame that everybody in America assumes that if you’re talking about class you are Marxist. It’s a shame that in these United States populism became a dirty word — shades of racism and authoritarianism. I wrote an essay a while back trying to unpack the ways that class dynamics entrench and deepen divides around race and gender.

It was based on my own personal, lived experience. And oh yeah, there was a song that went with it.

The personal is political. That’s an ethos underlying hip hop and also feminism. I remember the day I took my friend for a walk in Forest Park. I don’t know if he’d ever been out that way before, even though he grew up in Portland. We were recording video for a crowdfunding campaign we had planned. Don’t know whatever happened to that footage. It’s probably lost until the end of time.

I don’t know what your street name is by now. You went through at least three in the time that I knew you.

But know I haven’t forgotten you.

– Rose C.

Photo Credit: Robert Tuck

 

World Insane Is The Overloaded Brain

World Insane Is The Overloaded Brain

Freestyle verse by Sincere God Magnetic

We’re already socially distant. The pandemic is reaction to the systemic distortion of academics. 5G is radioactive pollution while the body succumbs to inner confusion designed and spread by mass media controlled execution. Mistrust is a must in a world built on ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The meek won’t inherit the earth as stock markets crash and cryptocurrency gains its worth. All in all as hysteria rises the unseen government builds firewalls to prevent a scenario that ends in total recall and catastrophic downfall. The love frequency has been corrupted by mental meltdown and deviant delinquency. Stay aware and resilient, maintain your militant stance, we’ve been infiltrated by reptilians. Tomorrow never knows but today the heat signature in the atmosphere grows causing an unprecedented increase in the force of tidal flows. We must dwell and excel together as we have crossed the threshold into the new forever.