I'm not a hardcore nerd the way some of my wonderful friends are, so what I like with geek events are discussions of social implications of technologies, surveillance, privacy, anonymity, and fighting state power and censorship.  Most of these recommended videos are from the 28th Chaos Communication Congress, which concluded a couple of weeks ago.  These are my favorites, but you can find even more talks from the CCC by searching for "28c3" on YouTube.

How Governments have tried to block Tor by Jacob Appelbaum and Roger Dingledine [description].  Some amount of nerd jargon, a basic understanding of how the internet and censorship works is helpful.  Something to love here is both speaker's insistence that it's not about things like "Tor versus China," but the Chinese government versus their people.  There's good discussion of context and how things work differently under different regimes, and how ultimately, Tor developers want to help people decide their own fates in their own countries, and the life-or-death importance of truth in marketing when you offer a censorship circumvention tool.  It's valuable to look at how censorship is deployed in the world's most oppressive countries, and that those censorship tools are developed and sold by American companies like Cisco and Nokia, much like how IBM colluded with the Nazis during WWII.

Marriage from Hell: On the Secret Love Affair Between Dictators and Western Technology Companies by Evgeny Morozov [description].  Morozov is one of my favorite tweeters, the author of The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, and is fun to read for his snarky skepticism of the popular mentality that says that "the internet" magically makes activism and politics better.  (I'd call him a delightfully crabby old man, but he's a year younger than me.)  This talk has very little nerd jargon, and assumes you're already aware that US tech companies knowingly sell things to dictatorships to help them oppress people.

Macro dragnets: Why trawl the river when you can do the whole ocean by Redbeard [description].  Low amount of nerd jargon.  Redbeard is an awesome activist/hacker friend, and this talk takes a very quick jaunt though the basics of a wide array of data mining/collection/storage: US Customs and Immigration, DNA databases, voter records, facial/iris recognition, the data that Amazon stores on customer, IdentifyRioters.com, criminal/prison information collection, and more.  (If this topic interests you, Steve Rambam's multi-hour talks at HOPE are accessible and awesome.)

If you're into nerd-jargon-heavy stuff, Meredith Patterson's talk on The Science of Insecurity is a fun take on security from the perspective of someone who studies linguistics, math, and programming.  Another honorable mention goes to Your Disaster/Crisis/Revolution Just Got Pwned by Tomate and Willow.  Low amount of nerd jargon, this is aimed at hacktivists/coders on how humanitarian groups respond to disasters and crises.  I especially like that it emphasizes self-care, taking breaks, getting sleep, and keeping a sense of humor.  Stressed is the importance of knowing how secure your tools really are before suggesting people trust their lives to them, as well as taking an approach that focuses on the needs of people you're trying to help, rather then selling them on using something you created without their input.  "Don't make a solution for a problem that doesn't exist."  (Good advice for any activist.)

And, from back in October, I finally got around to watching Jacob Appelbaum speaking at an internet activism conference in Sweden on Internet surveillance, censorship, and avenues of resistance with anonymity.  Low amount of nerd jargon, scroll down to the fourth video on the linked page.  This talk includes the importance of privacy-by-design rather than privacy-by-policy, and how the specter of "child pornography" prevents people from questioning the "need" for internet filtering, and how the state functions as the real terrorists who most threaten our freedom.  I appreciate Jake's noting of the West's "othering" of censorship, assuming it's just an issue for foreigners and those in Arab dictatorships.  "Technological utopianism is really part of the problem."

And, finally, a bonus item, so long as I'm throwing out suggestions: PBS's Ascent of Money miniseries, available free online.  This four-hour documentary by Niall Ferguson is wonderful at making financial history of the world interesting, from the development of math and bookkeeping, how money has driven trade and colonization, determined the course of wars and revolutions, all the way up to hedge funds, derivatives, the current financial mess.  I've been looking to learn more about economics, and this is a highly recommended primer on everything from the history of stock, commerce, insurance, and how the real estate crash that's destroying America's poor and middle class was brought about by decades-earlier attempts to quash the appeal of communism.  Really, even if you're not curious about economics, this is a cool history of the not-so-well-known drunks, murderers, gamblers, entrepreneurs, and clergy who got us where we are today.

At some point last year, I sent off Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to a number of government agencies.  I'd actually pretty much forgotten about it after getting form letters back from a number of agencies saying they had nothing on me - or at least, nothing they felt like releasing.  Then, I got a padded mailer from the FBI yesterday.  My FBI file had arrived!  The contents were not what I was expecting.  I don't think I'm that terribly interesting to the government, but I have had the fortune/misfortune to have socialized with, dated, and befriended a number of wonderful people who definitely would be considered "interesting" to law enforcement.  I was expecting a few pages about my friends and lovers, but what I found was that I was physically followed by a group of FBI agents for five days of my life when I was 18 and involved in organizing a protest/campaign.

The FBI released 436 pages of intelligence related to or about me, none of which dates later than 2002.  436 pages!  Printed out, it would be almost a whole ream of paper.  And the most exciting things contained within are reports of us doing things like making photocopies, buying beer, riding the bus, and eating at a restaurant.  99% of it is mundane or mildly creepy, 1% of it is hilarious, and I hope there is something to be learned.  There are a ton of redactions.  It reads like this a lot of the time:

Here's the story: myself and 10 or 11 other people (judging based on line spacing in redacted lists) were being spied upon as we organized a campaign that culminated in a protest.  It ended up being a low-to-mid-level local protest event, got blurbs in the newspapers and TV that day, but will not be remembered by history books, which was about what we expected.  None of us got arrested, no one destroyed any property, and as far as I know, no one planned to, either.  (We were prepared for police aggression, and the group contained a number of street medics ready to deal with pepper spray.)  It was the sort of thing activists do every month all around the world.  There are repeated statements that basically say the FBI is not aware of anyone planning violent, destructive, or illegal acts, but since other protests have (notably the 1999 Seattle WTO), it's best to keep tabs on everyone just in case.  I'm not going to tell you exact details and name names of this one silly campaign, because that bit actually doesn't matter.  We were a small group of young poor activists living off cheap eats, lusty protester sex, and bitching about the system.  We could have been anyone or anywhere.  For the three days leading up to our protest, the day of, and the day after, we were being followed by a group of FBI agents who wrote down what we were doing and often took photos.

I'll spoil the ending for you: the only illegal act we committed in all 436 pages was dumpster diving at food distributor.  This was not actually picked up by the FBI's physical surveillance detail (that would come later), but a beat cop who happened to catch a few of us in the act on patrol.  Friends and I were issued misdemeanor trespassing citations on the spot, the fine for which was under $100.  (The FBI did note that a local police search of a compatriot netted the following suspicious materials: "three pieces of chalk in his pocket, green, red, and white in color," as well as a sticker for a campaign.)  After the citations by local police, the FBI "had the crime lab respond and photograph" the area.  Oh, how exciting!  What a crime scene!

After this dumpster diving citation, the clever FBI was excited to now know my address.  Except, I was hardly "in hiding" or anything.  For the first time since I was 15, I had an official address.  My name was on the lease and I had phone/DSL service at that address under my own name, as well as a mobile phone with a bill that went to that address.  Funny how my home address was still somehow a mystery to the federal government.  (Which calls to mind the first InterPol warrant out for Julian Assange, where they couldn't find one single photo of the man.)  FBI agents did a scouting of my apartment building, noting that there was a mailbox with my last name on it in the lobby.

I am repeatedly identified as a member of a different, more mainstream liberal activist group which I was not only not a part of, but actually fought with on countless occasions.  To somehow not know that I detested this group of people was a colossal failure of intelligence-gathering.  Hopefully the FBI has not gotten any better at figuring out who is a part of what, and that this has worked to the detriment of their surveillance of other activists.  I am also repeatedly identified as being a part of campaigns that I was never involved with, or didn't even know about, including protests in other cities.  Maybe the FBI assumes every protester-type attends all other activist meetings and protests, like we're just one big faceless monolith.  "Oh, hey, you're into this topic?  Well, then, you're probably into this topic, right?  You're all pinkos to us."

In taking a general survey of all area activists, the files keep trying to draw non-existant connections between the most mainstream groups/people and the most radical, as though one was a front for the other.  There are a few flyers from local events that have nothing to do with our campaign, including one posted to advertise a lefty discussion group at the university library.  The FBI mentions that activists may be planning "direct action" at their meetings, which the document's author clarifies means "illegal acts."  "Direct action" was then, and I'd say now, a term used to talk about civil disobedience and intentional arrests.  While such things are illegal actions, the tone and context in these FBI files makes it sound like protesters got together and planned how to fly airplanes into buildings or something.

There's a heavily-redacted page that talks about people networking with activists from other countries, and when a non-American has traveled for a protest to the area on other occasions.  This seems to be something of concern to them - if people would bother traveling for political causes.  One listed criteria for which people were profiled was if they have been previously arrested at other protests.  In trying to mentally piece together who might have been my fellow spied-upons, one of the people I think they were profiling had long since dropped out of activism by that point.

It's the surveillance detail where things get funny and weird.  Eleven or twelve of us were followed by a group of 3-6 FBI agents over the course of five days, and there was often a detail sitting outside of my apartment, totally unbeknownst to me.  (I feel like a total chump that I didn't notice that I was being followed and photographed during this time.)  I had never read law enforcement surveillance logs before, so it was interesting to comb through the pages.  Here is a typical page, which documents some hard-core anarcho-terrorist scheming, blue redactions were made by me:

Because if we let young people watch Lord of the Rings and drink beer, then the terrorists win!

Here are some other highlights about me, complete with snarky commentary:

Wow, serious Sherlock action there.  I entered a bakery, came out with a bag, and I am believed to be carrying bread or food.  (At least it doesn't say, "... believed to be carrying plastic explosives and hand grenades.")

This is cute to me because that hoodie was borrowed from my boyfriend at the time - perhaps the person I was seen walking with in this spy report.  I remember how it was amazingly soft, and I loved wearing it.  It smelled like him and made me horny.  Also: glasses are sexy.

This one documents the most serious activisting on my part - making copies at Kinkos.  The hidden humor here lies in the fact that it's entirely likely that I was making copies about stuff ranting against the police state and the explosion of domestic surveillance of protesters since 9/11.

My very favorite thing the FBI recorded about me:

As you can see, I pose a clear and present danger to society.  I pick up other people's trash and put it in the proper bins.

I'm bummed out that I didn't get to see good quality versions of my surveillance photos.  There are dozens included, but they are so screwed up from generation loss and copying and faxing, you can't even tell what's in them.  Most seem to be outdoors shots with some parked cars and trees.  The surveillance photos all have an otherworldly quality to them, like faded memories and half-remembered strolls after too many Cooks-based mimosas on the first warm day of spring.  Is this a photo of me?  Am I holding hands with someone I almost loved?  Or is this a photo of another person entirely, beamed from a parallel universe?  Such are the artistic mysteries of the FBI spying on Americans.

The day of the protest, I was followed along with others to a vegetarian cafe afterwards.  The FBI's surveillance notes report that we sat at a table.  You know, in stead of storming the place with guns drawn, demanding to be served in the bathroom, or on the ceiling.  The day after the protest, we still had our followers - I guess to make sure we hadn't planned an extra secret super-protest filled with violence and mayhem?  I was observed visiting hotbeds of political unrest like a dollar store, a used records shop, and a discount grocery place.  (Following us around, often on public transit, was basically a tour of "Places Poor People Go.")

At the end of it all, when the FBI decided to close the case file after the protest transpired and nothing interesting happened, it is concluded of me:

Well, there was that dumpster diving incident, but I guess they'll let it slide.

I wonder how much money this operation cost.

* * *

I don't have any particular tips or tricks to filing a FOIA on yourself.  I used this handy-dandy free service to generate the required form letters for me, which I then printed, signed, and mailed.  I didn't pay for anything, even though I indicated that I would pay for any amount of copying fees necessary.  I sent the letters to all the national agencies, and maybe a dozen FBI branch offices.  If I'm remembering correctly, I quickly got letters from all those local offices saying they'd sent my request to the national FBI office for processing.

What are you waiting for?  All it costs is some stamps and 10 minutes of your time.  Maybe a group of FBI agents once followed you around, too.  Filing for one's FBI file is one of those things I know a lot of us mean to do but never get around to doing.  I hope this blog post inspires more Americans to make today the day you ask your government if, how, and why you have been watched.

It's been a busy month, but I wanted to post a photo from last week's Google protest in Seattle.  The protest was just myself and @ishfery, a sex worker I'd previously only met on Twitter.  (And, ornery cunt that I am, I'd wondered if she was real, since "in a post-Alexa world," I've come to suspect all sex worker bloggers who don't post photos of themselves are possibly creepy dudes.)

If you haven't already, check out the Google campaign page on SWAAY.org.

The protest of two went well, and I was certainly happy to not be alone.  Being a lone protester makes you look like some kind of crazy trying to "educate" people about 9/11 being an inside job or something.  One protester is a nutjob, two protesters are lovable underdogs.  While I can make a banner I can hold by myself, it's hard to hold a banner straight and hand out fliers at the same time.  What this photo doesn't show is that I had another sign on my back, hastily tied onto my scarf, reading, "Google Don't Be Evil!"  The reason for the sign on my back was not just so Google employees in the building could see it, but because a little birdy alerted me to the fact that Google Seattle's web cam covered this portion of the bridge.

We probably handed out about 100 fliers, and had some really position conversations.  One woman introduced herself as a budding filmmaker in the early stages of putting together a documentary about the partners of sex workers, and the troubles she was having trying to find people willing to go on camera to talk about those dynamics.  A number of Google employees either emailed/tweeted, or said supportive things in person.  One took a stack of fliers to hand out in the building.  (At the end of the protest, I went to give the reception desk fliers to explain why we were there, and they already had them.)  Everyone was extremely nice and interested, and the only detractor was a homeless-looking older man who told us to get a "real job."  It sounds like the San Francisco and LA protests went well, too, and SWOP Bay Area has some photos online.

I'm now wondering what the next step should be.  It being the Christian holy month, the world is half shut down until early January, so trying to do anything this week would be pointless.  I'm curious if another round of protests is something people are interested in, and when to schedule that.  (Second week of January, I'm assuming, since many people go out of town for Christmas and New Years.)  I'm also wondering about effective ways to utilize internet-based activism as a part of this campaign.  I am steadfastly against pointless, masturbatory "activism" like e-petitions, and with Google being such a massive company that doesn't exactly engage in dialog with the public, it's hard to know where to focus energies.

What I do know is that I'm happy to be working on a campaign that engages in real solidarity with sex workers in the developing world.  Though Google's shitty NGOs do things that harm sex workers right here in America, the brunt of their harm us directed as the poorest and most marginalized people in the world.  Some of the current crop of sex worker "activists" engage in "activism" in the form of attacking people online about which words they're allowed to use and how awful they ought to feel about the erratically-defined issue of "privilege," but it's just bullshit posturing that accomplishes nothing other than making a few people feel self-righteous.  If you surveyed sex workers in the developing world and asked what American activists could do to help them, I'm pretty sure that not one respondent would beg us to spend more of our time bludgeoning each other with freshman-level identity politics and feminist dogma on Twitter.  I love having an issue around which we have discuss the tangible effects of neocolonialism and Western do-gooderism, and what it really means when these NGOs say they want to "rescue" sex workers.  I don't know where the campaign will lead, and if we'll be able to pressure Google into supporting non-missionary, harm-reduction and rights-based services for sex workers, but this is the general direction I'd like to see American sex worker activism go.

My friend Jacob Appelbaum made a comment during his talk about Tor at a nerd convention that stuck with me because it concisely and politely explains what white Western political folk like myself should be doing with our time: "You should consider using your privilege to help other people."

I've spent almost the entire last 5 days researching the groups that Google is now funding.  Please see the campaign page and read something I've put a lot of time info!

Why are sex workers' rights supporters upset with Google?

Google announced last week that they are making the largest-ever corporate donation to "ending modern day slavery": an impressive $11.5 million dollars. We applaud and support Google's desire to fight slavery, forced trafficking, and exploitative labor conditions, but Google's funding recipients include three NGOs that cause serious harm to sex workers in around the world: International Justice Mission, Polaris Project, and Not for Sale. As small sex worker support services struggle for funding to serve their communities, it is offensive to watch Google shower money upon a wealthy faith-based group like the International Justice Mission, which took in nearly $22 million dollars in 2009 alone. (In contrast, the St. James Infirmary, a San Francisco clinic that provides free healthcare to sex workers, operated on only $335k in 2010.)

Does Google know what their money is really supporting? Let's take a look at what you won't read about on the front pages these groups' glossy web sites.

Continue >>>

Also, I'll be protesting outside of Google's Seattle building on Wednesday from 2-4pm (on the bridge next to it, to be specific).  There are also protests in other locations, too, so check the campaign page.  Please join me so I don't have to feel like a lonely sad protester.

This morning, I saw a tweet from a nerd that I knew was going to mean bad news: Google is donating $11.5 million to "fight modern slavery".  And what have we learned that politically-loaded phrase usually means?  It means "fighting to imprison and further criminalize vulnerable sex workers in the developing world."

Looks like the next campaign idea I've been looking to find for SWAAY has just popped up.

In the next few days, I'll have a better idea for a response to Google getting into the anti-sex worker business under the banner of "stopping sex slave trafficking," but for now, I'd appreciate any more information on the groups I'm not familiar with.  For one, I'm not sure if I even have a full list of the organizations Google is funding, so if you know someone at Google, I'd appreciate having them check.  Google's own charity giving web site has the list below, but I'm not sure if it's a complete one.  It's not exclusively anti-sex worker groups, but IJM, the Polaris Project, and Not For Sale are known foes.

ActionAid India
Aide et Action
BBC World Service Trust
Slavery Footprint
International Justice Mission
La Strada International
Not for Sale
Polaris Project
GoodWeave

Please post information in my comments area, I want to flesh out this subject so we know who exactly Google is funding, and what those groups do to sex workers to "save" them.  If you're not already familiar with how Western NGOs hurt sex workers in the developing world, please browse the video collection at Sex Workers Present, which is mostly from South East Asia.

In the last month, there has been more and more talk from some sex workers about how awesome the Occupy movement is, including some of my ho activist friends on Twitter who are part of different Occupy encampments.  SWOP-NYC has a pro-Occupy post, Jessie of SWOP LA throws in her support, Trisha wrote about the issues of SlutWalk and Occupy, and Melissa Gira Grant wrote a strangely pearl-clutching piece about how sad it is some people -gasp- do sex work to pay for college.

I've been wary and on the fence about the Occupy movement and its vague, utopian, barely-articulated aims.  Occupy embodies basically everything I hate about the left, and the best I've been able to muster so far is feeling sorry for people who have been assaulted by police.  Today, I went from on the fence to against Occupy Seattle.  I was trying to get to the nonprofit vegan grocery store, Sidecar, a place I'm happy to support because all the proceeds go to an animal sanctuary.  I sure timed my bus errand poorly, because I ended up behind an Occupy Seattle march.

First off, the protesters went out of their way to disrupt as much traffic and transit as possible.  I talked to my bus driver, and he said the group had told Seattle Metro they would be marching along a certain route, giving Metro a chance to divert buses in the area to another street.  Once the time came for the march, however, the Occupy folk changed their official plan and went down the street where they knew Metro buses were being re-routed, all to maximize problems for commuters.  That's a pretty asshole move.  How is going out of your way to screw up as many public transit lines as possible harming the super-rich?  Are there a lot of country-ruining billionaires on the bus during rush hour?  I guess I never noticed them though all the students, disabled people, punks/hippies, elderly people, nonwhites, single moms, young folk, and homeless-looking people who typically make up much of Metro's ridership.

After half an hour on a bus that was barely moving, I gave up and angrily walked home in the freezing rain, knowing it would have taken hours to get to my destination.  Congratulations, anti-capitalists, you prevented me from spending my money at a nonprofit, so I shopped at a corporate grocery store instead.  I went home and watched the clamor unfold on Twitter.  The march had moved on to occupying a bridge, shutting down traffic in both directions.  This bridge is one of the connections between the central Seattle area and the University of Washington and the outlying suburbs, as well as a major hospital complex at the university.  Occupy Seattle was cutting off a key route for hospital access, which could genuinely cost lives if ambulances had to re-route and go back to other another bridge in an emergency.

Less than 24 hours after winning national sympathy when Seattle police pepper-sprayed a small elderly woman, Occupy Seattle experienced a big wave of hatred from the general public, pissed off at missed meetings, missed classes, missed flights, and being stuck in traffic for no good reason.  Twitter users were cheering for them to be beaten, shot, pepper-sprayed, and many hoped aloud that the bridge would collapse, or that protesters would fall/jump to their deaths.  Comments on various local news websites all echoed similar opinions - anger, annoyance, confusion, and rooting for harm to befall protesters.  There were countless comments where someone said they supported Occupy before, but this changed their minds.

Any sane activist would be thinking, "Oh shit, we made a huge fuckup here.  The public is angry at us, we're blocking hospital access, and we're not accomplishing anything other than showing people that we like to cause pointless disruptions.  This has been an absolute disaster."

Instead, the resounding consensus among protesters on Twitter was that the event was a massive success, and Occupy Seattle marchers and supporters responded to people who disagreed by making fun of them, insulting them, telling them they are the enemy, and generally celebrating the fact that the public had turned against them after the bridge occupation.  It was like watching some spoiled punk teenager gloat about how they're really "sticking it to the man" by pissing off "the squares" with their green hair.

What today highlighted for me is my growing uneasiness with how Occupy protesters continually scream that they are "the 99%," insisting that they represent just about everyone in the country.  I don't like seeing strangers keep arguing that they are my spokespersons, that they can attest to the interests and beliefs of most Americans, that they are protesting "for me," and even that they are me.  This creepy rhetoric reminds me all too well of how anti-sex worker crusaders always insist that they are acting and speaking on our behalf, without ever deigning to listen to us.  There is something deeply and profoundly fucked up about declaring oneself the mouthpiece for people whom you don't know, aren't trying to get to know, and in many cases, who actively oppose what you are saying and doing, such as it the case of the vast numbers of Seattle folk irate over having their evening disrupted by a core group of perhaps a hundred protesters who were trying to stay on the bridge as long as possible.

Where this whole thing goes from eerily cult-like to comical is that the people who pretend to be and represent "the 99%" are a tiny minority, even in a large left-leaning city, and they were causing a problems for the majority.  Occupy Seattle wasn't representing the desires of anyone but themselves, least of all working and lower-income people who rely on public transit to get around the city.

Occupy Seattle: you are not the 99%.  You do not represent me, you do not represent Seattle, and I wish you people would stop insisting that you do.  A group that relishes in causing disruptions purely for the sake of causing disruptions does not embody the key political concerns of most Americans, any more than a right-wing billionaire does.  You are an obnoxious minority that continues to further isolate itself from the rest of the public, and I can't think of one positive thing you have contributed to my city.

But all that doesn't matter.  According to Occupy Seattle kids, the fact that I dislike them just means that they've been victorious in their protest, despite the fact I will never be earning in the top 10%, let alone the top 1%.

As a sex workers' rights advocate, my life would be so much easier if the sole metric by which I judged an activist "success" was how many members of the general public I could get to hate us.  It's easy to turn the public against you, any lazy dipshit can do that.  Influencing the public to adopt more progressive and tolerant ideas?  That's not as adrenaline-soaked and fun as instigating confrontations with the police, but it leads to actual and long-lasting change, which is precisely the kind of work that needs to be done.

 

Update one: In looking at more local coverage, the first three comments on a cheery pro-Occupy article on SLOG summed up today's debate so neatly, especially the middle one as being the most used defense by bridge protest supporters.

Gern Blanston: "Claim it for the 99 percent." What a fucking joke! When they shut down a bridge, or a busy downtown street, they're preventing everyone else from going about their daily lives. They're just a bunch of self-important, grandstanding pricks. They don't speak for me.

what_now: Maybe there are things that are more important than people going about their daily lives?

LJM: the problem is that you're suggesting that one group of people know which "things" are "more important" than going about their daily lives, and which "things" are less important. You can use this reasoning to justify any type of inconsiderate behavior by people who claim to be doing it for your own good.

Update two: Seattle Central Community College - where Occupy Seattle set up residence after moving from their original location in the shopping district - has been complaining about the public health hazards being created by the camp in the form "accumulations of garbage, poor food handling, discarded syringes and needles, fire safety hazards, dog feces, and disposal of wastewater."  Congratulations again, Occupy Seattle, you've succeeded in be-filthing a facility that caters to lower-income people.  That's really sticking it to the evil super-rich, isn't it?  (As I saw someone else point out today, if they really want to stick it to banks through civil disobedience, why not occupy bank-owned foreclosed houses?)

Occupy supporters are seemingly unable to come up with non-false dichotomy arguments to support their protest at the bridge.  It's all hyperbole like, "Oh, so you love watching billionaires raping the country?" or one who told me that I must be too busy fawning over the Kardashians to care about anything else.  You can be against Occupy Seattle and its dumbass tactics without being pro-cop, pro-bailout, pro-apathy, and pro-status quo.  I was, in fact, anti-status quo before this new wave of Carhartt Warriors grew their first pubes.  (Do dirty anarkids still wear Carhartts?  Am I totally dating myself in my choice of derisive terminology?)

Also, I actually do support using disruptive and controversial protest methods, but only when they are targeted and/or express a clear message and demands.  (Examples being crashing a shareholder meeting to send a message that a corporation should stop engaging in such-and-such practice, or civil disobedience on a logging road that prevents logging companies from cutting down any trees that day.)  Making things hard on huge numbers of Seattle residents who just want to get home from work makes people hate you, and accomplished absolutely nothing.  Yes, it got media coverage and attention, but so what?  Is the only goal of Occupy Seattle to get lots of bad press?  Does getting bad press fix the economy or make one single person's life better?  No, but it sure is easier than engaging in strategic activism or doing something positive.

After 8 days of rolling around Los Angeles, the billboard run concluded yesterday.  (We were given a full bonus day because winds last week prevented the company from being able to safely deploy.  That sounded weird to me at first, but looking at the billboard trailer, I can see how wind could easily tip the thing over.)

I've posted more photos (sent by the awesome Stacey Swimme, who also handled press inquiries) here, but here's a couple that give you the basic idea of the project:

The billboard didn't get the response I would have expected from the media.  I didn't think we'd make front-page headlines, but I thought that we would garner more blurbs.  Maybe the press is burnt out on covering protesty topics because of the Occupy thing, maybe this isn't that interesting to them, or maybe having a mobile billboard made it more difficult to be able to report on.  I think the only media coverage (outside of sex worker blogs) were these four items:

* LAist covered the billboard 3 months ago when fundraising concluded.
* LA Weekly covered the story on their blog, no idea if it made it into the print issue.  The article is inexplicably illustrated with a photo of an Asian woman licking a toe.
* XBiz, a porn/novelty industry trade magazine/site covered the billboard.  This is the first time I've ever seen the phrase "sex work" on the front page of their web site, which makes me happy, because so many porn people like to think they are different/better than other sex workers.
* ABC local news in LA did a story, which was supposedly positive, but there's no video online.

But, press or no press, countless thousands of people in LA had a chance to read a definition of what a sex worker is, and I hope that the project has helped spark a lot of conversations.  I'm very proud that something I organized got off the ground, and I'm already wondering where to take a public awareness campaign next.

A few months ago, SWAAY's mail box received a neat package in the mail from Respect, Inc, with an impressive sampling of useful literature, and cute condom packets.  Click on the photo to enlarge, and see PDF versions of Respect, Inc's literature on their web site.  I love seeing what other groups have to offer, and these set a great example of what sex workers' rights activists can be doing to serve their communities.

Los Angeles, CA, November 1, 2011 -- After being rejected by every billboard company in Los Angeles, the sex workers' rights project SWAAY (Sex Work Activists, Allies, and You) has launched their public awareness campaign with a mobile billboard, which will be running for eight days from November 1 to November 8, 2011.

SWAAY's text-only billboard reads, "Sex worker: a person who consensually exchanges their own sexual labor or sexual performance for compensation. Sex work is not the same as forced sex trafficking or sex slavery. Learn about the people and facts behind sex work at SWAAY.org." Any variation of the group's message was banned by Clear Channel, CBS, Lamar, Regency, Van Wagner, Avant Outdoor, LA Transit Authority, and Outdoor Solutions, but was finally picked up by a mobile billboard company.

The sex workers' rights billboard was paid for by 115 supporters on EpicStep.com, a Kickstarter-like website that allows grassroots activist groups to crowdsource the funding of a media campaign. Previous billboards successfully launched through Epic Step include messages in support of WikiLeaks and accused war crimes whistle-blower Bradley Manning.

SWAAY was founded in June of this year to address the public's misconceptions due to the lack of factual and accessible information about sex work, and to fight against the outright lies and "junk science" statistics pushed by moral and religious crusaders who advocate for further criminalization and stigmatization of sex workers.

A sex worker is a person who exchanges their own sexual labor or sexual performance for compensation, such as an escort/prostitute, porn star, stripper, dominatrix, phone sex operator, sensual masseuse, or web cam performer. Sex workers are part of the larger sex industry - which includes adult movie directors, club owners, webmasters, retail stores, and more - but are distinct because their job involves making money off of their own sexual labor, not writing about, photographing, managing, or selling the sexual labor or performances of others.

The St. James Infirmary, a San Francisco clinic that provides free healthcare to sex workers, has faced similar struggles this month with their own media campaign. Originally planning to use billboards to spread their "Someone You Know is a Sex Worker" message, the nonprofit's ads were rejected by Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor, but eventually found a home on Muni buses.

"Bad laws and hurtful social stigmas work together in a vicious cycle that makes life more dangerous and difficult for the people who engage in sex work," says Sabrina Melmoth, a volunteer with the group. "SWAAY seeks to chip away at both problems by sharing non-sensationalized, first-person information about life as a sex worker, and advocating for the full decriminalization of sex work."

A press conference will be held later this week.

###

At fucking last!

Despite having completed the billboard fundraiser almost two months ago - thanks to 115 awesome supporters - the SWAAY billboard campaign has been on hold.  I haven't been trying to keep anyone in the dark, but every time it seemed like headway was being made, the billboard would get shut down by someone else, which is frustrating.  Even now, after signing a contract, agreeing upon a start date, and the billboard itself having been printed, I'm still nervous to publicize that date, because it feels like jinxing things.

Every major (and many minor) outdoor advertising companies in LA rejected the pro-sex worker billboard, leaving our ad guys guys at Epic Step pretty shocked that a polite text-only billboard would encounter such a massive wall of resistance.  (San Francisco's St James Infirmary has also faced an uphill struggle lately to find a company willing to accept their money.  Their ad campaign ended up finding a home with Muni bus ads.)  I really have to hand to to Epic Step, as the small company went above and beyond to find a way to get our message out.

The billboard was rejected by Clear Channel, CBS, Lamar, Regency, Van Wagner, Avant Outdoor, LA Transit Authority, and Outdoor Solutions.  However, the big three companies are no strangers to taking money from controversial causes and campaigns.  Clear Channel, Lamar, and CBS have hosted billboards featuring racist, anti-gay, anti-church/state separation, and anti-sex worker/anti-client billboards.  On the other hand, CBS and Lamar have hosted pro-marijuana ones, and CBS had a WikiLeaks billboard, so these companies are no strangers to "weird" causes that I support, either.

You can click see a large version.

This is not to say that I think people should not be allowed to express views that differ from my own, simply to point out that the big three advertising companies have no problem with other controversial campaigns.  They are clearly making decisions with who they're willing to do business - which is their right - but they've decided that the ad dollars of religious nutjobs, the police, racists, bigots, and even those who are (potentially) breaking laws are more acceptable than the ad dollars of sex workers.  (I'm pretty flattered that sex work is even more controversial to ad companies than WikiLeaks, honestly.)

In the end, the guys at Epic Step found RoadSign Adverts for us, which is a mobile billboard company.  Mobile billboards seem to be a bit of a "last resort" option for those rejected from the mainstream, and have been favored by folk like strip clubs and anti-abortion activists.  SWAAY's billboard will (assuming nothing else goes wrong) be starting later this month, and will be driving around in LA for 7 days.  I'm hoping that maybe this will be a blessing in disguise, and that the mobile billboard, because of their rarity, will garner even more attention than a standard stationary billboard.  The mobile billboards are more expensive, so what we fundraised to pay for 4 weeks of a standard billboard only buys us 7 days of a mobile one.

Since the billboard size was a bit different than a stationary billboard - taller, but less wide - I did change the text very slightly to make it fit better. I imagine supporters wouldn't mind.  Here's what LA is going to be seeing soon:

So, three cheers for Epic Step and RoadSign Adverts!  I'll write a proper press release for distribution when the truck starts running, but for now, I wanted to bitch about the backstory and rejections.  Also, looking ahead, I've asked Epic Step to start feeling out billboard companies in New York City and Washington DC, since I would like to make this a national campaign.  I don't know if I'll start the next fundraiser in November or in the new year, since holidays have everyone vying for donations and money, but we'll see.  I'm excited to see what kind of attention this project is going to generate.

Go back to older posts »