I've advocated for the legitimacy and necessity of remaining anonymous in activism in previous posts, but today I'd like to illustrate for you how difficult it can be to create anonymity.
A couple people have also taken issue with my stance on "don't firebomb a Walmart," because they've interpreted that to mean that I don't believe in breaking the law (not true), and I think this example helps illustrate what I mean when I say "this is a surveillance society, and if you do something that big, you WILL be caught."
This is literally just from an episode of some crime show I caught: There was a string of bank robberies in the American Northwest (Washington/Oregon area I believe) that were attributed to a specific alt-right terrorist group that left a note with their symbol at each robbery. They were taking a stance against the American banking system (part of their beliefs were very anti-bank, anti-IRS, etc.) while gathering money for their group. They did this while in full masks, gloves, everything. One of the guys got convicted partially on the unique wear pattern on the seam of his denim jeans. He wore jeans to all the robberies. The seam of a pair of denim jeans wears uniquely on each pair, creating a band of white and blue stripes down the side. The police got him (fully covered and unidentifiable in any traditional way) on the bank camera, used an item in the bank that they measured the height of at the scene to get his height from the footage, figured out where the bands would fall on the jeans in-person, and then after they got probable cause from some other evidence (also fun - one of the other guys stood in a specific stance on camera that was taught in police academies in the 80's, narrowing down their search for members of the terrorist group who were cops during that time + their known associates), the police raided his house, found the jeans, and matched the pattern. That was a huge piece of evidence that helped convict that specific guy, who was hard to nail as the third man any other way.
You can be given away by the seam on your jeans, or the way you stand on camera.
So first of all, don't be part of an alt-right terrorist group because booo 👎. Second of all, don't do something like blowing up a Walmart as "a stand against capitalism" or robbing a bunch of banks as "a stand against the American banking system." Those systems are too big to be taken on in an acute way. If you think otherwise, please consider: Do you know the name of the guys who did these bank robberies? Do you know what the name of their organization is? If you do recognize either, did you learn about them anywhere other than a 30 minute show about crime? And most importantly, can you name something banks do as a result of these robberies that makes them better, more fair, or any less important to American life?
