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[SPEAKER_01]: This is inform your resistance with political research associates or PRAA.
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[SPEAKER_01]: tune in monthly to hear experts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Researchers, journalists, academics, and movement strategists explain some of the most significant contemporary threats to democracy from the mainstream and far right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: With informed your resistance, we distill what you need to know most.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host
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[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I sit down with PRA Principal Research Advisor Steven Gardner to discuss the Paralympic case from North Texas.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The verdict of which was read earlier this month.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We discuss the implications of the case for ongoing organizing to resist the Trump administration with concrete advice from Steven on how to mitigate risk without demobilizing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Before I sit down with him, I'm going to summarize the case for listeners who are perhaps not familiar with the details, so that we can jump right into discussing its implications in the next part of this episode.
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[SPEAKER_01]: On March 13, nine people were convicted on a variety of charges for their involvement in a shooting.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That occurred during a noise demonstration held on July 4, 2025, outside the Prairie Land Ice Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The defendants are Benjamin Song, Autumn Hill, Zachary Evans, Savannah Baton, Megan Morris, Marcella Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ernest Soto, and Daniel Sanchez's strata.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The convictions include providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use in carrying explosive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Concealing a document or record, conspiracy to conceal documents and discharging a firearm.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Possible sentences for defendants in this case range from a minimum of 10 years to 60 years in prison.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In addition to the nine people convicted on March 13th, 7 additional defendants pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorists in November of 2025, Nathan Bowman, Joy Gibson, Susan Kent, Rebecca Morgan, Lynette Sharp, John Thomas, and Seth Seix may face up to 15 years in prison.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Sentencing is set to take place in June of this year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So what happened under
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[SPEAKER_01]: In the days prior to July 4th, members in a signal chat titled 4th of July Party, organized a noise demonstration for the 4th outside of the Prairie Land Ice Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, in opposition to the Trump administration's ongoing program of mass deportation and incarceration of immigrants.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The demonstration was intended to signal solidarity to the people detained within the facility.
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[SPEAKER_01]: During the noise demonstration defendants lit fireworks around the perimeter of the building and allegedly spray painted graffiti on outdoor structures and cars in the parking lot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Police were called to the scene by correctional officers, at which point officer Thomas Gross arrived and exited his car.
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[SPEAKER_01]: According to protesters at the scene, Gross is aiming at two fleeing protesters when Benjamin Song began shooting in his direction.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Gross was hit by a bullet, but able to return a handful of shots.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is unclear whether Gross is shot directly by song or whether the bullet ricochet off the ground and hit him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: His medical records were not entered by the prosecution into evidence during the trial.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Over the next several days, law enforcement investigated the demonstration and shooting, detaining the nine indicted defendants and seven others who pled guilty.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In the process of investigation, Daniel Sanchez Estrada allegedly moved a box of printed material for which he was charged and convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record.
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[SPEAKER_01]: These are the basic facts of the case, and in my interview with Stephen, we will discuss more of the details of how the protests shooting in case unfolded.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Other instances of legal persecution of anti-Is protestors, what these criminal cases tells about the Trump administration's authoritarian project, and implications for protest organizers today.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We will also link to more in-depth coverage of the Paralyened case in the show notes for our closer look at it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Steven, thank you so much for sitting down with me again to talk about the prairie land case.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think that our audience is going to be particularly interested in today's conversation, so I'm glad that we're able to record it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Jumping right in, can you provide our listeners with a sense of how the investigation of a shooting of a law enforcement officer?
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[SPEAKER_01]: became a tool of state suppression of dissent and the context for prairie land within other recent legal persecutions of protesters and more broadly the DOJ under Trump, which is of course a a big kettle of fish.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So first we have to go back and look at the context.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So last July for there was a day of protests at the Prairie Land Ice Detention Facility.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And a group of folks from the area decided they were going to do a additional protest that do you think?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the events that follow are somewhat disputed, but I mean, there's a general picture that they were going to let off some fireworks that some people were going to maybe or at least they did.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's unclear exactly what the plans were, but some people did some graffiti, some
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[SPEAKER_00]: there was a decision that, as a question of self-defense, people would bring weapons with them, there was never established any plan to shoot anyone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The one person he was convicted of shooting a law enforcement officer, Benjamin Song was the, his convicted shooter, doesn't exactly deny that he fired the shot.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He says that it was not intended to hit the officer and there is at least some
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[SPEAKER_00]: What hit him was a ricochet, caused a minor injury.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He was said he was doing some impressive fire against an officer who had pulled his gun and was pointing at it somewhat again.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This part is a little bit disputed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Probably happened very quickly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No one else fired a weapon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People did set off fireworks and the government decided that this was conspiracy to use explosives to somehow attack this ICE facility.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People were charged with riot, charged with conspiracy to support terrorists.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so, at first though, this was not the case.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was the charge of attempted murder, there were what you might say are predictable charges of a protest where there is some escalation and confrontation with law enforcement.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there was the attempted murder there was use of explosives, which were in fact fireworks.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But there was no conspiracy charge.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This comes about as a result of, and this is clear from the public statements of prosecutors and the DOJ, as a result of the executive order designating, antifa as a terrorist organization, which has no status and law.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a anti-terrorism law,
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[SPEAKER_00]: that says you can't commit acts of terror at them, but there's no designation for domestic terrorist organizations, the important distinction.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we have to think about this then they come back after this executive order in the memo that goes with it, explaining why anti-file is so bad from the point of view of the Trump administration.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a obsession and revise the charges and charge them with more things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: including all of these conspiracy charges, which are what up the stakes in terms of, for everyone but Song who was the shooter, up the stakes in terms of what kinds of sentences people could get, and what kinds of evidence could be introduced, including this whole story about the existence of this quote unquote antifoss cell of, in North Texas, which most observers, most mutual observers consider to be non-sensical.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So, and yet, it has the political effect of saying that we can accuse you of being part of an organization we find antithetical to the regime and the United States government.
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[SPEAKER_00]: that even if it doesn't exist based on the fact that you have ideas we don't like.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And in this case, being antifa, if you boil it down, it means you don't like what ice is doing, and you don't like the current administration.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That is the definition of political prosecution.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And have we seen other examples of similar rhetorical and policies shifts under this administration that suggests that Prairie Land is not the only case that has played out in this way?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well first, the DOJ has said, this is only beginning, we are going to continue these kinds of prosecutions until we eradicate what we're calling anti-fa, in fact the Trump administration perroitors today has decided that they're going to hold an international fighting overcoming anti-fa summit in June or July.
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[SPEAKER_00]: to which some former anti-terrorism experts have kind of responded, huh?
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[SPEAKER_00]: In the middle of the war with Iran does it really make sense to expend resources on this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality of the non-existent threat doesn't seem to phase the Department of Justice.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So these are not exactly Andy Faugh and prosecutions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, they are further instances of the use of conspiracy charges to press down, to resist resistance, to oppress.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So we have the Broadview Prosecutions of Broadview 6, which is from a case in a Chicago suburb, where they're during the surge in the ice surge in Chicago, you have a group of six activists in particular, who were charged with conspiracy to obstruct federal law enforcement.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And two of those charges have been
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[SPEAKER_00]: thrown out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there's not only four left.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One of the ones that was thrown out was a woman who was singing songs and had her guitar shot out of her hand with a rubber bullet by an ice agent.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But, and, yeah, it was pretty clear that this was an attempt given the identities of the people being prosecuted there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were mostly prominent activists or candidates for political office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Left, leaning candidates for political office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We have in St. Paul, again, during the ice surge there, we had a group of 450 people who went to city's church in St. Paul on January 18th to protest the pastor, David Easterwood, who also happens to be the local director of an ice field office.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So they were protesting him.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and his positions and so on, they were charged with conspiracy to intimidate and violate the face act and basically interfere with the operation of a religious institution.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And some of those charges have also been dismissed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite likely that many of these charges will eventually be dismissed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What made, but that doesn't stop the reality of all of these defendants having to fight these charges at considerable expense and not more than a little anxiety for the long federal sentences they could receive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What made Prairie Land different?
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[SPEAKER_00]: is the district that it was in, district of North Texas, where there was an minimal judge appointed by Trump member of the Federalist Society, the right wing, legal entity that it's provided most of the Trumpian appointees to the judiciary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And wow, it's cherry picking their case that they want to make as a president.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and they clearly do see this as a precedent and it's not just a precedent for we're going to bring conspiracy charges but there of highlighting their determination to make prosecutions on political grounds and we don't have to agree with all of the tactical decision making.
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[SPEAKER_00]: of those folks who were convicted to say that this is overreach and it has political repercussions far beyond the ten to sixty years that all of these people could spend in federal prison.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Although it's looking like there was evidence suppression from the
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[SPEAKER_00]: that could lead to the potential of a appeal here?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That was some of the thinking after the verdict was read was that potentially the defense is waiting to play their hand in an appeal trial, which is why their closing arguments were not particularly compelling.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I do think one of the most remarkable things about this trial is that these folks were found guilty by a jury of their peers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what that really says is how compelling the story of Antifa as a buggy man, as a constructed enemy is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: to folks who comprise the maga base and it also to me suggest why focusing in the midst of an war with Iran focusing on combating Antifa as a priority for the executive certainly makes sense in terms of continuing to build and bolster that base during a very deeply unpopular war.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's correct.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's a way in which as a instance of sort of laying the groundwork for using the security state and the justice department to go after political opponents, including anti war protestors in the future for example.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who is or isn't anti-fog the beauty of the thing?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who's no one can really say?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there are a few groups that have that in there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They're titled that, none of them have actually been prosecuted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Great thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's end when they start going to the theory of, we're going to go after their funding.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, most of us know an anti-foff identified person or two, and their funding comes from working as a barista to pay for their tattoos.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's ridiculous.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But what they're actually saying is the theory here is that because there are large organizations, progressive organizations that are biting against the ideas
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[SPEAKER_00]: the funding they get, one way or another supports the same political effort as the folks dressing in black and yelling, expletive ice.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's what makes it so unnerving is how amorphous this category is and how much leeway that gives the state to use it as a means of persecution.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You and I are having this conversation on March 31st following the third nationwide no kings protest movement.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the reasons why we wanted to have this conversation
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[SPEAKER_01]: and really sip publicly to our audiences to understand the implication of in particular the prairie land decision but the other decisions or the other cases pending that you named for protesters who are continuing and should continue to organize today and one of the things in particular I would like you to speak to is what is the role that signal plays in the
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[SPEAKER_01]: for the way that the prosecution used transignal chat transcripts.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What is it suggest for those of us who currently use this communication tool to organize resistance to the administration?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Signal is an end-to-end encrypted application that can only communicate with itself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: To be absolutely clear from the civil liberties perspective, fact that we're using encrypted messaging, many people do this routinely for everything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's two roles here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One is part of the story, which we'll get come back to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The other is just the evidence fix.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Phone's devices were seized, undeleted messages were recovered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And those messages told a story of people who did various things to plan this noise protest.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The language that was being used in those chats, none of which, by the way, said, let's go and shoot some law enforcement people, that's not what it said.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It said there was a discussion about weapons, apparently.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a discussion saying that that, to
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[SPEAKER_00]: people thought that there was a chance that they could become the victims of gunfire from someone and they wanted to build defend themselves and in the state of Texas, which is an open carry state.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is perfectly legal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, my personal opinion about the advisability of this is a different issue.
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[SPEAKER_00]: can do.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can take one of my security trainings and talk about why I think that might not be the best decision making.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was particularly legal and it doesn't change protected first amendment speech into non-protected speech.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you shoot someone, that's obviously crime and it's not first to amendment protected.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There may be self-defense possible defenses, but in this case,
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[SPEAKER_00]: That was not particularly assertive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was tried, if the claim was that it was an accident, but the shots were fired and that in itself would have been illegal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there was a crime.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just all of this incillary conspiracy stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, signal then is used to make a story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These are obviously, and the logic is this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And prosecutors don't even have to say this, because this is common sense for most people in this country.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you have to keep it a secret?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the fact that signal allows disappearing messages.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if someone is, if there's a crime, there's been committed and people are being charged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can't legally go back and erase messages that you might have been party to anything had to do, this would be concealing evidence.
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[SPEAKER_00]: but signal understands like many kinds of privacy-related technology products that you may not want every off-hand comment that you ever made in a chat to be taken as potential evidence in the future for anything, including your dark humor joke or your irony that is not contextualized.
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[SPEAKER_00]: and allows these things to be automatically deleted after an hour, a day, a week, a month, whatever you want.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Also, to trim a purely practical point of view, you probably don't want years worth of messages clogging up your device memory.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's no reason to keep all of that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is intended as a femurah, more like the flow of conversation than signed documents that are meant to be
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[SPEAKER_00]: So there's the story saying that using an encrypted app in the first place is evidence that you must be wanting to do something wrong, well, reality is millions of people use, singularly use it all the time for everything, including chatting with their kids and sending a, let's meet for coffee, note whatever else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is this is when I'm talking
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let go of the cosplay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This language that has come to us around, quote-unquote security culture, and language that has come from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Military the same with kind of like the intimidating outfits and the tactical vest and this kind of thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is juvenile and it's not useful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, it's also not illegal.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, whether or not I think it's good tactics, doesn't matter from the point of view, is the Trump administration using it in the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security using it to leverage an idea of there as this dangerous militarized faction that is plotting to
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[SPEAKER_00]: to stop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just somehow ministry in the United States.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now there are factions who are planning, the difference when plotting a plan is a plan is just an intention to do something, and that intention is to legally protest and politically change.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People's thoughts, candidates who are elected,
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[SPEAKER_00]: opinions of elected officials, and so on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All of that is protected legal speech and essential to the functioning of any kind of democracy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this is really what we're looking at the edge of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying that, again, that graffiti on federal vehicles and destroying security cameras is protected speech.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not.
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[SPEAKER_00]: but it's also a stretch to call this terrorism threatening the existence of the United States or even that particular ice facility.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So given the legality of much of what occurred in Prairieland and the
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[SPEAKER_01]: But yet the resulting verdicts and charges for this group of folks in Texas, what advice would you give to protesters between balancing what is technically legal, but potentially non-strategic in an era of extra legal persecution by the state?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well understand first, understand that anything that you put into
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[SPEAKER_00]: writing, including into an encrypted chat, could and will become part of a public record if someone is prosecuted.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if those messages have been auto-deleted before the prosecution, before the charges are met, before anyone is arrested, then obviously they can't be used, but there's no way you can guarantee that everyone who has involved with that chat will follow that protocol.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying that because, oh, you can say illegal things and then you'll get away with it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying it because the federal government or any other prosecutor can take a narrative spun from a combination of boasts and jokes and turn it into something that sounds really
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[SPEAKER_00]: wicked for a jury, starting with that premise if you don't have anything to hide why are you using an encrypted app?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's plenty of valid political strategic reasons for why you wouldn't want to make your tactics and your strategy available to potential opposition before the fact.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, there's also a good case to maybe aid for understanding a difference between tactical,
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[SPEAKER_00]: privacy and the need for absolute secrecy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Secrecy is something you want to use as little as possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
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[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, you don't want to be in a position where you may decide that you're just going to use signal for everything, but you also need to understand that you want to minimize the ways in which you are using language that is not necessary language that references scouting the perimeter or this kind of militarized lingo that comes to us from the movies.
25:29.750 --> 25:33.535
[SPEAKER_00]: television, just James Bond nonsense.
25:34.976 --> 25:53.479
[SPEAKER_00]: What we were what you're doing is you're planning to make political statement and use those chats to get people together face to face so they can look at each other and talk about and where they can signal yeah I'm being ironic which often does not come through in chat.
25:54.269 --> 26:13.254
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, be really clear stating, and even if you're not going to state it right up front ahead of the time, at the time of your protest, you need to be able to say why you're doing it and make that really clear, so that your goal, your political goal is explicit.
26:15.337 --> 26:23.348
[SPEAKER_00]: So if someone does something that is not in accord with that goal is not the point to
26:25.150 --> 26:27.055
[SPEAKER_00]: people are going to have disputes.
26:27.676 --> 26:33.010
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always going to be disputes about what tactics are justified under what circumstances.
26:33.932 --> 26:39.767
[SPEAKER_00]: But if people are going to, if you're planning a protest that is intended to be a legal.
26:41.367 --> 26:55.225
[SPEAKER_00]: First amendment protected activity or if you're planning to do civil disobedience and don't want to give away a head of the fact what you're going to do at the time of the action you need to make clear what you're attempting.
26:55.542 --> 27:05.195
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes sense to be able to get ahead of any narrative crafted by a prosecutor with very clear and published public language.
27:06.316 --> 27:24.621
[SPEAKER_01]: And I should also mention one of the ways that Signal was used in this case was that despite auto deletion, people had their notifications, visible notifications, and then any message even if it was deleted shortly after was saved in the operating system itself.
27:25.462 --> 27:26.543
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is really helpful.
27:26.563 --> 27:32.269
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's your idea of your call to put the cosplay aside.
27:32.329 --> 27:51.790
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is a really clear call to action of protest, but do it in ways that don't obfuscate your politics that don't open the door to narratives that can be used.
27:52.394 --> 28:09.491
[SPEAKER_01]: By the state four reasons of persecution, I've also heard in response to the Paralympic case, like a clear, called to organizers to not wear all black because black black can be seen as a tactic of nefarious actors.
28:09.551 --> 28:18.520
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think one of the things that I want to underscore for our audiences is
28:18.500 --> 28:24.128
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what is the risk assessment in your opinion here in terms of continuing political action?
28:24.148 --> 28:34.823
[SPEAKER_01]: And you mentioned this in passing, but can you talk a little bit about what you would recommend for organizers in open carry states?
28:35.664 --> 28:44.997
[SPEAKER_01]: How to mitigate the role that guns and gun violence could play in what should otherwise be peaceful moments of peaceful protest?
28:46.192 --> 28:52.602
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, first I have to say that to an extent, I would have to defer to local sensibilities around this.
28:52.682 --> 29:02.558
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if Boping Carrier is ubiquitous, it would be really strange then to tell everyone, no, you can't do that, but not least because some people are not going to listen.
29:03.399 --> 29:10.731
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I think that in most instances, it's a bad idea to militarize protest space.
29:11.673 --> 29:18.229
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't think that there's anything wrong with self-defense as a principle.
29:19.172 --> 29:27.893
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that operating within the limits of the actual law, people may decide that they're going to carry, but then,
29:27.873 --> 29:44.464
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not going to discourage it, you have to be aware of the risk of being found liable for contributing to some kind of conspiratorial or negligent charges that could be
29:44.444 --> 29:49.153
[SPEAKER_00]: They levied against you if you don't make that determination.
29:49.894 --> 30:05.963
[SPEAKER_00]: I think militarization of protest space is a terrible idea, but of course cops are always coming militarized and most of the time, if there are vigilante actors in present from the right, they will also be armed and militarized.
30:05.943 --> 30:11.472
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it is a good look for us to, to try to match that tip for a tap.
30:11.492 --> 30:21.469
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people have to be really clear that if they have a legitimate self-dependent purpose, who is doing that and why and what kind of training do they have and so on.
30:21.489 --> 30:23.192
[SPEAKER_00]: But by and large, I would discourage it.
30:24.826 --> 30:44.157
[SPEAKER_00]: But, again, I have to defer to local sensibilities of local organizers, but it's probably a good sign that you're on the wrong track if the vast majority of protest space is discouraging it and you're holding aside demonstration with 10 people.
30:46.682 --> 30:51.930
[SPEAKER_00]: The number of people that you're attracting to do this, where everyone is agreeing to
30:52.737 --> 30:56.005
[SPEAKER_00]: It probably should be a signal to you that maybe you're not doing something.
30:56.627 --> 30:57.168
[SPEAKER_00]: Correctly.
30:59.213 --> 31:00.155
[SPEAKER_00]: We could what's your M-A?
31:01.298 --> 31:08.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you really think that you're gonna break those detainees out of detention with your 10 people with side arms or rifles?
31:08.576 --> 31:09.278
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is silly.
31:11.502 --> 31:32.177
[SPEAKER_00]: and even as dead, then they would probably be hunted down and potentially killed and trying to get away, and you would probably be charged with even more grievous acts of the invitation to political repression is rarely a good strategy, especially in the United States where
31:33.541 --> 31:36.305
[SPEAKER_00]: exaggerated punishment is celebrated.
31:36.786 --> 31:41.612
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a rare thing when someone says, oh, that sentence was too much.
31:43.074 --> 31:56.173
[SPEAKER_00]: In Europe, this is routine for people to say, this sentence was more than anyone expected, but not in the US where we have, you know, roots of thinking punishment is basically a good thing.
31:56.609 --> 32:00.698
[SPEAKER_01]: I think those are really wise words to end on.
32:00.718 --> 32:15.951
[SPEAKER_01]: And before I close, I just wanted to ask, you know, in terms of ongoing protest organization, thinking also about no kings and that specific scale, like mass, protest resistance to the administration.
32:15.931 --> 32:30.784
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you see the value of this kind of organizing in ongoing resistance to the second Trump administration and what words of encouragement would you leave our audience with?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so the thing with mass organizing like for no kings is you just have to understand what it's good for good for two things two and a half the first is it's sending a message to those who already have political position people office holders and can't and candidates for public office saying there are this many people who cared deeply about these issues don't think that
32:59.806 --> 33:11.426
[SPEAKER_00]: You can straddle this fence and be on both sides of these issues and that somehow you're going to be okay with these 10, 15 million people who came out for this year not.
33:12.047 --> 33:14.711
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to stop hiding.
33:15.633 --> 33:24.227
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's to encourage courage from elected and potential electives and others in positions of authority.
33:25.068 --> 33:26.029
[SPEAKER_00]: including local office.
33:26.670 --> 33:38.587
[SPEAKER_00]: And second, it's to make the movement the resistance visible to itself, to invite people who are either apathetic, because it's not that they are row Trump regime.
33:39.268 --> 33:43.454
[SPEAKER_00]: They may detest the policies, but say, what can I do?
33:43.494 --> 33:45.256
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't care what I have to say.
33:45.337 --> 33:53.488
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it doesn't matter whether they care or not if we can continue to establish a practice of formal democracy.
33:54.869 --> 33:59.077
[SPEAKER_00]: muted that the expression of that is in the United States in practice.
33:59.718 --> 34:07.393
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the case that the sitting Republican Congress, majority and both houses of Congress, can't be overturned at the midterms.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Will that completely solve the problems?
34:09.237 --> 34:13.806
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's going to take years, but that's with the best possible outcomes.
34:13.786 --> 34:42.460
[SPEAKER_00]: And the work is done once they're out of office, that would be the usual state to think that, for to all that they've created a huge mess that a good part of which, including the expansion of the security state, is going to be real tempting for any administration to try to keep in place, even if they use it slightly differently or have different rhetoric around how it works, and that really needs to be dismantled and defunded, and those funds shipped it to something
34:43.857 --> 34:45.899
[SPEAKER_00]: just short of just handing it to billionaires.
34:46.640 --> 34:49.142
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so there's those two things.
34:49.342 --> 34:50.303
[SPEAKER_00]: Show the movement to itself.
34:50.823 --> 35:12.143
[SPEAKER_00]: Bring along the apathetic, give people a place to plug in, and recruit more people to be candidates, to be candidates supporters, to be precinct workers, to be party involved, or alternative party involved, or working with organizations, local organizations who are doing resistance work, or community support work.
35:12.123 --> 35:19.422
[SPEAKER_00]: And these are odd ramps, not every of the millions, most are not going to join formal organizations, but some will.
35:19.603 --> 35:28.225
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a way to bring new people who have not previously been involved deeply in the politics of justice into the movement.
35:28.205 --> 35:35.074
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it shows two elected officials and others in power that there's a significant block of people who care about these things.
35:35.695 --> 35:42.083
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that this is the third one, then they've all been large, shows no, this is not just an issue for a day.
35:42.104 --> 35:48.492
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, people are per the polling becoming less and less satisfied with the existing regime.
35:48.775 --> 36:06.902
[SPEAKER_01]: and more and more willing to turn up in these mass actions, the fact that they are increasingly larger each time is particularly telling about how successful they are at mobilizing in a moment of just what could otherwise be disparate in action.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Steven.
36:08.869 --> 36:32.056
[SPEAKER_01]: This was an excellent conversation, and I hope particularly helpful to the folks that listen to our podcast and are on the ground organizing to understand how to interpret Prairie land and other acts of legal persecution in the context of the need to continue to do to show up to get on the ground and to build mass acts of resistance.
36:32.737 --> 36:34.619
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much for sitting down with me today.
36:35.840 --> 36:36.501
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
36:37.814 --> 36:41.178
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to inform your resistance with PRA.
36:41.499 --> 36:43.942
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode was hosted by me, Kokey Mendis.
36:44.542 --> 36:48.768
[SPEAKER_01]: The podcast is produced by Olivia Lawrence Wildman and Frank Lawrence created our music.
36:49.349 --> 36:51.892
[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't already, rate, review and subscribe.
36:52.533 --> 37:00.042
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you appreciate our work, please consider donating to political research associates at politicalresearch.org.
37:00.022 --> 37:03.411
[SPEAKER_01]: But the best thing you can do to help us is to tell your comrades about the pod.
37:03.992 --> 37:08.745
[SPEAKER_01]: A shared analysis makes our resistance movement stronger, and we need you to spread the word.
37:09.346 --> 37:10.369
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time!
00:00.031 --> 00:05.670
[SPEAKER_01]: This is inform your resistance with political research associates or PRAA.
00:09.262 --> 00:11.545
[SPEAKER_01]: tune in monthly to hear experts.
00:12.026 --> 00:21.620
[SPEAKER_01]: Researchers, journalists, academics, and movement strategists explain some of the most significant contemporary threats to democracy from the mainstream and far right.
00:22.081 --> 00:25.986
[SPEAKER_01]: With informed your resistance, we distill what you need to know most.
00:26.727 --> 00:30.713
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host
00:38.303 --> 00:45.257
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I sit down with PRA Principal Research Advisor Steven Gardner to discuss the Paralympic case from North Texas.
00:45.858 --> 00:48.002
[SPEAKER_01]: The verdict of which was read earlier this month.
00:48.664 --> 00:59.265
[SPEAKER_01]: We discuss the implications of the case for ongoing organizing to resist the Trump administration with concrete advice from Steven on how to mitigate risk without demobilizing.
00:59.245 --> 01:08.837
[SPEAKER_01]: Before I sit down with him, I'm going to summarize the case for listeners who are perhaps not familiar with the details, so that we can jump right into discussing its implications in the next part of this episode.
01:09.578 --> 01:14.984
[SPEAKER_01]: On March 13, nine people were convicted on a variety of charges for their involvement in a shooting.
01:15.405 --> 01:23.835
[SPEAKER_01]: That occurred during a noise demonstration held on July 4, 2025, outside the Prairie Land Ice Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas.
01:23.815 --> 01:36.600
[SPEAKER_01]: The defendants are Benjamin Song, Autumn Hill, Zachary Evans, Savannah Baton, Megan Morris, Marcella Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ernest Soto, and Daniel Sanchez's strata.
01:37.401 --> 01:43.613
[SPEAKER_01]: The convictions include providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to use in carrying explosive.
01:43.593 --> 01:50.332
[SPEAKER_01]: Concealing a document or record, conspiracy to conceal documents and discharging a firearm.
01:51.275 --> 01:58.615
[SPEAKER_01]: Possible sentences for defendants in this case range from a minimum of 10 years to 60 years in prison.
01:58.595 --> 02:17.094
[SPEAKER_01]: In addition to the nine people convicted on March 13th, 7 additional defendants pleaded guilty to providing material support for terrorists in November of 2025, Nathan Bowman, Joy Gibson, Susan Kent, Rebecca Morgan, Lynette Sharp, John Thomas, and Seth Seix may face up to 15 years in prison.
02:17.795 --> 02:20.678
[SPEAKER_01]: Sentencing is set to take place in June of this year.
02:21.519 --> 02:24.282
[SPEAKER_01]: So what happened under
02:24.262 --> 02:42.331
[SPEAKER_01]: In the days prior to July 4th, members in a signal chat titled 4th of July Party, organized a noise demonstration for the 4th outside of the Prairie Land Ice Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas, in opposition to the Trump administration's ongoing program of mass deportation and incarceration of immigrants.
02:43.493 --> 02:49.122
[SPEAKER_01]: The demonstration was intended to signal solidarity to the people detained within the facility.
02:49.102 --> 02:57.977
[SPEAKER_01]: During the noise demonstration defendants lit fireworks around the perimeter of the building and allegedly spray painted graffiti on outdoor structures and cars in the parking lot.
02:58.598 --> 03:04.849
[SPEAKER_01]: Police were called to the scene by correctional officers, at which point officer Thomas Gross arrived and exited his car.
03:05.611 --> 03:12.763
[SPEAKER_01]: According to protesters at the scene, Gross is aiming at two fleeing protesters when Benjamin Song began shooting in his direction.
03:12.743 --> 03:16.598
[SPEAKER_01]: Gross was hit by a bullet, but able to return a handful of shots.
03:17.421 --> 03:22.500
[SPEAKER_01]: It is unclear whether Gross is shot directly by song or whether the bullet ricochet off the ground and hit him.
03:23.611 --> 03:27.896
[SPEAKER_01]: His medical records were not entered by the prosecution into evidence during the trial.
03:27.937 --> 03:37.208
[SPEAKER_01]: Over the next several days, law enforcement investigated the demonstration and shooting, detaining the nine indicted defendants and seven others who pled guilty.
03:38.049 --> 03:48.623
[SPEAKER_01]: In the process of investigation, Daniel Sanchez Estrada allegedly moved a box of printed material for which he was charged and convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record.
03:48.603 --> 03:55.573
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the basic facts of the case, and in my interview with Stephen, we will discuss more of the details of how the protests shooting in case unfolded.
03:56.174 --> 04:06.788
[SPEAKER_01]: Other instances of legal persecution of anti-Is protestors, what these criminal cases tells about the Trump administration's authoritarian project, and implications for protest organizers today.
04:07.810 --> 04:12.957
[SPEAKER_01]: We will also link to more in-depth coverage of the Paralyened case in the show notes for our closer look at it.
04:20.227 --> 04:25.234
[SPEAKER_01]: Steven, thank you so much for sitting down with me again to talk about the prairie land case.
04:25.474 --> 04:32.063
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that our audience is going to be particularly interested in today's conversation, so I'm glad that we're able to record it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Jumping right in, can you provide our listeners with a sense of how the investigation of a shooting of a law enforcement officer?
04:39.953 --> 04:54.081
[SPEAKER_01]: became a tool of state suppression of dissent and the context for prairie land within other recent legal persecutions of protesters and more broadly the DOJ under Trump, which is of course a a big kettle of fish.
04:55.276 --> 04:55.717
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
04:56.479 --> 05:00.491
[SPEAKER_00]: So first we have to go back and look at the context.
05:00.651 --> 05:10.298
[SPEAKER_00]: So last July for there was a day of protests at the Prairie Land Ice Detention Facility.
05:10.278 --> 05:20.066
[SPEAKER_00]: And a group of folks from the area decided they were going to do a additional protest that do you think?
05:20.086 --> 05:34.459
[SPEAKER_00]: And the events that follow are somewhat disputed, but I mean, there's a general picture that they were going to let off some fireworks that some people were going to maybe or at least they did.
05:34.479 --> 05:39.643
[SPEAKER_00]: It's unclear exactly what the plans were, but some people did some graffiti, some
05:39.623 --> 05:49.477
[SPEAKER_00]: there was a decision that, as a question of self-defense, people would bring weapons with them, there was never established any plan to shoot anyone.
05:49.517 --> 06:01.033
[SPEAKER_00]: The one person he was convicted of shooting a law enforcement officer, Benjamin Song was the, his convicted shooter, doesn't exactly deny that he fired the shot.
06:01.053 --> 06:06.441
[SPEAKER_00]: He says that it was not intended to hit the officer and there is at least some
06:06.421 --> 06:09.670
[SPEAKER_00]: What hit him was a ricochet, caused a minor injury.
06:09.690 --> 06:16.608
[SPEAKER_00]: He was said he was doing some impressive fire against an officer who had pulled his gun and was pointing at it somewhat again.
06:16.648 --> 06:17.992
[SPEAKER_00]: This part is a little bit disputed.
06:18.393 --> 06:19.857
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably happened very quickly.
06:19.988 --> 06:21.430
[SPEAKER_00]: No one else fired a weapon.
06:21.990 --> 06:30.941
[SPEAKER_00]: People did set off fireworks and the government decided that this was conspiracy to use explosives to somehow attack this ICE facility.
06:30.961 --> 06:35.727
[SPEAKER_00]: People were charged with riot, charged with conspiracy to support terrorists.
06:36.668 --> 06:40.613
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, at first though, this was not the case.
06:40.593 --> 06:53.032
[SPEAKER_00]: There was the charge of attempted murder, there were what you might say are predictable charges of a protest where there is some escalation and confrontation with law enforcement.
06:53.052 --> 06:58.720
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was the attempted murder there was use of explosives, which were in fact fireworks.
06:58.868 --> 07:01.412
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was no conspiracy charge.
07:01.452 --> 07:20.382
[SPEAKER_00]: This comes about as a result of, and this is clear from the public statements of prosecutors and the DOJ, as a result of the executive order designating, antifa as a terrorist organization, which has no status and law.
07:20.442 --> 07:23.307
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a anti-terrorism law,
07:23.422 --> 07:31.010
[SPEAKER_00]: that says you can't commit acts of terror at them, but there's no designation for domestic terrorist organizations, the important distinction.
07:32.711 --> 07:43.963
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have to think about this then they come back after this executive order in the memo that goes with it, explaining why anti-file is so bad from the point of view of the Trump administration.
07:44.023 --> 07:51.370
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a obsession and revise the charges and charge them with more things.
07:51.890 --> 08:20.715
[SPEAKER_00]: including all of these conspiracy charges, which are what up the stakes in terms of, for everyone but Song who was the shooter, up the stakes in terms of what kinds of sentences people could get, and what kinds of evidence could be introduced, including this whole story about the existence of this quote unquote antifoss cell of, in North Texas, which most observers, most mutual observers consider to be non-sensical.
08:21.927 --> 08:37.624
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and yet, it has the political effect of saying that we can accuse you of being part of an organization we find antithetical to the regime and the United States government.
08:38.212 --> 08:43.081
[SPEAKER_00]: that even if it doesn't exist based on the fact that you have ideas we don't like.
08:43.843 --> 08:52.960
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this case, being antifa, if you boil it down, it means you don't like what ice is doing, and you don't like the current administration.
08:54.122 --> 08:59.612
[SPEAKER_00]: That is the definition of political prosecution.
09:00.132 --> 09:15.475
[SPEAKER_01]: And have we seen other examples of similar rhetorical and policies shifts under this administration that suggests that Prairie Land is not the only case that has played out in this way?
09:16.417 --> 09:42.103
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, well first, the DOJ has said, this is only beginning, we are going to continue these kinds of prosecutions until we eradicate what we're calling anti-fa, in fact the Trump administration perroitors today has decided that they're going to hold an international fighting overcoming anti-fa summit in June or July.
09:42.083 --> 09:49.585
[SPEAKER_00]: to which some former anti-terrorism experts have kind of responded, huh?
09:49.605 --> 09:54.760
[SPEAKER_00]: In the middle of the war with Iran does it really make sense to expend resources on this.
09:56.056 --> 10:01.823
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality of the non-existent threat doesn't seem to phase the Department of Justice.
10:01.863 --> 10:05.527
[SPEAKER_00]: So these are not exactly Andy Faugh and prosecutions.
10:06.067 --> 10:19.583
[SPEAKER_00]: However, they are further instances of the use of conspiracy charges to press down, to resist resistance, to oppress.
10:19.563 --> 10:38.399
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have the Broadview Prosecutions of Broadview 6, which is from a case in a Chicago suburb, where they're during the surge in the ice surge in Chicago, you have a group of six activists in particular, who were charged with conspiracy to obstruct federal law enforcement.
10:39.381 --> 10:41.385
[SPEAKER_00]: And two of those charges have been
10:42.243 --> 10:43.004
[SPEAKER_00]: thrown out.
10:43.705 --> 10:44.927
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's not only four left.
10:45.287 --> 10:51.917
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the ones that was thrown out was a woman who was singing songs and had her guitar shot out of her hand with a rubber bullet by an ice agent.
10:51.937 --> 10:58.086
[SPEAKER_00]: But, and, yeah, it was pretty clear that this was an attempt given the identities of the people being prosecuted there.
10:58.546 --> 11:03.093
[SPEAKER_00]: They were mostly prominent activists or candidates for political office.
11:03.994 --> 11:06.698
[SPEAKER_00]: Left, leaning candidates for political office.
11:07.606 --> 11:28.816
[SPEAKER_00]: We have in St. Paul, again, during the ice surge there, we had a group of 450 people who went to city's church in St. Paul on January 18th to protest the pastor, David Easterwood, who also happens to be the local director of an ice field office.
11:28.836 --> 11:31.420
[SPEAKER_00]: So they were protesting him.
11:31.400 --> 11:43.275
[SPEAKER_00]: and his positions and so on, they were charged with conspiracy to intimidate and violate the face act and basically interfere with the operation of a religious institution.
11:44.417 --> 11:47.621
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of those charges have also been dismissed.
11:47.641 --> 11:52.227
[SPEAKER_00]: It's quite likely that many of these charges will eventually be dismissed.
11:52.696 --> 12:06.641
[SPEAKER_00]: What made, but that doesn't stop the reality of all of these defendants having to fight these charges at considerable expense and not more than a little anxiety for the long federal sentences they could receive.
12:08.243 --> 12:09.726
[SPEAKER_00]: What made Prairie Land different?
12:11.157 --> 12:26.736
[SPEAKER_00]: is the district that it was in, district of North Texas, where there was an minimal judge appointed by Trump member of the Federalist Society, the right wing, legal entity that it's provided most of the Trumpian appointees to the judiciary.
12:27.878 --> 12:33.925
[SPEAKER_00]: And wow, it's cherry picking their case that they want to make as a president.
12:34.090 --> 12:52.858
[SPEAKER_00]: and they clearly do see this as a precedent and it's not just a precedent for we're going to bring conspiracy charges but there of highlighting their determination to make prosecutions on political grounds and we don't have to agree with all of the tactical decision making.
12:52.957 --> 13:14.720
[SPEAKER_00]: of those folks who were convicted to say that this is overreach and it has political repercussions far beyond the ten to sixty years that all of these people could spend in federal prison.
13:15.401 --> 13:21.107
[SPEAKER_00]: Although it's looking like there was evidence suppression from the
13:21.593 --> 13:25.880
[SPEAKER_00]: that could lead to the potential of a appeal here?
13:27.222 --> 13:43.669
[SPEAKER_01]: That was some of the thinking after the verdict was read was that potentially the defense is waiting to play their hand in an appeal trial, which is why their closing arguments were not particularly compelling.
13:43.649 --> 13:51.386
[SPEAKER_01]: I do think one of the most remarkable things about this trial is that these folks were found guilty by a jury of their peers.
13:51.666 --> 14:00.966
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think what that really says is how compelling the story of Antifa as a buggy man, as a constructed enemy is.
14:00.946 --> 14:25.553
[SPEAKER_01]: to folks who comprise the maga base and it also to me suggest why focusing in the midst of an war with Iran focusing on combating Antifa as a priority for the executive certainly makes sense in terms of continuing to build and bolster that base during a very deeply unpopular war.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's correct.
14:28.367 --> 14:47.322
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a way in which as a instance of sort of laying the groundwork for using the security state and the justice department to go after political opponents, including anti war protestors in the future for example.
14:47.302 --> 14:49.971
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is or isn't anti-fog the beauty of the thing?
14:49.991 --> 14:51.496
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's no one can really say?
14:51.516 --> 14:54.948
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there are a few groups that have that in there.
14:55.128 --> 14:57.697
[SPEAKER_00]: They're titled that, none of them have actually been prosecuted.
14:57.777 --> 14:58.881
[SPEAKER_00]: Great thing.
14:59.097 --> 15:03.903
[SPEAKER_00]: It's end when they start going to the theory of, we're going to go after their funding.
15:03.963 --> 15:12.894
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, most of us know an anti-foff identified person or two, and their funding comes from working as a barista to pay for their tattoos.
15:13.775 --> 15:14.516
[SPEAKER_00]: It's ridiculous.
15:15.017 --> 15:28.193
[SPEAKER_00]: But what they're actually saying is the theory here is that because there are large organizations, progressive organizations that are biting against the ideas
15:29.472 --> 15:41.505
[SPEAKER_00]: the funding they get, one way or another supports the same political effort as the folks dressing in black and yelling, expletive ice.
15:43.588 --> 15:56.762
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think that's what makes it so unnerving is how amorphous this category is and how much leeway that gives the state to use it as a means of persecution.
16:04.117 --> 16:12.920
[SPEAKER_01]: You and I are having this conversation on March 31st following the third nationwide no kings protest movement.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the reasons why we wanted to have this conversation
16:19.979 --> 16:48.062
[SPEAKER_01]: and really sip publicly to our audiences to understand the implication of in particular the prairie land decision but the other decisions or the other cases pending that you named for protesters who are continuing and should continue to organize today and one of the things in particular I would like you to speak to is what is the role that signal plays in the
16:48.042 --> 16:53.870
[SPEAKER_01]: for the way that the prosecution used transignal chat transcripts.
16:54.390 --> 17:01.119
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it suggest for those of us who currently use this communication tool to organize resistance to the administration?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Signal is an end-to-end encrypted application that can only communicate with itself.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And
17:10.435 --> 17:18.128
[SPEAKER_00]: To be absolutely clear from the civil liberties perspective, fact that we're using encrypted messaging, many people do this routinely for everything.
17:18.529 --> 17:19.611
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's two roles here.
17:19.831 --> 17:22.055
[SPEAKER_00]: One is part of the story, which we'll get come back to.
17:22.616 --> 17:25.702
[SPEAKER_00]: The other is just the evidence fix.
17:26.804 --> 17:33.355
[SPEAKER_00]: Phone's devices were seized, undeleted messages were recovered.
17:33.588 --> 17:40.337
[SPEAKER_00]: And those messages told a story of people who did various things to plan this noise protest.
17:40.357 --> 17:51.472
[SPEAKER_00]: The language that was being used in those chats, none of which, by the way, said, let's go and shoot some law enforcement people, that's not what it said.
17:52.273 --> 17:54.676
[SPEAKER_00]: It said there was a discussion about weapons, apparently.
17:54.716 --> 17:57.840
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a discussion saying that that, to
17:58.951 --> 18:09.197
[SPEAKER_00]: people thought that there was a chance that they could become the victims of gunfire from someone and they wanted to build defend themselves and in the state of Texas, which is an open carry state.
18:09.218 --> 18:10.340
[SPEAKER_00]: This is perfectly legal.
18:10.982 --> 18:16.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, my personal opinion about the advisability of this is a different issue.
18:16.214 --> 18:16.715
[SPEAKER_00]: can do.
18:16.735 --> 18:21.943
[SPEAKER_00]: You can take one of my security trainings and talk about why I think that might not be the best decision making.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was particularly legal and it doesn't change protected first amendment speech into non-protected speech.
18:28.573 --> 18:34.662
[SPEAKER_00]: Now if you shoot someone, that's obviously crime and it's not first to amendment protected.
18:34.702 --> 18:39.910
[SPEAKER_00]: There may be self-defense possible defenses, but in this case,
18:40.835 --> 18:42.437
[SPEAKER_00]: That was not particularly assertive.
18:42.477 --> 18:47.703
[SPEAKER_00]: It was tried, if the claim was that it was an accident, but the shots were fired and that in itself would have been illegal.
18:49.165 --> 18:50.667
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was a crime.
18:51.247 --> 18:53.910
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just all of this incillary conspiracy stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, signal then is used to make a story.
18:56.914 --> 18:59.577
[SPEAKER_00]: These are obviously, and the logic is this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And prosecutors don't even have to say this, because this is common sense for most people in this country.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you have to keep it a secret?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's the fact that signal allows disappearing messages.
19:23.878 --> 19:28.061
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if someone is, if there's a crime, there's been committed and people are being charged.
19:29.383 --> 19:37.470
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't legally go back and erase messages that you might have been party to anything had to do, this would be concealing evidence.
19:38.648 --> 20:04.116
[SPEAKER_00]: but signal understands like many kinds of privacy-related technology products that you may not want every off-hand comment that you ever made in a chat to be taken as potential evidence in the future for anything, including your dark humor joke or your irony that is not contextualized.
20:04.838 --> 20:11.964
[SPEAKER_00]: and allows these things to be automatically deleted after an hour, a day, a week, a month, whatever you want.
20:11.984 --> 20:21.973
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, to trim a purely practical point of view, you probably don't want years worth of messages clogging up your device memory.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's no reason to keep all of that.
20:23.554 --> 20:33.343
[SPEAKER_00]: It is intended as a femurah, more like the flow of conversation than signed documents that are meant to be
20:34.893 --> 20:55.313
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's the story saying that using an encrypted app in the first place is evidence that you must be wanting to do something wrong, well, reality is millions of people use, singularly use it all the time for everything, including chatting with their kids and sending a, let's meet for coffee, note whatever else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The other thing is this is when I'm talking
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let go of the cosplay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This language that has come to us around, quote-unquote security culture, and language that has come from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Military the same with kind of like the intimidating outfits and the tactical vest and this kind of thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is juvenile and it's not useful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, it's also not illegal.
21:30.327 --> 21:52.150
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, whether or not I think it's good tactics, doesn't matter from the point of view, is the Trump administration using it in the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security using it to leverage an idea of there as this dangerous militarized faction that is plotting to
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[SPEAKER_00]: to stop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's just somehow ministry in the United States.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now there are factions who are planning, the difference when plotting a plan is a plan is just an intention to do something, and that intention is to legally protest and politically change.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People's thoughts, candidates who are elected,
22:16.396 --> 22:19.819
[SPEAKER_00]: opinions of elected officials, and so on.
22:19.859 --> 22:27.026
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that is protected legal speech and essential to the functioning of any kind of democracy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And this is really what we're looking at the edge of.
22:32.011 --> 22:41.120
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying that, again, that graffiti on federal vehicles and destroying security cameras is protected speech.
22:41.180 --> 22:42.201
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not.
22:42.400 --> 22:51.013
[SPEAKER_00]: but it's also a stretch to call this terrorism threatening the existence of the United States or even that particular ice facility.
22:58.364 --> 23:05.455
[SPEAKER_01]: So given the legality of much of what occurred in Prairieland and the
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[SPEAKER_01]: But yet the resulting verdicts and charges for this group of folks in Texas, what advice would you give to protesters between balancing what is technically legal, but potentially non-strategic in an era of extra legal persecution by the state?
23:30.790 --> 23:34.716
[SPEAKER_00]: Well understand first, understand that anything that you put into
23:36.198 --> 23:47.575
[SPEAKER_00]: writing, including into an encrypted chat, could and will become part of a public record if someone is prosecuted.
23:48.556 --> 24:04.399
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if those messages have been auto-deleted before the prosecution, before the charges are met, before anyone is arrested, then obviously they can't be used, but there's no way you can guarantee that everyone who has involved with that chat will follow that protocol.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not saying that because, oh, you can say illegal things and then you'll get away with it.
24:08.586 --> 24:23.991
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying it because the federal government or any other prosecutor can take a narrative spun from a combination of boasts and jokes and turn it into something that sounds really
24:25.321 --> 24:31.950
[SPEAKER_00]: wicked for a jury, starting with that premise if you don't have anything to hide why are you using an encrypted app?
24:31.970 --> 24:44.688
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, there's plenty of valid political strategic reasons for why you wouldn't want to make your tactics and your strategy available to potential opposition before the fact.
24:45.288 --> 24:51.497
[SPEAKER_00]: However, there's also a good case to maybe aid for understanding a difference between tactical,
24:52.152 --> 24:54.800
[SPEAKER_00]: privacy and the need for absolute secrecy.
24:54.961 --> 25:01.541
[SPEAKER_00]: Secrecy is something you want to use as little as possible.
25:02.263 --> 25:02.905
[SPEAKER_00]: And
25:03.408 --> 25:29.770
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, you don't want to be in a position where you may decide that you're just going to use signal for everything, but you also need to understand that you want to minimize the ways in which you are using language that is not necessary language that references scouting the perimeter or this kind of militarized lingo that comes to us from the movies.
25:29.750 --> 25:33.535
[SPEAKER_00]: television, just James Bond nonsense.
25:34.976 --> 25:53.479
[SPEAKER_00]: What we were what you're doing is you're planning to make political statement and use those chats to get people together face to face so they can look at each other and talk about and where they can signal yeah I'm being ironic which often does not come through in chat.
25:54.269 --> 26:13.254
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, be really clear stating, and even if you're not going to state it right up front ahead of the time, at the time of your protest, you need to be able to say why you're doing it and make that really clear, so that your goal, your political goal is explicit.
26:15.337 --> 26:23.348
[SPEAKER_00]: So if someone does something that is not in accord with that goal is not the point to
26:25.150 --> 26:27.055
[SPEAKER_00]: people are going to have disputes.
26:27.676 --> 26:33.010
[SPEAKER_00]: There's always going to be disputes about what tactics are justified under what circumstances.
26:33.932 --> 26:39.767
[SPEAKER_00]: But if people are going to, if you're planning a protest that is intended to be a legal.
26:41.367 --> 26:55.225
[SPEAKER_00]: First amendment protected activity or if you're planning to do civil disobedience and don't want to give away a head of the fact what you're going to do at the time of the action you need to make clear what you're attempting.
26:55.542 --> 27:05.195
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes sense to be able to get ahead of any narrative crafted by a prosecutor with very clear and published public language.
27:06.316 --> 27:24.621
[SPEAKER_01]: And I should also mention one of the ways that Signal was used in this case was that despite auto deletion, people had their notifications, visible notifications, and then any message even if it was deleted shortly after was saved in the operating system itself.
27:25.462 --> 27:26.543
[SPEAKER_01]: I think this is really helpful.
27:26.563 --> 27:32.269
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's your idea of your call to put the cosplay aside.
27:32.329 --> 27:51.790
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is a really clear call to action of protest, but do it in ways that don't obfuscate your politics that don't open the door to narratives that can be used.
27:52.394 --> 28:09.491
[SPEAKER_01]: By the state four reasons of persecution, I've also heard in response to the Paralympic case, like a clear, called to organizers to not wear all black because black black can be seen as a tactic of nefarious actors.
28:09.551 --> 28:18.520
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think one of the things that I want to underscore for our audiences is
28:18.500 --> 28:24.128
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what is the risk assessment in your opinion here in terms of continuing political action?
28:24.148 --> 28:34.823
[SPEAKER_01]: And you mentioned this in passing, but can you talk a little bit about what you would recommend for organizers in open carry states?
28:35.664 --> 28:44.997
[SPEAKER_01]: How to mitigate the role that guns and gun violence could play in what should otherwise be peaceful moments of peaceful protest?
28:46.192 --> 28:52.602
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, first I have to say that to an extent, I would have to defer to local sensibilities around this.
28:52.682 --> 29:02.558
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if Boping Carrier is ubiquitous, it would be really strange then to tell everyone, no, you can't do that, but not least because some people are not going to listen.
29:03.399 --> 29:10.731
[SPEAKER_00]: However, I think that in most instances, it's a bad idea to militarize protest space.
29:11.673 --> 29:18.229
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't think that there's anything wrong with self-defense as a principle.
29:19.172 --> 29:27.893
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that operating within the limits of the actual law, people may decide that they're going to carry, but then,
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you're not going to discourage it, you have to be aware of the risk of being found liable for contributing to some kind of conspiratorial or negligent charges that could be
29:44.444 --> 29:49.153
[SPEAKER_00]: They levied against you if you don't make that determination.
29:49.894 --> 30:05.963
[SPEAKER_00]: I think militarization of protest space is a terrible idea, but of course cops are always coming militarized and most of the time, if there are vigilante actors in present from the right, they will also be armed and militarized.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it is a good look for us to, to try to match that tip for a tap.
30:11.492 --> 30:21.469
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people have to be really clear that if they have a legitimate self-dependent purpose, who is doing that and why and what kind of training do they have and so on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But by and large, I would discourage it.
30:24.826 --> 30:44.157
[SPEAKER_00]: But, again, I have to defer to local sensibilities of local organizers, but it's probably a good sign that you're on the wrong track if the vast majority of protest space is discouraging it and you're holding aside demonstration with 10 people.
30:46.682 --> 30:51.930
[SPEAKER_00]: The number of people that you're attracting to do this, where everyone is agreeing to
30:52.737 --> 30:56.005
[SPEAKER_00]: It probably should be a signal to you that maybe you're not doing something.
30:56.627 --> 30:57.168
[SPEAKER_00]: Correctly.
30:59.213 --> 31:00.155
[SPEAKER_00]: We could what's your M-A?
31:01.298 --> 31:08.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you really think that you're gonna break those detainees out of detention with your 10 people with side arms or rifles?
31:08.576 --> 31:09.278
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is silly.
31:11.502 --> 31:32.177
[SPEAKER_00]: and even as dead, then they would probably be hunted down and potentially killed and trying to get away, and you would probably be charged with even more grievous acts of the invitation to political repression is rarely a good strategy, especially in the United States where
31:33.541 --> 31:36.305
[SPEAKER_00]: exaggerated punishment is celebrated.
31:36.786 --> 31:41.612
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a rare thing when someone says, oh, that sentence was too much.
31:43.074 --> 31:56.173
[SPEAKER_00]: In Europe, this is routine for people to say, this sentence was more than anyone expected, but not in the US where we have, you know, roots of thinking punishment is basically a good thing.
31:56.609 --> 32:00.698
[SPEAKER_01]: I think those are really wise words to end on.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And before I close, I just wanted to ask, you know, in terms of ongoing protest organization, thinking also about no kings and that specific scale, like mass, protest resistance to the administration.
32:15.931 --> 32:30.784
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do you see the value of this kind of organizing in ongoing resistance to the second Trump administration and what words of encouragement would you leave our audience with?
32:31.709 --> 32:57.868
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so the thing with mass organizing like for no kings is you just have to understand what it's good for good for two things two and a half the first is it's sending a message to those who already have political position people office holders and can't and candidates for public office saying there are this many people who cared deeply about these issues don't think that
32:59.806 --> 33:11.426
[SPEAKER_00]: You can straddle this fence and be on both sides of these issues and that somehow you're going to be okay with these 10, 15 million people who came out for this year not.
33:12.047 --> 33:14.711
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to stop hiding.
33:15.633 --> 33:24.227
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's to encourage courage from elected and potential electives and others in positions of authority.
33:25.068 --> 33:26.029
[SPEAKER_00]: including local office.
33:26.670 --> 33:38.587
[SPEAKER_00]: And second, it's to make the movement the resistance visible to itself, to invite people who are either apathetic, because it's not that they are row Trump regime.
33:39.268 --> 33:43.454
[SPEAKER_00]: They may detest the policies, but say, what can I do?
33:43.494 --> 33:45.256
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't care what I have to say.
33:45.337 --> 33:53.488
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it doesn't matter whether they care or not if we can continue to establish a practice of formal democracy.
33:54.869 --> 33:59.077
[SPEAKER_00]: muted that the expression of that is in the United States in practice.
33:59.718 --> 34:07.393
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the case that the sitting Republican Congress, majority and both houses of Congress, can't be overturned at the midterms.
34:07.874 --> 34:09.217
[SPEAKER_00]: Will that completely solve the problems?
34:09.237 --> 34:13.806
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's going to take years, but that's with the best possible outcomes.
34:13.786 --> 34:42.460
[SPEAKER_00]: And the work is done once they're out of office, that would be the usual state to think that, for to all that they've created a huge mess that a good part of which, including the expansion of the security state, is going to be real tempting for any administration to try to keep in place, even if they use it slightly differently or have different rhetoric around how it works, and that really needs to be dismantled and defunded, and those funds shipped it to something
34:43.857 --> 34:45.899
[SPEAKER_00]: just short of just handing it to billionaires.
34:46.640 --> 34:49.142
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so there's those two things.
34:49.342 --> 34:50.303
[SPEAKER_00]: Show the movement to itself.
34:50.823 --> 35:12.143
[SPEAKER_00]: Bring along the apathetic, give people a place to plug in, and recruit more people to be candidates, to be candidates supporters, to be precinct workers, to be party involved, or alternative party involved, or working with organizations, local organizations who are doing resistance work, or community support work.
35:12.123 --> 35:19.422
[SPEAKER_00]: And these are odd ramps, not every of the millions, most are not going to join formal organizations, but some will.
35:19.603 --> 35:28.225
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a way to bring new people who have not previously been involved deeply in the politics of justice into the movement.
35:28.205 --> 35:35.074
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it shows two elected officials and others in power that there's a significant block of people who care about these things.
35:35.695 --> 35:42.083
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that this is the third one, then they've all been large, shows no, this is not just an issue for a day.
35:42.104 --> 35:48.492
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, people are per the polling becoming less and less satisfied with the existing regime.
35:48.775 --> 36:06.902
[SPEAKER_01]: and more and more willing to turn up in these mass actions, the fact that they are increasingly larger each time is particularly telling about how successful they are at mobilizing in a moment of just what could otherwise be disparate in action.
36:08.148 --> 36:08.849
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Steven.
36:08.869 --> 36:32.056
[SPEAKER_01]: This was an excellent conversation, and I hope particularly helpful to the folks that listen to our podcast and are on the ground organizing to understand how to interpret Prairie land and other acts of legal persecution in the context of the need to continue to do to show up to get on the ground and to build mass acts of resistance.
36:32.737 --> 36:34.619
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much for sitting down with me today.
36:35.840 --> 36:36.501
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
36:37.814 --> 36:41.178
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to inform your resistance with PRA.
36:41.499 --> 36:43.942
[SPEAKER_01]: Today's episode was hosted by me, Kokey Mendis.
36:44.542 --> 36:48.768
[SPEAKER_01]: The podcast is produced by Olivia Lawrence Wildman and Frank Lawrence created our music.
36:49.349 --> 36:51.892
[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't already, rate, review and subscribe.
36:52.533 --> 37:00.042
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you appreciate our work, please consider donating to political research associates at politicalresearch.org.
37:00.022 --> 37:03.411
[SPEAKER_01]: But the best thing you can do to help us is to tell your comrades about the pod.
37:03.992 --> 37:08.745
[SPEAKER_01]: A shared analysis makes our resistance movement stronger, and we need you to spread the word.
37:09.346 --> 37:10.369
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time!
