[mobglob-discuss] "UPPING THE ANTI": don't show your email to the CIA

[subvurzhun at fastmail.fm]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2005 18:14:10 -0800
Sharmeen Khan <sharmeen at resist.ca> wrote:

> The Autonomy and Solidarity network is pleased to announce the
> launching of "Upping the Anti" a journal of theory and action devoted
> to engaging with and contributing to debates and discussions taking
> place within anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-oppressive
> movements and struggles.

This sounds like a very interesting and worthwhile project, but there is
a problem which you are perhaps not aware of, but which should be
addressed as soon as possible, or better yet, immediately:

> To receive updates about the project or to get involved with the
> journal project, please email us at: uppingtheanti at gmail.com.

This is a highly unfortunate choice of contact address for a project of
this nature. There is abundant evidence that GMail's apparently generous
offer of one gigabyte of email storage is simply intended to induce
people to unknowingly turn over their private correspondence to the CIA,
FBI, NSA, and other US government spooks. That being the case, GMail is
not an appropriate email service for sending and receiving material
which is even slightly anti-establishment, let alone explicitly
anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist.

http://www.epic.org/privacy/gmail/faq.html
http://www.google-watch.org/gmail.html

I would strongly urge you to review the above documents, and some of
their references, and then draw your own conclusions. An account at
resist.ca or some similar left-friendly service provider would be a much
better choice, although almost anything would be preferable to GMail.

Many security-conscious people, myself included, are going to take the
position that we will not send or receive mail to or from GMail
accounts. Please reconsider your choice of service provider, in favour
of one which does not expose you and your correspondents to continuous
surveillance by the Amerikan police state.

Thank you for your consideration of this important issue. I look forward
to seeing an announcement of a new contact address for your project, as
I will not be engaging in further discussion with the current one, and I
recommend to anyone reading this message that they adopt the same
policy.