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Reminder: It’s Against The Law To Fire Austin’s Police ChiefPhoto: Austin Police guard the brick facade of APD headquarters as activists raise their fists during a Black Lives Matter protest.
It's against the law to fire Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, further proving that the police are unaccountable. (Photo: Unsplash / Charles Fair, public domain)
July 30, 2020
Kit
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Reminder: It’s Against The Law To Fire Austin’s Police Chief

Posted in Austin, Creative Commons, and Journalism

Did you know it’s literally against the law to fire Austin’s chief of police?

I found myself tweeting this fact over and over again, each time some new fresh horror surfaced from Austin’s police force. So I thought I should write something too.

It would be an extraordinary fact at any time, but it seems worth repeating at this moment when so many people are demanding accountability from our nation’s police. One of the key forms of accountability under capitalism, firing a bad worker, is actually off limits.

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Why Hemp Supporters Must Support Black Lives Matter, TooPhoto: A black person's hand holding up a handmade Black Lives Matter sign, against a natural looking background.
With its historic ties to drug prohibition and the War on Drugs, hemp supporters and the hemp industry need to back the Black Lives Matter movement. (Unsplash / Maria Oswalt, public domain)
June 19, 2020
Kit
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Why Hemp Supporters Must Support Black Lives Matter, Too

Posted in Journalism, and Ministry of Hemp

Over at Ministry of Hemp, I wrote about our feelings about the current Black Lives Matter uprising and how it ties to the hemp and cannabis industries:

In this time of extraordinary global protest, hemp advocates and the hemp industry must live up to our ideals by supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and working towards real change.

Going even further, our involvement can’t stop with just the protests. In order to build an ethical and sustainable industry, we need to be active participants in undoing the damage that the War on Drugs caused. We need to lobby to defund police forces which grew out of control during this “war.”

Read moreWhy Hemp Supporters Must Support Black Lives Matter, Too
Antifascist Days Of Unity Zine Collection (via Oh Shit! What Now?)Photo: A scattering of blank white pages fills the frame.
Kit curated a collection of zines for the Antifascist Days of Unity in October 2019. (Unsplash / Brandi Redd, public domain)
September 30, 2019
Kit
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Antifascist Days Of Unity Zine Collection (via Oh Shit! What Now?)

Posted in Austin, Creative Commons, Journalism, and Zines

Along with his collective, Oh Shit! What Now? Kit curated a collection of zines for the Antifascist Days of Unity in October 2019.

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Police Raid Two North Texas CBD Stores, Take CBD Oil & MoneyA police officer seen from behind, with a radio and handcuffs on their belt. Police raided a Nebraska CBD shop and arrested the owners. Co-owners Heather Beguin and her son Dreyson Beguin faced felony charges.
Despite federal changes in hemp's legal status, local police continue to target CBD stores. (Pixabay / cocoparisienne, public domain)
April 4, 2019
Kit
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Police Raid Two North Texas CBD Stores, Take CBD Oil & Money

Posted in Journalism, and Ministry of Hemp

Police raided a pair of north Texas CBD stores recently, even as policymakers in the Lonestar State began reevaluating the legal status of hemp and CBD.

On March 15, police raided GM Tobacco stores in Duncanville and Lancaster, Texas. These two suburbs are located just south of Dallas, in the larger Dallas-Fort Worth Metro Area of northern Texas. Amy Wazwaz, who co-owns the stores with her husband Houd, told NBC DFW that police seized about $50,000 in hemp-derived CBD, including hundreds of CBD oil products and about 30 pounds of loose, smokable hemp. Police also took cash from the register and the safe.

Dan Sullivan, attorney for the Wazwaz family, told Ministry of Hemp that the stores only sold legal, high-quality CBD products. “They won’t sell anything that doesn’t have third party lab testing” proving its purity and legality, he explained.

Read morePolice Raid Two North Texas CBD Stores, Take CBD Oil & Money
Threat Modeling For Activists: Tips For Secure Organizing & ActivismThreat modeling helps activists anticipate and respond to police repression. A line of SFPD officers in riot gear block Occupy SF Protesters after clearing them from Market Street in San Francisco.
Police block a roadway during Occupy SF protests, December 7, 2011. Threat modeling helps activists anticipate and respond to police repression. (Flickr / Thomas Hawk, CC-BY-NC license)
October 22, 2018
Kit
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Threat Modeling For Activists: Tips For Secure Organizing & Activism

Posted in Creative Commons, and Journalism

Threat modeling is a fancy term for “knowing how to protect yourself in different situations.”

The idea of “threat modeling” originated in the military before being adopted by security experts. While the field includes many advanced concepts that don’t interest us here, threat modeling can help us get a handle on our personal security choices. In an age of mass surveillance, choosing what steps to take can feel overwhelming. For a lot of people, it may be easier to do nothing at all than worry about protecting yourself online.

Unfortunately, even if you feel like “you’ve got nothing to hide,” many of us are still vulnerable: to government repression, to police brutality and surveillance, and to threats from fascist forces. Even if you’re completely safe, your social networks might be used to target other people close to you. You might not even be aware that someone near you is taking actions that make them a target for surveillance.

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Livestreaming Tips With Reb Z: Be A Better Journalist On Facebook Live & BeyondJon Ziegler's top livestreaming tips include holding your phone in landscape mode and holding your hand steady when moving or turning.
"Kettled" activists film and livestream on their smartphones as they await arrest. St. Louis, October 3, 2017. Jon Ziegler's top livestreaming tips include holding your phone in landscape mode and holding your hand steady when moving or turning. (RebZ.tv, used with permission)
June 14, 2018
Kit
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Livestreaming Tips With Reb Z: Be A Better Journalist On Facebook Live & Beyond

Posted in Creative Commons, Journalism, and Occupy Wall Street

Want to be a better livestreamer? I asked indie journalist Jon Ziegler, for his top livestreaming tips when we recently spoke.

Jon, better known to his fans as Rebelutionary Z is one of the most experienced streamers today. He began covering footage of protests and activist events during Occupy Wall Street. Unlike most of the people who started then, he’s continued to report from liberal and radical left events. He credits the Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson and St. Louis for bringing him back to the field after Occupy ended. Since then he’s traveled around the continent, including reporting on the Standing Rock protests where he sustained a serious injury from a rubber bullet. He also streamed the nazi attack in Charlottesville that killed Heather Heyer.

I asked Jon for his top livestreaming tips. I’ve divided them into two sections, one for newcomers and people who only stream occasionally. He calls these “Johnny On The Spot reporters,” people who were in the right place at the right time to catch a breaking event. In the second section, I’ve included some further tips for more experienced citizen journalists.

Read moreLivestreaming Tips With Reb Z: Be A Better Journalist On Facebook Live & Beyond