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Tips for attending a protest?
Hello all, as the title implies, I will be attending my first ever large scale protest(USA based) in person.
I’m wondering if people have any advice of what to expect/do and how to stay safe ?
Thank you !
PS - was not sure where to post this.
Don't fall for deliberate agitation - whether by inexperienced protestors, counter protestors or undercover police officers.
Doesn't matter the taunt. It doesn't matter how much they're saying "we should fight them*!" Don't fall for the bait. If you have protest marshals/medics listen to them. Protect more vulnerable populations by placing yourself between them and antagonists.
Most of the protests will not need all the safety advice. It's still good advice.
*(See if the person agitating it is wearing police boots, do they stand like a cop used to wearing a vest or a gun on their waist? Vietnam protestors used to sit down and point at any agitators because they were inevitably feds. Your local protest may simply have undercover police. Those folks may or may not decide to provoke the crowd depending on their beliefs about your right to protest and their desire to have an excuse to shut it down)
Be safe and care for others.
Protests aren't my wheelhouse but acoustics sure are :) A cardboard or other thick-enough poster is essential in cities that deploy LRADs as a dispersion measure. Those devices are loud enough to induce permanent hearing damage but can barely penetrate surfaces, and posterboard will significantly reduce the dB level if you position it between your face and the sonic weapon. Earplugs are also a good idea as a large agitated crowd can sustain over 100 dB at times.
Here's my advice: If you get sketched out or don't like where things are headed, just leave. No need to be a martyr. You don't need to prove anything to anyone.
Wife and I went to a protest a few years ago and while we were there they released an alert that highways were going to be shutdown and the National Guard was going to respond. We did our part and then we went home without getting gased, batoned, or shot with rubber bullets.
If you're talking about the protests today / anti-Trump protests: one thing to note is that these can vary considerably depending on region, and can be quite different than more usual anti-government protests. If you're in an anti-Trumpist area, the local and state government may support both the cause of the protest, and the protest itself. That makes the concerns and potential interactions quite different.
I can remember going to an anti-Trump protest in California during his first term where it was quite clear that the police were officially on the side of the protesters: they there to provide logistical support to the protest, make sure streets were closed to traffic, deal with access for any medical emergencies in the crowd, etc, and I believe also to provide security for some of the speakers. It was more like a parade or festival than the sort of protest I had been more used to, and the concerns were more the sorts of concerns you'd have for those (water, sun exposure, parking/transport, etc).
I expect that anti-Trump protests in pro-Trump areas, on the other hand, have very different experiences.
True though right now I'd warn non-citizens to stay home for their safety regardless of the area. A name getting to ICE after the fact, even if here in legal visas or green cards, seems to be all it takes to get targeted.
Yes, that unfortunately is a good point. And even if your local police and government are hostile towards ICE/DHS, DHS could be there gathering data, or watching photographs afterwards.
I've also seen more DHS presence recently, which is a bit disturbing. In the last week, I've seen a DHS car and officers in a downtown area handing out stickers for children as some sort of PR thing, and a group of DHS... ceremonial officers? – eg, dress uniforms, parade rifles, and DHS flags – seemingly getting ready to march in a parade that seemed completely unrelated to them.
I thought I remembered a good post on it!
This post had a bunch of good advice in what to bring/wear.
This is the real reason for the recent spat of mask bans. Make sure to check your local laws about masking.
If high risk, get an old digital camera with no WiFi or Bluetooth to avoid the geofencing issue. Swap out the SD card if you capture something and slip it in your pocket. They could still take it illegally if they search you, but much harder than just snatching it.
Take your cellphone, but leave it off before you leave the house, ideally in a Faraday bag. Test the bag (or offness of phone) by scanning for BLE from another device, then putting it in and make sure that MAC disappears.
If you can walk or take public transit, do so. If you must drive, park at least 1/2 mile away, ideally at a major retail outlet. Cars are almost as easy to track as phones.
Sorry if this is a stupid question, what is the "geofencing issue"?
Well, even in the dumbphone era, it was possible to triangulate the position of every single cellphone via network towers.
But with smartphones, they also have persistent and precise location data. And a populace that is happy to hand it out. Every time you share location data with a website or app, you're sharing your precise coordinates to them and every single ad network they're plugged into. Oh and Apple and Google also have a persistent path of all that location data. And that's not even touching the myriad of ways that BLE beacons can be leveraged.
Now, consider all of that while reading up on geo fencing warrants.
The 5th circuit declared them illegal in 2024, however; but we also know two things:
They'll use data of anyone using local celltowers to determine that you were there.