As Congress continues to fight over DHS funding and federal agents continue to inflict violence against immigrants, protesters, and residents, tools that help communities take care of each other are essential. Today, David Peisner wrote for us about one of them, StopIce.net, a crowdsourced, text message–based alert system, and its creator Sherman Austin.
It’s a fascinating read, including the intricacies of Austin running the tool—which has over 500,000 users—largely on his own, all while receiving threats from critics online and in the federal government: CBP agents may have attacked StopICE’s main server in January. Federal agents know who Austin is, too, as he spent nearly a year in federal prison in the aughts for hosting an anarchist media site as a teenager.
But beyond that, one trait of Austin's stuck out to me: resoluteness.
“I’m not looking to get arrested,” he says, nodding toward his front door. “I’m not looking for conflict, but I know conflict is inevitable. To me, what’s more important is being in a fight and using my skill set to contribute something to that fight. Then whatever is going to happen, it’s going to happen.”
Read the full story here.
—Alex Nguyen
