#Anonymous Welcomes You To #OpWhyIFTP

We live in a police state.  Our lives are governed by violent law enforcement agencies beholden to elite interests which prefer to repress any successful form of dissent or resistance.  Cops, like the culture which worships them, are deaf and blind to the suffering of their victims, to the social wounds inflicted by their violence.  Anyone working to create a free world runs afoul of the police sooner or later.  #CopChat has come to our attention because it seeks to integrate twitter into law enforcement practices, allowing cops to create “dialogue with the public” in a more evolved way.  This is something which must be dealt with.


Any conversation between police and the public cannot be one of peace and understanding due to the nature of the police.  Police murder, brutality, corruption, and the direct repression of dissent are increasing around us every day.  There can be no “understanding” between police and the public because the police constitute a violent, oppressive entity that forces itself onto the public like a mafia protection racket.  At no point have we consented to our neighborhoods being patrolled by armed gangs in exchange for an imagined security.  The body of information we will present during #CopChat shows that police forces often take the form of violent, criminal street gangs.  Police regularly commit murder, violate human rights, and protect each other from the consequences of their crimes.

We are intervening in #CopChat to make sure that the public is aware of the dangers posed to them by the police state.  #CopChat’s stated purpose is to facilitate police dialogue with the public, and to streamline the integration of social media into law enforcement practices.  We know that police routinely (as policy) bluff, improvise, and lie in their interactions with civilians, to the detriment of civil and human rights.  It can be no different with police use of social media.  Police will use any tools at their disposal to prevent any change to the status quo; it is their job to enforce laws regardless of their morality.  As activists striving to create a better world and destroy oppression, we have seen countless times in the streets how the police are used to ruthlessly stifle dissent and prevent change.  Any law enforcement use of social media should be opposed and obstructed in order to maintain this landscape as a free space for exchange & evolution.

Anonymous opposes any integration of the internet and social media landscape into the police state apparatus of repression & surveillance.  Police dishonestly portray themselves as the protectors and benefactors of the community, yet in reality they are power-hungry, violence-prone criminals seeking to control our lives on behalf of the ruling financial and political elite.

Cops violate human rights with impunity only because their authority is perceived as legitimate.  If popular myths about the police were dispelled, we could better address the widespread cancer of police violence that feeds on our society.  This is an Operation to deligitimize the police for the sake of the health of the human species.

Delegitimizing the police is not only beneficial for those they target, but also for police officers’ families and police officers themselves. Not only do police officers have disproportionately high rates of domestic violence and child abuse, they’re also more likely to get killed, commit suicide, and struggle with addiction than most sectors of society. Anything that encourages police officers to quit their jobs is in their best interest, as well as the interest of their loved ones and society at large. Let’s create a world in which no one oppresses or is oppressed, in which no one has to live in fear.

We have collected a large amount of news material on police brutality and police misconduct, and will be posting all of it into the #copchat stream in a way that will make it impossible to ignore.

How To Help.

Goal: Bombard the Twitter Chat #CopChat with enough tweets that they can’t have a productive chat, while providing links with stories showcasing the problem of police brutality.

1. Gather as many stories of police brutality as you can find. 60 stories (one being tweeted out per min) is the maximum per twitter account.

2. Using a program like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite you can schedule your tweets if you will not be around for the action (Wednesday Oct 24, 9PM EST till 10PM EST.), running more than one account, or just want to schedule the links and be free to interact with your followers during the action.

3. Be sure to use both the #WhyIFTP and #CopChat hashtags during the action. The twitter chat uses the #CopChat hashtag to work and it’s imperative that you use the hash if your intent is to disrupt the chat that is taking place on twitter using it (think of this as an IP for the chat and we’re ddosing it). We’re using the hashtag #WhyIFTP as the tag for this operation. Not only is it a way to group all these stories of police brutality together, but with all of us using it the hashtag is bound to trend, shedding light to the brutal tactics used by police officers around world to millions of twitter users.

Tweet Something Now To Get The Conversation Started. Or, Make Your Own.

#WhyIFTP: Memorial list of those killed by @TorontoPolice since 1990 - http://www.scribd.com/doc/86139860/Killed-by-Toronto-Police



#WhyIFTP: @OccupyOakland protesters tortured by police -

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/23/1048442/-Is-Occupy-Oakland-jailed-protester-being-tortured


#WhyIFTP: Kidnapping victim found tied up in #NYPD detective’s garage. - http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/07/28/13012288-kidnapping-victim-found-tied-up-in-nypd-detectives-garage-sources-say?lite