FIRE AT HILLSBORO DATA CENTER

On Thursday, May 23rd, a thick cloud of putrid black smoke rose over Hillsboro, OR. The smoke was from an early morning fire at one of the massive data centers based in the city. According to local media, the fire originated from batteries inside the Digital Realty (PDX 11) data center. Unfortunately, the flames did not spread to the rest of the data center and the damage was minimal. Firefighters let the fire burn itself out for five hours. The fire caused major disruptions on the web, including big outages to X/Twitter, which was reportedly one of the companies leasing space at the data center. There is currently no public information about the cause of the fire.

Hillsboro, Portland’s Western neighbor, is home to several major data centers that are the engines of digital control and technological domination. Incentivized by tax breaksand lax regulations, Hillsboro (AKA the Silicon Forest) has become an important international hub for the tech industry. Data centers and chip manufacturer like Intel have expanded their footprint there in recent years, and the AI boom is likely to bring in more new construction. This rapid expansion requires hugely increased power supply; the upgrade of existing transmission infrastructure, the installation of new “green” energy facilities in Eastern Oregon, and even proposals to construct nuclear power plants along the Columbia river. Portland General Electric (PGE) planned on clearcutting several acres in Forest Park to make way for new high-voltage pylons. From Against the Silicon Forest: “These power lines are designed to bring power to the Silicon Forest, most notably given the timing of this expansion, to Intel, whose largest operating hub lies just a short distance west of Forest Park.” The project is currently in limbo, awaiting the next action from PGE (PGE can choose to appeal the land use ruling and win approval from the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals).

Continue reading “FIRE AT HILLSBORO DATA CENTER”

May Day Picnic

May 1st, 2025 – Peninsula Park, Portland – 4:30-7pm

Let’s celebrate the arrival of spring and the indomitable spirit of anarchy! A chance to make new friends and reconnect with old friends. Please bring snacks and games to share, poetry, stories, and other readings, and photos, flowers, and any other offerings you’d like for a memorial to fallen comrades.

submitted anonymously

Running a Bail Fund: An Introduction

“This documentation is intended to share knowledge
about operating a bail fund to support protestors. While
it discusses legal, jail, and prison support, bail is the
primary focus. Our experience is around operating a bail
fund for protestors arrested at a series of related protests.
We are not experienced with running a permanent bail
fund for a broader range of arrestees, although much of
guide is applicable beyond supporting protestors.”

PDF: bailfund

submitted anonymously

Fire Destroys Mansion Under Construction

[FROM MAINSTREAM MEDIA]

A large fire destroyed a 12,000-square-foot single-family home in east Clark County early Sunday morning, fire officials said.

Just after 4:37 a.m., firefighters from East County Fire and Rescue were called out to a construction site on Northeast Livingston Mountain Circle.

The first crews found a fully involved fire at the home, still under construction. Wind from the east caused problems, and one nearby house was threatened as the fire burned vegetation around the two-story home being built.

No injuries were reported, and the cause of the fire is under investigation by the Clark County Fire Marshal’s Office.

submitted anonymously

This Rose Has Thorns 2024: A year of anarchic attacks in so-called Portland

A few years ago, in the aftermath of the George Floyd rebellion in Portland, a zine was made chronicling the autonomous attacks that proliferated across the city as public
demonstrations increasingly became a dead end. Feeling
inspired by the daring attacks against authority that occurred
in 2024, we decided to create an (incomplete) compilation zine. Some of the attacks listed here were explicitly claimed by anarchists, while others were done by perpetrators with
unknown motivations, but whose actions we think are of
interest to anarchists. All of the attacks mentioned here took
place outside of publicly announced events.

Here’s to a 2025 full of joy and destruction! Long Live Anarchy!

Links to download PDFs:

rosethornsreading

rosethorns-booklet

submitted anonymously

Some Initial Thoughts On Unity Of Fields

[I am writing as an insurrectionary anarchist in the u$a and speaking to that context]

Unity Of Fields is a counter-info project that emerged in August of 2024. They describe their project as “a militant propaganda front against the US-NATO-zionist axis of imperialism.” It used to be Palestine Action US and has since changed its orientation. It has a website and some social media accounts, some of which have are banned at the time of this writing, they seem to be most popular on Telegram. Although it links to mostly anarchist sources for technical knowledge, Unity Of Fields does not seem to be an anarchist project and their political reading and media suggestions are all over the map. They suggest classic decolonial texts by Fanon and Cesaire, Black liberation writings from the BLA and BPP, texts from various Palestinian resistance factions, as well as authoritarian communists like Lenin and Mao among others.

Mostly their website is a clearing house for news, action analysis, and communiques. Many of the communiques posted are original submissions though they also repost from other counter-info projects and from social media. They also post some of their own original writings to their website. The fact that they post sketchy criminal stuff and link to technical advice on how to better carry out insurrectionary forms of struggle is probably a large part of why they are discussed in anarchist circles at all.

What does the emergence of a project like Unity Of Fields mean for us as anarchists? For one thing Unity Of Fields expands some spaces we occupy as anarchists — the combative struggle space and the digital counter-info space. We are clearly not the only ones re-coloring walls, opening windows, and carrying out our little sabotages and then writing about it, though at least for now others seem to look to our collective knowledge and experience for technical guidance. We are sharing a struggle space, one which is not limited to riotous moments and combative demonstrations, with other rebels who have made themselves visible to us. We are being included (at least some of the time) in a dialogue with other rebels through the sharing of our words and news of our actions, and anarchists have shared writings from Unity Of Fields on our own websites.

Local struggles against zionism, imperialism, and colonialism are visibly taking on more destructive, decentralized, anonymous, and autonomous approaches, a long-term dream of insurrectionary anarchists, yet new questions arise for us. How do we want to contend with other rebels with whom we have ideological differences and tactical similarities? How do we avoid getting lost in the vanguardist, unifying, nationalist tendencies that often accompany revolutionary leftist approaches to combative struggle? Are we interested in conspiring with these others outside the spontaneity of spiky demonstrations, occupations (and potentially riots), and if so how? Continue reading “Some Initial Thoughts On Unity Of Fields”

To the International Anarchist Movement: Three Security Proposals

This text is addressed to the international anarchist movement, which we’ll define as the sum of individuals fighting for anarchist ideas around the world. This movement is in conflict with its natural enemies — the State, fascist groups, and so on — and must protect itself if it is to survive in this conflict. In this text, we make three proposals for the international anarchist movement to consider in the coming years in order to allow anarchists to continue attacking while limiting their chances of getting caught.

1. Share knowledge internationally

Our enemies organize internationally through cooperation between police and intelligence agencies and new developments in science and technology — the increasing precision of DNA forensics and the proliferation of drones being just two examples. This means that a repressive technique used in one country may soon appear in another where it is not yet being used. It also means that an effective countermeasure used by anarchists in one country may be effective in another. We should therefore share knowledge of repressive techniques and countermeasures on an international level.

Ideally, any experience of repression or experimentation with countermeasures that might be of interest to other anarchists should be written up, translated into several languages, and made public. When anarchists are arrested and brought to trial, we can often obtain court documents that reveal how they were caught: we should exploit this and publish analyses of such documents, bearing in mind that information obtained in this way may be partial or distorted. We should experiment with new countermeasures and write and publish reports on these experiments (except in cases where the State might adapt and weaken the countermeasure by reading the report). We should try to collect information at the source: read police training manuals, steal police files, analyze data leaks from police servers.

A specific feature of the international anarchist movement is its decentralization. We see this not as a weakness but as a strength: in addition to preventing the hierarchies inherent in centralized organizations, it makes it harder for our enemies to target us because they cannot topple the whole movement by disrupting one part of it. However, this decentralization also makes it harder for us to share knowledge across borders. To overcome this, we see two options: developing informal bonds with other anarchists by meeting at international book fairs and other events, and using the Internet. We propose using the No Trace Project as an international platform to share the knowledge that is suited for sharing on the Internet, not as a replacement for informal bonds but as a useful supplement to spread information beyond existing informal networks.

2. Establish a security baseline

Anarchists who carry out direct actions should analyze the risks associated with their actions and take appropriate precautions: dress anonymously, be mindful of video surveillance and DNA traces, and so on. However, this is not enough. If only those who carry out actions take precautions, it is easier for our enemies to target these individuals. This is, firstly, because they stand out: if only a handful of comrades always leave their phones at home, for example, this could be an obvious starting point for an investigation with no other specific leads. And secondly, because our enemies can get information about them through their friends who do not carry out actions: if someone doesn’t use social media but is mentioned on their friends’ social media, for example, an investigation could query their friends’ social media to get information about them. We should therefore establish a security baseline that everyone in anarchist networks agrees to follow, including those who have never carried out direct actions and have no intention of doing so.

We can’t say what this baseline should be, as it will depend on each local context, but we can give some ideas. As a bare minimum, everyone should help hide information from our enemies by not speculating about who is involved in an action, not bragging about one’s own participation in an action, not talking to the police, and encrypting any computer or phone used for conversations with other anarchists using a strong password. Discuss sensitive matters exclusively outdoors and without electronic devices, and don’t make it obvious to your social environment who you are having sensitive conversations with (e.g. don’t ask someone to “go for a walk” in front of people who aren’t involved in the project being discussed). In addition, we think everyone should stop using social media (and definitely stop posting photos of other anarchists, even with their consent, because this helps the State map anarchist networks) and leave their phones at home at all times (not just during actions). Carrying your phone with you has security implications for everyone you interact with.

It can be difficult to convince people to follow such a security baseline, especially if they think they have no personal interest in following it. If someone is reluctant, we should remind them that it’s not just their security that’s at stake, but also the security of other anarchists around them who may be carrying out or planning to carry out direct actions. Everyone who wants actions to happen has an interest in making anarchist networks as difficult as possible for the authorities to repress.

3. Explore new horizons

Our enemies evolve over time as they refine their strategies and techniques. We should prepare not for the battles that already took place, but for those yet to come. We should therefore go beyond our current security practices, anticipate the evolution of our enemies, and develop new countermeasures.

Here are three issues we think the international anarchist movement should explore in the coming years.

Drones

Aerial surveillance is rapidly becoming cheaper and more efficient. How should we react to the presence of police drones at riots, anarchist events, and so on? How can we detect or take down drones? Should we prepare for the risk of drones being used for routine aerial patrols, and if so, how?

Facial recognition technologies

In 2023, a journalist tracked down German left-wing militant Daniela Klette, who had been in clandestinity for decades, by using facial recognition technology to match a decades-old photo of her with a recent photo from Facebook taken during a dance class. What can we do against this threat? How can we prepare for the increasing integration of facial recognition technology into public video surveillance systems?

Lack of insight into police activity

Until a few years ago, radio scanners were used by anarchists to monitor police frequencies, for example to learn about nearby police activity while carrying out a direct action. In most contexts, this is now impossible because police communications are encrypted. Can we develop new techniques to functionally replace radio scanners or, more generally, to gain insight into police activity in a given area?

About the authors

We’re the No Trace Project. For the past three years, we’ve been building tools to help anarchists understand the capabilities of their enemies, undermine surveillance efforts, and ultimately act without getting caught. We plan to continue in the years to come. We welcome feedback. You can visit our website at notrace.how, and contact us at notrace@autistici.org.

This text is available as a zine (in Letter and A4 dimensions).

Let’s prepare ourselves, and may luck be on our side.

from No Trace Project

Thoughts on Election Night

As election night draws near, it seems like many anarchists are content with sitting back and watching what unfolds. We cannot predict what will happen- perhaps widespread riots, perhaps widespread nothing- but this should be even more reason to attack!

For months, we have been inundated with news blurbs about the plans to prevent election night unrest. The Portland Police have bragged about their preparedness to handle protests and have shown off their new riot squad and its fancy new toys. Although the police have made changes since 2020 and 2021, they are not all-powerful. Our desire for freedom will always be stronger than their control.

On last two election days, in 2016 and 2020, anarchists had a large presence in the streets. Things still managed to get rowdy in 2020 even after the National Guard was called in. It got rowdy, most importantly, because people (not just anarchists) wanted it to. If we want unrest, we need to make it. Attacks away from the crowds, all across the city, can show that no matter who they elect, we are ungovernable.

Riots create opportunities for other people to experiment with attack, they subvert property, authority, and capital and unleash the boldest of desires- a desire for freedom and destruction. But even after the riots end and everything goes back to how it was, they continue to live in a collective imaginary as a memory of what is possible- and this memory is the kindling for the fires to come.

At the same time, we have to think critically about the meaning of a night or two of rioting and what role we might play. How do these riots, ever momentary ruptures, fit into a goal of insurrection and generalized subversion? How can we contribute to making these moments last? How do we spread attack and create the conditions for other people to strike as well?

Instead of sitting at home and waiting for someone else to throw the first stone, or waiting for activists to tell us why we need to be out in the streets, let’s strike first, and strike for ourselves. Let’s smash the spectacle of the election and reject their calls for social peace- after all, we are explosive beings with unpredictable reactions. We are dynamite.

 

submitted anonymously