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Ten years after #oppayback, #opmanning, the Arab Spring, and Occupy, I am still bearing the weight of restitution debt and Federal interference in my life. I need your help to lift this burden once and for all. Please amplify my crowdfund http://www.gofundme.com/f/oppayback
I would ask that those of you who have known and worked with me would write a short explanation of the work we did together, along with a retweet of my link http://www.gofundme.com/f/oppayback
The FBI hit me with an early morning raid on Sept. 22nd, 2011. I remember the date bc it was 5 days after the start of Occupy in NYC, and the morning after Troy Davis was executed. I'd walked out to the park to light a candle for the man late that night. #operationpayback
After my late and solitary vigil in the park, I went to meet some friends. As such, it was about 4:30am when I finally stripped all my clothes off and fell onto my bed. #operationpayback
I don't know that it was more than two hours later that the knock I'd expected for nine months came booming at my door. That knock still gets my heart racing, though it's been nearly a decade since it came. I hear its echoes on TV shows. My pizza profile notes DO NOT KNOCK. RING.
The FBI shouted and pounded. I flew out of bed, not wanting to risk the cost of fixing a splintered door frame. Nor did I want to explain to my landlord why the FBI had decided to shatter my door at 6 am in the morning. #operationpayback
I swung open the door, still completely naked. The agents yelled at me to get on the ground, and I complied. One of the agents covered me with his jacket, but not before the 3 FBI agents had gotten a full view of my dick and ass. #operationpayback
The agents did a sweep of my apartment, then did a beeline for my computer. I must sheepishly remind you all, that, speaking from experience, all the encryption in the world does no good if you don't dismount the damned drive and turn off the computer before you go to bed.
Not that there was anything to be found on there. IRC logging was disabled and I was no hacker. The most incriminating stuff on that drive were memes about the now-Former president of Tunisia, handbills about Chelsea Manning, and street medicine guides. #operationpayback
Oh and maybe there was a copy of Stuxnet. And various hypothetical means of disrupting construction on hypothetical oil pipelines. I mean really, the worst thing they could find, combing through the drive, was THIS https://imgur.com/EKwio #operationpayback
But the drive was boot-encrypted. So the FBI agents had a problem. They couldn't power off the PC or unplug it, or they'd lose access to my files forever. And to make it extra fun, my PC was using an IDE harddrive, and USB 1.0 #operationpayback
Much to the chagrin of the Feds, my rusty PC didn't even have firewire. They were baffled as they slowly poked around my computer case, trying to find some means to extract my harddrives' entire contents. The cold reality sank in: they were going to have to use Ethernet. 100mbps.
The FBI planned to show up, tear their way into everything I owned, grab my computer, and run. Instead they now found themselves trying to clear their afternoons, so they could download my LARP stories, decidedly vanilla porn folder, and Seinfeld reruns. #operationpayback
The FBI sent one of their flunkies back to the hotel to pick up their luggage and some chocolate muffins. They were definitely going to miss their checkout time. #operationpayback
Most of the agents who came to my door at 6:00am to ogle my dick and read my Buffy fanfic were computer crimes guys, who didn't particularly read as cops. But there was one guy wearing a vest and a high & tight, who didn't have much of a neck. He wanted to make friends
This is after the FBI had given me time to put on pants, by the way. #operationpayback
That lying Fed told me that I had one opportunity while he was there. That when he was gone, my chance to decide how the next few years of my life would go would be over. So, the conclusion was, it would be wise to answer his questions. #operationpayback
I looked the federal agent square in the eye and said, "I plead the fifth." And then I went silent, and no-neck went back to pulling everything out of my cupboards and onto the floor. They murmured like tourists upon finding a placard with Manning's face on it, snapping photos
My Guy Fawkes mask was deemed critical evidence, bagged, and tagged. #operationpayback
Around the time things stopped tumbling out of the closets, when the progress bar on the FBI's special RAM downloader was probably reaching the 3rd season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, one of the FBI agents felt the call of nature. #operationpayback
I was a bachelor, living in a dumpy apartment. If I'd had other company I might have been embarrassed about the condition of my toilet, but for these Feds, I could be proud I'd left them a taste of my rancor. #operationpayback
As the Fed consigned himself to using my mottled toilet bowl, I broke my plea of silence. I said, none too quietly, "Sorry, if I'd known I was going to have company, I'd have scrubbed the toilet." #operationpayback
I wasn't under arrest, so I left them alone in my apartment and told them to lock up when they were done. It wasn't like they weren't going to take whatever they wanted anyway. They'd already committed to taking my most important possession: My PC.
My teen years were none too easy, and when the Feds took all my disc drives I ended up losing every copy I had of my Instant Messenger logs from those days, the closest thing I had then to a journal. #operationpayback
During Occupy, I maintained my access to Twitter and IRC with an aging MacBook that some hippie friends had hacked to run Ubuntu. #operationpayback
After a few months I was able to pull together enough money to buy a new CPU & mobo, and RAM. These components still make up the core of my PC. I got a few cash donations then, and from Occupy I got a donor HDD & Gfx card. My case was from a old computer I'd built for my brother
It would be two years before the Feds even contacted me again. But I'll tell that story later. #operationpayback
I wanted to tell these stories, bc not nearly enough have heard them. Please donate to my crowd fund and help me end federal interference in my life. https://www.gofundme.com/f/oppayback
