librarypunk - 139 - How library workers can provide community support during a Trump presidency

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

What can library workers actually do within their institutional limitations?  Media mentioned https://www.404media.co/leaked-documents-show-what-phones-secretive-tech-graykey-can-unlock-2/ https://ww...w.blackrosefed.org/anarchists-in-the-labor-movement-4/  https://github.com/rechelon/zine_library  https://www.digitalrightsbytes.org/ https://ssd.eff.org/ Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/zzEpV9QEAG Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/3h472fne 

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I love this like double wool, like teacup. Like doesn't hurt my hands because it's got like a gap. You've air-gapped your tea. Yeah. All right. So this is our episode before the election. I'm feeling pretty good. We're going to be huge libs and be like, oh, no, he won.
Starting point is 00:00:18 What are we going to do? No, no, no. The election hasn't happened yet. So I'm looking at the polling out of Idaho, Ohio. It looks like it's going to go blue. Sorry, we don't mean to make fun of people, only a little bit. I think that's kind of been the consensus of like the most of the podcast I listened to. Is there like, I gaslit myself into thinking she could win in like the week before.
Starting point is 00:00:43 And before that, I thought no way she'll win. Then the last week thought, she'll win. And then they're like, why did I do that to myself? Yeah, I like went to bed after they called North Carolina. and like I was like, all right, I think I know where this is going, and I woke up unsurprised. Yeah, wife woke me up at like 3 a.m. freaking the fuck out. And I was like, did they call it? And they were like, not yet.
Starting point is 00:01:08 And then I rolled over and was on my phone for the next two hours being like, yep, not surprised with what it was like when I went to sleep. But being on the West Coast is like that. Yeah, you're up later. Yeah, it was like the county by county data. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, there hasn't been a whole lot of news, I feel like, on, I mean, Emily Draminsky wrote a piece that I think was not helpful in any way. Like, she's, she's beating the drum.
Starting point is 00:01:36 She's like, you know, academic libraries are going to be targeted. Librarians are going to be targeted. It's like, yeah, I know. But I think it was in like a non-library publication. So it was like trying to get. I think it was an inside higher ed. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:49 So I think it was in inside higher ed or something. I don't think it was just like the ALA's blog. Yeah. And you have to remind faculty to care about us because half the time they're like, oh, you mean we can either give you a salary or keep the journal that only I care about. Well, I know what decision I'm going to make. I'm so glad I'm not in higher right anymore. It's not great. Until the bullshit hits the fan in public libraries, Jay. Just wait. But it already has. It's been hitting the fan for a while, actually.
Starting point is 00:02:15 Yeah, I'm just going to be a little latte-sippin liberal here in Massachusetts, I guess. Are you going to be every person who I meet? in Boston, who I tell them I'm from Texas, and they're like, oh, Texas. Every time I'm like, every time I live in Texas, they're like, ugh. I'm like, y'all, I know. I've been there. I am aware. I love to say that the very first time I visited you in Texas, I got off the plane in Dallas, right?
Starting point is 00:02:45 Because that's where my labor was. And like literally I step off of the plane and I get into the airport. And immediately a dude walks out of the men's restroom, wearing like a transphobic t-shirt and I was like, cool. But I literally had no other issues. Yeah. I just can't go to Odessa. That's the thing.
Starting point is 00:03:04 I just can't go there. Yeah. Whereas, you know, you can hang out with me in the valley and you go see the guys wearing the pink pumps dancing. Yeah, exactly. Getting a little fruity with it. Yeah, they get a little fruity with it down there. It's fun.
Starting point is 00:03:17 Shit's been bad people. Like, this doesn't change much. It's like, shit's, I don't want to be like, oh, everything's fine. It's not fine. But it's been bad. So, you know, we have to not planning. We have to like seriously. Seriously, we've been, we've been on this very program. We've been saying the exact shit that we are going to tell you tonight for like three years now. I feel like every time there's like a Democratic president, all of the, all of the liberals like gaslight themselves into believing that like no more work needs to.
Starting point is 00:03:53 be done now? They went to brunch. They said they were going to go to brunch and they went to brunch. But then like the worst leftists, you know, are like, oh, well, then I hope Trump wins so that people start organizing again. I'm like, that's not what I wanted to either. Yeah. Fuck.
Starting point is 00:04:08 But it has been interesting the sort of lack of resistance among liberals, at least online. You know, I think during the inauguration, there's probably going to be protests and stuff. People are going to like, God, a liberal J6 is going to be so fucking fighting. I don't think that's going to happen, but I think... Oh, obviously not, but I've already seen people be like, oh, he fixed the election. I'm like, y'all. I did like what Devin was saying, which is like, if you have liberals in your life, it is your duty to say, hey, doesn't something seem strange about the results?
Starting point is 00:04:42 It is quite funny when I saw people immediately being like, oh, it was Russia gay all over again. It was like, oh, BG. Not even. It was like 2005 all of it. over again. It was like, we have to get more racist. That, but also people being like, oh, he cheated. We have to do recounts. We need to wait longer before we call yaddy, yad. I'm like, y'all, you can't make fun of Republicans for doing this and then do it. Well, and like, and the thing that gets me about that is it's so like myopic because, like,
Starting point is 00:05:14 they've been, they've been spending the past four years making sure we don't have another 2020 election result, right? Like, gerrymandering, making sure. sure nobody does a vote by mail. Like they've been spending the past four years doing that shit to get this results in otherwise completely legitimate ways. So just jumping straight into the conspiracy thinking is just
Starting point is 00:05:35 when I first saw people, I was like, oh, for the love of God, we're not doing this, are we? Okay, we are. Who boy. Actually. Right wing crazies are way better organizers and better solidarity than we are a lot of the time. They're also just as infighty and it's just that they
Starting point is 00:05:53 don't they don't infight they don't infight over the same types of things so it allows them to steal cohere politically yeah but they will rat fuck individuals yeah but the program kind of keeps going on in this populist way some i've seen some really good stuff this is some really bad takes the one thing i'm surprised i haven't seen anybody mentioned i mean literally i haven't read this anywhere and it just it took like weeks to occur to me vote out vote turnout was so much hire in 2020 because everyone was allowed to vote by mail because a ton of states said you could vote by mail and voting was easier the last election and like that's a good reason why turnout's probably down. And a lot of people are disabled and dead. We should have been spending the last four years
Starting point is 00:06:38 trying to get vote by mail in so many more states, particularly, you know, the ones that flipped blue last time like Georgia and Arizona. Maybe if that had happened, we would have had. Yeah. It was It's just so strange, though, that it took so long. Yeah, it's just strange that it took so long for me to realize, like, no one has written anything about how much vote by mail was expanded in 2020. And, like, it hasn't come up at all. Well, because they had to, like, totally get rid of all of the, like, they had to, like, completely abandon COVID stuff as part of the platform because Biden whiffed it so bad. Because if they focus on the fact that, like, it was under Trump that the COVID stuff was initially put under, like, they can't take any credit. for that initial bit
Starting point is 00:07:23 and then they got rid of everything like almost immediately like the vote by mail thing was a COVID thing, you know? Yeah, it's just strange to me that like even the leftists I follow because I'm not reading like liberal rags. I'm still hoping someone on blue sky
Starting point is 00:07:38 figures out a way to block links from like the New York Times just like and so I don't have to see people reposting like stop posting your garbage here just because you have a weird fetish for being humiliated. That's one way to go about it, I guess.
Starting point is 00:07:52 Yeah. Speaking of Blue Sky, actually, there's, I just kind of found out this thing where there are other people doing moderation lists. So when you report, so people label accounts, they can't ban them themselves because they're not like part of the Blue Sky team. But you can get on a labeling list and then when you report a post or an account, you can report it to the person who maintains that list. So there's like a transphobia list.
Starting point is 00:08:17 So walk the person, but it will label them transphobic. So then you'll see that they've like, you know, what kind of transphobia other paddling and stuff like that. And so even if the blue sky moderators will be like, well, we can't kick them for saying something like that because it's like an edge case. This moderator will still at least tat like label them. So it's kind of like shinagami eyes. I still like to caution people to be careful with that kind of stuff because like people do weaponize that shit against people. So, you know, take it with a grain of salt. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:45 But I mean, given the current influx of chuds, it's kind of like it's helpful. Yeah. Because there's just so many of them trying to get established. Like, there's a bunch of people who follow me, who I think are just liberals. But because they're liberals, it just sounds like stuff that a right-wing are pretending to be a liberal would say to me. Because, like, they're like, dog, mom, resistor. And I'm like, I don't know. Is this like a right-wing person pretending to be a liberal?
Starting point is 00:09:09 Or is it just how liberal is it is? No, it's just like a 41-year-old white lady librarian. It is. It is. And you know what? If you're listening, thank you for coming. Stop reading Harry Potter. There are other books for adults. Read another book. But I'm hoping I'm radicalizing some of the grandmas who are following me for some reason.
Starting point is 00:09:31 It's the best you can hope for. Yeah, I just want that photo of the Hamas guy and then the old lady in the recliner with an AK-47 in her lap. And it's like library punk, the people following library punk. It's not wrong. Although most of our followers are like the library school students. I think, right? to where like our audience is. On Blue Sky right now, yeah, but it's a lot more like younger librarians.
Starting point is 00:09:55 Yeah, in general, people who listen to the podcast, but like on Blue Sky, because we're on the starter pack that's really popular. Yeah, we're getting a lot of like retired librarians, older people, so welcome. But you got to post a little bit so I can get a feel for you before I'm going to follow you back, making sure you're not, you know, not being weird.
Starting point is 00:10:13 You know, free Palestine, the IRA did nothing wrong, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Merry Christmas to my friends in Hezbollah Hamas and the IRA. Yeah, exactly. That's our politics. Okay. Well, I guess we can officially get started.
Starting point is 00:10:55 I'm Justin. I'm Skalkham Library. My pronouns are he and they? I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library and my pronouns are they them. I'm Jay. I'm a cataloguing librarian and my pronouns are he him. Behold the atheist's nightmare.
Starting point is 00:11:09 What's that from? I think Aunt Hovand. Is that his name? Or is that the other guy? He's just some old creationist grifter. He's still around. Is it Kent Hovand or is that the, it's at the Australian guy? Well, they're both Australian.
Starting point is 00:11:20 There's a lot of Australian creationists who come to America to do their grifts. But yeah, he's holding up a banana. No, Ray Comfort. That's who it is. Kent Hoven's the other guy. Right Compton is the porn name. It does. Should remake Boogie Nights.
Starting point is 00:11:32 Boogie Nights is so good. There's a way I could tie that into this fucking podcast I would make watch him. I've seen it. I know you have. Say any of you seen Pogie Nights? I don't think I have, actually. It's real good. I should find a way to work it in.
Starting point is 00:11:46 Discord movie night? Yeah, it's about the 70s porn industry in the 70s turning into the 80s. But it's about utopia and disillusionment. And it's also the only good thing Marky Marks ever done. Okay, that's why I've heard of it. Marky Marky. Yeah, Phil Sey Hoffman's in it. Yeah, it's real good.
Starting point is 00:12:04 Okay. So I'm trying to do like more segments and stuff like that. So I'm going to try some, I guess this is news. leaked documents show what phone secretive tech gray key can unlock. So this is from 404 Media. I have a subscription if you ever need to get access to it, but I highly recommend you support them because they do extremely good research. And I want this publication to stick around.
Starting point is 00:12:32 So they have like a podcast, they have stuff. This is not a brand deal. I just like the product. And they also write really interesting stuff about like how many paywalls do you put up, how many barriers do you put up in order to like keep your organization running? So like when do we decide to put something behind a pain wall? A pain wall. But when they're talking like pain points or like frustration points or like some,
Starting point is 00:12:55 you just need to create an account to read. And then some you have to pay. And they're like these different layers of things like in type, create the incentive to people, for people to value what you put out. Interesting stuff probably relates to podcast. But you know, we don't have a paywall here.
Starting point is 00:13:12 here. So the gray key is a phone unlocking and forensics tool used by law enforcement. I believe it first became known in like 2018 and it was kind of a big deal where people found out. I think this was after the San Bernardino shooting was when it was first reported or maybe it was a similar de-encryption thing. But this is the stuff that can just straight up crack iPhones and and so there was a leak to show what phones Graykey can unlock and what operating systems it can unlock. So it's only able to retrieve partial data from all modern iPhones. So again, it has to be like a newer phone as well that run iOS 18 or 18.0.1. This is the first time that there's been a leak of which phone's Grey Key is able to or unable to access. It's also a breakdown of Great
Starting point is 00:14:01 Key's capabilities against Android devices, which varies widely because Android is obviously like not just one thing. There's lots of different Android operating systems. Still mostly Google. though. Yeah. But the thing is, I think the main takeaway here is, like, the more new and the more different it is, the longer it takes Gray Key to catch up. But there was a quote from a guy who worked at Apple to create the thing where if you haven't unlocked your phone, basically the USB port will only charge.
Starting point is 00:14:31 It will not give data. That guy works for Gray Key now. So they're going to hire the people who build the security stuff from Apple to then break the stuff they build. So they will catch up. I mean, this is, so I think it was Crime Think who put this out. I need to look to up.
Starting point is 00:14:47 But there's like this great little Opsack blog post that used the film Manmax Fury Road to talk about concepts in Opsack. And one of the most important things about it was like, it is never about fully getting away
Starting point is 00:15:04 from adversaries. You will never beat them forever. It's always just about being one step ahead of them and then moving on, because they will figure it out. You just have to slow them down like in Madnnex for your road. Yeah, a movie I never remember how it ends. I remember like the first half of that movie and then the rest, nothing. Cannot remember how it ends ever.
Starting point is 00:15:24 I've seen it three times. Oh, I've seen it so many times. It's a good movie. I don't know why I can't remember the end. Anyway, so Grady is much less capability with iPhones running beta builds. So go enable your beta builds right now, I guess. saying none for the various betas of 18.1 across all modern iPhone iterations. For Google's pixel range, Gricky is able only to extract partial data on the most recent pixel
Starting point is 00:15:51 devices, including Pixel 9 released in August. According to the document, this is specifically when the phone is in after first unlocked state, which is when somebody has unlocked the device at least once since it was powered on. So probably if your phone is seized, then it's already in that state. So I think before first unlocked, it can't get any data. So have your phone off and even if they turn it on, don't unlock it. Gotcha. And use a passcode or a pattern or literally anything other than biometrics to unlock your phone.
Starting point is 00:16:23 At least while you're at protests and stuff. At least while you're at protests. Yeah. And make sure you like, I know a lot of phones have that if a certain other device is near, it won't. You won't need to unlock it. Like I had that with a like an Apple watch or something. Yeah. So take that shit off.
Starting point is 00:16:39 Take that shit off or turn that shit off. Yeah. Probably take it off. I bet Apple watches are easy to crack. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm not one of these people that's like, get a burner phone because as Alice McGrina told at least me, I don't know if she told us on this podcast before,
Starting point is 00:16:53 but like I've seen her do this spiel before. Like getting a burner phone just like, oh, I'm going to go to a protest. I'm going to have a burner phone. Like there's, oh, you suddenly turned your phone off. at the same exact time as this protest and then you turned it back on once you got home, they're still going to know where you were.
Starting point is 00:17:09 It's about changing a pattern of behavior consistently. That is what is most important. Turn your phone off all the time. And just random times. Just turn it on and off all day. Use Tor browser randomly. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:24 Yeah, it's like don't use Tor just to do illegal shit kind of thing. Like use Tor all the time, if you can. You can, yeah, there's certain browsers you can turn it on to, if there is an onion version of a site, it will always open the onion version. So I think Brave does that. So you can have it.
Starting point is 00:17:40 Don't use Tor through anything but the Tor browser. Okay. Well, it'll open the Tor browser. But like the point of like, okay, yeah, because like the point of the Tor browser is that it's also like the same exact size, the same exact spot on your desktop,
Starting point is 00:17:55 like the same exact settings and everything. So it helps reduce browser fingerprinting as well. Yeah. I think when you, Because I turned this off because it was like annoying because it'll do it for like all the news websites. Like New York Times will bring up its onion site. And it's like, I don't really need that. But you could turn that on if you are, you know, maybe doing some of this stuff we'll talk about like ordering controlled substances on the internet that you might need.
Starting point is 00:18:20 So how do you do fellow trans masks? Yeah. So historically they have eventually caught up and managed to get partial information from the phones. And it was also iOS 18 that caused all those phones to reset. which pissed off a lot of cops, and they started having conspiracy brain about it, where they thought the phones were sending signals in between each other to reboot each other.
Starting point is 00:18:44 And it was like shit that the iPhone can't do. It was literally just like, because the code was in there, it was going to always reboot at some point when they turned it back on, even if it was in like, the moment where they turn it on, it'll be, oh, I need to activate this code. And then it reboots the phone. So anyway, keep your iOS up to date.
Starting point is 00:19:05 I know my phone is constantly not updating properly. So go in there manually once in a while, even if you have auto updates on, just make sure it's finishing the updates. Yeah, because sometimes it'll like download it, but it won't install it because you haven't been like plugged into power or something. Sometimes it's just fussy. Yeah. Sometimes it's like, well, is it okay if I update? And I'm like, auto update is on? It's like, but is it okay?
Starting point is 00:19:29 Like it's on, great reason. We have 23 apps waiting to update. And I'm like, what the fuck does auto update do then? Anyway, this is also a chance for me to be high and mighty about everyone who's like, Android is so much better. I'm like, don't have brand loyalty to Android is Google most of the time. It's not like the thing it once was. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:49 People think that they know all the shit because they read a tech blog in like 2012. Yeah, not the same. Yeah, no, shit's different. It's the people who go right or die for Mozilla Firefox. I'm like, no, they're like all the same now. Yeah. Some are more secure. Some are more private.
Starting point is 00:20:11 Just, you know, it's about patterns of behavior. That's what's most important. I think that was all the news. Jay, you have a thing. Well, could I explain the topic of the episode first before you go into that? I was going to part. My thing was part of the episode. Right.
Starting point is 00:20:29 but we haven't said what we're doing. Right. You're the one who launched into this, not me. Well, okay, so what we're doing is we got a question from someone who works in a public library asking, what is it I can do to support people after this election during a Trump presidency? And so we gave them a bunch of answers. This was in the Hora Vanguard Discord. And then we thought, okay, well, let's just compile those answers here and add some stuff.
Starting point is 00:20:54 And that's what we're going to talk about for the main segment of the show. and then Jay has something from Black Rose. Yeah, so I saw this come up because, like, I know that leave me alone text scammy people. They've been getting bold lately. Has anybody else been getting the like group FaceTime calls that are from scammers? Those shit. No, only you. Nope.
Starting point is 00:21:18 Yeah, I guess it's only me. Your special, Jay. You get a shit ton of them. I do. It's really annoying. Anyway, so Black Rose has been putting out these, like, blog posts about like anarchists in the labor sector and they've been interviewing various like people doing labor organizing in various fields. And one of the most recent one was from a
Starting point is 00:21:44 public library worker in North Carolina where like I don't know if folks know this or not, but like you cannot collectively bargain in North Carolina, at least not if you're a public sector employee. And so, like, a lot of the people that, a lot of the stuff that people are afraid about, like, unions and stuff under a Trump presidency going forward. It's like, our comrades in the South, and in a lot of this country, actually, like, have already been dealing with this since the beginning, right? And so I thought it might, like, help people just to read, like, what, like, even if you're not an anarchist, just like, what as, like, like, like, like, librarians who are leftists, whatever flavor of leftist you are, like going, like, what does
Starting point is 00:22:30 it look like to do labor organizing in a library when draconian labor laws exist? Especially like, I'm in Massachusetts. I technically legally can't strike because I'm a public servant, right? The only illegal strike is a failed strike. But still, like, that's in my collective bargaining agreement, right? You know, whatever. Don't listen to that shit. I mean, listen to that shit, but don't listen to that shit. So, like, I don't know. The link will be in the notes, but I think an important thing to take from it is that, like, even if you can't, quote, unquote, collectively bargain, you can still unionize.
Starting point is 00:23:04 And there are other ways that you can put pressure on administration, especially, like, as public librarians, like, learning, like, who has what power over your job, like, in a city or state government and knowing how to actually put pressure on those people, whether your union is independent or part of a larger union, like if you're organizing with other public sector employees, for example, and what does it actually look like to do labor organizing when it is way more hostile than it is here? And like Massachusetts, for example, where I'm very cushy and have a great little union job now, right? So I just thought it might be nice. It also like is a great example of like coalition building.
Starting point is 00:23:51 Like, I feel like this is like as librarians and like Emily Drabinski, this was like one of her whole things as being aLA president was about librarians doing labor organizing because like labor organizing truly is one of those areas that is like coalition building. Like it is kind of like a big tint kind of thing. Like you might have different ideologies and different politics, but you are building solidarity like with your coworkers and with your community. around specific issues. And through that organizing,
Starting point is 00:24:24 you can also model different methods than like electoral politics. We'll put it that way. But yeah, I just thought it might be nice for people to read that interview if people are freaking out of it because like the stuff that we're kind of afraid of,
Starting point is 00:24:37 like our comrades in the South have been dealing with this shit like forever. Like this ain't new. People already can't like do the kind of labor organizing, they can do it up to the country. And they're still successful. Like, there's some really successful, like, labor organizing happening in North Carolina, for example, but in everywhere. Yeah, that's all I really had to say about that. This is why I know there's a lot of critiques of the IW and me and Jay have talked about this, but the reason I still believe in the IWW as a concept is
Starting point is 00:25:09 one thing they've been very good at in the past couple decades is unionizing in places where other unions won't bother to go because they've given up on trying to, like Starbucks. A lot of those early Starbucks unions were some wobbly just got like a fucking bug up their ass and was like, let's just salt this place. Why the fuck not? So it's a great
Starting point is 00:25:30 organization that creates radical unionists. So there are a lot of people in unions like Jays who I'm sure don't understand the power and political importance of their union. But everyone who joins at WWW does. And they love to go around. There was a story. They offer great labor training.
Starting point is 00:25:46 like organizing training, IWW. And they also give people information and to understand, like, the IWW started when labor unions were illegal. That's, they've never given up that outlook of the wildcat strike. Like, if your union is not going to be on your terms, dual card in the IWW, organized with us, we'll do a wildcat strike. That happened in West Virginia with teachers who were, again, legally not allowed to strike. They went on a wildcat strike.
Starting point is 00:26:13 their union couldn't authorize it, but they organized themselves and did it. I'm sure there was some wobblies in there going, yeah, let's do this. Right. This is why rank and file shit is so important. And the other thing, the reason I was thinking about it, because Jay mentioned, you know, you can't strike, is the IWW's conceptualization of sabotage, which is not just, like, destruction of things, but like work to rule. Sick outs, strategic sickouts.
Starting point is 00:26:42 Yeah. Waste the employees. money. If you work in, say, a restaurant, pile everyone's plates high. You don't, you're doing your job. You're doing great. The people you're serving love you and you are costing a shit ton of money. If you work in public transit, a fare strike, no longer collecting fares from people, people who've done fair strikes win everything they ask for. They didn't take a day off work. They didn't go on strike. They just said, hey, the fare system's not working today. We've turned it off. Three days of free rides around the whole city. They got everything they wanted, right?
Starting point is 00:27:13 So sabotage has, and this is like sort of the same thing where I can't remember what her name was, but there was a wobbly who got involved with environmental stuff. It was part of getting people away from spiking trees because those hurt the workers, because it would injure the workers who were sawing into a tree that was spiked, and instead getting them on your side, because if you do something that you need to get them to actually realize, like, they need to do something. So sabotage through that conceptualization is very, very powerful. And it couldn't be stuff like work to rule, waste money, waste time. So, yeah. And I just want to say don't assume that because you're part of a union, that your fellow union members know what any of that means. I brought up work to rule in a union meeting once and had three or four people, including those who are on the executive board, go, what? What do you mean by that?
Starting point is 00:28:08 So, like, don't, there's still a level of it. that needs to happen even if you are unionized for your fellow union members. So don't forget about that either. Labor Notes has some, yeah, like IWW has resources, but Labor Notes also has ebooks as well as like workshops that do, like the secrets of a successful union organizer and like was new when your union breaks your heart, like that kind of stuff. Like genuinely very helpful information for like organizing your workplace and stuff. Yeah. But I was also saying that's why the IWW is good, because you know that there's someone reliably radical and educated. Because a lot of stuff the IWW does is they advise other unions.
Starting point is 00:28:49 And so they don't get a lot of the credit. And people are like, well, the IWW only has like 3,000 members or whatever. Yeah, because they have just one guy who lives in like bum fuck nowhere who goes and says, hey, you guys should do a wildcast strike. Hey, you guys need to start building up a strike fund. Hey, you should pass around an Excel spreadsheet. And like, you know, and then they organize under. you know, the Starbucks union, right? It's not the IWW Starbucks union. It's just so they see unions all
Starting point is 00:29:16 over the place. And I think that's why people don't take it seriously, but that's for me, it's why I still believe in it. But again, I don't, I don't evangelize it in any way. I don't feel like you have to join. But I feel like if you want a radical education, you should definitely learn about what the IWW is and what it stands for because they're playing by a different rule book. And it's the rule book that I think we're going to suggest today, which is building structures outside of what you already have. Didn't mean to go on a rant. So what can libraries actually do within their limitations? So that was the question that we got.
Starting point is 00:29:48 And I think some of the responses we gave was, well, I think the takeaway was you're going to be limited in what the library can directly provide because the library in itself is not a radical organization. It's, even if you were the director of the library and had free reign to run any programs you wanted. You could do more, definitely, but you're still going to ultimately be limited by the structure of you're a city employee or a county employee, and you've got certain limitations. So there's certain things you can do to encourage people to take advantage of the library, but ultimately, you need to be looking outside of the library into your community where you're going to have
Starting point is 00:30:26 more freedom to organize and help more directly. Like, use your skills as a librarian and elsewhere. Yeah, like volunteering at an info shop, you know, like a radical info shop. So one of the first things I recommended was providing information because that's what a library is good at. No one's really going to give you trouble about it. You know, you can do this kind of quietly
Starting point is 00:30:50 if you're not at the top of the ranks. But, you know, there are a bunch of zines out there. You can definitely create and print out a bunch of them because, you know, you work there. You can have unlimited printer privileges usually. Print out a bunch of zines and stuff and put them there and say like, hey, this is, you know, our community members made some of these.
Starting point is 00:31:07 What do I do of this? What do I do if that? Get a little display stand, put it somewhere and say like community information. I think it's zinlibraries. Info or something, like has good resources for zine libraries and like supplies and everything. Yeah. I also have a link to a radical zine library that's hosted on GitHub. But also like the Boston Public Library has this little corner next to the cafe that's like a big
Starting point is 00:31:32 bulletin board and people can just put whatever there, I think. I don't know what the rules are for it. But creating basically like a little table in a bulletin board and just calling it like community center, that will allow people from the community to put stuff there. And then you, as a member of your community, can also print out local zines and stuff that might have information that's relevant about immigration services and like groups, people who are doing mutual aid around immigration services or food or trans health care. And, you know, You can put them out there and say, oh, I guess someone dropped off a bunch of those. So it depends on how sneaky you have to be about it.
Starting point is 00:32:09 You are also a patron at your library. Like outside of you being an employee, you are also a patron. Yeah. It depends on the environment you're in, right? I'm just saying, like, if you have a hostile supervisor, you know, then maybe you drop it off after work hours and say, oh, someone wants to come in. You know, whatever you got to do. Make your own risk assessment.
Starting point is 00:32:30 I also think it would be good to have like zine making classes and programming so that you can invite groups in, like groups that might be able to share information or who are currently, you know, like abortion funds. I know like there are a lot of abortion funds in Texas who some of them operate outside of Texas because they, because they can't really operate in Texas as much anymore. But if most of their stuff is online, maybe saying, hey, you should make some physical stuff to circulate in the community and bringing them in to, you know, invite. them to come to this zine workshop you're going to do and teach them and let them print out zines and then leave some at the library. And then they can go out and put those in the community and you've got some there. So just encouraging people to come into programming is also going to look good because it creates this sort of feedback loop of we had this great programming. We had a bunch of people show up. Let's make more time, more space for programming.
Starting point is 00:33:21 What the person in the Hore Vanguard said, Discord said, was, you know, our budget's limited. And what I was saying is if you create a feedback loop like this, you make an argument for more budget or a reallocation of the budget to say, look, this is popular people like this. And then you'll be able to do more in the future. So it's a long game and it can take months and years. But if you get the metrics and show it off, then bringing in people from the community, you know, just send an email. Just say, hey, I want to help you make zines. I want to help your organization. I want to help something.
Starting point is 00:33:55 why don't you come to this program or tell us a time that would work for you and then you can set the program to that time and do something like that creates a cycle. That also goes for like providing space like say, you know, reaching out to a group and saying, hey, did you know the library has like meeting rooms you can use? Like if you want to meet here and that way that you can also show like, oh, there's community engagement. There's community groups coming in. They're using, you know, there's more booking for the meeting rooms, the study rooms, stuff like that. So that's also useful. And a lot of people don't think about it. Like, I've definitely been at like DSA meetings where they're like, where can we meet?
Starting point is 00:34:31 And I'm like, have we thought about the library? And I'm like, oh, yeah. So, you know, just making it obvious that there is space and resources to use to your community. Because, you know, people want to get involved. So we're just trying to give some ideas of like how to do that. If your library is Jones in to be like, oh, hey, well, we have to let not to use the meeting rooms. Then there's nothing to say that you can't use the meeting rooms. You know, that's what they're there for.
Starting point is 00:34:55 And a lot of libraries have the ability to offer spaces after library hours, too. So don't look at a library, libraries hours and go, oh, well, we can't meet before six. We might not even try. Like, really look at the community room, like, policies or whatever, because a lot of them, you can rent it out up until, like, 8 or 9 p.m. or whatever. So, like, there's normally some wiggle room there. Yeah. And as an employee, you can help people navigate.
Starting point is 00:35:22 that bureaucracy. Like, they might go, oh, well, your hours don't work for us. Let them know, well, let me talk to the director to see if we can change that policy, because if you tell us a time, then I can go to them and say, hey, we've got this community group that wants to use it. Can we have after hours meetings? So you might even be able to get the policy changed just by demonstrating interest. And you can do all this in sort of like a nonpartisan way. Again, because that's the limits of the radicalism of the institution, sometimes you might have to be careful about how you frame these things. I have to do that all the time. I have to frame a lot of stuff where I'm like, well, we should be doing this because we should be doing this. But then I have to say, well,
Starting point is 00:36:01 it's in the benefit of the institution for us to do this. So learn how to pitch things, I guess, as part of it. Learn how to make it sound the way. Because sometimes the people who are agreeing with you also agree with you, but they don't have the way of framing it in such a way where they're like, oh, this is, this will fit in the mission, whereas the mission is milkdosed and should be better, but. Yeah, like, I am a zine selector at my library now. And, like, that means that it is totally within my ability to be like, we're going to buy these zines that are about, like, Palestine.
Starting point is 00:36:36 And the other people who are zine selectors are also little radical weirdos that are like, oh, we should absolutely buy the zines about Palestine. And so then we have zines about Palestine that, like, support that where the money goes directly to like help funds for like getting people out of Gaza and stuff. So like, you know, you got to just got to do that shit because it's like, oh yeah, they can't censor our collection development and it's a zine. The kind of people who read zines like care about Palestine and shit. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:37:03 Sure. Yeah. You can also be like, especially something's local, be like, look, this is local stuff. This is local community. So that has always been, particularly that's a way that a queer collections have been built is like people going downtown and grabbing like all the gay magazines and stuff and being like, we're building a special collection. They do that every day for, you know, 10, 20 years.
Starting point is 00:37:25 And then it turns out they end up with like one of the best special collections of queer life in their city. So like even when homophobia was like a lot higher, relative, it's all relative. Like, we fucking knows what's higher or lower. But they could spend public money on this stuff because they made a justification. And the justification was this is our community. So knowing how to frame things and knowing how to pitch things, I think is invaluable if you're working in a library and you want to support your community. I also mentioned immigration lawyers and law groups, but like government services support, I feel there's going to be a big thing.
Starting point is 00:38:00 So immigration, so if you have groups that are doing like mutual aid for immigration or you have law firms who you still have to pay, whatever, but they are doing this kind of stuff, invite them to come do programming. I mean, again, weigh the risk because if you have cops at your library, or your cops going to do any immigration enforcement for people who show up, like weigh all those risks. Step one, get the cops out of your library. Step two. Yeah. You will have lawyers in the room.
Starting point is 00:38:28 So it's like, I don't know if the cops are going to try anything crazy. You know, definitely bring in lawyers, not just advocates. If you're going to do something that's going to bring undocumented people into your building, make sure lawyers are there. but also maybe, you know, again, with that community notice forward, putting information to those groups out there in multiple languages, look up your city governments most who has low proficiency English and what languages do they speak? So the people who can't read English, what are they speaking? Because it might be different from the most common second languages. So I was looking this up for Boston the other day. Depending where you are in Boston, you have different. They only measure people who have low English proficiency. So that's like 70% I think in some places it's as high as 20% people who cannot read or write in English. And then, depending on the area,
Starting point is 00:39:17 the most spoken language is going to be different. So some places it's going to be Spanish. Most places it's going to be Spanish, but other places, it ended up being like Chinese or Korean. Like Haitian Creole. Yeah. Haitian Creoles almost always like three or four.
Starting point is 00:39:33 So, you know, look if your city has demographic data on low English speakers, which if you live in a big city, it probably will. you're in a small city, you're just going to have to guess probably. But odds are it's going to be Spanish. So, you know, make sure that that's available. I would say Spanish and French are the most useful because a lot of Creoles are based on Spanish and French.
Starting point is 00:39:55 If you go to school in Haiti, you will learn French in school. So even if you can't get it translated into Haitian Creole, a lot of Haitians can speak French. Not always very good. Depends on how long they lived in Haiti. So it depends. But just keep it in mind. And then of course, like Korean, Chinese, different types of Chinese.
Starting point is 00:40:13 I think a lot of people write traditional Chinese. Yeah. Yeah. And in Boston, yeah. And in Boston, it was, they usually do distinguish them. But in some cases, the data they have isn't good enough. So they just have to say Chinese because they don't know, like the breakdown. And also, isn't it like if you are from Hong Kong and no Cantonese, don't you?
Starting point is 00:40:32 Or, yeah, then you probably also know Mandarin, right? No. No. Mandarin's only been recent in Hong Kong. from Chinese immigrants. And Hong Kong Cantonese is different from other Cantonese. Oh, I didn't know that.
Starting point is 00:40:46 See, learned something new every day. I used to have a student worker who was from Hong Kong and like her English was better than some of like my other student workers where English was an acquired language because she had already learned like Mandarin and Cantonese.
Starting point is 00:41:02 So learning English was easier for her than if she had only just learned English. Yeah. Hong Kong also uses a lot or English because it was an English colony. And there are a lot of English words in Hong Kong Cantonese because it got creolized a little bit. That makes sense. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:19 That's why it's different is because of all the English influence. And then guides on benefits. So one thing I've been talking about on Blue Sky is during the 2016 presidency, like 2017, a lot of stuff that was government information disappeared, particularly around the Affordable Care Act. So it became a lot harder to learn about, getting an Affordable Care Act plan. The websites broke.
Starting point is 00:41:43 The websites took down helpful information. Like, I was watching it happen in real time. It was very, very bad. So if those sites break down again, you might have to make external guides to show people, okay, I know the site's intentionally confusing now. So here's how you get through it. So you might have to start creating guides to get through government services like immigration, passport, making, and hopefully people will like collectivize these guides and share them.
Starting point is 00:42:09 among each other because that kind of stuff exists. Yeah, do that instead of those like cringy lib syllabus lib guides that went around in 2020. Like, do this instead than those. Yeah, yeah. When the sites start changing over, I think we should look at making like a GitHub project to share just guides for navigating these websites so that we can update them as those sites change. Maybe we'll find some comrades. What I'm thinking of as a model for that.
Starting point is 00:42:37 there used to be these really cheap open source classes for older people to learn computers. And they were very, very, very basic. And they were kind of like slideshows, basically. But they were open source and they were very good. So making something like that that is just like clear step by step, hosted on Git so we can change it, I think it would be a really good project. And so hopefully maybe we can get some people together to work on that or at least get a group of people who steal this idea.
Starting point is 00:43:07 Steal this idea. There's no copyright. No copyright. Copyright is dead. And we have killed it. No copyright law in the universe is going to stop me. So yeah, go do that. I mean, I would be happy to help if I have time.
Starting point is 00:43:21 I think especially if you have people coming to you multiple times a day asking how to use these websites, it's in your best interest to just put the work in to make a better guide. And then share it. That's like the open education thing is don't make everyone reinvent the wheel. So let's get these guys out there. It's also the good thing about lib guides is that like you can like, like people can use your guide as a template if it's like in the community, whatever. Like that's the good thing about lib guides is that there's that model. So like make sure if you make a lib guide like this that it's searchable and findable in that so that people can just copy that data over.
Starting point is 00:43:54 Yeah, but that functionality is a little wonky. So we need to also like push them up through social media so people find them to. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But just steal this book. No, you're right. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:05 But we need to, we need, we need like a visibility in a different way. Harden your policies. I don't remember exactly what I meant when I wrote this. We didn't. I did. I threw those in there right before we started recording. I mean, like, if you have a community room policy, if you have a collection management policy, if you have a favorable board now, don't rely on it being favorable in a year or two's time.
Starting point is 00:44:33 and it's a lot harder to change policies once they're in place than it is when they need to be made up whole cloth or whatever. Like, boards should be updating policies as they go. But if it has been updated very recently, there's less of a reason to go back and revisit it and waste the board's time. So figure out what policies need to be hardened now and see what you can do to get those in front of a favorable board, make any necessary, if you need to make any necessary changes to put in words that you're not going to get rid of shit just for being queer, that kind of thing. Start trying to be proactive about that within the bounds of your own professional duty. So like Justin's saying, figure out how to phrase things instead of going, well, I don't want, since or, you know,
Starting point is 00:45:19 I don't want this bullshit to happen on my time. I don't, you know, you can phrase it in a way that aligns with your mission of your organization's mission. Yeah, like with challenge policies being like, this is to save the time of the staff because we can't have one person, even if this hasn't happened to you yet, you can point to real examples of one person putting in a thousand challenges and say, okay, our challenge form needs to be difficult. It needs to be intentionally difficult because we don't want people spamming us because it's going to waste public money, right?
Starting point is 00:45:54 just put all these bullshit terms in there that don't matter and say, well, it is a good point, actually. I mean, you don't want to waste worker time doing this bullshit. But so you're not lying. You're just saying, like, look, this is the way we should do this. Make it so that you have to have a library card to actually put in challenges. You have to have a library card in the area that you are placing the challenge. You have to have read the material in full before you can put in a challenge. challenge, you know, that sort of thing.
Starting point is 00:46:25 Try to make it, I feel like so much of passages. Yeah. Like. Yeah. If we say, sorry, we're not going to ban the book, you can't just challenge it again. Yeah. You can't. There's a certain amount of time before you have to do it again.
Starting point is 00:46:42 Yeah. Well, and I just feel like so much of what's going to happen is going to come down to very local politics. So that's really like what Justin's saying, what really we should be focusing on is figure out what is going on locally and harden it to that. And also, I know several libraries in Washington are having this push of the First Amendment audits where somebody shows up with a camera and asks public, you know, asks employees in public places, lots of questions trying to get them to trip up or tell them they need to leave or whatever, which, like, yes, you should, you should
Starting point is 00:47:21 know what's legal where, but also harden your policies when it comes to public record requests because there are a lot of these sorts of groups that are right wing that are using public, basically using public records requests to try to trip up these institutions, causing lots and lots of tied up staff time if you don't already have a decent process for this. So that's another avenue that might start ramping up if it hasn't already. in your area. So that's what I meant by hiding your policies. Yeah, especially with like a bunch of records requests. A lot of the laws have like openings for saying like this is an undue burden on staff time sort of stuff like that. So you could definitely have a policy that says like if the same
Starting point is 00:48:07 person is requesting the same information again and again. Because like records requests are good. Like this is all like joyous stuff is good. But like there is a certain point where there was, I remember there was someone like one person specifically was harassing this library through FOIA requests and just kept putting more and more and more in. And I feel like at a certain point, you just have to have a policy that says like they're not asking for new information. They're asking for the same stuff again again. You know, make them get a lawyer. Like make them get a FOIA lawyer and get them to come and tell you why you have to give this information over. Because if it's like a clear like bad faith attempt, you don't have to feel bad about denying it. Yeah. You know, if they're not like an invent,
Starting point is 00:48:47 investigative reporter? Like, why, why does, why does someone who's not even writing anything up need all this information for? I know that's not how the law works, but, you know, you can say, like, this is a clear, like, waste of our resources because no one's even using this information. Yeah, I'm like, I don't, I don't know if it's possible, but being like, you know, we have this many requests from this person. We're going to prioritize requests by, like, time period. requests per month, like a purchase request. Yeah, you've put in 30 requests this month. These other three people have put in two requests this month. We're going to do, you know, six requests for you and then focus on these other six requests before we come back to your, you know, torrential downpour of requests or whatever. So like...
Starting point is 00:49:37 You're deprioritized. Yeah. And all that stuff exists within the law. So again, overcomplying with laws, especially when they're being abused. Yeah. It reminds me, there's this thing going around on blue sky. Someone said, like, all these terms have been searched in, like, UT Austin's website. And because of SB 17, which I've been railing about, because that's the one that says, like,
Starting point is 00:50:00 you can't have any kind of gay or trans or affinity group, ethnic group, racialized group stuff. And this is like the anti-DEI bill. And they were saying, like, oh, they were searching this on their websites to remove it. And the thing is, there wasn't quite enough context. and I imagine what that list was, was someone in the IT department was asked to look for these terms, and then they were passing that along
Starting point is 00:50:26 to say, make sure that if you have any leftover stuff on your website that is not in compliance with SB17, that you go and check these things. It wasn't saying, like, ban these terms. It was saying, go look at them and make sure they're still in compliance, which again, is still repressive,
Starting point is 00:50:42 but it's not the same as like these terms are banned from the website. Although, at my work, we had a collection called like DEI posters. And then one of our liberal, like someone I know as a liberal said, why do we have DEI? We got to change the name of it. And I'm like, one, it's a research collection. The law says research collections are not covered.
Starting point is 00:51:02 And I don't know what she was worried about. Like, you're not going to lose your job, dude. Like, one, I maintain, like, I'm ultimately responsible for that collection. It was directly you could, like, the buck stopped with me. So I was like, this isn't your problem, but it was like, you know, just leave it. And like, why are you freaking out? And then we also had the whole thing with the Pride display. We weren't allowed to do a Pride display is here.
Starting point is 00:51:26 Again, because of SB17, I said, no one's compelled to go to the Pride display. So it's not a DEI training. So it's not forced. There is no force. So SB17 is not covered. That didn't work on the Dean. And the third incident was, We got rid of our DEI budget allocation for purchasing.
Starting point is 00:51:49 DEIA. So we also can't collect for accessibility. So I said, hey, accessibility is legally protected still. Can we at least get the funding back for that? And then I got an email back that said, actually, we're just going to go back to area studies instead of DEI. So we're still going to collect all that stuff, but we're going to do it under area studies. It's like, okay, so yeah, yeah, like, I'm glad that one, like, I'm glad that one, like, I had, you know, an ally in the building, but it was very much like, you know, when you see your own supervisor, like, rolling over and not going to do a pride display, it's like, what happens when the real shit happens?
Starting point is 00:52:24 Like, what, like, are you going to stand up for me? No, you're not. Do not comply in advance. Yeah. And also reminded me, so because you were also a, of a public library, at least, but I guess you could do this at an academic institution, too. if you are a patron of the library that you also work at, you're allowed to do purchase suggestions, right? So even if you aren't in control of collection development or any, if you're not a selector or anything, you can still do purchase suggestions.
Starting point is 00:52:55 And like, I know the public library I work at, those are almost always approved. I mean, granted, my library has money. Not every public library has money, but like patron suggestions. are like weighted so heavily because that shows that there is direct interest in something. And so like I literally went to like I am on like the inventory working group at the Lucy Parsons Center and I was like, hey, what if all of us with library cards?
Starting point is 00:53:26 We get 20 purchase suggestions every fucking month, each of us. All of the shit that we buy for the Lucy Parsons Center, why don't we also do purchase suggestions of those things at the BPL and the CPL? And then just start seeding the libraries with also the shit that we're selling here so that there's more copies of it. And it's also changing the collection. Yep. So, like, that's just like a thing that you could do, by the way. It's just like, hey, why don't you buy all this new shit that AK Press put out?
Starting point is 00:53:56 It's super cool. I'll read it. Me. I will. Well, and like, let them turn you down. Or, you know, if they go, we can't get this, we have to ILLL it. You can go, oh, no, never mind. Like, you don't have to, you're not strictly committed.
Starting point is 00:54:12 So, yeah, use that privilege. Well, ILL stats are also used for future purchases because they demonstrate interest. Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing that I added in here is try your best to weaponize your patrons against bullshit. And what I mean by this isn't necessarily like being like, yeah, radicalized or whatever. Just if you have a pride display and somebody mentions how nice it was. to see it, go, hey, can you put that in writing? Here's our comment form. Yes. Like, oh, hey,
Starting point is 00:54:44 would you- Save nice emails. Yeah. Would you mind sending that as an email to our director or to whoever? Like, when you get the things that make the library a good place, when you see those things happening, I know nobody likes to be bugged with a million links for feedback forms and shit. But when they come up, please just, hey, can you put in a comment about that? Hey, can you, can you email that to me. Hey, if you don't want to put in a comment or email, somebody, can I email about it and not mention you by name? Because that shows, that shows interest. So, you know, you have people talking about DEI, talking about DEI is bullshit when it comes up. Like, weaponize your patrons against the shit that's going to come down the pike against your library in particular. I know this
Starting point is 00:55:33 episode is about what we can do outside of that, but you can also protect your own. So you can You can go. I had three patrons talk about how great it was to see the pride display this month, you know, kind of thing. That's three more than you would have otherwise. So this might docks my workplace a little bit, but whatever. Who fucking cares? They're not listening. So like every single week, the library where I work has a little like weekly bulletin it sends out to all the employees, right? And in that is included like kudos and special thanks and everything for. like patrons being like this specific librarian with a name helped me or et cetera. And one time was a picture because one of the branch libraries had a Margaret Kiljoy event. And that library, like an hour before that event was scheduled to go on, had an HVAC issue. And so had to close. And one of the librarians working there who was like, it's like a floater person, who wasn't even like scheduled to work at that event or anything, like helped move that entire event to
Starting point is 00:56:38 a Brant down the road in the same neighborhood. And the event still went off and out hitch. And in the library staff weekly that went out was a picture of Margaret Kiljoy, famous anarchist author, Margaret Kiljoy, with some of my co-workers and someone from the Lucy Parsons Center being like, thank you, librarian with a name. It wasn't me, I promise. I was a person who attended this event because I was hype. at Margaret Kiljoy and it was very cool. But like,
Starting point is 00:57:11 Margaret Kiljoy was in my staff newsletter with a picture of one of my LPC comrades being like, thank you to this librarian who helped move this cool author talk that so many people attended that we had to keep getting more and more and more chairs for because like way too many people showed up to it. Like that was in my staff weekly. Like people pay attention to that shit. And then like cool shit like cool anarchist authors show up in your staff. have you have. Yeah. So, so, like, use that shit to the best of your ability. You know, you don't have to, you don't have to be, you know, pushing politics. You can do it nonpartisan, like, just, you know, don't do it about the person who asks why you don't have, you know, Dr. Oz's latest, whatever, you know, you can, you can still decide who you suggest to do what to. Just say it. Cough. Yeah. You can play favorites. And remember, you're a patron at your library. Yes.
Starting point is 00:58:10 Where you work, probably. Yeah, I don't have any limits on how many books I can recommend. So I think anything I recommend gets purchased. Yeah. The only time something I recommended did get purchased was because it was a pre-order from like a weirdo. It was one of Electron Frasse's books that are only like 150 or ever going to be printed ever and it was still in pre-order.
Starting point is 00:58:29 And the library was like, we can't get this. I also want to talk about like digital privacy. You're probably as the next administration comes in, going to hear a lot of people talking about different ways to stay safe. About 50 to 60% of it will be wrong information, I think, which is not a bad ratio, honestly. It's not all going to be bullshit, but people are going to tell you things to stay safe that like don't really matter. And so, you know, listen to, I'm not going to say listen to true crime, but listen to, like,
Starting point is 00:59:01 scam podcasts. Listen to like light, cheat and steel. Listen to some podcasts about, like, what, how? happened with Mayor Adams. Like, call people on the phone. If you don't, don't put stuff in writing ever. Don't write it down. All people on the phone.
Starting point is 00:59:17 Easiest way to get around most surveillance is just to call someone on the phone. There's still metadata so they can, yeah. Don't use WhatsApp or FaceTime or any of that bullshit either. Use a fucking actual, honest God, phone call. Because if you're going through some sort of app, that might be. subject to disclosure for somebody else too. So just stay away. I know on iPhone, you can route your regular phone calls through Signal.
Starting point is 00:59:47 I think you could do that with Android too. You can change the default. Yeah. Yeah. But doesn't Signal have a back door for intelligence agencies? No. No, I thought that they were like, fuck y'all. We're moving to Europe and we will pull our app if that's something that's legally
Starting point is 01:00:04 required of us. I don't know if they keep. later, but that was the last thing I heard. And this is a real- WhatsApp. Yeah, it's what. It was probably WhatsApp. Also, telegram. It was telegram. It was telegram. But this is also something that goes around about Signal all the time and where they try to discourage people from using it because like, well, the CIA got in that one time. It's like, because they were able to break into the person's phone and then they could get into
Starting point is 01:00:28 it. Like, if people can get into your phone, then get into your signal. That's why you also like, yeah. But like, end-to-end encryption is into an encryption. And, oh, there's not a backdoor signal is open source. You can see for yourself. It does not have a backdoor. Okay. So there is an EFF site that came out called Digital Rights Bites, and it's very, like,
Starting point is 01:00:51 straightforward tech stuff. I think it feels like very entry level. So maybe that's a good place to start if you really don't know what's going on in the world. But again, you know, when it comes to digital security. There's also a surveillance self-defense if they put out. Yeah. There's lots of stuff out there, and I'm sure in the future, we might do more information on this kind of stuff.
Starting point is 01:01:13 There's another episode kind of in planning about how to find information. I think we'll talk about privacy more then. But when it comes to like very, very basic privacy stuff, the kind of stuff that you can provide to your patrons, you know, just make sure it's coming from organizations that really actually care about privacy. try not to spread things you just hear on social media because a lot of social media privacy advice is wrong. So just be careful with it. So I'll put the link to the digital rights bytes, which might be something that would be useful to share with patrons
Starting point is 01:01:48 or hopefully they have like a printable version of it, which would be nice. If not, I know, they did videos. But they got little graphics. So maybe you could, you could probably turn this into a zine. Hopefully it's openly licensed. and people can recreate this. Anyway.
Starting point is 01:02:06 And then the last thing I was saying, has been saying all through this, is organized outside the library. You can bring outside groups into the library, make sure they know about the services that are available. But when it comes to, you know, the limitations of being in the library, the library can't necessarily become a solution for your community.
Starting point is 01:02:24 It can't directly help people with their immigration problems. It can't shield people from the police. It can't shield people from the police. You are an agent of the state. You work for the state, yes. So you need to work outside the library. You need to get involved in your community. You need to find groups that, you know, if nothing else, support them with your money.
Starting point is 01:02:42 If you can't support them with your time, if you can't support them with either of those things, support them in some other way. Just find something you can do. Again, use your employer's resources. You know, you've got rooms. You've got printers. You've got stuff. Steal pencils and give it to people. Like, I, you know, do whatever, whatever you can do.
Starting point is 01:03:03 But ultimately, I think the organizing has to happen outside the library. Organizing within the library and the library profession is just simply not going to rise to the task of what we need right now. For the love of God. Get into printmaking. I did. It's real fun. You can make propaganda real easy. There you go.
Starting point is 01:03:18 For the love of God, even if nothing else, get involved with your union if you're part of one. You do not believe how many people don't even think to show up to a single meeting. or respond to a single email survey. So remember, you are your union. You are your union. They are not a nebulous third party. That is propaganda. You are your union.
Starting point is 01:03:40 And if you don't feel represented by your union, make a change, you know. Do a rank and file caucus. Okay, so I just updated to the beta iOS and it's now like goth mode. It's kind of cool. Oh, yeah, where it automatically changes all of the icons. To like dark mode? Yeah. Yeah, that's sick.
Starting point is 01:04:01 Yeah, so remember, update your phones to keep them harder to crack. Update your phones to enter goth mode. It's pretty sick. All right, the Discord link is in the notes. So come hang out with us. I've been doing YouTube slot parties. They're very fun, but we need more people to show up because it's only fun in a group. So if you want to see rednecks doing tractor pulls or backyard wrestling between 12-year-olds or juggaloes,
Starting point is 01:04:29 or I don't know what else I've found. Training videos. Training videos. How not to get your wallet stolen in the 1950s. All kinds of good stuff. So chugging videos, gross stuff. The dude who smokes way too much weed at a type and then starts melting. I love him.
Starting point is 01:04:46 He's so dumb. Yeah, so come have fun with us. Good night.

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