Rose's Garden

Typing this from Graphene now, in fact. But, both of those take the Android Open Source Project, without all the bloatware--and largely de-Google the whole thing. They give you much more control over privacy and what the apps you choose to install can do and access on your phone.

I know Graphene sandboxes everything, including the optionally installed Google Play Services which a lot of apps unfortunately require to run. (Lineage uses an alternative to Play Services instead.) So, you can install what would normally be unacceptably intrusive apps and just lock them away from pulling any funny shit with your data, or phoning home. Including the couple of Google things I do still keep around.

I also prefer running much more transparent, privacy-respecting open source apps where possible. Besides the transparency, I'd rather avoid the shitty tech corps entirely where I can. There are pretty good alternatives available for a lot of the usual suspects.

An alternative app store:

Biometric Identification in a Vehicle Environment

Applicant: Ford Global Technologies, LLC

More aspects of the surveillance state they’re trying to build around us. I get that they don’t want cop cars stolen, but this is far beyond just preventing theft. According to the application itself — and shown in the following Figure — the system could contain audio capture, facial recognition, iris scanning, and fingerprint sensors, all of which would be sent to an external database.

If everyone who gets into a cop car can be catalogued and put into a database, it gives cops even more reason to just pick up anyone they see as “suspicious.” They wouldn’t even need to take them to a precinct at that point; they’d be in the system as soon as they got inside. And with the mass implementation of facial recognition in surveillance, these people could easily be stalked from that point on.

The media has pivoted to focusing on Daniel Sanchez-Estrada because of being sentenced not for being present at all, but for having zines. I don't think it's unreasonable that so many have focused on this because of the larger implications, though I also wish they hadn't stopped talking about Autumn and Megan. And clearly, not every media outlet has! But larger media is not--and has never been--the same as boots on the ground. And those IN these spheres have never abandoned Autumn and Meagan.

Do not give in to this bitter separatist defeatism that says "if you stick your neck out for others they will leave you." Autumn and Meagan have been, and still are, the people who have been centralized in this fight. Autumn herself has remained steadfast in her convictions and fighting spirit. To act like she's been left behind is irresponsible.

SM: You believe you were targeted specifically because of your gender identity, specifically because you’re trans?

AH: Right, yeah, I think that that’s a part of it, for sure. But obviously not everybody who is a part of the Prairieland, you know, defendants is trans, right? There are autistic people, there are, you know, there are people of Mexican descent, there are women, and, you know, it’s a diverse group of people, but all of whom are part of, I would say, some marginalized underclass.

"My basic assumption was, you know, the judge had obviously made his mind up about our guilt before the trial even began, and so it didn’t take me by surprise at all when I actually was sentenced to 50 years in the Bureau of Prisons. I knew, like, this is about making an example, this is about creating a narrative that, you know, anyone who resists the Trump administration’s agenda of mass deportation, is going to be made an example of, is gonna be treated this way, that if you stand up, if you speak out, we will bury you. I knew that that was what this was about the entire time that we were going to trial, and it was why I said from the very beginning, “I’m not gonna plea to anything.” You know, like they offered us plea deals, you know, we could have signed to 15 years for material support for terrorism. And I took the risk that I took of, you know, going to trial because I was like, I’m not going to create evidence of this non-existent terrorist conspiracy. That goes against everything I believe in." --Autumn Hill

Even Hill's conservative father is part of the movement to get her released, appealing to Democrats and hoping the next administration would immediately pardon her. She has been shocked at the support and remains optimistic about seeing an end to this nightmare.

Every prisoner's address is on the support page above with ways to get involved, as we have been doing now for a year. Linked again for ease of access: