The Daylight Trap: Why Daylight Protesting is Disadvantageous and a Preliminary Investigation into the Advantages of Night Protests

By Michael Harrington

[The second part of a series of comparative studies on right-wing protest methodology. As was the case with the prior article, OPSEC: An Analysis of the Differences in Operational Security and Organisation During the Northern Ireland and England Protests, this article is for educational purposes only; and as such, neither I nor Will2Rise can be held accountable for the actions of those who may interpret it otherwise. Both the prior article and the following article are permitted to be copied and freely distributed under the terms of the CC BY-ND licence, which stipulates the following: “This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only as long as attribution is given to the creator.”]

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Blurred photo of nationalists in Glasgow protesting an Antifa celebration of the 1312’s handling of the Henry Nowak case. Image shows that nationalists in attendance have upgraded their understanding of OPSEC after the Northern Ireland protests.

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy’s not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War, chapter 8: Variation of Tactics

There seems to be an unwritten rule that mandates political protests be conducted during the day, or that they must commence a few hours before nightfall. Should a protest be organised in the traditional manner by giving advance notice to the 1312 and volunteering a member of the protest group to surrender their personal information in the event that the protest goes awry, then this rule is a matter of non-negotiable procedure and the cost of doing business with the conventional. However, should a “flash protest” or a “pop-up protest” be organised—circumventing 1312 notice—it does not correlate with logic to abide by the same daylight stipulations due to the following disadvantages:

(1) Daylight provides the 1312, counter-protesters and journalists/opportunistic videographers with more than adequate visibility. This translates to easier identification; and optimal 1312 assessment of— and adaptation to—protester locations, which are a prerequisite for 1312 tactics such as kettling and the modern day version of the Saxon Shield Wall.

Blurred video of protesters at the Antifa celebration of 1312 in Glasgow being kettled. 1312 use the barriers to contain the protesters in a small space by evenly dispersing units to reinforce the barriers with substantial, collective body weight.

(2) Daylight increases the probability of system-sponsored counter-protesters being present. The presence of counter-protesters facilitates heightened emotions within protesters and that indignation often compromises organisation, discipline and the level of control protesters have over their immediate environment. This state of disorder is then used by 1312 to reposition units closer to the protest line for the purpose of instigating an incendiary situation that the media that are present on scene can use to frame the protesters as agitators or “far right mobs” after the fact.

A demonstration of two-tier policing contained in a comparative video of the Southampton and Black Lives Matter protests. The top video shows how 1312 close the gap between the police line and protest line by launching a sudden attack to confuse and shock protesters, and then following up with a swift advance from the front rank of the police line, after which the rear ranks move in to strengthen the formation.

3) Daylight increases the probability of opportunistic videographers being present. The political struggle of today is a very televised affair; everyone is obsessed with getting the best footage of a political protest without considering that said footage could be used to later identify some of the protesters they support for arrest, prosecution and anti-fascist doxing.

If we now consider how organising at nightfall could remove those disadvantages, we get the following objective advantages. [To counter an obvious argument about protesters also being at a disadvantage due to low visibility at night, our eyes can adjust very quickly to the dark and do not reflect light to the extent that a visor does when rays of artificial light are directed towards it. This is why some protesters during the Belfast actions used laser pointers and torches with high lumens.]

With the flash variant chosen as the method of protest, which is to occur during the night, and with information about the protest compartmentalised throughout the group by method of only disclosing the assembly location to protest leaders by word of mouth, there is a very low probability of counter-protesters and opportunistic videographers being present. This dramatically decreases the probability of protesters being later identified for arrest and prosecution, especially if the protesters are trained in basic OPSEC tactics, such as wearing two pairs of black surgical gloves, masks, non-descriptive dark clothing and the leaving of all electronic devices at home. With concerns to 1312 tactical efficiency; it is more difficult for 1312 to accurately assess protester numbers and positioning in low light conditions, and without a counter-protester line and groups of journalists to serve as a reference point, the difficulty in determining the manoeuvre radius of protesters and implementing their standardised formations is significantly higher. Even with aerial surveillance using FLIR cameras, if protesters have a nearby tree line to take cover in, and have chosen to pack collapsible umbrellas, they can eliminate their heat signature, leaving the role of reconnaissance to the units on the ground who are already having to compete against low light conditions which are made worse by their mandatory Perspex visors and shields.

[Another lesser known strategy used by professionals that makes it difficult to reconnoiter the area at night for later identification is to carry several plastic bags and a tube of superglue or some other fast-drying adhesive so that the substance can be added to the inside of the bag. Then there was something to be said for using them to “blind electronic eyes” or something cryptic like that, but I don’t quite recall. Additionally, I’ve heard of a tactic that involves filling a water balloon or condom with black oil-based paint, engine oil and sand that would logically make plastic and glass surfaces hard to see through, but as for which plastic and glass objects this would be most effective against, I’m not sure, so I’ll refrain from descending into conjecture. To note, these two strategies would—in theory—be objectively conducive to reducing the effectiveness of the immediate 1312 surveillance effort, later investigative canvassing for prosecution, and their ability to maintain tactical positioning over the protesters.]

The reasonable debate over why protesters choose to organise when they are most visible to the system over when they are least visible should be had. We are seeing a real-time transition in patriotic protest tactics in places like Glasgow, where you can clearly see the black bloc methodology synergising with traditional patriotism, which comes in the wake of reinvigorated nationalist support in Europe and North America for Ulster and Irish nationalists that don’t subscribe to Sinn Féin’s pro-immigration rhetoric.

The protesters we have seen recently in Glasgow have certainly begun a metamorphosis, but in order to assess whether this change results in the evolution of protest tactics, they still have to make the transition from perceiving protests as political confrontation to apprehending protests as protected activities: [protest] actions that should be conducted—in conjunction with professional OPSEC—when the surveillance effort of the system is running at minimal efficiency; i.e., in low light conditions, when 1312 ground units struggle to implement tactics they have been drilling in crowd safety anti-riot training, and when counter-protesters, journalists and opportunistic videographers are not present to directly or indirectly aid 1312 during and after the protest.

Only then, when protesters start thinking in those terms and stop organising in daylight, will we be able to accurately assess protest effectiveness or lack thereof in both day and night environments. It does seem apparent, however, that action by night is the hardest variant of protest for the system to maintain tactical superiority over.

End note:

Some critics may argue about the ethical implications of openly disclosing information in an academic capacity that could be used to make it harder for the system to manage protests, but when you have 1312 responding to ordinary white people with such malice and unrestrained hate—as is revealed in the following piece of visual evidence—it begs the question of whether their criticisms are unethical if such critics do not believe that the state should be permitted to use violence against its own citizens.

I shall await the inevitable backlash to this [theoretical] study from critics like Alexander Ritzmann, Phill Williams et al., and will be paying particular attention to whether or not they denounce the use of state violence against the people—all people, regardless of race and political opinion. Should it be the case that they fail to do this, or fail to comment on the 1312’s use of excessive force in the video embedded within this article, then the political, racial and personal biases of these critics should be called into question by the professionals that collaborate with them and their expertise reevaluated for their inability to remain objective, and how that lack of objectivity may later compromise the accuracy and credibility of academic research papers and shared data among professionals when cited. I would also like to note for the record that the credibility of Phil Williams has already been called into question for choosing to cite the SPLC, a charity that has been indicted for wire fraud and caught facilitating artificial racial hatred, as a credible source on the subject of “white supremacy”.