[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
In mid-January, government officials went on a series of site visits at the following locations of proposed ICE detention centers. Their plan is to retrofit industrial warehouses to save time and money. If all of these facilities were built it would add up to over 15 million square feet of space and increase bed space by 85,000, which would in turn facilitate more “surge” operations to detain our neighbors en masse. It’s up to us to stop them.
“Mega Centers”
50 Rausch Creek Road, Tremont, PA
Processing Sites
3501 Mountain Road, Hamburg, PA
CONFIRMED purchased warehouses:
3501 Mountain Rd, Hamburg, PA 19526 (capacity 1,500)
Come melt away the end of winter at O.R.C.A. with some films that look at the technologies of domination. After each screening we’ll discuss how we can struggle against this oppressive reality.
3/12 7PM
A Selection of Short Films (~80 min)
A handful of shorter films about how technology is tied up with colonialism, policing, war, and surveillance as well as some of the fight back already taking place. A list of the shorts is at the bottom of this page.
3/19 7PM
Koyannisqatsi (1982, 86 min)
Beautifully shot and scored, this wordless documentary brings us on a emotional exploration of the machinery and relations that make progress and our modern lifeways possible. The title is a Hopi word that can be translated to “life out of balance.”
3/26 7PM
All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace (2011, 59 min)
(Part Two The Use And Abuse Of Vegetational Concepts)
Exploring the parallel rise of ecology and cybernetics this strange documentary calls into question how we apply mfilmechanical thinking to nature and people. If you’ve ever compared your brain to a computer this one is for you.
3/19 Short Films:
Tip 3 Organize Offline
How Israel Automated Occupation In Hebron
Berlin Camover
How ‘Smart Cities’ Make Us More Watched Than Ever Before
Russian Camover
How Palantir Is Transforming Modern Warfare
Montreal Camover
No Publicar
Embrace Robophobia
What is Direct Action?
Finally! As you may have seen elsewhere, Casey is finally out of the holdover unit at FCI Mendota and is in the transfer pipeline to their designated facility.
At 4 am on Tuesday, 2/11, Casey was woken up, told to pack it up, and then put on the bus before the sun rose. They were transported from Mendota to the SF Federal Bldg and then to the county jail in downtown SF. Casey reported that coming over the hills that morning into the Bay as the sun rose, they felt blessed. Casey, sitting in a van still cuffed up, was able to see the horizon, able to see the sun’s light grow and spread over the city and the Bay.
While at the SF jail, Casey was able to walk around the unit freely, talk to others, and enjoy phone access with their friends and loved ones in a way not possible for months in that shithole holdover unit. Casey and a member of our committee were able to have a loving, hour long conversation that didn’t feel like a rushed whisper through a keyhole. ❤️
Casey didn’t spend long in SF before they were put on a plane. On Friday, Casey showed up on the BOP inmate locator at FCI Allenwood – Medium, one facility of three in a prison complex located in northern Pennsylvania.
A few notes about Casey’s current placement:
This may be an intermediate placement. We have not confirmed with Casey that this is their permanent designated facility and this may well be a temporary location. All prison systems are opaque and move people around at will according to their own fickle bureaucratic criteria. When we confirm this is to be Casey’s designated facility, we will let you know.
It’s always good to write! Address for the facility is below. But know that in addition to this possibly being a short-lived placement, sometimes Casey’s mail has been held by the mailroom for weeks or months. We have also found that multiple pieces of mail have been blocked or “lost” as well. So independent of Casey being at Allenwood permanently or temporarily, know that comms through the mail are goofy as well as slow and fully surveilled.
Conditions have changed already. According to Casey, this current spot is more capable meeting their needs as a diabetic. They are let out of their cell from 8 am to 5 pm, have phone access, and at the time of the last call with fam, Casey was on their way to check out the library (!! of course. If you know Casey…🙂)
At some point, Casey’s counselor told them that they had been given a “Low” security classification. This has not been formally confirmed. So again, we will let you know when we know more. And yes, a Low can be sent to a Medium level facility – Welcome to the byzantine nature of prison regulations and practices.
All property is surrendered on transfer out of a holdover unit so Casey has to start over in terms of personal property and nutritional supplements from commissary to deal with their diabetes. To send funds to keep Casey’s commissary account topped,up, you can Venmo Casey’s fam – @JuliePetersonG
More on the toll of “holdover life”
Casey spent over 4 months in holdover at Mendota. Holdover – the limbo unit for people being received, moved, etc. – is worse than solitary in many respects. You have no property, no programs, limited access to anything but your tiny cell, and no definite date for getting out. Casey had only minimal access to medical care for their diabetes: insulin only dispensed once per day, insufficient blood sugar checks, mediocre diet, and maximum stress and uncertainty. The poor care had started to permanently damage Casey’s eyesight. If they were to continue much longer in holdover, Casey was anticipating needing a new prescription in order to read or see adequately.
Also, every other person that passed through holdover at Mendota only spent a few weeks there. A month in and Casey became in effect the “OG” of the unit, the prisoner housed there the longest, orienting others to the layout and program of the place. Yet again, to those who been locked up or who have years doing prisoner support, the question at some point becomes “Is this bullshit targeted or is it just random, just industrialized abandonment and they don’t give a shit about anybody?”
Well, Casey is a political prisoner. And while everybody inside gets a number and everybody gets put in the uniform, there is nonetheless a wild card or two in the deck for politicals. Consequences can be heavier. And that’s another thing for people on the outside to remember and take to heart regarding risks, expectations, and communications with our loved ones inside.
Legal update
Casey has been working on a habeas petition with another legal team in order to appeal their conviction and sentencing. The deadline for this filing will be 12 months from their sentencing (Sept. 23, 2026) so we will report more on this in the coming months as it develops.
Join us for “Building a Culture of Non-Cooperation with the Tech Dystopia” on Sunday, March 1st at 3pm.
We’ll start with a short presentation looking at the role of digital technology as a critical part of the infrastructure of oppression and state violence that we’re seeing today, and then shift to discussion about how to start divesting (both individually and collectively) from our reliance on things like smart phones and social media and take care of one another’s needs in other ways.
The Wooden Shoe is ADA accessible excepting the restroom. Parking is available metered on the street with the two closest paid parking garages at 1457
South St and 545 S 11th St. Public transit (bus) stops are within short walking distance. Please let the organizers know if you have any other accessibility requirements and we will do our best to accommodate.
All WS events are masked (provided), free, and do not require an RSVP.
IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Yellow background with “Building a Culture of Non-cooperation with the Tech Dystopia” in dark blue in the upper left hand corner. Underneath that is a block of text, which reiterates information shared in the post. To the right of that is an illustration of a mobile phone being pierced by two arrows. In between the arrows is the following text (in dark blue): Sunday, March 1st, 3pm, Wooden Shoe Books, Masks required, What if you didn’t bring your phone?
Bring some Black Radical literature, take some Black Radical literature. Come through to O.R.C.A on Saturday Feb. 28th from 4 – 6 pm. for a literature swap. Stay and chat about what text you brought, took and/or are currently reading. Left over books will be donated to the O.R.C.A library. Please wear a mask + mask will be available
We sabotaged all four traffic cameras at a major intersection in Philadelphia. We opened the panels at the bases of the camera’s poles and cut sections of the wires. We also painted over the fronts of the cameras to make it clear to passersby that the cameras were broken. We carried out this sabotage as part of the ongoing game of camover and to contribute to the anti-technology and anti-Flock momentum.
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
IN CONTEMPT returns with the next monthly prison rebel roundup. Packed in as always are updates, action and analysis we hope helps build inside-outside networks of resistance. Over 100 copies are sent to comrades behind bars each month!
Following the closing of It’s Going Down, a new collective will continue publishing monthly “In Contempt” updates on this noblogs. Please submit any updates and calls to action to the new email in_contempt at autistici dot org.
A lot has been happening, so lets get to it!
Phone Zaps
Call in For Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is being denied essential medical care
As of February 2026, Mumia has not received treatment for his diabetic retinopathy or agressive glaucoma. His vision has been restored to a point after having a procedure done, but his vision is still at risk without further treating the underlying condition. He needs an opthamologist or he risks going blind!
Please call, email, and write letters to SCI Mahony and the secretary of the Pennsylvania department of corrections this week. They are open Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM EST.
Call:
SCI Mahanoy superintendant Bernadette Mason: (570) 773-2158
PA Department of Corrections secretary Laurel Harry: (717) 728-4109 or (717) 728-2573
Berndatte Mason SCI Mahanoy 301 Grey Line Drive, Frackville PA 17931
Basic Script:
“Hello, my name is _____ and I am calling to request that Mumia Abu-Jamal #8335 needs to be seen and treated by specialists, who treat diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma. He also needs to be examined for new glasses, a heart healthy diet, filtered water, and regular exercise, indoors and out.”
Bloomgerg reports these locations and bed capacities that ICE seeks to acquire: Tremont, Pennsylvania- 7,500. Roxbury, New Jersey-1,500. Hamburg, Pennsylvania-1,500.
RESCHEDULED DUE TO WEATHER! New date is Saturday 2/21.
Hack the Planet! Come hang with us for a night of cinematic cybercrime as we raise money and support for Casey Goonan! Casey is an anarchist/anti-imperialist political prisoner incarcerated for actions carried out in solidarity with Palestinians facing genocide in Gaza. We’ll be watching Hackers (1995) and writing letters of encouragement for Casey in preparation for their transfer and taking donations for their support fund!
Can you believe it’s been two years? Come celebrate O.R.C.A. with us! We’ll be screening some short films, hanging out with the heat on, enjoying some music and snacks, and raising money for the space with a raffle with cute prizes! Can’t wait to see you all there!
Taking place in the late 60s, “If…” builds off and expands upon our last screening (Zero for Conduct). The movie follows in a similar format, the absurdities of authority.
A group of young boys in a boarding school dare to challenge the authorities that control them. “If…” rises to the question, what happens when the oppressed are given the tools to liberate themselves?
It’ll be two years of O.R.C.A. this February! We’re hosting a celebration even with films, friends, snacks, and a raffle with fun prizes. It’s on February 13th from 6pm to 10 at the space! Event details are here. Come through and bring a friend 😀
In the following report-back, participants in a march against Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Philadelphia reflect on how to move from symbolic protests and top-down organizational models to effective autonomous action. As the conflict between federal mercenaries and the people of the Twin Cities intensifies, others around the country are looking for concrete ways to act in solidarity in order to divide the attention and resources of federal forces. We encourage everyone who participates in demonstrations to show up in affinity groups with concrete plans as to what they hope to accomplish and bold proposals to share with others.
The more agency and initiative each of us brings to our collective activity, the more powerful our movements will be.
On the night of January 23, the day of the general strike in the Twin Cities, a rowdy march against ICE took place in downtown Philadelphia, involving about 300 people. At the conclusion of the march, a couple dozen militants decided to break off and head in the direction of the nearby ICE office. The march organizers—Socialist Alternative—had told the entire crowd at the beginning of the march that they planned to circle City Hall once and then march together to the ICE building.
We had heard about the march just the day before. A small group of us quickly prepared a banner reading “FUCK ICE.” During the march, we carved out a spot for ourselves at the front, despite commands from self-appointed protest marshals to “move to the side” and make more space for their party-branded content.
The march proceeded down a major thoroughfare of the city, the simple “Fuck ICE” banner attracting enthusiastic support from onlookers. Then, strangely, when the crowd was just one block away from the ICE headquarters, the marshals directed everyone to the Federal Detention Center two blocks away. There, the organizers set up a weak sound system and began making speeches to the confused crowd.
At the same time, a member of a competing state socialist faction, the Revolutionary Communists of America, pulled out their own megaphone and started soapboxing to the people around them about the working class in a bid to one-up their competitors. The energy, which had been lively throughout the march, dissipated rapidly.
Someone asked one of the protest marshals why we weren’t converging on the ICE building. “There’s no shortage of targets,” they answered.
This rally was was explicitly organized in solidarity with the general strike in Minneapolis, which itself was a response to the invasion of the city by ICE and the recent murder of Renee Nicole Good. On January 24, the day following the general strike, ICE agents murdered another person in Minneapolis, Alex Pretti.
The usual alphabet soup of state socialists were there. Aside from Socialist Alternative (the main organizers), there were also the Revolutionary Communists of America, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and others, each faction vying for their spot in the limelight with recruitment tables, proselytizing overtures, and promotional literature. They made many speeches about how we need to go beyond symbolic protest and take the next step into direct action against ICE.
But when protesters broke away to engage the nearby ICE office, most of the crowd simply looked on or away. Some jeered, made snide comments, or expressed disdain. Nonetheless, a few were curious or supportive. It is worth noting that, in a march that was probably 95% white, many of those who joined the breakaway march were not white, and specifically young and Black.
As we marched towards the throng of police outside the ICE office, encouraged by one enthusiastic snare drummer’s beats, some in the crowd began to chant “Migra, policia, la misma porqueria!” Someone made some quick remarks about how the Philadelphia Parking Authority and the Philadelphia police were protecting ICE. When someone in the crowd yelled “Fuck 12” in response, we all began chanting “Fuck ICE! Fuck 12!”
It was clear that there were too many police and too few people in the crowd to breach the office, which had been barricaded in anticipation with metal crowd barriers. So after a short while, the group took their exit, flipping off the bike cops.
If nothing else, some of those who were confused about the location of the ICE headquarters now know exactly where it is. Experimenting with the breakaway march as a protest tactic was also a useful exercise in that it demonstrated what a small number of frontliners can do as part of a larger crowd, showing the potential of autonomous direct action within a broader ecology of tactics.
Not all of the state socialists took a paternalistic attitude toward the militants who engaged the ICE headquarters. One of the protest marshals joined us at the end and made a genuine effort to show support and have our backs as we approached the building and the police stationed outside of it. The problem is not the intentions of specific individuals, but rather that the organizational structures of these groups are not oriented towards practical direct action. They remain stuck in the mire of representational, spectacle-based politics.
The class struggle, which necessarily involves a dynamic ecology of different kinds of action, is not the driving motor of organizational development and innovation for these groups. Instead, they filter class struggle through the sieve of each group’s particular brand of state-directed revolution, which the movement managers and wanna-be politicians of each respective faction are trying to sell us. When organizational fetishism is the driving force of a struggle, revolutionists appear as nothing but snake-oil sellers.
As a consequence, the burning need for decisive action is put off indefinitely. Rather than presenting opportunities to disrupt the operation of ruling class infrastructure, militant demonstrations instead become opportunities for selling newspapers, photo-ops, recruitment drives, and ideological competition between various bullhorn-wielding aspiring leaders.
It was heartening to see the federal inmates waving at us and flickering their lights from the inside. It was good to pay them a visit. But there is something very wrong with a march against ICE in which protest marshals direct the crowd away from a building ICE uses as its headquarters. At a certain point, revolutionaries need to make a choice: are you organizing for revolution, or building a political clique?
For those who want to make a revolution against class society, the spectacle of symbolic protest and organizational fetishism is a dead end. The 2020 George Floyd uprising, the Eddie Irizarry rebellion in 2023, and the anti-ICE rebellion in Los Angeles last year show us that there is another way: the path of militant solidarity, mutual aid, and autonomous self-activity and self-organization. The revolt against ICE that is unfolding in Minneapolis is currently the most advanced iteration of this mass historical dynamic within the United States. Rather than looking to the fantasies of the past, we should take our cue from the frontline in Minneapolis and follow their example. We have to fight with strategy, organization, and vision—but nonetheless, we have to make the leap.
Now is the time to get together with those you trust, to call more demonstrations, to organize rapid response networks with your neighbors, to facilitate assemblies, devise plans, experiment with bold tactics, take the initiative, build momentum, stretch the limits of whats possible, and most importantly, embrace every strategy at our disposal for tearing this motherfucker down and building a new, better world, including direct intervention against ICE and all agents of state repression.
See you in the streets!
– Your autonomous comrades across the partisan divide
this is by no means a complete picture of the aftermath of a mid summer call for a Philadelphia game of CAMOVER. This is only what I can verify from seeing and from hearing firsthand from those I trust.
Disabled by paint: 20
Disabled by smash: 8
Pulled down by rope: 6
Etch bath mop: 2
Disabled by climbing up with an impact driver, socket set, and orange vest: 1
Let’s hear it for the rowdies, the rebels, creatives, party kids, criminals, insurrectos, and faggots!! Men aren’t allowed to look at us bitch! Especially not thru a lens fuck that !
Separate from results, we are taking the opportunity to formalize a call for a Winter Games 2026!!!! Starting as the first snow falls on Sunday, and ending mid April, we are inviting anyone reading to renew and sharpen an anti-tech, anti surveillance tendency thru attack, study and experimentation. Camover is the main event, but what else can be done in the resultant terrain of weakened surveillance? We invite you to think long, to eat well, and to do good works this winter.
This compilation is coming together in a moment when it feels that many anarchist ideas are losing their meanings. Dragged out of anarchy into leftism or activism, drained of their radical content. Mutual aid is giving away supplies, direct action is a more aggressive form of begging, anti-fascism is reduced to publishing personal details about our enemies, attack is left to gather dust or spectacularized as a social media aesthetic.
Lining up anarchist ideas and practices is not always easy, which is no reason to lower the bar. It’s with this in mind that it felt useful to compile these articles, to clarify just how radical anarchist ideas really are, to encourage people to keep imagining and moving toward absolute hostility with authority and anarchic relations with everyone else.
