Food, Lies, and Videotape: Further Thoughts on Handling a Food Raid; Aajonus Vonderplanitz's Farm "Rescue" Plan
Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 08:23AM 
My list of suggestions for handling a food raid, posted on Grist, have attracted lots of additional suggestions, beyond the five I listed. Among the most frequent suggestions among the 99 comments are various techniques for backing up computers, including ideas for handling backup disks and encrypting data. I've had several farmers tell me, in effect, "Yeah, I know I should do these things, but I'm so busy, I keep putting it off."
If nothing else, at least subscribe to an online backup service that automatically backs up your data each day. (One such service is Carbonite, which charges $55 a year to back up your data onto its servers.)
In the technology arena, I was reminded by several people about something I didn't discuss: how to handle web sites for private food and buying clubs. The problem is that regulators, being basically lazy people, spend a lot of their "investigative" energy surfing web sites seeking easy targets. If you don't have a web site, or at least limit your web presence to a password-protected site, they'll have much more difficulty finding you.
If you do keep a web presence, be sure the data, like members' names, are stored off-site, and that the information is highly encrypted. Ideally, you want it to be very difficult for the police and regulators to access your member data.
The down side of not having a web presence, of course, is that it's much more difficult to communicate with members beyond email. I don't have the best answer for this--don't think anyone does. We'll have to see via experience whether having a Facebook page is worth the risk. Yes, risk assessment will be big.
A few people have written or posted items at Grist to the effect that trying to take videos of police can lead to heavy intimidation. Taking videos is generally legal, but cops can tell you it isn't, and later it's your word against theirs. Wayne Craig forwarded a very interesting ABC News report about the inconsistencies, intimidation, and legalities of video recording.The main thing I take out of it is to ignore police threats to charge you with some additional offense related to taking a video.
My suggestion, based on my journalistic and public relations experience, is to simply try to take your videos without saying anything. Ideally, use one of the tiny video cameras that aren't much bigger than a flash drive. Don't worry about legalities. The main value of a video is for public relations purposes, in any event. If you are charged, be prepared to put a segment of your video on Youtube, and to hand it out to the news media. Remember, the person who took the video of Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police in 1991 didn't ask permission.
Finally, one farmer chastised me for giving away too many good tips, and thereby providing the regulators with insider info. Believe me, the regulators and cops know all the things I suggested, and more. They're in the business of intimidating and brow-beating citizens. They don't appreciate the kind of suggestions I and others are putting out there, since it levels the playing field, which is the last thing they want. They like to keep their work quiet and mysterious.
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Why are the federal, state, and local authorities so upset about raw food advocate Aajonus Vonderplanitz that they would send nearly the equivalent of an army division to raid his Rawesome Food warehouse in Venice, CA, three weeks ago? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that he's figured out a legal mechanism to protect private food buying groups and the farms that supply them. I describe the Vonderplanitz approach, and how it's held well legally, in a new post at Grist.
Reader Comments (5)
For example, you could buy a domain such as "WisconLocalFood.biz" and your main page at "www.WisconLocalFood.biz" would simply provide innocuous information on local food sources in Wisconsin. However, your specific group's private page could be located at "http://club.WisconLocalFood.biz" and only the members of your group would have that specific address. As long as your main page does not contain a link to your private page and you are careful that the private link is never posted anywhere then your private page will never appear in any search engine and it will remain invisible for all practical purposes.
Obviously this isn't a fool-proof solution, but it can be used as an easy approach to help maintain your privacy.
Rod Nilsestuen DATCP head drowns in Lake Superior
Now, as a farmer you don't want to depend on that. You want to hold to your farm being private property, not a store and not a public place. Your castle within which you make the rules. Such as either you'll be videoed or you'll be arrested for trespass. But if you do have a dedicated farm store they may try and call you a public place for other reasons.
suffice to say, nowadays there are too many reasonably priced HIDDEN video surveillance systems; SPECially if one seeks out open source systems..
considering the horrid potential losses and operational continuity disruptions by such Stalinist tactics by the authorities, methinks even spending up to $1000 would be quite worth the legal advantages in the courtroom battles sure to follow. [i have been surprised noting even few years back how inexpensive open source security systems have become leveling the security sys support for us SMBs & smaller operations; once only attainable by large budgeted corporations only!]
as they say.. when it comes to legal challenges.. the one with the most documentation generally wins the day!