It is right, fitting, and appropriate to consider how governments abuse technology. One the other hand, to descend into a fearful state about data making it "a lot easier to discredit and disrupt political activists" is both unbalanced and fundamentally disrespectful to our forebearers who faced lynching, Pinkerton detectives, the Raj's army, etc.
So it is your assertion that technology is NOT making it easier to target people?
> 70s
Yes, I'm familiar with history. This is somewhat off topic.
> unbalanced
Insults? Really?
> fundamentally disrespectful
I never made the comparison to lynchings/etc. If anything, modern technology has made these tactics safer. Really, this was my point - you are thinking about tactics as they were used decades ago. You might want to actually read those JTRIG links, as they describe a very different sort of tactic.
Consensus decision making has hamstrung progressive causes since the 70s (http://berkeleyjournal.org/2015/05/the-theology-of-consensus...), predating the technological toolkit which nominally justified not having a targetable leadership.
It is right, fitting, and appropriate to consider how governments abuse technology. One the other hand, to descend into a fearful state about data making it "a lot easier to discredit and disrupt political activists" is both unbalanced and fundamentally disrespectful to our forebearers who faced lynching, Pinkerton detectives, the Raj's army, etc.