Safer Boulder responded to our release of their chat logs on October 11th with a post entitled “Safer Boulder Doesn’t Have Time for Bullies.” Safer Boulder’s response throws lies against the wall without a shred of evidence to back them up. Here we will go through their criticisms point by point:
We are members of Safer Boulder. Our diverse, nonpartisan grassroots coalition consists of hundreds of Boulder residents who recognize the urgency of addressing public safety in our small city.
- Safer Boulder has insisted for a while that they are “diverse” but have never defined what diversity means to them. Every member of Safer Boulder that we have identified is white and cisgendered.
- We are not sure where these “hundreds” of Safer members are coming from either, since their Slack workspace had 93 members at it’s height, with about 1/2 of those accounts not being registered and a fair amount of the registered accounts being inactive.
Last Tuesday, an anonymous source connected to a broad network of self-described anarchists initiated a vicious, targeted campaign against our membership, while claiming to possess leaked materials that “exposed” Safer Boulder.
- We have never identified as anarchists because we are not anarchists. This is a very silly thing to lie about.
- We did claim to have leaked materials from exposed Safer Boulder’s private communications, which is true. You can find the full archive of those at the bottom of this page.
The activist group, calling itself “Safer Leaks”, linked to a blog on an anarchist web server in Italy, and took to social media and other channels to dox, defame, and personally threaten alleged members of our group.
- We have not once threatened any member of Safer Boulder, nor anyone else. This is very serious allegation and should be backed up as such.
- Our leaks show that Safer Boulder has repeatedly spoken about enacting violence upon people experiencing homelessness in Boulder:
Relying on manipulated documents, hacked private communications, blatant lies, and reckless disregard for the truth, these activists have endangered community members and subjected them to harassment at their homes and workplaces, while attacking their reputations with unabashedly false accusations.
- The leaks provided at the bottom of the page are unredacted and absolutely not “manipulated’. We did censor a few parts of the analysis of these leaks on our webpage to protect those targeted by Safer Boulder from further harassment.
- There is no evidence that anyone has been “endangered” by these leaks. If there is, we would like to see it.
- We have received thanks from community members who were targeted by Safer Boulder.
The extent of the attack is still under investigation, but a number of Boulder residents have been misidentified as leaders of Safer Boulder on a blog and in social media, and profiled with their photographs, employment, and other private information, including addresses and phone numbers. None of the individuals identified holds a leadership role in our group. Several are former members, and others have never been involved in Safer Boulder.
- Our assertions about Safer Boulder leadership comes from analyzing the power structure within the group. The Safer Boulder members we have identified as “leaders” act as leaders within the group by directing other members and taking charge on projects.
- All information published on this blog outside of the Slack Workspace is publicly available information. We did not include Safer Boulder members’ addresses or phone numbers to protect them from harassment.
- Whereas Safer Boulder has shared the addresses, photographs, phone numbers, and emails of activists they oppose in their Slack Workspace.
We were astonished that media would give credence to claims made by an unknown, unverified source. Doing so has exposed innocent community members to physical danger and emotional distress. Meanwhile, it has given an undeserved voice to shadowy agitators who seek lawlessness and chaos in our community. It has allowed them to be jury, judge, and executioner of anyone they name as a member of Safer Boulder.
- As of today, October 23rd, 2020, no media outlet has picked up on these leaks, so how did the media expose “innocent community members to physical danger”?
- Safer Leaks holds no legal authority over Safer Boulder and we find this analogy patently absurd. Publishing information on the internet is not the same as executing someone.
We cannot adequately detail the many false claims made against Safer Boulder by this hate group and its amplifiers on social media. Nor is that our intent in this statement. We want you to understand who Safer Boulder is, and to comprehend the urgency of our mission.
- Safer Boulder wants people to believe that they were falsely slandered and lied about but refuse to provide any evidence to support their claim.
- Safer Boulder, a group that tolerates and engages in blatant transphobia and classism, believes that we are a “hate group.”
- The Southern Poverty Law Center defines hate groups as:
an organization that – based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities – has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.
Safer Leaks does not malign any class of people. We stand against racism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, and all other forms of bigotry and xenophobia, which is precisely why we published these communications. Safer Boulder regularly engages in bigoted and xenophobic behavior:
We accept that some may disagree with us, and we welcome civil and respectful discourse on the issues. But we will not accept criminal and personal attacks as a substitute for substantive discussion. We condemn these tactics. They are inimical to a free society and are an assault on our Constitutional rights to free expression and petition of our government.
- We have not violated anyone’s constitutional rights. The United States constitution does not protect people from being criticized, nor does it restrict the expression of free speech and publication.
- We disagree with the characterization that our release and analysis is “uncivil” but even if that were the case, the First Amendment makes no mention of civility.
Safer Boulder can use all the weasel words they want to imply that our release of their Slack Workspace is fraudulent, but at the end of the end day, they have provided no evidence to backup any of their claims against us, while we have over 1,000 screenshots from their chats that you can access and come to your own conclusion about the group.
