A note about personal security
I made a mistake last month that hopefully others can learn from.
There are rumors that ICE is turning its attention to the Philadelphia area, where I live. I’m a natural-born American citizen, but based on accounts from Minneapolis, I’m not excited to run into them, and I’m worried about the health and well-being of my child. So I briefly joined a local Signal group that reports ICE sightings.
I have been using my full name on Signal — and I’m the only Ben Werdmuller in the world. In the less than 24 hours that I was a part of the group, the entire group’s membership was downloaded and investigated by a right-wing community. They ultimately released details about my location (not specific, but specific enough to let me know they know where I live) as well as some vague threats about personal harm.
They also linked my name to ProPublica reporting about the Alex Pretti killers. Journalism is a vital part of democracy and no journalist should ever receive these sorts of threats. For the record, I have no involvement with actual reporting at ProPublica: I’m not a journalist and I’m not part of the news team. I support IT, security, and product engineering. I didn’t know the story was coming out until it was published. But again: I think it would be unacceptable for journalists who were involved in this (or any) reporting to receive these sorts of threats.
The lesson is: there are co-ordinated groups of right-wing activists (or potentially more than activists) looking to intimidate people who might protest or report on ICE. Be aware of where you have posted identifying information, and be wary of joining groups about sensitive topics. What starts online doesn’t necessarily stay online.
I should have been more aware of the threats. Joining that group created a risk for me and my family, and I should have been more aware of my Signal profile. The stakes are very high. I have a high risk tolerance for myself, but security and privacy are a group inoculation: nobody around me asked for this. Therefore there’s a responsibility to be careful.
