Defence Groups

If the better arguments support it, we will encourage people to organise defence groups in order to fight oppression. But isn’t that illegal? Not necessarily. Everyone knows that it can be against the law to be a part of a terrorist group or a similar organisation. Defence groups, however, are legal if their members have no intention of breaking the law. These groups will be legal if they act in full accordance with either the law of necessity or self-defence.

Defence groups can act independently of LAW or be trained at our Legal Defence Academy (LDA). Either way, no militant operations should be launched without it being absolutely clear that the principles of the above two laws are not breached. (For more information about LDA, see our discussion forum.)

Preparations for militant operations will only be general in nature. During training, no target will be selected and detailed plans to attack a specific individual or oppressive organisation will be avoided. 

The training itself will be done in a way that is not against the law. Activists may train shooting at legal firing ranges. They will use ordinary rifles to practice sniping, and go hunting in order to learn how to hit moving targets. Military simulations (milsims) will also be used to practice assaults and capture operations. Military simulations with realistic equipment and airsoft guns are legal. Activists can take courses in Krav Maga, the self-defence system used by Israeli soldiers, and get trauma experience by working as volunteers for the Red Cross. Lastly, they can educate themselves as bodyguards in order to know how the opposition thinks and acts. Then they will also learn how to drive cars during an attack. All of this is legal.

The preparations can be compared to ordinary self-defence courses where people practice violent moves and manoeuvres without any specific plan about when they will use their skills. They will not seek out emergency situations. But they are prepared if one happens.

The difference between defence groups and vigilante groups is that the former don’t seek out emergency situations. They are not on the look out for trouble. And they will not use physical force if police and judges do their job and prevent innocent people from being seriously hurt or killed. They will only act when they are presented with information about an emergency situation where defensive political violence is justifiable because people’s lives are in danger.

Another difference is that activists will not decide themselves when the conditions of self-defence or necessity are satisfied. Militant operations will only be launched after critics have had the opportunity to present all their arguments – in our forum for instance - against the use of physical force, and have failed by the standard of common sense and ordinary legal thinking. It is only then that they should acquire illegal equipment like explosives for example.

Acquiring illegal equipment is one of the most dangerous parts of an militant operation because it is difficult to know if the person who sells the equipment is reliable. An alternative is to manufacture ones own explosives. This is not too difficult. But activists should be very careful and have a lot of patient. Patience is the key to a successful operation.

There is one exception to the demand that militant operations must be legal. The law says that self-defence is only justified against attacks that are illegal. But there are situations where multinational companies, without breaking any law, use “blind spots” in judicial systems to legally oppress poor people. They might, for instance, exploit very bad labour laws in developing countries that allow dangerous and lethal working conditions. If all the conditions of legal self-defence are fulfilled except the condition that the attacks to be prevented must be illegal, then common sense ethics justify defensive political in situations where it is obvious for everyone that people will get killed or seriously hurt if they don’t defend their lives against oppression. It goes without saying that the right to defend your life against lethal attacks is fundamental even if there are no legal rules that forbid such attacks. But LAW will not risk being labelled as an illegal organisation, so our members will not conduct militant operations that are not in full compliance with the law of self-defence. We will, however, give moral support to other organisations whose activists fight multinational firms that exploit inadequate laws in order to “legally” earn huge amounts of money by putting workers’ lives in grave danger.

After training at LDA, defence groups should operate as autonomous cells without contact with other groups. A group should usually consist of max 7-8 activists. Three is actually enough to conduct a capture operation. The activists should not use telephones or emails to talk about militant operations. Groups that choose to act independently of LAW, should not use their own computer at home to check information on this website. Public Wi-Fi is safer. Any questions should be posted anonymously in our discussion forum. A group can use a fake email address to contact us.

LAW sincerely hope that critics are able to refute the justifications of defensive political violence, partly because none of us are interested in running the risk of being jailed, or being “renditioned” to places like Guantanamo by CIA agents. We hope that the secret services around the world will let legal professionals and other academics try to stop this website with the help of rational arguments instead of using force to bring it down. If they choose the later, then it only proves that governments talk about dialogue and justice is a facade. To terrorists around the world it will confirm that dialogue is useless and that only physical force works.