The Antisocial Socialist

For reasons, I have been reading extensively about the Okhrana's surveillance and infiltration of Russian émigré communities from the 1880 to early 1900s lately. It's some pretty wild stuff. One of the things that strikes me is just how disorganized and weird a lot of these operations are, like, "I seduced this guy*, drugged him, kidnapped him, and got him on a boat to Russia, without making sure that the boat had enough fuel to get to Russia without stopping at one of the many countries where public sympathies are in his favour." Or the sheer number of high-profile assassins who were actually Okhrana agents but still assassinated Tsarist officials. And the sheer number of Okhrana officers who, when given the opportunity, went "fuck it, these guys are assholes" and told the revolutionaries everything they knew. Or the ones who went, "hey, let's get some occultists involved, for reasons."

You can't make this shit up.

You can justify it somewhat because people back then didn't have the intertubes or the countless books on espionage best practices that we all have access to now. They were just kinda making it up as they went along. Surely, sting operations against leftists are smarter now?

Enter the RCMP.

RCMP tracked Toronto activists with fake Facebook profile

Has a waddle of penguins ever “liked” your Facebook page? If so, your account may have been monitored by the RCMP.
...
“Will there be food and drinks?” an officer wrote on the Facebook page for an anti-Novotel union rally in 2012. “Cause I am on a fixed student income and will bring some buddies to add to the numbers if we can grab some free food.”
...
The social media account, which went by the name of Bebop Arooney and had a profile picture of three penguins frolicking on a beach, tracked the Facebook pages of more than two dozen organizations in Toronto, ranging from Black Lives Matter Toronto and Idle No More to the Ukrainian Canadian Congress.

Six Jewish and Palestinian groups were also monitored.

WWF wrestler Mick Foley also attracted the Mounties’ attention. A second RCMP social media account — @angrycitizen123 — followed Foley on Twitter."

So, yeah. Don't friend penguins on FB, okay. Also, the RCMP is watching all of us, but kinda badly.

* Vladmir Burtsev. Obviously.