The Pipeline Legal Action Network (PLAN) is a collective made up of individuals with experience in a wide variety of activist legal defense organizations. We have been working for several years to facilitate and support legal planning for activists targeted by the state during the Line 3 pipeline resistance campaigns. We choose to use models of organizing that involve deep collaboration; models that bring the resources of experience, the fresh ideas of newer folks, and the guidance of the most impacted to both help those facing repression to fight back, and to build repression resilient movements. It is our experience of how individual actions shape movement repression resilience that has impelled us to share our position on the case of Ruby Montoya and her cooperation with the Federal Government against her former comrade Jessica Reznicek.
Facing significant prison time can be terrifying. Prison is not a healthy place. It is not a place of healing or a place of justice. That is why we do this work; to offer care and support to folks facing the repressive apparatus of the state. The American legal system is designed to isolate you in fear and confusion, thereby making it easier to manipulate you. Understanding this, it is still morally reprehensible and tactically regressive to cooperate with the state to increase the repression faced by ones' former comrades.
People who chose a path of state collaboration, whatever their reason, are dangerous to movements for justice and change. The fact that Ruby is cooperating against the person with whom she most closely acted should make it clear that anyone near her is in danger.
Allowing Ruby Montoya to have continued access to movement spaces and movement resources, or to build her movement celebrity, puts activists and their communities in danger. Ruby has shown a willingness to wield any credibility and social currency in selfish ways. Continuing to support Ruby sends the message that principled responses to repression are not important. We understand that her motivations could inlude many things, from social pressure or mental health struggle, to malice; no matter how she came to the decision to inform on her comrades, she is now a threat to her former communities.
We see ourselves within the community of resistance that stands alongside Jessica Reznicek and her team. The actions of Ruby and her lawyer Daphne Silverman go beyond any "politics-as-usual" and violate the deep principle that is the core of Reznicek's own actions. It is manipulative and contemptuous that Ruby and Daphne Silverman have used Jessica Reznicek’s name and situation to build sympathy for Ruby and bring in cash for Silverman. We must all communicate through our networks that Ruby is a federal informant and Silverman is a profiteer. They should not get a cent of movement funds. If Silverman’s decrees that Ruby is weak-willed and prone to manipulation are to be believed, then surely Silverman herself is culpable of manipulating Ruby to attack true movement lawyers in the attempt to build her own prestige and bank account.
Whether Ruby fully understood the risks that she was taking while acting against the Dakota Access Pipeline is immaterial to her decision to cooperate. It is, however, a good reminder for resistance communities to include repression resilience and legal strategy in their action pre-planning and to discourage bragging or posturing behavior that may encourage people to take on risks that they aren’t actually willing to accept. Talk to each other about how to mitigate risk and how to support each other if things get hard. Remember that more risk doesn’t always mean higher reward, but solidairity always makes us stronger.
We hope that this moment in our shared movement history can help us better understand our relationships and responsibilities to one another.We can renew our support for comrades who stood strong in the face of repression and paid for it with their freedom: Jessica Reznick, Red Fawn Fallis, Steve Martinez, Oso Blanco, Leonard Peltier, and so many others. We further maintain unwavering support to water protectors and defendants who stood against Line 3. Part of how we do this is by making it clear that we will not support anyone who increases the risk to others by collaborating with the state against Line 3 defendants.
In Relationship, Solidarity, Struggle, and Hope,
Your Comrades at PLAN