A Portland City Council member is openly advising residents to buy burner phones and use encrypted messaging apps to avoid being tracked and arrested by federal immigration officers and law enforcement.
Angelita Morillo, a registered member of the Democratic Socialists of America, posted a nearly three-minute video to her Facebook page this week, instructing residents on how to shield themselves from surveillance.
Morillo, an immigrant from Paraguay, offered the advice after President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Portland to defend Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities.
“Your phone? You should consider this a tracker and a listening device at all times,” Morillo said.
“With your phone, they can track your location.
“They can see who you met with.
“If you happen to organize with a bunch of different people and you all took the bus to the same secure location, guess what?
“They have a pattern of who you organize with, who you talk to, and how long and why.”
Morillo went on to recommend that protesters buy burner phones with cash, disable biometric security features, and use encrypted apps like Signal to communicate.
“So you should get a Faraday cage, which blocks the signal from your phone.
“You should disable fingerprint and facial recognition technology to unlock your phone.
“And you should have a pin that is longer than four numbers.
“If you’re going to regularly protest, I also highly recommend going to your local grocery store and buying a burner phone in cash, and using encrypted apps like Signal to communicate with people, and having disappearing messages on,” she said.
Warning About Federal Surveillance
Morillo also told residents to be wary of facial recognition technology, citing the FBI’s use of it to track down Robert Jacob Hoopes.
Hoopes is accused of injuring an ICE officer earlier this year.
“There are facial recognition technology devices that are used at most federal buildings, and most people think that they can beat that by covering their faces,” she said.
“But if you just cover the lower half, guess what?
“You have left your eyes and eyebrows, which are the most identifiable parts of you.”
She urged residents to only protest alongside people they trust and to designate someone outside as “jail support.”
“I believe that we will win, but we have to be smarter, and we have to be better organized than our opposition because they have every tool available to them, and we do not,” Morillo concluded.
WATCH:
Sanctuary City Push
Morillo and other Portland council members are reportedly working to expand the city’s already far-reaching sanctuary policies.
They are aiming to further limit cooperation with ICE, even as federal authorities continue targeting violent gangs and criminal illegal aliens in the city.
READ MORE – Dozens of Illegal Aliens Arrested During Major Human Trafficking Raid in Texas
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