Apparently a ton of Tor exit nodes are run by three letter agencies. There's a reason people are caught using the service for illicit activities all the time.
Obvious FBI Honeypots
This but unironically.
Yes, use Arisuchan instead
Most honeypots are old orgs from Cold War times, like the CPUSA, but the contemporary left is far to marginalized and the one that isn't is in cahoots with the establishment anyway.
Even if there was a cop in my org, why would I give a fuck? We have no right to bear arms in Europe anyway and illegalism is fucking stupid when there is no revolutionary potential.
I believe this is partially right, but much people who got caught through tor did one mistake (like do a login in silkroad without tor enabled once) and that was the reason why the cops could trace them
nice meme my friend
ProtonMail and RiseUp are both honeypots too, compromised by the US.
Please no
Basically any org that takes a very sectarian but also nonsensical line is probably FBI. Look into the Ad Hoc Committee for a Marxist-Leninist Party, the fake Maoist faction they used to create divisions within the early CPUSA and SDS. It's a proven strategy still in use for weakening orgs that rely on their members' unity and resolve. If we're naming names: the DSA Disabilities Working Group, and the RCP (interesting that they are better funded than ever despite ascendant tenants' unions and the DSA being more effective for the interests of 95% of their membership).
Personally I don't think there is much FBI activity targeting super online leftists, we're too ineffective to interest them. And what are they going to do, arrest me for posting egoist memes? Groups that organize irl action, whether protests or assisting unions, are a different story. But those people are by definition not neckbeards, so they use facebook groups for everything. Easy to subpoena, or just infiltrate the old fashioned way.
Yeah all of that is correct, and reading about subversion in the 70s, the feds were really concerned about disciplined, democratic centralist groups coming together. The strategy was to introduce infighting to keep them apart.
If there's even an inkling of civil unrest in any kind of organized way in the U.S. you can be damn sure the feds know about it in advance. Any metropolitan area of a given size with an 'organized' left presence is likely to have a dedicated officer on them, maybe more than one. Their intelligence is extremely good and they know everything already. Basically, you're already locked, stocked and taken into account. Not to induce paranoia but just stating the obvious here.
It's interesting you mention the RCP because they dress up a liberal line in revolutionary language, and they like to escalate situations with the cops. During a tense situation (such as after a police shooting that draws protests) you'll see guys in "BA Speaks!" t-shirts right up at the front trying to agitate.
Incidentally, the left underestimates the extent of monitoring of white nationalist and militia groups. I think there's this belief on the left that they're in cahoots with the feds when that is not accurate (the white nationalists certainly don't feel that way), although there are some groups that are run by informants. There's a tradeoff from the feds' perspective toward doing that. Local police departments are different and are a crapshoot of prejudices and varying levels of laziness and incompetence, but one of the FBI's dedicated missions is rooting out white nationalist infiltration of local law enforcement and they do enjoy bringing the heat down on podunk departments for that.
The white nationalists are also correct that the feds put the screws down harder on them than the black-clad antifas (though the feds monitor them too and always have) but that's because the threat calculation is different. While it might not seem this way from outward-facing statements, the FBI knows very well that the white nationalists are far more dangerous and likely to pop off as the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh the other day demonstrated. At the same time, lone-wolf violence like that is extremely hard to prevent. Even the antifascist researchers on Twitter who had seen this guy before were caught by surprise. You've got thousands of neo-Nazis posting anti-Semitic drivel to their Gab accounts all day and all it takes is one to yell Leeroy Jenkins and unleash a murder spree.
Feds are also worried about autonomous groups of several individuals willing and capable of carrying out "complex attacks." This is a relatively new phenomenon on the extreme right and is demonstrated by the recent indictments of the Rise Above Movement. I believe the number of indictments involving RAM is now up to at least eight – and one member was arrested after fleeing to Mexico. They were acting as these organized neo-Nazi fight club that was both training to and actively traveling across state lines to attack leftists at demonstrations.