Op Organization- Basics

So, you've found a worthy cause and you're ready to create an op? Before you get too carried away, do you know how to create a secure foundation for your op and gather an effective team to carry it out? Here's a few basics to help you get started. There are other ways to do this, other opinions on what works best; this is just one method. This paper is not intended to tell you how to run an op, that's far too event specific and I'm unqualified to even try, this is only to help you get started with the organizational side.

First, pick your preferred team. Hundreds of people will help spread the word and support the op but you need a core team making the decisions and doing the research. Choose people you trust who have the skills you believe you'll need for the op. Will you need doxers? Writers? Video makers? Something more exotic? Pick an odd number of people so you can vote when disagreements on tactics occur (when, not if). Try to pick primarily experienced people but always include a couple of new people. Everyone has to learn and being asked into an op will mean a lot to a newfag. Don't limit your choices to only Anonymous members, many great activists do not identify as Anonymous but many will work Anonymous ops.

Contact your chosen people and ask them if they are willing to help. Never assume, always ask. Expect at least half of the people you ask to decline, so always have backups in mind. I find 5, 7, or 9 to be good core numbers. You can always bring in more if needed.

Ops can be risky, always ensure that members use good security and privacy tools and practices. Remember that even the most moral ops will generate resistance if not actual hostility.

Its usually best to designate one person as media contact. This ensures consistency. Ideally this would be someone with existing media contacts. Also, if victim families are a thing in the op, its usually best that one person deal with them also. You have to decide for yourself how much influence they will be given; I strongly recommend you decide that in advance and make it clear to them as well as to your op team.

Its a good idea to have at least one person on the team who actually lives in the place where the op is centered (if applicable). This helps ensure prompt notice of local happenings and also gives you an organizer already in place if protest events are required. Another good idea is to have at least one person who is highly proficient with Facebook. Many anons don't use it but most civilians do, the op will benefit from having a presence there too.

Remember, we have no leaders. When you invite someone to be part of the op their opinion is immediately equal to yours, choose wisely. This is why I always prefer an odd number of people involved.

Next you need to set up a place to work. Many well organized ops use a web application known as a pad. There's several pads available out there, I generally use titanpad.com. Its free and easy to use. Set your pad up as a secure pad and create logins for all your people. Login email addresses don't have to be real but the one used to create the pad does.

Due to cookie issues, pads are not Tor friendly. If you try to use Tor you'll have login issues so use a regular browser. You are behind a VPN, right? Be sure to set a couple of the accounts as admin so people other than you can reset passwords and such.

Pads are set up with an info section on the left and chat on the right. Keep your left side clean and organized. An average op pad will grow to well over 1000 lines so its important to stay organized. Use section headings and sub-headings and keep the line numbers in your table of contents updated. The pad will assign a text color to each person that logs in. This color can be changed but try to keep the same colors throughout the op so you can tell who edited what on the left side. Your edits will show in your color. This will be clear when you see it in action. Its simple and effective.

This is the basic pad template I prefer to start with for the left side. Read the rules section carefully, they're important and I strongly recommend you keep them in place on your own pads.

**Begin pad template**

***OpGeneralPurpose***

Table Of Contents (please keep line numbers updated as pad grows)
Account Info-
Rules-
Member contacts-
General info-
Press releases-
Media attention-
Media contacts-

********************************************************************************

Op twitter account:
@OpGeneralPurpose
password

Op Email account:
opgeneralpurpose@somemail.com
password

Feel free to use these accounts for op business

*******************************************************************************

Pad rules and General Tips to Make Life Easier:
This  pad, its location, its members, and its contents are completely  confidential. Do not disclose the existence of this site to anyone  without approval of pad admins. Should you leave the op for any reason,  confidentiality remains in force.

Please  do not click any links within the pad or the chat. Copy the URL (Right  click/copy link location) and paste (Right click/paste) into a new  browser window. This prevents the pad URL from being compromised by referrer links on servers.

Please do not click the save button, no saving is required. Doing so creates revision lists which cannot be deleted.

Anyone can edit pad text. If you see obvious errors such as spelling, please fix unless they are part of a quote.

If any questions, ask, don't guess.

******************************************************************

Member Contact:
use XMPP (jabber) if available for security reasons. If XMPP not available, Wickr and Kik are reasonable options. Twitter DM should not be used for confidential info.

******************************************************************

General Info
This is where you put info gathered as a result of the op. Op goals and such should go here also. General case info, witness statements, contact info for person involved who are not op members, etc.

******************************************************************

Press Releases and videos
Links to pastebin and youtube items generated by the op

******************************************************************

Media attention
Links to online media stories about the op and the underlying issue

*******************************************************************

Media Contacts
Copies of correspondence with media go here.

******************************************************************

**End pad template**

Obviously you can add/remove sections and modify things to fit your specific needs but this will give you a good starting point.

OK, you've got your team and your workplace; the next step is to get everyone together on the pad and create a strategy. Listen to every member's ideas, you chose them for a reason, don't forget that.

Remember, this is just one way to do this, other people have other methods, some probably better. The important things are organization, teamwork, and OpSec.