Through the tactic of the fax jam, a small group of determined activists, armed only with computers and modems, can disrupt business as usual for their opponents of choice. The fax jam was pioneered by the AIDS activist group ACT UP in the late '80s and is an excellent way to involve people in direct action who have limited time for activism.

These simple instructions will show you how to conduct a fax jam without running afoul of the law. I developed these tips the hard way. One evening in October 1997, two New York Police Department detectives arrested me at my apartment and charged me with "aggravated harassment" under an anti-stalking statute. My alleged crime? Sending faxes to the New York City Partnership, New York's Chamber of Commerce.

Indeed, I had personally sent several thousand faxes to the partnership, and a large and growing e-mail list of activists (known as the E-mail Army) had begun subjecting the partnership to day-long phone and fax jams on a regular basis. We were protesting its role as the architect of a city plan to bulldoze hundreds of community gardens and replace them with $120,000 condominiums.

The District Attorney declined to prosecute the case so the whole area of "fax crime" remains legally murky. During the process I learned a few things that can help you avoid prosecution. I had faxed the same message, "Don't bulldoze the gardens!," over and over. That left me open to the charge that, after a certain point, the faxes had lost their communicative value and were pure harassment.

The key to First Amendment-protected faxing is to emphasize the political content of your fax so that the purpose of the fax is to communicate rather than to harass.

Of course, your purpose is to communicate your message emphatically. So you fax a long letter stating your political opinions in great detail. You write it one word to a page so that it's hundreds of pages long. You send it in coordination with others.

Creating the Faxes

Save this document as a file; you could call it "faxjam." Then fax the document to your target, using your fax/modem software. Get 10, 20 or 200 people to do this on the same day, and you'll create major disruption with minimal effort. I always put my real name and fax number on the fax. It is technically a violation of federal communications law (aimed at stopping unsolicited fax advertising) to do otherwise. Whatever you choose to do, keep in mind that the number you use can be traced quite easily if you do something stupid, like fax a threat.

Conducting the Fax Jam Campaign

1. A group of activists with e-mail.
2. Fax number(s) for your opponents.

This step can sometimes entail a bit of research, for it requires first pinpointing specific individuals who have the power to take the action you want: say, the city commissioner who could pull a community garden off the auction block. There's no need for any cloak-and-dagger tricks to get the fax number. Just call up and ask, "May I have the number for sending faxes to so-and-so?" The receptionist will almost always give the number without further ado. (If you're planning to go after multiple targets in a single institution, you will of course want to get all the numbers you need before the fun begins.)

3. A coordinator to call the jams by e-mail and administer the e-mail list. Some jams are planned well in advance (to fall, say, on the anniversary of some heinous deed); these are best announced through an alert mailed one to two days beforehand. Others are called as a nearly instantaneous response to an event.

Keep your action alerts brief and concise, and place the crucial information in the first 12 lines. An example:
WHAT: Fax jam against real-estate developer Donald Capoccia.
WHY: For bulldozing four Lower East Side community gardens and scheming to bulldoze two more.
WHEN: Friday, May 1, all day long.
FAX: (212) 534-5021.

Three Cautions:

1. If your fax jams are successfully disruptive, your opponent will probably start looking for ways to make you stop. Any individual who is asked to stop faxing by a specific target should do so to avoid any possibility of a civil suit.
2. A full-scale fax jam is usually most effective fairly late in a pressure campaign, after less disruptive tactics have failed.
3. The person responsible for dealing with the fax mess is usually someone other than your actual target, most commonly a clerical worker. Our group of community garden defenders has made a habit of sending lavish bouquets or flowering plants to the receptionists affected by our jams, along with an apology for the increased work load