Noncooperation Statement

A draft of this statement was first adopted by the Firestorm Collective on 1/20/25.

It is widely known that Firestorm advocates for a world without prisons or policing, and does not look to those institutions to resolve conflicts or create safety for its members. Nevertheless, it's important to articulate how our values take us beyond non-reliance to a position of noncooperation with the criminal legal system.

We hope that this statement will provide our community with clear information about our values and how we respond to threats, and in so doing, promote the wider adoption of resistance to state power.

Censorship, Surveillance & State Repression

Our bookstore is no stranger to unwanted government attention; we've been threatened by city officials, visited by the FBI, and surveilled by police. Historically, the investigation and prosecution of activists has aimed to disrupt our movements for change, sow fear and isolation among participants, break intergenerational bonds, and criminalize struggles for freedom. But we can overcome these attacks through principled action and uncompromising solidarity.

Members of our collective have participated in and studied movements that faced state repression, and we have seen that the State is not our friend. Radical ancestors and elders—from militant unionists, to Black liberationists, anti-imperialists, Indigenous activists, earth and animal liberationists, queer anti-assimilationists, and generations of abolitionists—have shown us that there is nothing to be won in government courts, and nothing to be gained in conversation with their agents.

On the question of state power, our values as anarchists and booksellers align. The freedom to explore and exchange ideas, to make up one's own mind about the world and conspire with others to change it, stands in stark relief to the dictates of authority. As a bookstore we therefore oppose both formal government restriction of free expression as well as the chilling effect created by government surveillance and intimidation.

The most free and wild thing we have in this world is our love for each other, and we know that our health, our safety and our liberation can only exist in a world without their cops, their courts and their cages. Our strength lies in knowing that we can provide that for each other, and that nothing they offer or threaten is worth betraying our commitment to our communities.
Katie Yow, NC grand jury resister

Our Response

In accordance with our deeply held values, Firestorm has made the following commitments:

  1. We will minimize non-required collection and storage of information about customers, authors, event participants, and others who engage with our co-op.
  2. We will resist, and publicly disclose, any attempt to obtain such information when it exists.
  3. We will decline to answer questions from police and government agents.
  4. We will fight any court or government subpoena, process, or demand for records, testimony, or evidence.
  5. We will support those in our community who face state repression, regardless of “guilt” or “innocence.”
  6. We will retain legal counsel to defend our freedom to not cooperate with the State.

We know that these actions cannot guarantee safety for our members or community, but to cooperate in the face of our own repression, or the repression of others, would be a profoundly unsafe betrayal. Noncooperation is both the ethical and strategic position for those who want to build a new world, but must contend with the old one.

Further Reading

In the course of developing this statement, we drew inspiration from many sources, including the following: