Intelexit is an international project that helps

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a member of the intelligence field employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a r ...

s to exit their organisations because of ethical or psychological reasons. It is a project from the

Peng Collective The Peng Collective is a group of culture jamming activists based in Berlin. In 2016, the collective was part of the Berlin Biennale, in 2018 of the Manifesta Biennale and the Athens Biennale. In 2018, they were awarded the Aachen Peace Prize. I ...

, usually known for subversive campaigning and

tactical media Tactical media is a term coined in 1996, to denote a form of media activism that privileges temporary interventions in the media sphere over the creation of permanent and alternative media outlets. Examples Tactical media projects are often a mix ...

and was launched on September 28, 2015.

Outreach activities

To reach the

target group The target audience is the intended audience or readership of a publication, advertisement, or other message catered specifically to the previously intended audience. In marketing and advertising, the target audience is a particular group of cons ...

of intelligence officers and subcontractors, the organisations launched their campaign with a website offering details about ethics and procedure to exit secret services and an automatically generated resignation form. The security expert

Bruce Schneier Bruce Schneier (; born January 15, 1963) is an American cryptographer, computer security professional, privacy specialist, and writer. Schneier is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Berkman ...

and Thomas Drake support the campaign in their advertisement video. As part of an international advertisement campaign involving advertisement trucks in front of the

NSA The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

building at Fort Meade, USA, and one of the NSA contractor's favourite lunch places Cafe Joe's, in front of the

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Primar ...

in the UK and the Dagger Complex, the Lucius D. Clay Kaserne, the

US Embassy The United States has the second largest number of active diplomatic posts of any country in the world after the People's Republic of China, including 272 bilateral posts (embassies and consulates) in 174 countries, as well as 11 permanent miss ...

and the

Federal Intelligence Service The Federal Intelligence Service (, ; BND) is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, directly subordinate to the Chancellor's Office. The BND headquarters is located in central Berlin. The BND has 300 locations in Germany and foreign cou ...

buildings in Berlin, Germany. They distributed leaflets in front of several buildings at the same time, being sent away from GCHQ in the UK by security guards. In Germany, they wheat pasted a part of the German constitution at the building of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and documented how the employees tore it off. Intelexit also performed an airborne leaflet operation over the Dagger Complex with a drone advertising for the exit program.

Positions

One of the spokespersons,

Jérémie Zimmermann Jérémie Zimmermann (born 1978) is a French people, French computer science engineer and co-founder of the Paris-based La Quadrature du Net, a citizen advocacy group defending fundamental freedoms online as well as a co-founder of Hacking With ...

claims that the organisation "speaks to employees who are unsatisfied in their jobs, due to moral conflicts, and encourages them to consider termination of employment as an act of personal strength and a contribution to democracy." “We know for a fact that there are many, many people working there who are conflicted, anxious and ultimately completely against what these agencies are doing,” says Ariel Fisher, another press officer of the organisation. As described at the press conference, the organisation is not advocating for

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

s but to support the individuals in their courage to overcome ethical and psychological pain. It is not just an ethical standpoint against mass surveillance,

war crime A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

s conducted by secret services or local misuse of secret structures like the German case of the Nazi Terror group NSU that was backed up by the German internal intelligence.

Campaign material and resources

A brochure is available to distribute to the personnel of spy agencies, photographs of previous actions, a press kitPress kit
Intelexit. and other documents are available for reuse.

References

{{reflist 2015 establishments in Germany Organizations established in 2015 Political advocacy groups in Germany Organisations based in Berlin Internet-related activism Civil liberties advocacy groups Freedom of expression organizations