Thread by @iyad_elbaghdadi

Hello everyone. This is an update on my situation (and my team). It's also sorta an appeal for help or advice.

When you're facing the kind of threats I'm facing, it's not like someone knocks on your door and gives you bad news then walks away. It's an *entire* lifestyle change. For *everyone* around you. The way you do just about everything changes.

It's rather rare that words fail me, but right now words do fail me when it comes to expressing just how much of a mess it's been (in both the private and work realms). It was sorta kinda under control for most of May. But now it's approaching breakdown levels.

Everything has gotten more complicated. And I mean everything. From everyday chores to living situation, to which routes to take, to where I can or can't travel, to digital security (my digital life is an absolute mess). The overhead in effort, time, and cost has been brutal.

Let me tell you a bit about the digital mess (or at least, what I'm allowed to share). Before, I carried one device. Now have a bagful of various devices and gadgets. Six of them. And you have to pray that everything works with everything the way it should.

Believe me, the digital disruption has been more stressful than police protection. At least with police protection, the police does the work and the government pays for it. With digital protection, I'm grateful for expert advice, but in the end it's all on me, so is the cost.

It's been a struggle to maintain some kinda normalcy, avoid backsliding on my PTSD recovery, and trying to just be able to work. Let alone figure out how all the gadgets and services and "special arrangements". But the work backlog is just getting to insurmountable levels.

This isn't to mention just how much more time of my day should go towards taking care of family affairs as everyone goes through a very difficult and dangerous transition. Meanwhile I'm really sapped, and wondering how I'll manage to get all of this done.

I have by now perhaps over 200 messages from whistle-blowers and fellow activists and people who need help and journalists who want an interview or a quote. Not to mention my agent and my editor (almost forgot, I have a book manuscript deadline coming up), etc

I could reliably get 10 hours of work a day before. Now I'm lucky if I get three. Workload has gone up, my bandwidth has gone down. Work used to excite me. It still does but now it also gives me this sinking feeling, like how on earth are we gonna manage to do all of this?

I'm seriously worried about my team's sustainability. We sorta kinda got by before because we could work long uninterrupted hours and could tap into a network of consultants and volunteers when we need a boost. But with all of these complications, I'm seriously worried.

The way we did work before can no longer work. For months (or years really) our internal conversation has been about scaling up, but we always traded that off against speed, agility, and working with people who don't need to climb learning curves.

But now I'm afraid it's scale up or die for @Kawaakibi. Hurts me to say it but we need to transform if we are to survive.

You know the capabilities of my adversary. I'm up against the two governments with the deepest pockets probably on the planet. Meanwhile, we have no sponsors - we're proudly and fiercely independent and wouldn't give up our independence for the world.

I know many of you want to help. Right now I'm just thinking aloud. But I think the only way for @Kawaakibi to survive after these severe "adjustments" is to raise funds and expand our team. Urgently. That's not simple when you also need to be completely independent.

Will @Kawaakibi survive? I don't know. I hope so. The idea that powerful people who run entire states are after us is in a way empowering. But in the end, there's just no comparison when it comes to resources. They can swamp us. They already have.