who has the upper hand in ICA action against a government?

http://www.slate.com/id/2281743/

This Slate article by Torie Bosch claims that authoritarian regimes are just as savvy as protesters when it comes to making use of the Internet .  So you want to start a revolution on facebook?  Know that someone from the government will no doubt check out your facebook friends list once they learn of your desires.  Want to catch tweets from a protest organizer?  Just understand that your friendly dictator may just grab the list of who all is being tweeted.

I think this article is overly pessimistic about the dangers of using the Internet to protest a dangerous government.  Is the author claiming there's some other alternative way to protest and stay safe?  If you're going to organize, then you just might have spies in your midst, whether you are online or not.  One big advantage of using the Internet is the potential size of your network.  If you start organizing a protest and can reach thousands of people at once instead of perhaps dozens, there is strength in numbers.

There are ways to try to be safe online, just as in any other way of trying to organize. You can use TOR to help maintain your anonymity. The core group can use only nicknames and be tucked away on some innocuous web site, rather than revoltstartshere.org or something that would be checked. 

Mainly, though, it is just common sense that will keep you as safe as possible while still organizing and promoting.  It's a game of cat-and-mouse whether you're online or whether you are not.  Besides that, there are companies like Narus that provide sophisticated systems to governments for sifting Internet traffic. These systems might make you vulnerable unless you are a very sophisticated user.

I don't have any experience protesting a dangerous regime. I helped organize protests against the Church of Scientology, which is known for being aggressive and litigious against its perceived enemies. Some of us sought to maintain our anonymity, but I chose to simply be right out in the open and just be very careful with what I did and said. So far, I've never been sued by them, though I have been deposed several times, been followed by private investigators, been smeared online and in fliers, etc.  Perhaps it's a good system for some people to be open and others to strive for anonymity.