The Student Liberation Front (SLF), a secret group founded predominantly to cause mischief and humor, was first noticed during the late 1980s and early 1990s, generally at colleges and universities in the San Francisco Bay Area. Although the group laid claim to a number of harmless pranks, their notoriety led to considerable news coverage, particularly at De Anza College in Cupertino, California and at the University of California, Davis.
One of the most famous pranks pulled off by the group occurred during the early morning of what was to be the grand opening of De Anza College's new 4-story parking structure. To the amusement of students, but not so to the administration, the sun rose on a parking structure completely sealed off by yellow police tape, construction barriers, and posted flyers announcing that the parking structure had been declared unsafe in case of earthquake by the Santa Clara County supervisor (this just a few years after the disastrous 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake). The event raised a flurry of media and administrative investigations, but no members of the SLF were ever identified or apprehended.
Although the group's visibilty faded in the early 1990s, rumors of their continued existence and low-level pranks continued well into the new century. The identity of the members of the SLF have never been revealed, although many suspect a handful of former activist students from several Bay Area colleges and universities who have since graduated and gone on to lead successful lives in corporate and public organizations throughout the nation.
