Anonymous: We are legion.

On being critical of bigots, and their racist friends

Thu, 31 May 2012 17:10:00 -0400

Hate mongers, bigots, homophobes, transphobes, racists — this goes out to you: Y U no liek people different from you? Seriously, chill the fuck out.

This week, I tweeted about the arrest of known hater, Aaron Walker. Walker runs an “everyone draw Mohammed” blog, an Islamophobic project/campaign which now appears to be private. This was intended as an offshoot of the wider, international “everyone draw Mohammed day” movement that was inspired as a reaction to censorship. Walker, however, took it in a hateful direction, focusing on propagating Islamophobic ideas. I will defend your right to say and draw whatever you like, but I will criticize it if your motives for doing so come from bigotry, and so will the court of public opinion. This is exactly what happened to Walker. He lost his job for his overt, virulent, and hateful Islamophobic position. He blames Kimberlin, and he hasn’t stopped wanting to hit back at him ever since.

When I tweeted about his arrest, I didn’t expect to fall into a briar patch of hatemongers, nor for them to rally and make me part of a false narrative - mainly, that I’m “Neal Rauhauser”. I’m not, No really, honest to goodness!

Robert Stacy McCain, listed as a white supremacist and member of the League of the South by the Southern Poverty Law Center, seems to also be trying to craft a narrative that he was threatened and had to leave his home. I find it interesting that he hasn’t issued any peace orders against those he says are threatening him. McCain, I’d like to know why you really left your house. Surely it wasn’t because you were found out to be a white supremacist and hate-monger? And what’s with all the tweets about the White Aryan Resistance?

I will not apologize for criticizing bigots:

If you guys want to continue to pull me into your game of mystery and political who-gives-a-shit-intrigue, be my guest:

But know this: I’ll continue to hound you for your bigotry and hatred.

//nyancat approves of this post.

anonmedics: An extremely disturbing report on the emerging...

Thu, 03 May 2012 16:59:05 -0400

anonmedics:

An extremely disturbing report on the emerging police tactic of employing brutal sexual assault against Occupation protesters as an intimidation and provocation tactic. Police have engaged in rape and sexual assault against civilians since time immemorial, but the use of such tactics against Occupy may finally serve to bring some light to the intrinsic evil, exploitation, and misogyny of the United States law enforcement industrial complex.

Read the full article here.

Arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new. I’m not aware of any reports of police intentionally grabbing women’s breasts before March 17, but on March 17 there were numerous reported cases, and in later nightly evictions from Union Square, the practice became so systematic that at least one woman told me her breasts were grabbed by five different police officers on a single night (in one case, while another one was blowing kisses.) The tactic appeared so abruptly, is so obviously a violation of any sort of police protocol or standard of legality, that it is hard to imagine it is anything but an intentional policy.

For obvious reasons, most of the women who have been victims of such assaults have been hesitant to come forward. Suing the city is a miserable and time-consuming task and if a woman brings any charge involving sexual misconduct, they can expect to have their own history and reputations—no matter how obviously irrelevant—raked over the coals, usually causing immense damage to their personal and professional life. The threat of doing so operates as a very effective form of intimidation. One exception is Cecily McMillan, who was not only groped but suffered a broken rib and seizures during her arrest on March 17, and held incommunicado, denied constant requests to see her lawyer, for over 24 hours thereafter. Shortly after release from the hospital she appeared on Democracy Now! And showed part of a handprint, replete with scratch-marks, that police had left directly over her right breast. (She is currently pursuing civil charges against the police department)

UPDATE: FCC Comment period for #opBART ends today

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:52:00 -0400

There are some interesting developments lately in regard to the cell-shutoff by BART. Today the California Public Utility Commission issued a comment defending their regulatory authority. Read their comment here: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/comment/view?id=6017032811

Our take:

from CPUC’s filing, it looks like they’re trying to (over)protect their state regulatory authority, and BART’s local authority. However, irrespective of their quotations of the Omnibus act, etc., the pre-emption and petition provisions in the Communications Act still apply, so the FCC can exercise pre-emption over a governmental body which violates the Communications Act. The real question is whether the governmental body (e.g. BART) is a common carrier under the Act or not. If so, FCC can regulate adequately. However, even if the FCC finds that BART is not a common carrier, or only a common carrier with respect to some of its services, there are other provisions of law (CALEA, Comm Act. Sec 214, etc) that bind local government agencies like BART, that can cause them to be penalized. That said, I think the California Public Utilities Commission is overblowing their argument to emphasize that they have primary regulatory authority in California, even though the fact is that FCC can pre-empt, the CPUC doesn’t want to admit it.

Today, the FCC public comment period ends. When it ends, there will be a “reply comment” period of another 30 days. Usually the people doing the reply comments are those represented by lawyers (telcos, government agencies, etc.) After that, the FCC will have to go through all the public comments and reply comments, and the FCC will prepare a response, and then a ruling.

Either way they rule, it will likely be legally challenged by the losing side. If that happens, then it goes to the courts.

Profits over People: the Trans Pacific Partnership

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 11:19:00 -0500

As Julian Assange’s final appeal of extradition proceeds today, we’d
like to take a moment to reflect on the lessons of Wikileaks.
Wikileaks and its supporters have been relentlessly harassed - both
through the legal system, but more often by the abusive exercise of
raw power. Their alleged ‘crime’? Attempting to bring to light the
conspiracies and deceptions that underly the modern corporate
nation-state.

Transparency is essential to the effective functioning of democracy.
Our votes mean nothing if our elected officials and unelected
bureaucrats can make back room deals without our knowledge. And far
too often, the mainstream media has played along, rather than
fulfilling its civic duty to report truth and hold the powerful
accountable.

Our institutions having failed us, the task is left up to us. The past
year has demonstrated the Internet to be a powerful force for freedom.
While we don’t subscribe to a naive “just add Twitter and water and
watch your democracy grow” theory, the evidence is overwhelming. The
peaceful revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the ongoing struggle in
Syria and the global Occupy movement - all have demonstrated the power
of the Net to effective positive change in the real world lives of
millions. To say nothing of the smaller revolutions, closer to our
hearts and homes- the creation of online communities where we can
explore and express ourselves in a world that’s grown ever-more
conformist and standardized; the planting of seeds of local
reconnection with our neighbors.

New communications technologies have always been a threat to people
and institutions in power; they have responded with repression and
restriction. It took 100 years for kings to clamp down on the printing
press; 30 years from the invention of radio to the creation of the FCC
at the behest of the US Navy and commercial broadcasters. We forget
how young the Internet is - most of us have only had access for the
last 15 years. We believe that because it’s always been open, it
always will be.

The SOPA blackout was an amazing and beautiful show of solidarity in
response to further attempts at censorship. The government’s response?
To take Megaupload offline the very next day. There may have been
piracy going on, but millions of legitimate files were lost. The
add-on effects were powerful - half a dozen of the largest file
hosting sites disabled their sharing functionality in the next few
days. We are losing our ability to communicate, yet again.
Only a few days later, Poland erupted in protests over the ACTA treaty
- an attempt at further Net regulation via policy laundering (sneaking
in changes to domestic law in the form of an international treaty).
ACTA has been characterized by an astounding lack of transparency -
negotiated in secret while excluding civil society and NGOs. For many
years, we only knew what was in the ACTA text because of leaks. The
protests have spread all over Europe, and expanded to include
opposition to versions of SOPA in Ireland and Canada (bill C-11). The
European Parliament’s chief analyst for ACTA resigned, calling the
process a ‘charade’. The Slovenian ambassador apologized for not
listening to her conscience and refusing to sign; she has called for
people to protest ACTA in her name.

In light of this history, we’d like to bring your attention to the
latest back room deal - the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). TPP is a
“free trade agreement” that will cover the Pacific Rim - US, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore, Brunei,
Mexico, Vietnam and eventually others - nearly half the world’s
population. It’s being negotiated in a luxury hotel in West Hollywood
(where else?) RIGHT NOW. It’s been called the Son of ACTA - though as
you’ll see, that description doesn’t go far enough. This treaty is
almost comically, unbelievably evil - it’s still true. We’ll be
tweeting links and updating this post throughout the day; we’ve
consulted the experts and done the best research we can - accurate
information about TPP is hard to find due to the secrecy that
surrounds it. Given the urgency, we believed it was necessary to
publish as soon as possible.

TPP is completely secret and non-transparent. Our only source of
information about it has been leaks - NGOs have been left out in the
cold. Even worse than ACTA, the very meetings themselves have been
kept secret. And the memo declaring them secret? Yup, that’s secret
too. All records from negotiation would be kept hidden for FOUR YEARS
after adoption.

It gets worse though. NGOs got wind of this weeks’ meeting four days
before. At previous rounds, they were at least able to mingle with
negotiators during coffee breaks. Totally excluded for this round,
they booked space in the conference hotel in an attempt to give civil
society a voice - only to have the US Trade Representative call the
hotel and kick them out. Scandalous.

TPP is bad for the Internet and innovation. It would require countries
to criminalize non-commercial copyright violation, a provision aimed
squarely at Bittorrent users - imagine being arrested for sharing MP3s
(or even playing them in public without permission). TPP globalizes
the US DMCA’s provisions on circumventing digital locks (goodbye
jailbreaks) and tries to sneak SOPA’s domain seizure in the back door.
It further extends copyright terms and gives rightsholders total
control over imports of legally acquired, genuine goods - so no
bringing home that Mickey Mouse stuff animal you bought on your
overseas trip without Disney’s permission.

TPP would treat temporary copies as copyright infringement, a
provision rejected during the 1996 WIPO discussions. If enforced, this
would literally destroy the web - a browser simply cannot function
without copying the necessary bits to your local machine for display.
Lest we be accused of exagerating, this provision would also apply to
caches run by mobile phone providers, which are technically necessary
for effective browsing on a phone.

But TPP isn’t just bad for the Internet - it’s bad for everyone. Our
personal favorite: the roll back of the humanitarian exemption for
drug patents (generics). People are literally going to die of AIDS &
tuberculosis to protect Big Pharma’s profits. There’s a similar
situation for seeds and other crops- with patent enforcement at the
borders, Monsanto would be able to order customs agents to seize a
grain shipment on mere suspicion of violating its GMO patents, no
judicial review needed. The US lumber industry is trying to use TPP to
force Canada to sell off its provincial-owned forests - and allow it
to bring clear cutting to our northern neighbor. Other clauses attempt
to roll back global financial regulation put in place after mortgage
crisis. Finally, corporations would be empowered to appeal to
unaccountable global institutions (World Bank, WTO, etc.) to force
governments to compensate them for the loss of expected future profits
due to environmental, health and other regulations. This is nothing
less than a corporate takeover of national sovereignty, plain and
simple.

The US Trade Representative Ron Kirk is being “advised” in these
negotiations by a who’s who of the corporate elite (we’ll be
publishing a list later today). At this point, you may be wondering
how the US is going to get other countries to agree to such clearly
unfavorable terms. The USTR uses trade policy as a stick to beat other
countries into line - most favored nation status, the 301 watch list,
tariffs and border controls. Think: “if you want to sell rice, you’ll
implement DRM and drug patents”. We have no objections to tough
bargaining on behalf of Americans, but using this power for the
benefit of a few corporations is outrageous and unacceptable. Don’t be
fooled by arguments about lost jobs - if TPP goes through, the money
will go straight the wealthy elite. This treaty is the very definition
of putting profits over people.

We must act to end the Trans Pacific Partnership NOW. The negotiations
conclude on Friday. We’ll be publishing and tweeting steps you can
take in the next few hours. But we must take action - this cannot be
another round of whining on Twitter and Facebook. If our only outlet
is online, we’re shouting in vain. If you care about freedom,
democracy or the very lives of the people on this planet, you’ll join
us to stop TPP before it’s too late.

We are all Anonymous.
Expect us.

References:

Digital Sit-ins: DDOS is legitimate civil disobedience

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:49:00 -0500

Distributed denial of service (DDOS) is a favorite tactic of Anonymous. While the media likes to call DDOS a form of ‘hacking’, this is at best a technical misunderstanding. DDOS does no permanent damage and doesn’t involve breaking into servers or stealing data. Rather, it simply overwhelms a server with UDP traffic - the online equivalent of fans at a football game yelling so loud that the offensive line can’t hear the quarterback. This XKCD comic explains it best:

In the US, DDOS has been treated as a felony under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act punishable by a mandatory 10 years in prison. Given its similarity to long-accepted civil disobdience tactics such as sit-ins and blocking building entrances, this harsh penalty is outrageous and unfair.

Anonymous is not unanimous, and opinion on DDOS is perhaps more divided than any other tactic. Indeed, this very faction, in consultation with anti-ACTA NGOs, has been calling for a halt to DDOS for the last several days.

But after this photo of Polish politicians protesting ACTA went viral yesterday, it’s time we all re-evaluate the role & legitimacy of DDOS. These Parlimentarians were wearing Anonymous Guy Fawkes mask while the Parliament’s website was down due to DDOS by Anonymous. We can’t emphasize that point enough - this is a game-changer.

DDOS has been a remarkably effective tactic for bringing the world’s attention to injustice, from repression in Tunisia and Egypt to censorship by SOPA and ACTA. A symbolically rich response, DDOS says “If you silence us, we will silence you”. In that respect, it works.

But DDOS is a single tool in our arsenal of protest, not the only one. We need to engage in the mainstream political process as well - and for many of us, deeply frustrated by decades of corruption and unresponsiveness, this will require holding our nose. As events in Poland have shown, we have allies in unexpected places. There comes a time when we must use words to articulate our demands and desires, instead of UDP packets. There are still many lulz to be had- in the form of mass emails, fax blasts and overloaded telephone switchboards. We therefore call on Anonymous and all freedom loving Internauts to contact your politicians directly; we demand “No SOPA, No ACTA! Hands off the Internet!”

We’ll be publishing more actions you can take in coming days.

Europe

United States

Global

Bright, and Clear: The Future of Free Speech

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:42:00 -0500

Bright, and Clear: The Future of Free Speech

===============================================

A rallying cry on the occassion of the Web’s first mass blackout

As we watch the web go dark today in protest against the SOPA/PIPA censorship bills, let’s take a moment and reflect on why this fight is so important. We may have learned that free speech is what makes America great, or instinctively resist attempts at silencing our voices. But these are abstract principles, divorced from the real world and our daily lives.

Free speech is the foundation of a free society. We can have the vote all we want. We can donate money wherever we want. But unless we’re able to talk to each other and figure out collectively _what_ we want, those things don’t matter.

We believe a healthy society doesn’t allow its artists, musicians and other creators to starve. The copyright industry has been justly criticized for abusing the political process in a desperate attempt to maintain its role as a cultural gatekeeper, a business model made obsolete by a digital age of free copies. But the RIAA, MPAA & IFPI deserve our opprobrium for making enormous profits while often leaving the very artists it claims to represent *poorer* than they would be as independents (http://www.negativland.com/albini.html). While the public may have greater access to the few artists deemed sufficiently marketable to gain mass media promotion, fewer and fewer of us are making art and music in our own lives.

It’s time we make a stand for a better world - not merely take rearguard actions to preserve a status quo that is _already_ failing us. Accordingly, we present the following list of demands:

* We call on national legislatures to not only reject ACTA efforts to globalize the American intellectual property regime, but to abolish the WIPO.

* We demand the elimination of the DMCA’s registration requirement for qualification under the “safe harbor” provision. It’s absurd that a website owner needs to mail in a form and pay a $100+ fee to the government to register a contact for copyright violations. A web page at a standard location (a la robots.txt) should suffice.

* We expect courts to apply penalties just as severe to rightsholders who issue abusive takedown notices as those applied to copyright violators.

* No more Jammie Thomases. Any penalties for copyright infringement must be sane and reasonable and not based unsubstantiated, outlandish claims of harm.

* No more Dajaz1’s. DHS/ICE’s seizure of over 350 domains without court review is an affront to due process and the basic principles of our legal system.

* No more Megauploads. Any penalties must be narrowly focused, with remedies specifically tailored to individual instances of infringement. Broad reaching site shutdowns harm innocent legitimate users and break the web.

* The Department of Justice must begin an anti-trust investigation into the copyright industry, with a specific focus on collusion between rightsholders and ISPs in monitoring Internet users, and payola and cross ownership with mass media.

* We demand an end to sales of radio frequencies into private hands. We hold that spectrum is a form of speech - it rightly belongs to the people and is not the government’s to auction off to begin with.

* We demand that ISPs stop interfering with file sharing via BitTorrent or any other protocol.

* We recognize a right of total ownership, not merely licensing, of products we have purchased and a right to tinker and modify them as we see fit. The Library of Congress should not be determining the acceptable boundaries of technology.

* We reject the principle of contributory infringement entirely. While there may be bad uses, there is no bad code.

* We expect legislators and judges to make efforts to educate themselves about the technologies they oversee, and to call on and respect the opinions of technical experts when necessary. The Internet makes nerds of us all.

* All research receiving any public funding, directly or indirectly, must be placed in the public domain upon publication.

* For the sake of innovation and competitiveness, the US Patent & Trade Office must immediately cease issuing software and business method patents, and declare all such existing patents null and void. We unequivocally reject any patents on mathematical formulas and genes or other naturally-occurring substances (human or otherwise).

* Copyright and patent terms must be reduced to reasonable lengths (two and five years from the time of creation, respectively). Works should only be eligible for the length of protection in the effect when created - the continuing extension of terms to protect Disney’s ownership of Mickey Mouse must cease.

* We recognize a broad right of “fair use” as essential to a vibrant and creative culture. We will remix, sample, mash up, translate, perform, parody and otherwise create derivative works as we see fit.

* Courts must accord bloggers the same rights as mainstream reporters. The right to a free press originally meant a literal, physical printing press - not membership in some government sanctioned elite. Blogs are the modern day digital equivalent.

We call upon all freedom loving Internauts to join us. We further call upon our legislators, bureaucrats and the media & telecommunications industries to immediately begin implementing our demands. The future of free speech is bright, and clear - either stand with us or get out of the way.

—Anonymous

Originally posted at http://pastebay.com/303193

On Indefinite detention

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:33:12 -0500

Indefinite detention is wrong, and ignores history. Mike Scala rightly puts it into context for us.

“Codifying indefinite detention (NDAA) likewise offends the principles of our Constitution. I find the justification that constitutional rights are narrower in wartime personally offensive. For one, we’ve been “at war” our whole lives. If we’re going that route, let’s at least require Congress to formally declare war. As it stands now, the freedoms promised by the Bill of Rights are never guaranteed because we’re in a perpetual state of war. Using the War on Terror as an excuse to restrict due process is almost as tenuous as using the War on Drugs. Weren’t we told the terrorists attacked us because they were jealous of our liberties? We’ve responded by making our country more like theirs. Stopping the publication of ship departure dates during a war is one thing (Near v. Minnesota). Indefinite detention without trial is unacceptable.” — Mike Scala, currently running for congress in NY

Team America: Exporting terror in the name of freedom

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 22:19:00 -0500

Update: The last marine involved in the Haditha killings goes on trial this week. The rest of the marines involved had their charges dropped or were acquitted.

“War is when the government tells you who the bad guy is. Revolution is when you decide that for yourself.” - Unknown

For far too long the world has quietly digested the twisted rhetoric coming from the White House. The US military is fighting a war through the use of Counter-terrorism, and it’s doing a good job of killing civilians and breeding more terrorism.

Former US counter-terrorism czar offers more on this -

“Camps were established around the world, notably in Guantanamo Bay, where prisoners were held without being charged or tried. They became symbols of American overreach, held up as proof that al-Qaeda’s anti-American propaganda was right.” - Richard A. Clarke

In a 219 page US counter insurgency manual leaked by WikiLeaks, we see the playbook for exporting terrorism under the guise of “bringing freedom and democracy”.

Here are some of the tactics which outline the strategy for “foreign Internal Defense”:

Training death squads
PsyOps
Censorship
illegal surveillance
Suspending habeas corpus
Restricting the press
False flag operations
Indefinite detention
False imprisonment
Extrajudicial drone killings

Plainly put, this is fascist tyranny. This behavior spilled into Iraq where the US military took the fight to the homes of families, and they’re still doing it to families in Afghanistan. They pulled directly from this manual for their efforts in Iraq and were so successful, that even the CIA is concerned about the perception that USA is exporting terror.

According to the Iraq Body Count Project, there were over 100,000 civilian deaths in the Iraq war (from 2003 - 2010). There are many examples of terror wrought upon Iraqi families, and the Haditha killings in 2009 are just one example. In retribution for a roadside IED that killed a marine, the dwellers of a multi-family home was massacred by marines. A US military investigation claimed to have found evidence which “supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians, including unarmed men, women and children”. The Marine Corps paid $38,000 to the families of the 15 of the dead civilians—money that can never make up for what transpired. In the government’s war on truth, the evidence for these murders was burned, but because of curious individuals we now know the truth.

Where do we go from here?

Take the controls and start your own war on terror. Focus on the atrocities done in the name of freedom by our governments. If we do nothing, we will become numb to murder and unjust regimes, and it allow governments to run over our freedoms at will. Be ready - when you start speaking up, you will be subjected to a form of terror by them through oppression, reprisals, negative narratives and surveillance. Succeed in resisting government propaganda and it will be much more difficult for them to establish pretexts for going to war. Get started now by creating your own cluster of activists. Follow that guide and remember that self-care is important.

Go forward, internauts. Be the change you want to see, and fight like hell.

Why am I here?

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:26:00 -0500

On December 10th, 2010 I decided to do something — to become active, and in that vein, to become an activist. After reading the WikiLeak cables that were available at the time, I felt it was important to join the discussion online in contempt of corrupt government actions worldwide and the extrajudicial prejudice and pressure by the US on financial institutions to take action against WikiLeaks.

A day after I joined twitter, the Personal Democracy Forum met, and streamed the forum online. I started hash-tagging #PDFLeaks that day. - You can see evidence of this in their video when they noted “Anonymous is watching.”

I suppose it was some kind of appropriate coincidence that I should have decided to become more active on December 10th, the anniversary of the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

What you can expect from this site is this: A dedication to focus on human rights abuses, government tyranny and censorship — wherever it happens.