Pre-Planned Executive Action: The True Gun Control Agenda Behind Sandy Hook and Aurora Shootings
Anonymous: 2nd Amendment Violations Illegal, We Will Not Tolerate
Anderson Cooper CIA Puppet Attemps to Discredit Independent Sandy Hook Investigations
Gun Control – Media Hypocrites Called Out Project Veritas Launched ‘Citizens Against Senseless Violence’ Test Who will take a FREE sign that says ‘This is a proudly gun-free home’ 4 doors slammed 3 No thanks 3 had armed security ON SITE 2 Called the Police
Ways to Raise your Vibration – we are energy!
When you have the right ‘vibe’ – it is not a coincidence! Synchronicity, Energy Healing, ‘the Unified-field’
#ProTip: We want to keep our techniques secret” has become a government code phrase for “This is illegal but we’re doing it anyway”
Aaron Swartz the Patriot: Suicide? -Anonymous Hacks MIT in response, Operation Angel -Secret Service took over investigation?? -brief history, tribute, background
Kentucky Sheriff – NO GUN GRABBING HERE
Anti Surveillance Activists begin game to destroy CCTV cams in Germany
GUANTANAMO BAY Protest in DC = 100’s show in orange suits
Navy Wants drones on the SEA FLOOR!!!
Minority Report Technology – IN USE NOW on parolees!!!
Sandy Hook – even more inconsistencies uncovered
http://youtu.be/EGMYk463fWw
Alex Jones RANT- Invalidating the resistance to gun legislation
Anonymous – Activism in Action
Westboro Baptist Church Response, Keystone XL Pipeline – Tar Sands Blockade, Steubenville Rape Case, India Police Officers rape woman – Anon responds
FEATURE DISCUSSION:
Most Dangerous U.S. Government Agencies
CRAZY RANDOM
Sandy Hook – Blown Wide Open – United Way ‘Tradgedy’ Fund, set up days before Emilie Parker – definitely still alive- pictured with Obama
A communication professor known for conspiracy theories has stirred controversy at Florida Atlantic University with claims that last month’s Newtown, Conn., school shootings did not happen as reported — or may not have happened at all.
FPS Russia – manager killed!?!?! John Noveske Car Accident!?!
Anti-coal activist wipes $314 million from coal company’s stock value with one hoax press release!
Anonymous Hacktivists: ‘Bigger and Stronger Than Ever’
NSA’s Marching Orders to Congress: Deceive the Public, Praise NSA Effusively
Next generation of airport scanners will scan every single molecule in your body
Review: Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet by Julian Assange with Jacob Appelbaum, Andy Müller-Maguhn and Jérémie Zimmermann. OR Books, New York, 2012, 186 pages, Paper.
Sentry System Combines a Human Brain with Computer Vision
TSA chief will be a ‘no show’ at congressional hearing
West Bank and East Jerusalem buses are already segregated
Paranoia is reputed to destroy you. But if you’re a whistleblower in search of a safe, neutral outlet, it just might save you instead.
Par:AnoIA, short for Potentially Alarming Research: Anonymous Intelligence Agency, is a website designed to collect leaks, allow project participants to work on them, and release them in a way that draws the attention of the public. The Releases section of the site, for example, currently features 1.9 gigs of information from American intel corporation Innodata.
The leaks site developed in part by necessity. WikiLeaks’ touted anonymous submission system has been offline for a year. OpenLeaks never materialized. And Cryptome is… Cryptome, meaning it neither edits nor markets its documents to the public at large.
Simply put, if WikiLeaks is a PR agency for documents and Cryptome is a leak dissemination site, Par:AnoIA aims to have the best of both. Launched in March after a year and a half of development, the site picks up where Anonleaks.ch, an earlier Anonymous leaks site, left off—literally. (Par:AnoIA currently hosts HBGary documents, which were inherited from Anonleaks.ch.) Following a July profile in Wired’s Threat Level blog, it’s suddenly the hottest disclosure site still up and running. More recently, Par:AnoIA published the private information of 3,900 members of the International Pharmaceutical Federation, and a pile of documents related to the Cambodian government, a move dubbed Operation The Pirate Bay.
The Daily Dot reached out on Twitter and, after some back-and-forth that included the stipulation that all chat and Twitter handles would be disguised, sat down for a Web chat with half a dozen key members of Par:AnoIA. We’ve given them letters of the alphabet instead of usernames.
Let’s establish the tone with this excerpt from their front-page manifesto:
Thou hath interrupted our tea moment and hath made us stand up with our backs against thine wall. But hear us; we shall fight back for it is the only choice we hath left. With our whole hearts we shall support this cause. We shan’t enjoy the fight but it is our only option to protect the ones that are not protected, the ones we love and for thine fairness. It is known to us thou doth not fear damage of the collateral kind and thou loveth to contain and restrict innocent peasants.
As Cryptome founder John Young pointed out, Par:AnoIA, being Anonymous, at least has a sense of humor, which differentiates it from the rest of the serious disclosure industry. As you can see from our introduction to the Web chat:
raincoaster has joined #paranoia
<raincoaster> Well, I’m in.
<A> lol
<A> in
<A> out
<A> left
<A> right
<A> up down left right right left down up a b a b a x y
So far, so typical. Anonymous may be trying to make the world a better place, but the hacktivist collective has always been in it for the lulz, too.
“[W]e’re not as srs,” C wrote in regards to Anonymous.
B wanted one thing clarified. “Let it be known that paranoia is not a hacker group.” They are a publishing group, meaning they won’t go out and create their own leaks.
The leak/disclosure community considers itself collegial, although no one else does. Quite the contrary, it can be competitive and even petty. There were no tears at WikiLeaks when rival site OpenLeaks failed to materialize. Cryptome founder John Young has taken pains to distance himself from WikiLeaks, on whose board he originally served. And, of course, whistleblowers and hackers alike are paranoid all the time, for obvious reasons.
For example, on July 12, a WikiLeaks supporter called Par:AnoIA out on Twitter for their choice of top-level domain registrar, Neustar, which Buzzfeed has called “the Keyzer Söze of surveillance,” the law enforcement’s data surveillance provider of choice. @Par:AnoIA, who at that point had fewer than 2,000 followers, said the whole thing was just another pointless flame war that distracted from the issue at hand.
One member explained, “To be honest, we are indifferent to WikiLeaks. They just should not start trying to tell people we host honeypots for feds.” In other words, WikiLeaks accused Par:AnoIA of being a front for the FBI, a sensitive subject given the arrest of former hacker turned informant Hector “Sabu” Monsegur.
“We don’t strive to be unique; why should we?” C asked.
“We just do what we think is good and right, and i think we can do it with minimal efforts, at least in a financial sense. we are not here for competition. We don’t strive to be the best. We just want to offer the best we can.”
Unlike most Anonymous projects, Par:AnoIA does ask for donations in the form of Bitcoins, an international online currency that’s difficult to trace and favored by hackers. They told us publicly that the money goes for server costs. John Young of Cryptome estimates his own server costs at around $100 per month, and he has relatively high traffic, so it’s logical to estimate their costs at less than half that.
They volunteer their time, and they volunteer a lot of it: They read each and every document that comes in. They do not edit the documents in any way, although they will not guarantee publication of every document. Archivists are philosophically split on whether their duty is owed to the documents or to the users, and Par:AnoIA clearly comes down on the side of the documents, as does Cryptome. Its redaction policy means WikiLeaks is on the other side of this prickly, barbed-wire fence.
What does that mean day-to-day? Would they refuse to release a document because it could change the world in a way they didn’t like? According to the Web chat consensus, the only leak they’d withhold would be nuclear launch codes. C explained that, “Public information is better than information in secret hands. We make spies obsolete.”
They’re not relying on the general public for the leaks but rather on people within their existing networks. B said they would never run out of sources. “You always make new connections.” C added, “Our connections extend daily.”
You don’t need an engraved invitation, though, or even a Guy Fawkes mask; the site can accept submissions from anyone. The Anons dismissed the idea of accepting links via email only, for security, context, and philosophical reasons. The point is not simply to take information in, but to take it in in the original form and to also post it in a form the public can access without going through some interstitial person or process.
“You need to have a nice working site where people can just click and read and even see a summary, see evidence that this whole shit is corrupted like fuck,” C said. “Research is another vector. We do that already on a limited basis.”
The first project Par:AnoIA tackled was the Arrest Tracker, correlating all the arrests of Anons worldwide by Anon name. You’d think this would be for PR or media purposes. You’d be wrong. The Arrest Tracker is an old-school wiki (fans of Wikipedia will recognize the aesthetics) that’s thoroughly annotated, with links to newspaper reports of court appearances and schedules. C explained: “We actually started that for ourselves so we can check wtf was going on. Real names are only mentioned if disclosed in media, of course. Everything has a source. It’s no foo, it’s facts. I hate foo.”
The members of Par:AnoIA claimed to not have plans to monetize their content, nor did they desire to market their materials like WikiLeaks does, making media partnerships and controlling the flow of information.
“We do shit when we have time, interest .. and .. meh,” C replied. “All media are the same, 14 reader blog or Fox News. I hate the idea of elitism. Eure, some initial attention is nice.. but in the end…it’s our releases that will speak.”
“I’d like see Bush & Co at the Hague…and…. something that would set Manning free,” B added, referring to alleged WikiLeaks cooperative Bradley Manning.
Knocking out private security and intel corporations like HBGary also remains a priority for the future.
C put it best, in typical chat humor: “I would like to have that document that really buttfucks the whole establishment in a bad way.
“I know it’s out there, on some server, somewhere, hand us enough leaks and we will find it!”
New Tips and Tricks to Fool Surveillance Cameras now Known to be using advanced algorithm technology for automated Facial Recognition and profiling. With a few of the right LED lights, and a 9 volt battery on the brim of a hat, one can walk around with a veil of protection yet not stand out in public.
23 July 2012 – Statement from Jeremy Hammond, alleged Anonymous hacker – read in Foley Square, NYC
Thanks for everybody coming out in support! It is so good to know folks on the street got my back. Special thanks to those who have been sending books and letters, and to my amazing lawyers.
I remember maybe a few months before I was locked up I went to a few noise demonstrations a the federal jail MCC Chicago in support of all those locked up there. Prisoners moved in front of the windows, turned the lights on and off, and dropped playing cards through the cracks in the windows. I had no idea I would soon be in that same jail facing multiple trumped up computer hacking “conspiracies.”
Now at New York MCC, the other day I was playing chess when another prisoner excitedly cam e up as was like, “Yo, there are like 50 people outside the window and they are carrying banners with your name!” Sure enough, there you all were with lights, banners, and bucket drums just below our 11th floor window. Though you may not have been able to here us or see us, over one hundred of us in this unit saw you all and wanted to know who those people were, what they were about, rejuvenated knowing people on the outside got there back.
As prisoners in this police state – over 2.5 million of us – we are silenced, marginalized, exploited, forgotten, and dehumanized. First we are judged and sentenced by the “justice” system, then treated as second class citizens by mainstream society. But even the warden of MCC New York has in surprising honesty admitted that “the only difference between us officers here and you prisoners is we just haven’t been caught.”
The call us robbers and fraudsters when the big banks get billion dollar bailouts and kick us out of our homes.
They call us gun runners and drug dealers when pharmaceutical corporations and defense contractors profit from trafficking armaments and drugs on a far greater scale.
They call us “terrorists” when NATO and the US military murder millions of innocents around the world and employ drones and torture tactics.
And they call us cyber criminals when they themselves develop viruses to spy on and wage war against infrastructure and populations in other countries.
Yes, I am one of several dozen around the world accused of Anonymous-affiliated computer hacking charges.
One of many here at MCC New York facing trumped up “conspiracy” charges based on the cooperation of government informants who will say anything and sell out anyone to save themselves.
And this jail is one of several thousand other jails, prisons, and immigrant detention centers – lockups which one day will be reduced to rubble and grass will grow between the cracks of the concrete.
So don’t let fear of imprisonment deter you from speaking up and fighting back. Silencing our movement is exactly what they hope to accomplish with these targeted, politically motivated prosecutions. They can try to stop a few of us but they can never stop us all.
Real or imagined- reasonable or grandiose, I think we can all agree that things that Barrett Brown has recently said leading to his recent arrest and indictment were on the solid side of stupid. People who hate him figured it was about time they nailed him on something, and people who… don’t hate him as much… have defended him under the banner of “Freedom of Speech” and pointed to his claims of being harassed and goaded by the FBI and alleged informants, which, according to Brown, have included the Feds threatening to arrest his mother who he said has had nothing to do with his Anonymous hactivism and crowd-source-style-journalism ProjectPM activities.
As I mentioned in my previous post about the Kelly Thomas killing, the functions and execution of government powers and the legal system are by default biased heavily in favor of the powers that be and such powers have great potential to be, and many times have proven to be, corrupt as hell. That said, before we all collectively tell Barrett Brown to shut up regardless of whether such a pleading would tip a hat to his right to free speech, I think it is fair to acknowledge that Brown’s paranoid ramblings and associated “threats” may have been his only recourse to defend himself from the fears he professed were true: Agent Robert Smith is corrupt; the FBI is corrupt; the Zetas are out to get him; the FBI is in on it with the Zetas; and if armed men charged in on his home, Brown would feel justified in assuming it was a Zeta assassination attempt coordinated in conjunction with the FBI.
…THAT said, and in addition to Brown’s own confession of heroin addiction and issues with Suboxone withdrawal at and around the time of the “threats” and other tweets listed in the indictment, I think we can at least give the government credit for allowing a mental competence hearing for Brown before the trial against him proceeds. This should especially be appreciated by Constitution enthusiasts as the evidence of actus reus of Brown’s alleged crimes primarily revolves around a combination of arguably- and absolutely- protected speech.
As for that “conspiracy” charge? Well, look at the indictment: he was soliciting others to find “Restricted” information on Agent Robert Smith, which has been dubbed a “conspiracy” due to another’s attempt to find such “RESTRICTED” information with what is only described as an “Internet search”. Because you know, when I want to get down and dirty on a Federal Agent’s RESTRICED information, forget unauthorized access to a security clearance-protected Federal Database, I’m all about the old-fashioned Google stalk. For this charge, maybe we should give the FBI a mental competency hearing while we’re at it….
If you haven’t taken a peek at the Federal indictment against Barrett Lancaster Brown, I implore you to do so. Then, I invite you on a First Amendment adventure where I explain to you why we should all be offended and worried by the United States’ Prosecutor’s attack on our Right to Speech. The tale I shall tell will not necessarily defend Brown completely or successfully, but it will point out the fallacy of this indictment against him, which is supposed to contain “essential facts of the case”, but really just reveals the Government’s fear of our right to voice dissent and grievance against them.
Join me…
Count 1: Knowingly and Willfully transmitting in interstate commerce communications containing threats to injure the person of another. 18 USC Section 875(c).
While Brown does make vague and conditional threats against others such as @AsherahResearch and @_Dantalion, the indictment count doesn’t seem to care much about them, citing only “threatening to shoot and injure agents of the FBI” – specifically Robert Smith.
So let’s take a look at the first few useless items in this indictment:
Item 5) f. is a conditional threat made on Brown’s twitter against twitter user @_Dantalion in which Brown warns he will shoot if @_Dantalion comes near Brown’s home in Texas. Brown adds that such an act of self-defense of self and property is legal. Which it is. When I went to check @_Dantalion’s profile on October 5, 2012, on of the first tweets I came across was @_Dantalion explaining to another twitter user, “I am not an FBI agent”. So Brown made a conditional threat, the condition being an act that would trigger a legal right to defend oneself, against someone who is not an FBI agent. This cited evidence in the indictment does not lend to Count 1. At all.
Something I will say now that will apply across all of my arguments is that my belief, which may or may not be held up in a criminal law context in court, is that a threat that is not imminent does not constitute Assault. I base this on my understanding of the civil Tort offense of Assault which defines the intent behind Assault as an intention to cause imminent harm or apprehension of imminent harm. The above conditional threat Brown made to @_Dantalion does not detail imminence, and, as you will see as this story unravels, NONE of the threats made by Brown were imminent. Moving on…
Item 8) c. Is a vague, conditional threat toward renowned Anonymous foe, @AsherahResearch. Talk about my momma again and “see what happens”. So… what’s gonna happen? And what is it about this tweet that implies or infers the requisite intent for a threat against an FBI agent?
More importantly, why doesn’t Count 1 even mention that people who were not FBI agents were also “threatened”? Poor Dantalion and Asherah.
Where Brown is in trouble on Count 1, albeit with room for a defense, are items 12) c. and d.
The Greatest Incriminating Hits from the infamous “last video” by a disheveled, suboxone-withdrawn Brown include “Robert Smith’s life is over”, “I’m gonna look into his kids”, and “I will shoot and kill [the FBI] if they come.”
This is where we should all yell a hearty “Shut up, Barrett Brown” in the general direction of Texas. Don’t threaten a federal law enforcement agent, you guys. It’s enumerated in a Federal statute and is one of the few types of threats out there that does not need to be imminent to be illegal. It is contingent upon whether the threat is made in regards to LE carrying out their official duties.
But there is still a defense. Maybe. The “threats” regarding Robert Smith and his kids aren’t threats of injury. Brown even states “By ruin his life, I don’t mean kill him”. As for shooting and killing the FBI? I point to the “knowingly” sub-element of intent for this particular statute. The threat is conditional on whether or not the FBI comes. Brown never indicates that he knows the FBI is coming. He says in the item 12. video that the FBI has held onto his seized computers for months and has yet to allege Brown of a crime based on the evidence from a previous raid. In fact, as the worst evidence against Brown is this singular video, the FBI probably didn’t even know whether or not they were going to raid Brown at the time that this conditional threat was made. Admittedly, this is a tight defense to make, but I will come back to it for Count 3.
Further defense? Mental and emotional instability: persisting paranoia issues plus suboxone withdrawal. Although a finding of Brown’s allegation of FBI corruption would probably not happen, there is a question of self-defense. And if there was no real reason for self-defense, see: delusions of grandeur, delusions of persecutions, paranoid psychosis. In other words, possible insanity defense (and the thresholds for the insanity defense may be lowered when there was no action taken beyond speech).
Count 2: knowingly and willfully combine, conspire, confederate, and agree with other persons known and unknown to Grand Jury … to make restricted personal information about an FBI agent and immediately family publicly available with intent to threaten and intimidate the agent and to incite commission of violence against the agent. 18 USC Section 371 and 18 USC Section 119.
…How much more element-loaded can a charge get?
The “with intent” and the all-elements-must-be-fulfilled-indicative “and” ‘s of the latter part of this Statute combo are hard for the Government to corroborate with the facts of this indictment. They’re doing pretty good up to “incite commission of violence against” Robert Smith. We’ve got solicitation which, upon the cited agreement Brown made with another to gather Smith’s personal information, merges into conspiracy. We have immediate family members. We have intent to threaten and intimidate. But incite violence? That’s where the prosecution stretches it. Look through the indictment closely, and there is never a threat or suggestion of committing violence against Smith. Only the hypothetical FBI raiders, generally.
But I think this Count specifically is why the indictment tries to pancake all of Brown’s tweets together. Actually, the majority of this indictment is an attempt to build a criminal, violence-inciting profile of Brown out of several non-criminal tweets. This compilation is why I say we should be afraid for our Right to Speech.
It is clear in several tweets, that Brown is soliciting and possibly conspiring to gather restricted information on Robert Smith for the purpose of publicly releasing it. None of these tweets suggest violence toward Smith.
Non-exhaustively: 6) a. 8) a., 11, and 13. Although it legally doesn’t matter for conspiracy, it should be noted that no evidence is listed in the indictment that Brown succeeded in obtaining the sought restricted information on Smith.
One memorable case from my Criminal Law class (at the moment I cannot find the case, but will likely come back to revise this paragraph when I find it) is a case where a drunk driver was acquitted on appeal because evidence levied against him included, basically, pro-drinking propaganda bumper stickers the driver had. These bumper stickers were used as evidence toward the defendant’s intent. It simply didn’t work. Pro-drinking speech didn’t help the prosecutors in adding to the defendant’s intent for criminal drunken behavior. Similarly to this decision, I argue anti-government speech not directly associated with the accused behavior for the alleged crime of conspiracy shouldn’t lend to intent for the conspiracy.
In fact, this is nearly exactly what was held in California State Appellate courts in People v. Huss regarding the instruction of including picketing sign slogans as evidence for conspiracy to incite a riot as being an invalid, unconstitutional instruction. 241. Cal.App.2d 361. Although a California Appellate court decision doesn’t serve as precedent over the Federal District Court that Brown will face trial in, Huss borrows its reasoning from Federal Supreme Court case Terminiello v. City of Chicago. 337 U.S. 1. (How do you like them apples?)
…which should also hold for the next count…
Count 3: knowingly and willfully threaten to assault a federal law enforcement officer with intent to impede, intimidate, and interfere with such federal law enforcement while engaged in the performance of official duties and with the intent to retaliate against such federal law enforcement officers on account of performance of official duties. 18 USC Sections 115 (a)(1)(B) and (b)(4).
…and some of my favorite highlights of the Free Speech-protected tweets that shouldn’t lend to the intent of Counts 2 and 3 are…
2) c. “Do you know how to shoot? You have five years to learn. Maybe less.” Links to a short video of Brown doing some shotgun practice in an open field.
My assumption for this tweet is that in saying “You have five years to learn” how to shoot is a reference to a conspiracy such as FEMA camps where conspiracy theorists believe the government will raid us all and send us to “FEMA concentration camps”. Or something like that. But isn’t self-defense against a corrupt government the heart and soul of the Second Amendment? Otherwise, there is no specific (or even general) mentioned target for the suggested self-defense nor is there an imminence of the assumed threat posed by Brown’s pro-arms propaganda.
3) a. “Kids! Overthrow your government lol” Link? Get this- the link is to a Blondie music video, “Rapture”. A political satire on how the government and media has zombified us all. OH NOES! DISSENT AND GRIEVANCE!
The tweet itself reeks of satire. See: “Kids!” and “lol”. Before heading to the music video link, I thought maybe the link would lead me to something that would really rile me up with a fervent violent fire if I were susceptible to do so. Maybe a conspiracy theory that pulled at revolutionary heart strings? Maybe excerpts from the Anarchists’ Cookbook?
No. It’s a Blondie music video. Not exactly speaking to an incitement of violence nor an intent to retaliate against a raid.
Similar anti-government, pro-self-defense-against-a-corrupt-government comments include “Don’t Wait. Retaliate.” and 10) b.’s vague threat by Brown that he will use “other means at [his] disposal” to ‘wipe out the government’… the “wiping out” he promises to do includes more specific, non-violent threats of using courts, media, and his investigative journalism at ProjectPM.
And 2) e. “Have a plan to kill every government you meet.” in which there is no specific or general threat to any human being, but an abstract entity and with such an abstract entity being the object of the threat, “kill” could be interpreted as a non-violent version of the verb such as “stop” or “get rid of”.
Moving on…
The not-physical, non-injurious, cyber threats….
5) a. “…the net will give us revenge.”
5) c. “Nothing restrains me from my real work. #ProjectPM”
5) e. “Help #ProjectPM plan, execute further attacks … #PantherModerns”
For the record, the Panther Moderns are a FICTIONAL hacking group from the work “Neuromancer” who simulated a CYBER terrorist attack on a media conglomerate called “Sense/Net”
The ReTweeted threat that is actually a threat to himself:
7) “A dead man can’t leak stuff… Illegally shoot the son of a bitch.” Brown is comparing himself to the object and victim of this retweeted threat, Julian Assange. The presumed subject of the tweet instructed to “illegally shoot the son of a bitch” would be a LE officer who should act as a due process-depriving judge jury and executioner for Assange (comparatively, Brown).
Well, at least they’re giving Brown due process so far…
Not even threats and I don’t even know why they were included in the indictment:
2) a. “Don’t be a pussy. Call up every fascist and tell them you’re watching.” Links to a weird music remix featuring harmless sound clips that include Brown.
5) b.: “Fuck you.” -directed at the feds for apparently depriving Brown of his opiates, somehow.
5) d. “Journalists allow the guilty to escape. #ProjectPM ensures the guilty will be known to their children as they are, forever.
10) a. “This is part two of why I’m so fucking angry.” BB mad.
Here, I’ll repeat my defense for Brown’s intent. Knowledge is requisite for Count 3. Brown did not know that the FBI would raid him and his threat was contingent on a raid that he wasn’t even certain would occur based on a lack of the FBI’s ability to charge him with anything from the first raid of Brown.
And once again: insanity or diminished mental capacity due to Suboxone withdrawal. The worst and most incriminating of Brown’s threats from item 12 were coupled with Brown’s admission that he was a Heroin addict and hadn’t taken his Suboxone. In addition, Brown thinks he’s entitled to get his stuff back from the first raid months ago where the FBI took and held his computers. (Non-exhaustively: Items 8) b and 2, 10) b.) He also thinks he deserves an apology [10) b.]. Grandiose and possibly delusional. I almost wonder why the FBI didn’t go for a discrediting involuntary psych ward hold.
Or you know, just give him his stuff back, which as we are learning from recent developments in the PayPal 14 case, he may have very well had the right to after 60 days of the FBI holding it. (But I think feeling entitled to an apology is still a bit delusional.)
In Conclusion…
With and indictment riddled with constitutionally-protected speech, my fear is that the US Prosecutors and FBI wanted to put an attack on anti-government dissent and critique at the forefront of this issue. They wanted to scare us all into shutting up and watching what we say when it comes to speculating government conspiracies and suggesting we consider the possibility of an increasingly corrupt government and promote the intention behind the Second Amendment which is to protect ourselves from a worst-case scenario resulting from such corruption.
Watch your televisions. Click on those targeted advertisements tailored by our tracking of your Google searches. Did somebody tell you that non-violent protesters were beat and shot at by Riot Cops? Don’t worry. We did it for National Security reasons. And don’t mind the surveillance cameras in every retail store and on every street corner. They’re just livestreaming and storing your every move for TrapWire.
As a lawyer not particularly immersed in the technology world, Jay Leiderman first became interested in the hacker collective Anonymous around December 2010. That was when Anonymous activists launched distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) against Mastercard and PayPal, who stopped processing donations to WikiLeaks.
Since then, he has represented a number of high-profile hackers, including Commander X, who is on the run from the FBI for a DDoS attack on a county website in Santa Cruz, California, to protest a ban on public sleeping, and Raynaldo Rivera, a suspected hacker from LulzSec who is accused of stealing information from Sony computer systems. Both Commander X and Rivera could face up to 15 years in prison.
Leiderman, who represents many of his hacker clients pro bono, argues that the law should be changed on DDoS. In an interview I conducted with Leiderman recently, he told me why slapping teenaged hackers with harsh prison sentences is counterproductive.
How did you first become involved with representing Anonymous?
The politics of it spoke to me and the fact that it was a newly emerging area of law really spoke to me. My partner and I do a lot of medical marijuana law. Primary among the reasons that we do that are that it’s new and emerging so we can help shape the way that the law ultimately fits society. And because we believe in the politics behind it. And it’s the exact same with Anonymous.
We have an opportunity here to make the courts, as these cases wind their way up, understand privacy issues, emerging tech issues, against the backdrop of civil rights and through the prism of free information. And that was something that was just an amazing opportunity for me and something that still engages me as I continue to take on these cases.
You’ve said about DDoS attacks that “they are the equivalent of occupying the Woolworth’s lunch counter during the civil rights movement,” but under U.S. law DDoS attacks are illegal. Do you think the law should be changed?
Oh, absolutely. Keep in mind that I didn’t say that in an unqualified manner about DDoS. If you were knocking someone’s front page offline to ultimately rape their servers and take credit-card information and things like that, that’s not speech in the classic sense. When you look at Commander X’s DDoS, what he was accused of in Santa Cruz, or with [the] PayPal [protests], these are really perfect examples. And very rarely in law do we have perfect examples.
Take PayPal for example, just like Woolworth’s, people went to PayPal and said, I want to give a donation to WikiLeaks. In Woolworth’s they said, all I want to do is buy lunch, pay for my lunch, and then I’ll leave. People said I want to give a donation to WikiLeaks, I’ll take up my bandwidth to do that, then I’ll leave, you’ll make money, I’ll feel fulfilled, everyone’s fulfilled. PayPal will take donations for the Ku Klux Klan, other racists and questionable organizations, but they won’t process donations for WikiLeaks. All the PayPal protesters did was take up some bandwidth. In that sense, DDoS is absolutely speech, it should absolutely be recognized as such, protected as such, and the law should be changed.
But say that I had a rival law practice across town from you and I was perhaps a bigger more powerful rival with more money and perhaps I wanted to down your website every single day. Isn’t that just the equivalent of me just going outside and spray painting and taking down your sign every day and preventing customers from coming to you?
But both of those actions would be illegal in the abstract. Taking down my sign or vandalizing it would be a graffiti or vandalism type charge whereas repeatedly DDoSing my site would be similar in method and manner to that. It’s why you have to be careful with the speech. What you have with PayPal, it’s a pure form of speech — it was a limited and qualified thing like Woolworth’s. African-Americans went into Woolworth’s and said, I want lunch, feed me lunch, I will eat it, pay for it, and leave. Same with PayPal.
Santa Cruz perhaps provides a more compelling case on that because Santa Cruz was about literally petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. Santa Cruz wanted to essentially criminalize — or did criminalize — homeless people sleeping in public without qualification. And the city council wouldn’t listen, the police wouldn’t listen, no one would listen. People regularly die from exposure, because they can’t find safe and secure places to sleep in the community. Therefore getting your government’s attention in that manner should not be something that the U.S. government is interested in criminalizing and spending resources to prosecute. So in those regards, it’s different from the examples you gave, where I would be under perpetual DDoS.
So you’re not saying decriminalize DDoS per se, but perhaps it’s the way that DDoS is used and other legal factors would come into play there.
Here’s what we conceived in terms of the DDoS. The government and people who write about tech tend to call it a “DDoS attack” but in certain circumstances it’s not a DDoS attack, but a DDoS protest. So the law should be narrowly drawn and what needs to be excised from that are the legitimate protests. It’s really easy to tell legitimate protests, I think, and we should be broadly defining legitimate protests. The example you gave of the rival law firms, that’s not protest activities or traditional free speech activities.
The argument has been made that the problem with some of the sentences for Anonymous/LulzSec members is that a lot of them are really just foot soldiers, naive, young, vulnerable kids, who perhaps get into something over their heads. And they’re not skilled hackers who are trying to bring down the U.S. government and they don’t deserve long jail terms . Would you agree with that?
Absolutely, that’s probably one of the most often-repeated and truest things about a lot of these Anonymous members is that they’re not these ill-intentioned, misanthropes that really need to have the weight of the law come down on them. I agree with that 100 percent.
Who should the weight of the law come down on then? Should the weight of the law come down on the ringleaders who are behind these people?
Sabu‘s cooperation [aside], he would be a good example of someone who’s cruising for one of these eye-popping over-the-top sentences. He was a bit older, he had been involved in the hacking world for 10 or 15 years; he had a lot of prior Internet misdeeds. He was very skilled, or at least reasonably skilled, he had special skills. He was involved in other criminal activity, he was selling pounds of marijuana, which they didn’t charge him with. They dismissed those charges as part of his cooperation.
He was using his skills to commit credit-card fraud, without ideology, without politics behind it, without anything. He was literally stealing from people — this was not a big, nameless, faceless corporation…There was no ideology behind him stealing credit-card numbers from Mr. and Mrs. Smith…. He was recruiting people actively into LulzSec. One of the allegations in the case I’m handling [Raynaldo Rivera] is that Sabu recruited my client based upon my client’s skill, through another member of LulzSec, an intermediary.
Sabu was unquestionably the leader of LulzSec. When you read through the reports, as I have, it’s very clear that Sabu was giving orders, pressuring people to “get their hands dirty.” … It was Sony Pictures and the databases were organized via movie sweepstakes — names and password that were ultimately dumped on the Internet — and Sabu made individual people go in there and do individual databases so everyone had their hands dirty so that he could exert more control and get them to do more. He had importuned them to criminality.
… He’s looking at 124 years so that’s obviously beyond ludicrous. But if Sabu were to get a decade or something, that [could be] a sentence for someone like him with a really malignant heart. But for someone like Rivera and the typical member of Anonymous, no, those sentences simply don’t fit and for the most part I don’t believe they should be going to jail. A lot of these kids — and most of them are kids — don’t understand the criminal consequences here and could be rehabilitated; scared straight without a jail sentence. There are other things that we could do to them to make them understand that this is in fact illegal and not the way to express yourselves politically.
If we are not talking about harsh prison sentences, how should society respond to rehabilitate those hackers?
I really think this is a situation where a lot of these people are really scared of the consequences once they understand them. Usually someone like that, a criminal conviction in and of itself is a terrible black mark on someone’s record now. It becomes difficult to get a job. If you’re a person with computer skills, it becomes difficult to get computer clearances to be able to work your way up in a lot of these areas. So simply the conviction alone gets the message across, a probationary period where they’re being monitored or checked in on, some community-type service, working with the community in a productive manner. All sorts of creative punishments like those that are available and at the government’s disposal.
Do you think denying them access to the Internet is useful?
In some cases it might be useful and appropriate. You really have to look at the offense and the offender. If someone’s really unhealthy in their Internet use, it may not be a bad thing to look at them and say, a year, 18 months, two years, let’s see how you do without Internet in your life except work and school. That may well be a very good and healthy thing for some people, but you have to look at the offense and the offender before saying we should just yank this person’s Internet privileges.
You don’t think there’s a purpose to passing harsh prison sentences in that it sends a message and acts as a deterrent to any potential offenders?
I don’t necessarily think that message gets received by this population which are exclusively naive, not legally savvy, fairly young first-time offenders. That’s not a population who can really understand in a practical sense that if you do this, you’re going to get a harsh prison sentence. In some of their minds, it almost may be worse, to take away Internet use or modify their behavior in some ways as it so violently changes how their life ordinarily progresses.
Are there any Anons you wouldn’t represent?
It depends. I’ve been asked that question before and I struggle with it and here’s why. I don’t have to like or agree with the people that I represent to represent them. I have represented neo-Nazis and I’m Jewish. I’ve been assigned them when I was a public defender and it never really occurred to me until someone asked me, how do you feel about representing this skinhead and I said, you know, I didn’t think about it.
Everyone is entitled to a defense and the more reprehensible they are and maybe the more guilty they seem at the beginning of the case makes them more entitled to a vigorous and hard-hitting defense. So I don’t necessarily know that there’s someone I wouldn’t represent based upon what they did or based upon their politics. I wouldn’t go ahead and represent someone whose views I didn’t agree with pro bono. I’m not going to spend my time and energy that way. … Certainly there are many people I wouldn’t represent pro bono.
Would you represent Sabu pro bono?
No. The damage he did by turning so completely on people he used to call his brother [was considerable]. People who cooperate, throw someone else into harm’s way so they can soften the blow on themselves, I tend not to represent. For those reasons, I wouldn’t represent Sabu at all. […] He hurt a lot of people and he did it to save his own skin and he hurt a lot of people worse than they would otherwise be hurt.
How online privacy tools are changing Internet security and driving the (probably quixotic) quest for anonymity in the digital age.
For many of us, the Internet is like a puppy—lovable by design and fun to play with, but prone to biting. We suspect that our digital footprint is being tracked and recorded (true), mined and sold (super true), but we tolerate these teeth marks because, for many of us, the Internet is irresistible, its rewards greater than its risks. In a 2011 Gallup poll, more than half of those surveyed said they worried about privacy issues with Google, yet 60 percent paid weekly visits to the search giant. As long as we clear our search terms, block cookies, use antivirus software and see that our social media presence isn’t too social, we’ll be OK. Right?
Increasingly, this sense of security is an illusion. “I don’t trust anything on the Internet,” says digital whistleblower John Young. “Cybersecurity is a fiction.” He would know: Young was a seminal member of WikiLeaks and runs Cryptome, a website that posts “documents prohibited by governments worldwide”—think FBI files and manuals detailing how Microsoft spies on us. He argues that the tenuous architecture of the Internet prevents it from being truly secure.
Case in point: Mat Honan, the wired.com writer whose entire digital existence was destroyed by hackers within the span of an hour last August. The cyberbaddies broke into Honan’s Gmail, accessed his Apple ID account and deleted data on his MacBook, iPhone and iPad, including photos of his family. The scariest part of this privacy breach—aside from the fact that its victim is a tech writer (ahem)—is that the hackers hijacked his online world using nothing more than his billing address and the last four digits of his credit card, information that’s relatively easy to obtain online if you know the right tricks. Honan’s story served as yet another reminder that THE INTERNET IS NOT SAFE, PEOPLE.
So is it time to go off the grid? That’s one option. Another is to ditch the puppy analogy and view the Internet the way those who demand higher than average levels of security do: as a giant tracking device that can be outsmarted. Countless tools exist to cloak your digital identity: email encryption services, “meta search engines” that promise private browsing and networks and software that offer a degree of anonymity and, in some cases, entry to previously inaccessible websites. Sounds like the stuff of spy novels, but these tools are available to anyone with an Internet connection.
Of course, the idea of online anonymity clashes with the prevailing “share everything” approach to the Internet—and the moneymaking opportunities therein—which makes it a fascinating and complicated topic. Its opponents say it fosters hate and crime (Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, Randi Zuckerberg, who used to head up marketing at Facebook, famously called for the end of online anonymity earlier this year, stating that “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down”), while privacy champions argue that anonymity grants greater security and freedom of expression. The John Youngs of the world will tell you that being truly unidentifiable online is a fairy tale. But every fairy tale has a lesson, and even if you get hives thinking about trading your identity for a more armored online existence, there’s plenty to learn from the heroes, villains and everyday secret-keepers attempting to go John Doe in the digital realm.
Photo by Richard Fleischman.
There’s a famous New Yorker cartoon from 1993 that shows two dogs in front of a computer, one saying to the other, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” This was a novel proposition in the Web’s early days. Liberated from our actual identity, we chatted in forums using ridiculous pseudonyms such as “beaniebabyaddict47” and posted comments as “Anonymous,” our snarky alter ego. Anonymity felt great, even if technically it was just a state of mind. But then social media arrived, and with it the idea that transparency is power. Suddenly, we decided it was important to tell the Internet our real name and what we had for breakfast.
For those who want to keep their breakfast habits a secret, the rise of transparency created new security risks. Enter the digital cloaking device. In 2002, the U.S. Naval Research Lab debuted Tor, one of the more effective “anonymizers” to date. A group of M.I.T. grads developed it with the goal of masking one’s IP address, the string of numbers that reveals a given computer’s physical location (snoops and hacks love your IP because it brings them one step closer to determining the real you).
At the heart of Tor is a concept called “onion routing,” which sends the “packets” of info needed to get from points A to B online on a winding route through a network of randomly selected servers, each one knowing only the packet’s previous and next stops in the chain, thereby hiding the user’s IP and allowing a degree of anonymous Web browsing. Confused? In the simplest terms, Tor separates the origin and destination of your online communication, essentially tunneling you through the Web.
The U.S. Navy financed this tunnel to protect government communications, but its code was released to the public because, as Karen Reilly, development director for the nonprofit Tor Project, puts it, “A Navy anonymity network wouldn’t work. The idea is to have many diverse users so that you can’t tell who somebody is just by virtue of them using Tor.” Using seed money from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, the Tor Project formed a decade ago to grow Tor’s user base and maintain and improve its network. Today, Reilly estimates that Tor has about half a million daily users and 3,000 to 4,000 “nodes,” volunteer servers that hopscotch you through the network.
Tor is available as a free download on torproject.org. This software includes a Tor-enabled version of the Firefox Web browser that hides your IP address and forces an encrypted connection where available. Sounds great, but like most anonymizing tools, Tor is flawed. It slows Web browsing and, if someone decided to keep an eye on a large enough swath of the Internet, he could theoretically analyze data patterns to guess where the communication originated.
These weaknesses haven’t stopped hundreds of thousands from downloading the service. Reilly says most people use it to protect their browsing because “they think it’s creepy to be tracked. They don’t like the fact that there’s a file on them somewhere being kept by an advertiser who knows what cereal they like to eat.” And there are more weighty reasons to use Tor: Journalists and activists in oppressive regimes use it to circumvent Internet censorship. It’s been reported that Arab Spring revolutionaries tapped Tor to access Facebook and Twitter, both of which were blocked at various points by Egypt, Iran and others (incidentally, Iran has the second-highest number of Tor users; the United States has the most).
Criminals, trolls and other creeps also love Tor—no surprise given their affinity for the Internet in general. In the mood for some heroin? Silk Road is a one-stop online shop for illegal goods that uses Tor to hide its location from users and, ostensibly, law enforcement. Anonymity haters reference nasty sites like these when stating their case, but Reilly thinks this is misguided. “If Tor didn’t exist, criminals would have other options.”
Other options used by both crooks and law-abiders include virtual private networks, which are faster than Tor and sometimes less secure—and generally not free. Like Tor, VPNs provide a secure connection between computers and can be used as a gateway to websites that would otherwise be inaccessible. VPNs are all the rage in China, where government censorship of the Internet is the norm. Mara Hvistendahl, a Shanghai-based correspondent for Science magazine, has experimented with different privacy tools since moving to the city in 2004. She started with Tor, but found it too slow for regular Web browsing, so she switched to VPNs to access Gmail and Google Scholar, sites that have been blocked by Chinese censors. “Every foreign journalist I know in China uses a VPN,” she says. Another VPN user—a China-based English and journalism teacher who spoke to Sky on the condition of you know what—says she pays for a VPN called Astrill to reach Facebook.
Both women mentioned pairing VPNs with other privacy tools. Hvistendahl has heard of reporters combining VPNs, multiple SIM cards and the secure email service Hushmail to protect sources. If it’s true that no online cloaking device is totally effective, this bundling strategy might be our best bet for protecting ourselves online—though good luck trying to convince the average Web user to do it.
Most people have a difficult time with far-off risk,” says Ashkan Soltani, a former technologist with the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy division who’s currently a privacy/security researcher and consultant. “That’s why we passed seat belt laws. The likelihood of you getting in a car accident is low, but the harm that you might experience in that accident is potentially high. It’s the same online. We’re bad at figuring out how our data could be used against us in the future, so we don’t care.”
We should care, says Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, because data privacy laws are “not incredibly strong.” This is an understatement in countries such as China and Iran, where Web users have little or no online freedom. The US has the Wiretap Act and the Stored Communications Act, both of which address basic privacy issues such as police needing an interception order to tap emails. But these laws fail to look at how private corporations handle our digital footprint, and as a result, we’re at the mercy of, say, Facebook’s data policy or Google’s data policy, and we all know that they have our best interests in mind . . . .
But here’s the real stinger: Let’s say you decide to take control of your digital footprint and start using some of the tools mentioned above. Also, you begin paying closer attention to the privacy policies on the various sites you visit, clicking “do not track” when possible and opting out of initiatives such as Google’s targeted ads program, which is based on the content of your email. Congratulations, responsible netizen, you now have more online security than most—have fun on your cumbersome, hard-to-manage, less optimized version of the Internet!
Ken Berman puts it another way: “If you want to be on Facebook, there are certain things—anonymizing tools that prevent tracking, prevent cookies, prevent identifying behavior—that make some of these social media tools difficult to work with.” Berman, an IT security expert who for years worked at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (the United States’ international broadcasting arm), sees two options for Internet users: “Either you say, ‘I give in. I enjoy the Web, so I’ll put up with walking by a store and getting a text message that says go in this store and you’ll get an immediate 10 percent coupon.’ Or you say, ‘No, I don’t want to play in that world, so I’m going to use Tor or a VPN. I’m going to clean up my session every time I log out and not leave any remnants of my behavior.’ I don’t see how there’s anything in between.”
Soltani is more optimistic. He sees a future where governments pass stronger digital privacy laws and geeks build easier-to-use privacy controls that work seamlessly with the slobbering puppy version of the Internet we all love. In the meantime, he’s doing his best to educate as many people as possible on the virtues of proper digital hygiene, whether that means using anonymity tools or simply being more aware of the fact that you leave a data trail wherever you go these days (don’t even get us started on smartphones).
“My big thing is to demystify I.T.,” says Soltani. “It doesn’t help to think of it as magic or something that’s bringing the world to an end. Tech changes the way we interact with one another and our society—and we should be cognizant of that and adjust accordingly.”
For now, it remains to be seen how these changes will affect online anonymity, a concept that begs important questions about what sort of society we want to live in: Is anonymity a right? Should we be able to engage in discourse anonymously? Should beaniebabyaddict47 be allowed to have such an obnoxious alias? Stay tuned. // With consultation on information systems security from Matt Lange at Milwaukee Area Technical College.
WikiLeaks to Release Over 100 Secret Documents on Detention Policies
Jailbreaking now legal under DMCA for smartphones, but not tablets
PlayStation ‘master key’ leaked online, Tiny Drones Work Together!
Jester Update: th3j35t3r ‘patriot hacker’ Promotes the Military Industrial Complex & Al-CIA-duh. FYI, it’s a group account, one of them exposed himself to be Tom Ryan, of Provide Security. (‘Terrorist Hackers’ are good for InfoSec biz)
Hacktivists Advocate: Meet The Lawyer Who Defends Anonymous
We’re as harmless or dangerous as anyone else. Chances are that we’re less dangerous because we don’t want to screw you all over. #Anonymous
New documentary We Are Legion puts an actual human face on Anonymous, the hacktivist group whose members usually are seen wearing Guy Fawkes masks — if they are seen at all.
Considering Anonymous’ retaliatory acts against websites run by the Department of Justice and the entertainment industry just last week in response to the government takedown of file-sharing site Megaupload, We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists could almost be mistaken for a 93-minute news segment.
But unlike most news segments about the group, the documentary contains genuine moments with actual Anons (some maintain their anonymity in the doc, but others don’t).
“The last two or three days we’ve seen a lot of what Anonymous does,” We Are Legion director Brian Knappenberger said in an interview with Wired.com here Saturday, the morning after the documentary’s premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival. “You know, there was a film about the Weather Underground that came out a few years ago, and that was made 30 years after they were blowing up buildings, and I love that film. But picture making a film like that while they were still blowing up buildings — that’s what I’m talking about.”
We Are Legion might be the first to portray the group’s members as true revolutionaries, and it could serve as a time capsule if the kind of online sit-ins and retaliatory strikes that Anonymous has helped create become the new model for civil disobedience across the globe.
For those who didn’t hear of Anonymous until Occupy Wall Street started up, We Are Legion effectively puts the group’s current incarnation in historical perspective. The documentary traces the roots of early hacker-activist groups like the Cult of the Dead Cow and Electronic Disturbance Theater before jumping into Anonymous’ roots in 4chan.
The documentary goes deep. Speaking with current and former Anonymous participants — as well as Wired writers Ryan Singel and Steven Levy — Knappenberger gives a thorough chronological account of Anonymous’ exploits, up to the group’s current place at the forefront of online disobedience.
Starting with Mercedes Renee Haefer, who was arrested in conjunction with the denial-of-service attacks against online payment service PayPal last July, the documentary talks to Anons and experts about Anonymous’ vendetta against Scientology, defense of WikiLeaks, and support of the actions in Tunisia and Egypt during the Arab Spring.
Slamdance, the underground alternative movie fest that runs during the Sundance Film Festival here each year, seems like the perfect place for We Are Legion’s primer on Anonymous. The film might have seemed out of place at a glitzy Hollywood-in-the-hills screening.
“It feels right,” Knappenberger said of the premiere. “Slamdance has a kind of undercurrent of revolutionary, counterculture, slightly anarchic vibe that just seemed to fit [the film] right away.”
Knappenberger is looking for distribution for his film so it can be seen by a wider audience. It seems possible that Hollywood backers will shy away from a film about Anonymous after the group’s actions against the Motion Picture Association of America and other entertainment industry power players. But Knappenberger said he isn’t worried.
“I just want to tell the story,” he said, adding that considering Anonymous’ various targets over the years, “Who aren’t I offending?”
He could also take advice from his subject Haefer, who in the film says that what Anonymous ultimately hopes to protect is freedom of speech, regardless of a person’s opinions or background.
Newly released internal emails from the U.S. private security firm Stratfor state that in 2007 the Bush Administration and CIA ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency to back off a major drug trafficking investigation of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s half brother.
Ahmed Wali Karzai was an influential power broker in Afghanistan before he was assassinated in July 2011.
The brother of President Karzai of Afghanistan is under investigation by DEA as a major narcotics trafficker. For political reasons, DEA has beentold to backoff [sic] by the White House and CIA.DEA is seeing a direct nexus between terrorism and narcotics in Afghanistan with narcotics sales being used to fund jihadist operations.
After a Stratfor analyst asks “how close is karzai to this brother?” Burton replies:
Was described to me as close. Karzai will end up being another Noreiga.
Off the record — DEA will proceed and take ’em (both?) down anyway, once this White House disappears.
As I’ve said before, every country we have touched, turns to shit.
WikiLeaks has published 2,694 out of what it says is a cache of 5 million internal Stratfor emails (dated between July 2004 and December 2011) obtained by the hacker collective Anonymous around Christmas.
UPDATE: As redditor WhoShotJR notes, current and former American officials told the New York Times in 2009 that Ahmed Karzai received regular payments from the CIA since 2001.
It is hard for me to express how much I appreciate your letter, which is the first I have received here, along with the support I’ve reportedly gotten from others so far. Before I forget, let me request that you also send a tweet of support to Jenna, @ElviraXMontana on Twitter; as my girlfriend, she had to watch as the FBI crushed my ribs (which I believe will be healed in time even if I’ve had trouble acquiring medical attention due to me under Geneva; put in formal request for X-ray last night here at Mansfield, whereas last week at Lew Sterrett I was sent to medic by an officer Tamer before being instead re-directed to what is intended as a temporary holding cell for those about to be released on bond, this change of plan being instigated by an officer Roeun (sic?) whom I have since reported to the proper authorities. Despite my having explained her mistake politely twice over the course of the next seven hours, and despite my condition having been serious enough to have prompted other inmates to suggest I check for internal bleeding, I was screamed at and then later simply ordered to lay down, all of which was witnessed by two other inmates, one of whom promised to inform Tim Rogers of D Magazine that I was potentially dying and needed intervention ASAP as soon as he himself was released a few minutes hence (again, this was the temporary outgoing holding cell, not meant for housing inmates for anything longer than an hour or so as their bond is processed; as such, I was not fed, either, much less given my medication, suboxone. Note that none of the treatment I received at Lou Sterrit had anything to do with who I am or what I am accused of, – it is simply the natural result of the inhumane and degenerate mentality found within the Texas “corrections” system, something I first described in a 2005 article for Towards Freedom. It is something we will have to address more firmly over the coming years, just as we have addressed North Africa and the intelligence contracting industry since late 2010. And I note all of this not merely to complain—although to complain is among the few vices I have been left aside from bragging to my fellow inmates – but to illustrate the fundamental problem that so many of us have sacrificed or risked to combat. This problem, which even Richard Nixon recognized and spoke about on that famed evening at the Lincoln Memorial, is that a republic built with the blood of giants has since become a “wild animal.” – one that now feeds upon us all.
I try to avoid metaphors, which can illuminate but in practice are too often used to obscure. Like many aspects of language, the false metaphor kills and enslaves. And at any rate, there will be time to discuss these broader issues later. For now, I must ask you to publish this on pastebin, Anonpaste, piratepad.de, and all other available venues, and that you also send it to some of the journalists that have been kind enough to follow my work as well as the consequences thereof, particularly my friend Michael Hastings, Barry Eisler, Michael Riley (Bloomberg), Ryan Gallagher (Guardian), and Josh at Daily Caller (forgot his last name) – plus the former editor of The Yemen Times who’s now at Global Times or some such and who, along with a certain Washington Times correspondent known to Gregg Housh, plus one or two others that I know of, who are now looking into Romas/COIN due in part to my release of the NYT e-mails earlier this month. Along with others in both the mainstream and independent media, these are most likely to report accurately on this matter. Having been mischaracterized at least a hundred times by “professional” journalists since I first appeared on Fox News in January 2009 to denounce Obama’s association with the goofy fascist Rick Warren – and was introduced as being spokesman for the non-existent “American Atheist Society” rather than GAMPAC. This would be a good time to note, particularly for the benefit of certain journalists, that I am not and never have been the spokesman for Anonymous, nor its “public face” or, worse, “self-proclaimed” “face” or “spokesperson” or “leader” (as the CIA-funded Radio Free Europe called me last year when I felt compelled to “quit” the non-group that I’d never technically joined in the first place, but rather gradually attached myself to as Wikileaks and Tunisia went down in December of 2010). Anyone who cares to learn what happens to a person who decides to help deal with such issues at the request and with the knowledge of active Anons can search my name in conjunction with those terms, and then see the article “Barrett Brown is Anonymous” from April 2011 in which I explain clearly, as I have countless times since, that no one has the authority to designate me as such. It is known to some of those who worked out of Anonops or were otherwise particularly active in the beginning of 2011 that I wrote or edited a number of the press releases of that time, and that the al-Jazeera article written in the first few days of January and which appeared later that month under the title “Anonymous and the Global Correction” was also my work – something I revealed privately to the brilliant cyberpunk essayist Bruce Sterling after he openly speculated as to the author’s background in Wired, noting the sentiments to be that of a true revolutionary. Among those who now agree with him are the FBI, which has since responded accordingly – and unethically.
Contrary to the countless claims to the effect that I hold some official role in Anonymous, I can think of only one occasion in which any Anon has come close to actually deeming me as such, that being the day on which HBGary was hacked in retaliation for HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Baar’s claim – shown to be entirely false – that he had identified Anon’s “lieutenants” and “co-founder” and that he had been contacted by the FBI about this. In fact, he had conflated three different people including a professional gardener and, as shown in the notes Anon released along with the e-mails taken from HBGary Federal, had made a huge number of additional mistakes – something since confirmed by everyone concerned including Barr himself. (That the Financial Times writer who had bought Barr’s self-promotion would again essay to write about Anonymous months later, this time taking the claims of a Dutch kid at face value in the course of “reporting” various negative things about how the movement operates, is only one of numerous bizarre and depressing twists to this story; I myself would later encounter him on Canada television as a panelist during a discussion in which he accused Anon of being particularly anti-“American interest”, to which I responded that it is difficult to avoid stepping on the empire’s toes when one assists North Africans in fighting off dictatorships that the US has supported for years.) (Oh snap!) On that day, as recorded on pastebin from the discussion on the #OPHBGary channel at Anonops, I was referred to in passing as “our public face” to a journalist. I was on the phone to HBGary President Penny Hoglund at the time, apologizing that HBGary’s e-mails had been seized by Sabu in addition to HBGary Federal’s, instructing her on how to get on IRC in order to make her case directly to the hackers, and promising to remove the link I had put up to the 70,000 e-mails acquired in the operation, a link I had placed upon a Daily Kos post put up to explain the situation to the great many who would miss the “makeover” done to HBGary.com. Had I known that Penny was lying to me about what she and husband Greg Hoglund had known about Barr’s irresponsible attempt to save his own career at the expense of the innocent and heroic alike, I would have simply hung up. Instead, I was polite – but I recorded the call, just as I recorded the next call with Barr, the next call with HBGary exec Jim Butterworth, and finally the drunken call I received months later from Greg Hoglund himself. “Trust but verify,” as Reagan said in the context of a different set of villains.
With the exception of the ten minute convo I released between myself and Aaron Barr, all of the other recordings – and plenty of others – are in the possession of the FBI, which raided my apartment as well as my mother’s home on March 6th. For more on those events, as well as the criminal conspiracy to which I have been subjected by elements of the FBI, HBGary, and paid informant/contractor Jennifer Emick (among other parties both known and undiscovered), please see the last 3 videos I uploaded to my YouTube account, as well as documents I linked to on my Twitter account @BarrettBrownLOL in the final days before my most recent (and dramatic!) arrest. Not everything is released; I was interrupted by armed, mediocre federal agents and DPD officers (“No complicity in assassination of a chief executive since 1963!”) before I could finish making my case, which was to be done over several days before the entirety would be sent to the FBI and the judge who signed my March search warrant. This was to be followed by the instigation of a civil suit against HBGary and other parties to be named in the next 2 months. My plan has been disrupted – plans often are, as history tells us – but it has not been rendered obsolete. It will evolve, just as ProjectPM itself has evolved steadily since 2009, when this war became evident to me, when I first realized that my future as a political satirist would have to be abandoned in favor of this dirty, grueling struggle.
But why was I arrested this time? I would love to tell you. But the prosecution wouldn’t like that. I, and everyone else in the court room, were ordered to refrain from discussing the complaint, affidavits, and warrant, all of which are sealed at the request of the author, one FBI special agent whom I shall not name lest I give him cause for fright (or pretend fright – I am allegedly a danger to one especially skittish special agent whom I shall be careful not to name again until such time as I am prepared to list him in the civil suit I’ve been preparing for weeks now). Frankly, I do not blame this other special agent for requesting that the document be sealed – if I had written something of such low quality and demonstrable untruth, I would burn it and ask forgiveness of every deity invented by man and the higher apes/dolphins/whales. Likewise, if I were the US attorney who signed the Motion for Detention dated September 13 2012 – the document that, after having been approved by Judge Paul D. Stickney, ensured I would not only be prevented from discussing what I’m being accused of but also made a prisoner of the state until such time as a trial or some such can be concocted out of the jurisprudential magick I struggle to follow, in my innocence. Apparently I am not just a danger to the fragile FBI agents who have taken to threatening my mother and fracturing my ribs in the course of heavily-armed raids on my uptown Dallas apartment, but must be prevented from explaining to my associates, followers, and even enemies why I have again been subjected to violence and indignity.
I explained the first raid against me (March 6th, 6:30 a.m. CST) and the second against my mother (about six hours later) in several pastebin messages at that time. It was not until 2 months ago that I learned how a judge had been tricked into permitting this raid on me – how the disgraced contracting firm HBGary hired the paid FBI informant Jennifer Emick to, in their words, “find something to get [me] picked up on,” even as this bizarre former Anon made public accusations against me under both her real name and her adopted contractor persona: “FakeGreggHoush” on Twitter (now “AsherahResearch”) and Asherah on IRC – particularly the 2600 server where she frequented the #jester channel alongside various ex-military men and current “security’ contractors who all found themselves inclined to associate with the admitted criminal hacker th3J35T3R, one of several parties who have taken credit for DoS attacks on Wikileaks. I should not have to remind anyone that 40 U.S. homes were raided in January 2011 due to a similar but less effective series of DDoS attacks on Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Amazon which were clearly an act of protest against an unprecedented economic blockade ordered by the U.S. regime. 14 of the “criminals” in question are being charged such that they face up to 15 years in prison. Thanks largely to Jay Leiderman the California attorney and John Penley the NYC activist and veteran, many of them are being represented for free. Likewise, I will seek and accept only pro bono assistance from this point on, though with the stipulation that I will pay any such lawyers what I can from the defense funds that have been set up for me thus far by well-wishers. As of this writing I dismiss Tom Mills, whom I retained for $3,500 after receiving bad advice from a well-meaning person. I will also expect that money returned within 60 days of the publication of this missive online (ProjectPM participants, please ensure that he receives this message, which I have also delivered through my mother – whom he falsely claimed to be representing on the matter of the FBI threats against her despite having been paid by me, not her). And as I had noted both publicly and privately earlier this month, I am still seeking additional attorneys with skill in civil litigation to pursue at least two suits I’ll be filing by the end of the year. Those interested may write to me at my new home, Some Jail in Texas. I am able to arrange for phone conversations with any applicants (or anyone else who is either especially interesting or who is able to accept a collect call or contribute $5 to my commissary/phone fund, that being the cost of a 15-minute call instigated by me). Anyone who writes me without us having been formerly introduced, I will guarantee a response if you send self-addressed stamped envelope. Also I believe that only mail with a return address will be delivered to me, though I’m not sure.
I hate that I have spent so much time in conflict over the past two years, and that so much of this has involved my fellow American citizens rather than the Middle Eastern dictators that I got involved in this to combat. I feel sorrow at the lost opportunities, and as for the way it has changed me as a person… I like to think that I am wiser and less naïve than I was, but I know too well how foolish and unsophisticated I was to begin with. I cannot excuse the mistakes I myself have made on both the strategic and tactical levels in my short career. I shudder when I look back on some of the things I wrote or said when I got my first real taste of power at the dawn of 2011, and I continue to bring shame upon myself and upon my family and work by some of the things I say even lately. In particular I have made comments about the U.S. military that I do not mean and which are obviously not entirely accurate. Along with other nonsense I have said, felt, written throughout my life, many of these things originate from my own fears and weaknesses. I am humiliated at not being able to protect my own mother from the FBI, or to shield my own girlfriend from watching heavily-armed men step on my spine as I scream in pain. I cannot forget how my mom cried on March 6th after the FBI had left with my equipment and hers, and how she whispered through tears that she wanted to be able to protect me from prison but couldn’t; I will never forget the look on Jenna’s face as the federal thugs swept through my efficiency apartment with guns drawn and safeties off, in search of hidden assailants and non-existent weapons. That these things are unjust and increasingly insane does not change the fact that they are the result of my own behavior, my own miscalculations, my own choices.
Having said that, I regret nothing. For the last week I was denied opiates and thus forced to feel not just rage, hatred, all the primal things, but forced to endure them while sicker than most humans can imagine and in a jail that is overcrowded and filled with common criminals. I have gained something extraordinary in that process, which ended this morning when I was given the first of 30 days of suboxone. I will personally thank everyone on the outside who has helped me and this movement particularly at this critical time, when I have regained the freedom that I did nothing to lose. For now, and until that time, it is war, on paper as always, but war.
Barrett Brown Founder ProjectPM Prisoner #35047177 Mansfield Law Enforcement Center 1601 Heritage Parkway Mansfield, TX 76063
Postscript-
[redacted], if you are able to relay this message to the Anons, my ProjectPM people, journalists, etc, you will have done me a finer deed than most men ever have occasion to do for another. I am transmitting a copy of this to another individual to ensure that the FBI does not manage to silence me on this (incidentally, the local jail here in Mansfield has proven to be run by honorable, trustworthy, even friendly people, but it is nonetheless subject to the Yankee boot (no offense)). Tell journalists, etc that they may contact [redacted]. My future and that of ProjectPM depends on you and a handful of others. Thank you for your loyalty at this time. Finally, please include this PS when forwarding and ask people to see my original search warrant as published on Buzzfeed a few months back. Echelon2.org is part of the key to this affair, but not all. More to be revealed when all is prepared. Good luck to you.
In my years of investigative research I have likened this reality to a large and heavy Mirror hanging on the wall. The picture is super clear, and you think you can see everything going on; but there is always a backside to that mirror, and it will always take significant effort to see.
I’d like to think at this point, that i have a vague idea of what most will find on the backside of the reality-mirror. It is very difficult to explain, and one of those things that individuals have to find for themselves. It will be everything you didn’t expect, and then some. Truth is stranger than fiction.
Execute Boot Sequence
“Warriors are not what you think of as warriors. The warrior is not someone who has the right to take another life. The warrior, for us, is one who sacrifices himself for the good of others. His task is to take care of the elderly, the defenseless, these who can not provide for themselves, and above all, the children, the future of humanity.” -Sitting Bull
Like any computer code, words only carry the information, and are ultimately, only the intent. That intent is either constructive, destructive, or a twisted combination of the two. Words can bring pain, happiness, suffering, fear, anxiety, excitement, and a long list of other emotions into experience. Lines of computer code can bring much the same, through an alternate communication and delivery mechanism. Accountable for the use of these words, and the resulting actions or events; all we really have is ‘choice’ as we each navigate this reality from one moment to the next.
Regardless of not knowing anything about each other, I know us to share some key similarities. We woke up this morning, forced into a reality we didn’t agree to, on a conscious level. Depending on geography, we probably share a similarly hospitable climate.. like one that keeps us alive. Since neither of us share the vacuum of space, its safe to say we are relatives in this experience that is ‘earth’ and its delicate dance within our solar system. This experience is harsh, lush with daily inconveniences, frustrations, heartaches, and tragedy. We’re both here, stuck in a complex and constantly changing ‘now’ and we don’t have a firm answer as to why. Wise man once said, “all Past, Present, and Future, are created in the Now”. Perhaps take a moment to reflect on the importance of this. Again the common denominator between us all? Choice, the ability to make it.
Frequency Match
The purpose of this statement is to speak only on behalf of myself, and my own direct experiences. I’ve taken the time to organize and formulate the delivery of this release such that it has the capability to immediately benefit your life, and the way in which you can choose to approach this dynamic and ever changing moment. I feel that my motivations, combined with my personal experience, are most relevant for sharing through the collective hive mind that is ‘Anonymous’.
In the interest of time, and sensitivity to length, I’ll be forced to deliver a few ‘shockers’ with little elaboration. For what its worth, I’m willing to bet my currently non-existent reputation on the premise that such statements are what I have discovered to be fact, over many years of research and discovery process. For the skeptics, please find it in your heart to at least make an effort or attempt to prove me wrong, I’d love to hear from you.
The internet, and its tributaries, have brought other researchers’ lifework closer than ever. With the expansive resources available today, chances are you could eventually find someone that has dedicated their life to understanding the subconscious of the honey badger. As a kid I always wondered – what about those researchers that dedicate their lives to all those things we aren’t supposed to know? And why.. are there things we aren’t supposed to know? Why are there just some topics people get uncomfortable discussing? Is it because they don’t understand, or because they don’t want to understand? That never made sense to me. I have come to realize now, that children have this fascinating ability think beyond limitation. So it made me question, where does this ‘subconscious’ limitation actually come from?
The Octopus In The Room
Conspiracy: 1. A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. 2. The action of plotting or conspiring.
This shouldn’t sound too unfamiliar, but it is lacking the most common partner noun, Theory. A long time ago, these two words were joined at the hip. The ‘when’ and ‘how’ are not terribly important, but the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ should be.
Drug Wars, Insider Trading, Bail Outs, Fiat Currency, Assassinations, Dictators, Fascism, Manufactured Terrorism, Political Corruption, Stolen Elections, Executive Orders, Constitutional Violations, Wiretapping, Drone Killings, etc etc. This list goes on and on. Tune-in to the Mainstream Media or Alternative News, and you will hear about a brand new one of these in a matter of minutes. Each individually would qualify as Conspiracy, minus any theory. [404 – Theory Not Found] Perpetual conspiracy in our collective reality is not theory, it is fact. Yet the masses are so quick to scoff at this idea of any ‘octopus conspiracy’ linking them all together. Yet behold, these are actually designed, enabled, and promoted by the octopus itself.
“Money is the root of all evil.” We’ve all heard this one. While I do not agree with the statement, there is some truth in that metaphor. Consider however, that money = options. Nothing more, nothing less. Based on one’s background, education, and motivations, those options will likely be leveraged as in the best interest of the owner, often as a form of self-preservation. That owner is free to define what they feel is ‘best interest’, and at what level to ‘self-preserve’. At this level, it has nothing to do with positive or negative.
To be most correct, I would instead surmise that, ‘Debt’ is the root of all evil, as the concept of debt is nothing more than retained ownership, at a cost. ie, slavery. This concept predates any living humans, evidence suggesting back to 5000+ BC. So, to make this crystal clear, Debt = Slavery. All made possible by ‘kingship’, as ancient Kings would dictate all policy, including money creation. This ultimately led to war, conflict, and further separation (amongst humanity).
This ancient control mechanism is connected to another key foundational understanding, the Unified Field. Some call it God – but it doesn’t matter what you call it, nor does it matter if you even believe in it. The only thing we know for sure, is that there is a pervasive energy here that we do not fully understand. Perhaps we are not allowed to understand, or maybe the true value is only gleaned when the answers are ‘found within’ rather than when ‘provided by outside influence’. Fundamentalist Religions explain this through negativity, guilt, separation, etc. They do not promote the obvious unification, connectedness, or self-empowerment that humanity so desperately needs.
Many parts of this global ‘conspiracy’ are linked to this recurring idea of universal-inter-connectedness. Unfortunately for most, the globalist agenda is successful and the result is an embedded programming that rejects these concepts, before any application of legitimate critical thinking. As preposterous as it sounds, those who are the most plugged in, are thinking-for-themselves the least. Corporations rule the world – do you think they want smarter, more educated consumers? All one needs to do is look at the trillions being spent on war, and debt recovery, versus plain and simple education. Government contractors fly around in private jets, and teachers nationwide get pay-cuts and pink slips.
The capitalism argument is long since dead, as the system requires that all participants ‘play fair’. When was the last time that happened? Capitalism is motivated by profits, and profits are always what is best-for-business. Let’s not forget what makes modern capitalism possible, that pesky control mechanism mentioned earlier, Debt Slavery. These days, Central Bankers are the root of all evil, and ultimately the controlling forces behind them pull the Geo-political strings. They hire and fire presidents, lie countries into war, bankrupt or propagate economies, and consistently act on the premise of self-interest. They also depend on our cooperation. Lets look closer:
The Pharmaceutical Industry needs to sell synthetically created pills; so healthy self-healing humans using nature’s herbs, are bad-for-business. Televisions sell products and self-limiting ideas; a TV program, that doesn’t convince the viewer to buy, or makes them feel better about themselves, is actually bad-for-business. The Oil/Coal/Energy Cartel prefers to keep you coming back for a re-fill; so a clean unlimited energy source for all of humanity, is bad-for-business. The Military Industrial Complex builds weapons for both sides; so any peacetime is bad-for-business. Fulfilled and Free-Spirited humans avoid consumerism and mindless spending; empty shopping malls are bad-for-business. Abraham Lincoln ended slavery & wanted no part of a central banking system; Honest Abe, was bad-for-business. John F. Kennedy disbanded the highly corrupt and profitable Central Intelligence Agency, then said “screw the Fed” by minting silver-certificates; so you see even the country’s beloved JFK, was bad-for-business. America’s War Machine needs an elusive and thretening enemy, too bad that ‘captured’ Terrorists have a very different story to tell; so giving them a fair, open trial is.. bad-for-business.
Grab The Bull, And Make Lemonade
This is the part where you wake up and realize that just about everything in our existence that would be ideal for humanity, is bad-for-business. Things are the way they are, by design. Problems and conflict exist as status-quo, because it is most profitable. Human existence is exploited and profited from, at every possible turn. You pay money to exist – and have been led to believe there is simply no other way. The time for you to finally release this limiting belief system is now. The time for you to take action and do something with this awareness is now.
Your answers are out there. All answers are out there. There are no secrets, only information you have yet to uncover. You are an infinite being within the ultimate creation, and only you can decide what is true, for you. As a Near-Death-Experiencer, I have been fortunate to see the other side, a glimpse of truly unlimited awareness, a chance to Hack-the-Matrix. There are things about your existence that the elite control groups do not want you to know, because it is bad-for-business. What is typically wrapped up and presented to you as ‘truth’, is simply the most profitable version of the official record; valid supporting evidence rarely, if ever supplied.
Decide to unplug yourself from the matrix of deception, and create your own reality – one that you prefer. No one else can do this for you. Or, you can choose to play victim, and reject any responsibility as an individualized expression of the god-force, thus riding a perpetual wave of negativity for as long as your essence will maintain it. Remember that positive, attracts. Negative repels, and separates. Either way, you are the creator, and you are fully supported in your chosen belief system, because that is the true nature of the universe. Whatever you most strongly believe to be true, will eventually come into focus. Until now, this concept has been used against you, just as it was used against me.
Since I have found this reality-matrix to be a self created hologram, I know I must continue to fight the programming, and I do this by loving thy neighbor, all neighbors. I remember that we are each brothers and sisters in a shared dream. Even more.. reflections of a single mind, a single consciousness (like derp, one internet) that doesn’t recognize itself often enough. Note: Find a way to recognize self in nature, and in others.
For those interested in continuing this exploration into the corrupt, mysterious, infinite, and unexplained – I have for the last year developed and managed a website archive, free of any advertisement or corporate exploitation. Consider it my own way of contributing to the this movement, this hive, this mindset, this frequency. While you were sleeping, the Constitution no longer exists, and every citizen is an Enemy of the State. Why not start acting like it? Go for gold – be the Warrior.
For the second time this year, self-proclaimed Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown was raided by the FBI.
The latest dramatic incident occurred late Wednesday evening while Brown and another woman identified by some as his girlfriend were participating in an online chat on TinyChat with other individuals.
Two minutes into the recorded chat session, loud voices could be heard in the background of Brown’s residence in Texas while the woman in the room with him was in front of the computer screen. She quickly closed the computer screen, but the audio continued to capture events in the room as the FBI appeared to strong-arm Brown to put handcuffs on him. Brown could be heard yelling in the background.
A spokeswoman in the Dallas County sherriff’s office confirmed to Wired that Brown was raided last night and was booked into the county jail around 11 p.m. She said the FBI removed him from the jail this morning to take him to a different facility, but she did not know where he was headed.
California attorney Jay Leiderman, a member of Brown’s legal team, told Wired that Brown was scheduled to be arraigned today in Texas on making threats to a federal agent.
Asked if the FBI agents were aware that Brown was online at the time of their raid, Leiderman said, “They problaby would have preferred to raid him when he was not online.” He noted that the audio from the raid was “certainly less than flattering when they’re marching through these doors dropping F-bombs…. I imagine they would not want to have that captured if they could help it.”
A transcript of the TinyChat session has been posted online. Just moments before the arrest, there were jokes about whether one of the chat participants was real or just an animated GIF. Moments later, the chat participants faced a different conundrum: trying to figure out whether they’d just witnessed an FBI raid.
A voice that appeared to come from one of the arresting agents was heard saying something to the effect: “You’re going down! Get your hands down!”
Right as the noise began, another participant in the chat room showed up in a video window with a white handkerchief covering his lower face. “Is Barrett Browm getting fuckin’ raided by the FBI?” he appeared to say. “Holy shit!”
Brown’s latest raid came after he posted a long and rambling YouTube video in which he talked about taking drugs (though not today, he noted) and about retaliating against an FBI Agent named Robert Smith after he learned that his mother might be hit with obstruction of justice charges. The threat of charges was apparently related to a laptop of Brown’s that he apparently hid.
“So that’s why Robert Smith’s life is over,” Brown said in the video (beginning around minute 9:40). “When I say his life is over, I’m not saying I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his fucking kids. Because Aaron Barr did the same thing and he didn’t get raided for it. How do you like them apples?” he said, smiling.
The video, titled “Why I’m Going to Destroy FBI Agent Robert Smith Part Three: Revenge of the Lithe” was accompanied by a note apparently posted by Brown that reads: “Send all info on Agent Robert Smith to [email protected] so FBI can watch me look up his kids. It’s all legal, folks, Palantir chief counsel Matt Long already signed off on it when Themis planned worse.”
Brown also talked about being a target of the Zeta drug cartel and mentioned that he was heavily armed and was concerned that the cartel would come after him posed as federal officers.
“Any armed official of the U.S. government, particularly the FBI, will be regarded as potential Zeta assassin squads,” he said in the video. “As FBI knows … they know that I’m armed and I come from a military family and I was taught to shoot by a Vietnam veteran … and I will shoot all of them and kill them if they come and do anything…. I have reason to fear for my life.”
He signed off the video saying: “Frankly, it was pretty obvious I was going to be dead before I was 40 or so, so I wouldn’t mind going out with two FBI sidearms like a fucking Egyptian pharaoh. Adios.”
Asked about Brown’s comments, Leiderman said that he hadn’t seen the full video and wasn’t aware of everything Brown had said, but he noted that his client had a reputation for hyperbole and joking around, and that things he said might appear to be a threat when they weren’t really intended to be that way.
“It’s hard to understand the context [of what he said], Leiderman said. “But this is speech, so ordinarily we go to a First Amendment defense, but obviously there are lines that can be crossed where you can lose your First Amendment protection.”
An FBI spokeswoman had no comment to make on Brown’s arrest.
Greetings World — On September 3, 2012 our comrades in AntiSec released a Press Release here –> http://pastebin.com/nfVT7b0Z
In this release they disclosed the fact that they had hacked the laptop of an FBI agent in the Cyber-Crime division and among the booty taken was a file containing 12 million UDIDs from various Apple products owned by people in the USA. They released evidence of this in the form of 1 million partially redacted entries from the file. The media did their usual idiot dance, latched onto the story and ran without thinking. Then mid-week it was pointed out by their critics that Anonymous could have got that file from many sources. Of course the FBI denied they were hacked, did you honestly think that the FBI Cyber-Crime guys would be like yeah Anonymous hacked us and we are butthurt? Please. Then no sooner does the media turn to this idea that hey, Anonymous could have got this info from some app developer lo and behold an app developer mysteriously discovers that they have been hacked and the data belongs to them. Yeah right. And now the media has come full circle like baying dogs and is reporting this shit as the newest version of reality. Fucking jokers. We have strong reason to believe this company Blue Toad are liars. But even if their data matches the data set obtained from the FBI by AntiSec, this simply points to one possible source where the FBI might have obtained the data. As AntiSec themselves pointed out in their response to the FBI’s lies, no one ever said the FBI got this data from Apple.
Now that the main stream media is finally catching on that this so-called “Blue Toad” revelation proves nothing, everyone seems completely perplexed. Some tech journalists are demanding hard “proof”. Don’t be fools, that would land a bunch of us in prison and it ain’t going to happen. What AntiSec and Anonymous HAVE provided you is evidence that only has meaning to the FBI Cyber-Crime guys.
These partial IPs for instance:
206.112.75.XX
153.31.184.XX
Has any reporter asked the FBI Cyber-Crime division if these IPs have any meaning to them. No, of course not. They would only deny it or just not answer the question saying it was a “security issue”, right ? But it IS your job as a reporter to at least ask. In the initial Press Release, AntiSec provided the name of the Cyber Agent and the make and model of his laptop. “During the second week of March 2012, a Dell Vostro notebook, used by Supervisor Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl from FBI Regional Cyber Action Team and New York FBI Office Evidence Response Team was breached.” Has even ONE reporter contacted Agent Stangl and asked him what make and model laptop he uses for work? Uhmmm, no of course not. You are all so quick to believe some strange company who conveniently pops up out of the mists (and who we have never even heard of ourselves until today). But what is REALLY incredible is that you would believe a group who is historically PROVEN to be pathological liars and criminals, namely the FBI. AntiSec also provided the method used, and most security “experts” (i.e. White Hat Scum) have grudgingly admitted the hack would be possible using the technique described. AntiSec has even provided the MAC addresses of all the hardware used in the new York office of the Cyber-Crime Division:
Has anyone asked the FBI if these MACS are real? And before you reply “they would just deny it or say no comment” – it is STILL your job as reporters to at least ASK and report their answer to your audience. You have asked for chat logs from the hack. AntiSec has indicated they may provide them after they have thoroughly scrutinized them and redacted shit that can get them V&ed, which will most likely include the forensic “proof” some of you crazy journos are clamoring for. But the bottom line is this. Anonymous and AntiSec have provided FAR more evidence for their side of the story than the FBI has with their two lousy tweets and then a steady stream of “no comments”. The FBI has not provided one shred of evidence for their lying denials. Anonymous and AntiSec have provided what they can, and may provide more in the future.
AntiSec hacked the FBI and found 12 million UDIDs from Apple products on the laptop of a special cyber agent of the FBI. Whether the FBI had these for some tracking scenario as AntiSec opines, or whether they had them to use to crack open Apple stuff they seize when the “suspect” won’t give them the passwords – or whether they had them for some completely un-known nefarious reason, they had them and Anonymous took them. We know this is true, and more importantly the FBI knows this is true. It is not our job to convince either the media or the masses. But the truth is there, if the journalists want to actually WORK for a living and dig for it. Also, that file wasn’t all that AntiSec obtained from Agent Stangl’s laptop. The FBI and all you media journos should….
EXPECT US.
SINCERELY
— Anonymous Anonymous Global — www.AnonymousGlobal.tk
For Messages From AntiSec Follow @AnonymousIRC on Twitter
But both of those actions would be illegal in the abstract. Taking down my sign or vandalizing it would be a graffiti or vandalism type charge whereas repeatedly DDoSing my site would be similar in method and manner to that. It’s why you have to be careful with the speech. What you have with PayPal, it’s a pure form of speech — it was a limited and qualified thing like Woolworth’s. African-Americans went into Woolworth’s and said, I want lunch, feed me lunch, I will eat it, pay for it, and leave. Same with PayPal.
The purpose of this statement is to speak only on behalf of myself, and my own direct experiences. I’ve taken the time to organize and formulate the delivery of this release such that it has the capability to immediately benefit your life, and the way in which you can choose to approach this dynamic and ever changing moment. I feel that my motivations, combined with my personal experience, are most relevant for sharing through the collective hive mind that is ‘Anonymous’.
Conspiracy: 1. A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful. 2. The action of plotting or conspiring.
This is the part where you wake up and realize that just about everything in our existence that would be ideal for humanity, is bad-for-business. Things are the way they are, by design. Problems and conflict exist as status-quo, because it is most profitable. Human existence is exploited and profited from, at every possible turn. You pay money to exist – and have been led to believe there is simply no other way. The time for you to finally release this limiting belief system is now. The time for you to take action and do something with this awareness is now.
