Rally

For Immediate Distribution
Press Release
January 6th, 2011

Never in human history has mankind endured a period in which so much of the terminology employed at its end would have been unrecognizable at its beginning. The last twenty years have changed the landscape in which man operates, expanding the potential for human collaboration in such a way as to eliminate the barriers that rendered the nation-state a viable institution. As those barriers fall, so too does the primacy of the world's governments, which in turn have increasingly found themselves unable to maintain the secrecy through which they have run the bulk of human affairs with results that may be politely characterized as mixed. The various governments have responded to these developments with a collective message to the effect that such secrecy is necessary if those governments are to continue operating without the informed consent of their respective populations, though in slightly different words. Meanwhile, several such governments have, through their specific conduct in the wake of the last year, provided a timely reminder as to why it is that many of those who truly value liberty and morality can no longer support such governments and are now working to develop their replacements.

In an effort to counter the dishonesty and injustice of those states which have reacted to such emergent phenomena with censorship and persecution of the sort that the observant have come to expect, an unprecedented coalition of information activists and other parties has come together in an effort to advance the ongoing campaign against those obsolete dynamics of informational tyranny that have been on intructive view in the context of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning. All

three of these parties been subjected to state oppression without due regard for the alleged "rule of law;" all three have been maligned in dishonest and often bizarre ways; all three have earned such treatment by way of having together ensured that all of humanity may, for the first time in history, together learn how it is that their wealth, loyalty, and lives are being used by those who plead national security while having provided no such thing to their own citizens and even seizing it from those living elsewhere.

In response to the latest outrages against competence and decency, our coalition - comprised of veterans and anti-war groups, a faction of the Anonymous movement, the distributed think-tank Project PM, and a loose network of journalists, media professionals, scientists, former intelligence and government officials - announces a stepped-up campaign of information and direct action that begins tomorrow and which will culminate in a rally and press conference on the steps of New York City Hall on April 7th at 3:00 pm. The event itself will be supplemented by similar protests and meetings in other cities across the world, themselves organized by Anonymous and each charged with bringing attention to one of the dozens of significant stories that the media has largely ignored due to the unfortunate dynamics by which those media operate. The New York conference, set up by longtime resident activist, Navy veteran, and acclaimed photographer John Penley, will feature about a dozen speakers including Penley, author and Project PM founder Barrett Brown, and key Anonymous activist and Chanology co-instigator Gregg Housh. Messages from other figures in the pro-transparency movement will also be presented in lieu of their ability to attend.

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Confirmed Speakers/Organizers

John Penley is a Vietnam era Navy vet who was put in solitary confinement in 1984 by the U.S. government for a past protest at the Savannah River Nuclear Weapons Plant. A 59-year-old veteran of New York City housing, anti-war and civil rights activism, Penley is also a longtime photojournalist whose work has been pubilshed by most NYC major media outlets; his photo archive is available through Tamiment Library at New York University. Contact gloco@live.com

Barrett Brown is a writer and author as well as the founder of Project PM. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Onion, New York Press, Skeptical Inquirer, American Atheist, and other outlets. He has been active in the Anonymous movement for several years and serves as an advocate for efficient, ethical alternatives to traditional methods of governance. Contact barriticus@gmail.com.

Gregg Housh is an internet activist involved with the online non-group
Anonymous. His work has included coordinating global demonstrations
against human rights abuses in the Church of Scientology and assisting
Iranian members of the Green Movement in reaching the global media. Having
built a strong sense of trust among several disparate subgroups of
Anonymous, Housh now acts as a media interpreter for major
online initiatives such as Operation Payback. Contact greggatghc@gmail.com

Press Contact

Nikki Loehr - evilevilcouch@gmail.com

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Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302