Re: Press Release - Rally for Information Freedom, NYC City Hall, April 7

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 9:27 AM, Matt Seaton <matt.seaton@guardian.co.uk> wrote:

This is v interesting, Barrett, but the link I sent you was actually about arrests in the UK of alleged Anon activists in UK over WikiLeaks-related attacks on commercial sites -- but is there a way of linking the two stories by pointing out how ironic it is that international Anon is an integral part of the liberation protests in Tunisia and Egypt, even as western governments move against activists in the UK (and elsewhere: are Anon people under investigation by FBI in US?).

Do you think it's possible to tie the two stories together?

Best, Matt
On 27 January 2011 15:18, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm not only following it, but have been involved in both OpTunisia and OpEgypt since the beginning, been working 12 hour days on it for nearly two weeks now, did several media interviews over the past few days with Newsweek and others. I have a bit of history with that region. I've just written an op-ed on the subject which I was about to start sending out. Let me know what you think of this rough draft.
***
There exists a reasonable tendency to judge from the past what is possible in the present. This becomes less reasonable to the extent that the environment changes. It is a useful thing, then, to ask every once in a while if the environment has recently gone through any particular severe changes and thereby expanded our options. Over the last twenty years, for instance, the terminology has changed to such a degree that many of todays essential discussions would be entirely incomprehensible to anyone living two decades ago. Never in history has this been so true as it is now, at the onset of the communications age. As the environment has changed, some have already began to take the new options, and more will do so soon. It is time for the rest of the world to begin to understand why.

When a release by Wikileaks to the effect that the government was even more specifically corrupt and horrid than previously realized prompted Tunisians to step up active dissent and take to the streets in huge numbers for the first time, a loose network of participants within the international Anonymous protest movement attacked non-essential government websites (those not providing direct services to Tunisians) at the prompting of our Tunisian contacts; several such sites were replaced with a message of support to the Tunisian people, with the others merely being pushed offline by means of a DDOS attack involving thousands of computer users who request large amounts of data from a website at once in order to overwhelm it. Other assistance programs have begun to follow in the days since President Ben Ali fled the nation that reviled him, with Anonymous and other parties working with Tunisians both in-country and abroad to provide the nations people with the tools and informational resources they need to begin building up new, reasonable political institutions capable of ensuring a freer civic life. Our Guide to Protecting the Tunisian Revolution series - a collaboration between hundreds of veterans of traditional revolutionary movements as well as practitioners of the new activism - has been disseminated both online and in printed copies; aside from tips on safety during confrontation and the like, these also explain how to establish secure yet accessible networks and communications for Tunisians as well as instructions on establishing neighborhood syndicates capable of uniting in common cause. Already, such organizations are now being established across Tunisia, just as they will be established elsewhere as this movement proceeds.

Anonymous is merely a means by which people across the globe can assist in the hard work being performed by the Tunisian people, who have long taken issue with their government but first began protesting in earnest last month when a fruit vendor set himself on fire in response to police cruelty. The Anonymous movement itself grew out of message boards frequented mostly by young people with an interest in internet culture in general and Japanese media in particular; in 2005, participants began attacking other internet venues as a sort of sport, and in the process honed their skills in a way that also proved useful in informational warfare. In 2007 some users proposed that the Church of Scientology be exposed for its unethical and sometimes violent conduct, sparking a coordinated global protest movement that differed from anything else seen and which still continues today; the Australian government was later attacked for introducing new internet censorship laws, and in the meantime those within Anonymous who see the subculture as a potential force for justice have launched other efforts while also building new strategies and recruiting individuals from across the globe, some of whom hold significant positions in media, industry, and the sciences.

In the meantime, there are obstacles to be overcome. Those within the Tunisian government who seek to deny liberty to their people are easy enough to deal with; the greatest threat to revolution comes not from any state but rather from those who decry such revolutions without understanding them. In this case, the idea that a loose network of people with shared values and varying skill sets can provide substantial help to a population abroad is seen as quixotic or even unseemly by many of those who have failed to understand the last ten years, as well as those whose first instinct is to attack a popular revolt rather than assist it. Elsewhere, a number of American pundits have decided to criticize the revolution as possibly destabilizing the region; many of these once demanded the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and greeted every Arab revolt as the work of President Bush but now see nothing for themselves in the cause of Arab liberty. Some have even portrayed the movement as the work of radical Islamists; most cannot find Tunisia on a map. Suffice to say that the results of our efforts are already on display and will become more evident as Tunisians use our tools and resources to achieve their greatest triumph. Those who wish to assist and are competent to do so can find us easily enough; the Tunisians had little trouble in doing so.

Although we have made great progress in convincing individuals from across the world to join this effort and others (such as the just-commenced operation for Algeria), more must be done before the movement takes the next step towards a worldwide network capable of perpetual engagement against those who are comfortable with tyranny. Whatever effort is required, such a goal is not only possible, but rather unambitious. There is a reason, after all, that those of us who have seen the movement up close have dedicated our lives to what is stands for and have even violated the modern Western taboo of believing in something. I have been working with and covering Anonymous for about six years now, for instance; looking back at my writings, I have found that my predictions, while always enthusiastic, have nonetheless turned out to have been conservative. Today I today predict that Anonymous and entities like it will become far more significant over the next few years, and this will no doubt turn out to be just as much of an understatement as anything else that has been written on the subject. The fact is that the technological infrastructure that allows these things has only been in place for a few years, but such phenomena as Wikileaks and Anonymous have already appeared, expanded, and even come into play on the geopolitical scene; others have come about since. This is the future, whether one approves or not, and the failure on the part of governments and media alike to understand and contend with the rapid change now afoot ought to remind everyone concerned why it is that this movement is necessary in the first place.
On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Matt Seaton <matt.seaton@guardian.co.uk> wrote:
Hi Barrett

Just wondered -- you must be following this story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jan/27/anonymous-hacking -- let me know if you want to write something about these arrests, and about Anon activism generally.

Best, Matt

On 14 January 2011 00:45, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Press Release

For Immediate Distribution
January 13th, 2011

An unprecedented coalition of information activists and organizations have come together in an effort to advance the ongoing campaign against the informational tyranny that has been on view as of late in the context of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, and Bradley Manning. All three of these parties have 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 these 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, and related organizations - 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. This event, the Rally for Information Freedom, will be supplemented by a campaign on the part of Anonymous, Project PM, and related entities to bring attention to the dozens of significant stories that have been largely ignored due to the unfortunate dynamics by which too many media have come to operate. The New York conference - conceived 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, key Anonymous activist and Chanology co-instigator Gregg Housh, and National Lawyers Guild executive director Heidi Boghosian. Messages from other figures in the pro-transparency movement will also be presented in lieu of their ability to attend.

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 a great portion human affairs with results that may be politely characterized as mixed. The various states have responded to these developments with a collective message to the effect that such secrecy is necessary if they are to continue operating without the informed consent of their respective populations, though this has generally been expressed 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 have lost faith in those same governments.

This event is part of an effort to counter the dishonesty and injustice of the states which have reacted to such emergent phenomena with censorship and persecution while also forging greater coordination among the various parties that have been fighting on behalf of the cause of informational liberty. To this end, a series of meetings both formal and otherwise will be held throughout the first week of April; further information will be relayed in a second press release in late March.

Confirmed Speakers

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 housed at New York Universitys Tamiment Library.

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.

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.

Heidi Boghosian is the executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, a progressive bar association established in 1937. She is co-host of the weekly civil liberties radio program Law and Disorder on WBAI, New York and over 30 national affiliate stations. She has published several articles and reports on policing, protest, and the First Amendment.

Sebastian Gillen is a 21-year-old graduate of Tufts University. When he was eight years old, he was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma, a rare form of pediatric cancer, and given two weeks to live. More than ten years later, he is still cancer-free and an active advocate for childhood cancer research. He has spoken at rallies on Capitol Hill and Greg Norman's Shark Shootout, among other places. He thinks science is totally awesome and runs a blog at Weareinthefuture.com and administrates Project PMs Science Journalism Program.

Faith Laugier is a musician, artist, activist, and New York native whos worked with many of the citys human rights organizations, cultural non-profits, and homeless centers in an effort to advance the inherent right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

General Press Inquiries

Barrett Brown
barriticus@gmail.com
(512) 560-2302

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

--
Matt Seaton
Editor, Comment is free America
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/america
Direct line: 212-584 9938
Cellphone: 202-372 7444
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit guardian.co.uk - newspaper website of the year
www.guardian.co.uk  www.observer.co.uk

To save up to 33% when you subscribe to the Guardian and the Observer
visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/subscriber

---------------------------------------------------------------------

This e-mail and all attachments are confidential and may also
be privileged. If you are not the named recipient, please notify
the sender and delete the e-mail and all attachments immediately.
Do not disclose the contents to another person. You may not use
the information for any purpose, or store, or copy, it in any way.

Guardian News & Media Limited is not liable for any computer
viruses or other material transmitted with or as part of this
e-mail. You should employ virus checking software.

Guardian News & Media Limited

A member of Guardian Media Group plc
Registered Office
PO Box 68164
Kings Place
90 York Way
London
N1P 2AP

Registered in England Number 908396
--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302
--
Matt Seaton
Editor, Comment is free America
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/america
Direct line: 212-584 9938
Cellphone: 202-372 7444
Please consider the environment before printing this email.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit guardian.co.uk - newspaper website of the year
www.guardian.co.uk  www.observer.co.uk

To save up to 33% when you subscribe to the Guardian and the Observer
visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/subscriber

---------------------------------------------------------------------

This e-mail and all attachments are confidential and may also
be privileged. If you are not the named recipient, please notify
the sender and delete the e-mail and all attachments immediately.
Do not disclose the contents to another person. You may not use
the information for any purpose, or store, or copy, it in any way.

Guardian News & Media Limited is not liable for any computer
viruses or other material transmitted with or as part of this
e-mail. You should employ virus checking software.

Guardian News & Media Limited

A member of Guardian Media Group plc
Registered Office
PO Box 68164
Kings Place
90 York Way
London
N1P 2AP

Registered in England Number 908396

Press Release

For Immediate Distribution January 13th, 2011

Confirmed Speakers

General Press Inquiries

For Immediate Distribution
January 13th, 2011