I'm a writer and author who just ended a six-month stint as de facto
spokesperson and strategist for the Anonymous collective, during which
time I was involved in our operations to assist North African
revolutionaries, our investigation into HBGary Federal and other
intelligence contractors engaged in wrongdoing, and Operation Metal
Gear, a crowd-sourced investigation I announced two months ago on Russia
Today as a means by which to prompt media coverage of "persona
management," the practice of software-assisted "sock puppets" that was
revealed to be employed by CENTCOM via the e-mails we obtained from
HBGary and which would appear to be a growing industry in general.
Previously I wrote for Vanity Fair, Huffington Post, New York Press, Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, The Onion, and a variety of other publications, including humor and policy outlets; I currently write op-eds for The Guardian and al-Jazeera and am working on a film as well as another book (my first, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny,
was released in 2007 and received acclaim from Alan Dershowitz, Matt
Taibbi, and others). My unusual status is described here: http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_Magazine/2011/April/How_Barrett_Brown_Helped_Overthrow_the_Government_of_Tunisia.aspx.
This week I "retired" from Anonymous in order to return to more
conventional writing and concentrate on my own projects. I wanted to see
if you might be interested in articles on topics relating to some of
the dynamics that I've been fortunate enough to see up-close over the
past several years, in particular the conflicts that have arisen between
states and other institutions on one hand and the increasingly-capable
community of online dissidents represented by such things as Anonymous,
Wikileaks, and other, newer groups that are now coming into existence.
Although I've been quoted extensively on these issues lately in various
outlets and was the subject of an NBC Night News report in February, I
haven't had a chance to put forward much other than soundbites. I'm also
privy to a great deal of information that I'd like to start reporting
on myself rather than dispensing it out to various journalists, as I had
gotten in the habit of doing.
Let me know if you'd be interested in discussing this further.