Re: Hi! Our mailing
Subject: Re: Hi! Our mailing
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 8/8/11, 17:26
To: Britta Weddeling <b.weddeling@focus-magazin.de>

There are good and bad reasons for Anons to go after someone who speaks to the press or exhibits some degree of leadership, depending on the situation. The problem is that many of them will go after such a person regardless of the circumstances. There is a belief among many Anons that the movement has always been without leaders of any sort, when in fact there have always been small groups of people who take initiative, conceive and launch operations, and ensure that necessary work is accomplished. But the majority of Anons don't see these things occur, as they happen outside of view. Many of them realize that such people are doing what needs to be done, but others assume - and sometimes they are correct to assume - that such "leaders" are merely out for their own gain, or are damaging the movement in some way. Still others don't care one way or the other and just want to harass someone who is more prominent than themselves, in the same way that many regular people enjoy seeing celebrities fall from grace. And all it takes is a few people such as that to disrupt operations. Ryan Cleary, for instance, considered himself to be a leader and said as much to myself and other people on several occasions, but when others who ran the AnonOps IRC server took away some of his control, he disrupted everything and claimed he was doing so in principled opposition to the secret leadership that those people were exerting. Obviously, his real reason was emotional - he had little life outside of Anonymous and clearly didn't care as much about activism as he did about feeling powerful.

This ties in to another problem with Anonymous, which is quality control. Some of the Anons I've worked with and continue to work with are extraordinarily talented, mature people who are willing to make sacrifices to fight for liberty. But in a movement that has little structure, there's no way to prevent people like Cleary from joining. I left Anonymous after that incident and instead began working from my own group, Project PM, which I'd set up in late 2009 for a different purpose but which now oversees our continuing investigation into the intelligence contracting industry, persona management, and advanced surveillance capabilities. As I can choose who joins, we're able to get work done without the distractions and infighting that one finds in Anonymous. Likewise, we don't have to be associated with every action that is taken in the name of Anonymous, some of which we disagree with.

I still think Anonymous is a necessary movement that prompts people to act and provides them with knowledge and training of the sort that is needed to act effectively. But as time goes on, more individuals will choose to start smaller groups with new sorts of organizing principles, and some of these will prove to be more effective than Anonymous by virtue of quality over quantity.

On Thu, Aug 4, 2011 at 6:40 AM, Britta Weddeling <b.weddeling@focus-magazin.de> wrote:
Hi Barrett, 

I've got a few more questions concerning your time with Anonymous and the problem of leadership. 

As you probably know, the former German Minister of Defense zu Guttenberg fell under the power of the crowd: Lots of people in the web anatomized his dissertation and found, that he plagiarized most of it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg#Resignation_from_all_political_offices) 

A few weeks ago the guy who found this anonymous group named GuttenPlag and – after they shut down another politician – VroniPlag, 
gave an interview where he explaines what he did and why. This caused a lot of trouble for him, because other participants of VroniPlag claimed that he was kind of ego-fagg. 

This reminded me of the anti-leader-ethic of Anonymous. Was this kind of "the revenge of the crowd"?
Maybe you with your background could probably explain me this behavior a bit? 

What's the reason both Anonymous and GuttenPlag got this problem with leadership? 

I'd be glad to hear from you soon. 

Warm bests, 
Britta


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Britta Weddeling
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Regards,

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