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Comment by jrowen | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't seem fair to say that he has no intention of not doing it again.

"I'm not sure I would make this piece today, anyway. I'm increasingly critical of artwork that attempts to engage with the theme of surveillance by replicating systems of surveillance. How fruitful can a conversation be about consent and privacy, when an artist does not seek their subject's consent?"

I also don't think it's as bad as you're making it sound. I feel it's akin to gray-hat security research. Maybe he crossed the line into "you shouldn't do that" but ultimately had a harmless intent and didn't cause any real damage. Not exactly whistleblower status but more like a comedian being granted the liberty to push some boundaries and spark potentially valuable conversations.

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> more like a comedian being granted the liberty to push some boundaries

No. Not at all. Freedom of speech is extremely strong in the US, and for good reason. Freedom to install software onto other people's computers is not.

It's extremely troubling that people are defending this person.

It's far more troubling that too few people are questioning the mass surveillance he was critiquing and dramatising.

It's classic shoot-the-messenger.

Meanwhile Facebook was - and probably still is - tracking people's online behaviour even when they're not logged into Facebook, based on legalese buried in T&Cs which most users don't even know exist, never mind have read, never mind understood, never mind given explicit informed consent to.

> It's classic shoot-the-messenger.

No it's not!

I don't go around shooting people to advocate gun control laws.

I don't go around stealing people's belongings in cars to advocate that people shouldn't leave valuables in cars.

This is vigilante behavior that should never be condoned.

But you are defending a home raid on someone who was not brought to trial, but was making a politcal and moral point about corporate tools and corporate behaviours.

When you think criticism - oblique, but clearly still harmless - is more of a problem than the behaviours, you are very much trying to shoot the messenger.

I think, as soon as he became the actor as well, he ceased being "the messager" in the terms of solely passing on a message.

Put another way, "shoot the messenger" is a phrase used when an unbiased person, merely delivering a message of bias/harm from another, is attacked for the message.

You are not a messenger, when you perform the act/deed/thing yourself.

That is what I don't understand why he can't be a messenger and an actor at the same time.

Everything doesn't have to be black and white you know

Then it isn’t shooting the messenger because they’re also an actor? Being a messenger doesn’t grant someone immunity from being critiqued for doing unethical things.

No, it don't. But being an actor doesn't mean an individual can't be an messanger doing something in good faith.

"Dooing good, through bad methods"

>But you are defending a home raid on someone who was not brought to trial

He should have been brought to trial

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Every noteworthy push for societal change through history that ever involved breaking a law could be labeled vigilante behavior by some party. I just don't find that argument convincing. Our laws aren't there to protect themselves, they exist to create the society we want to live in. In what ways did the artist's actions harm our society? In what ways did it change how we view our society? Do we like what we see?

This isn't big brother with all the power systematically spying on citizens, this is a nobody with no power showing us a picture of ourselves. Both cases are happening, both happen against the will of the people, and yet which one do we allow to continue?

I'll also point out that the discussion we're having is exactly the outcome the artist intended.

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