Anonymous meets real activism? #OpPayPal
pandalabs.pandasecurity.com
pandalabs.pandasecurity.com
I'm getting really tired of this. "Peaceful" and "criminal" are not mutually exclusive. Sit-ins are often not legal, lying down in the road is not legal, that's why people get arrested for it.
Not that I necessarily support anything anon are doing, I am just tired of the really weak moral arguments made against them over and over again. There are much more internally-consistent ways to criticise them.
And there's nothing wrong with arresting those people so long as the law they violate is just. Which is of course the point— it's calling the government's bluff.
Of course, I have to imagine that all the people who participate by running LOIC or whatever have no expectation that they might be arrested, and wouldn't be doing it if they thought they might. Even a slight risk of that would probably stop the attacks from succeeding altogether. That fact alone casts the whole "civil disobedience" angle into turmoil— they're willing to do damage as long as they don't face consequences personally. It's politically much closer to a few hardline individuals blowing up a public building, which is much less okay even if their cause is just.
And 'real activism'? Why do you get to judge what is 'real' or not? The protests they've been staging have been very effective at opening eyes. They have clearly gotten their point across. And they continue to do so.
A DDOS is not necessarily a crime, same a blocking a road to hold a protest is not a crime, while "just blocking a road" is. The motives for doing so are much more important than the author recognizes.
And the harsh way gov'ts worldwide are responding to these protests are worrying. "Let's just smash 'em" is probably not a politically wise response.
Under what circumstances or alternative definition? (Without referring to a physical analogy.)
And who judges the motives? Law enforcement cannot start making such decisions, so they will have to consider DDOS a crime and let the courts sort them out.
In fact, police SOP for a protest that's beginning to get a bit rowdy is to cite them for just such a crime. "Disperse from the road, or be incarcerated," as it were. Some protests will take this as a sign to move back into sanctioned areas (if it seems strategically appropriate to keep the action going); others will choose to stay and go to prison for the night.
In some sense, it doesn't qualify as "civil disobedience," in the Dr. King sense, unless the latter happens:
"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." — Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," 1963[1]
[1]: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...
*Edit: At least in the U.S.
In this case, Anonymous will achieve making PayPal's website even slower for a while. If they lose customers it'll be for the wrong reasons. Anonymous needs to find a way to educate the public about a company's wrongdoings, not just disrupt the company's service while not making sure everyone knows exactly why that company's service has been disrupted. They seem to have this misguided idea that DDOS = public education and corporate humiliation. That's what I find shortsighted.
Anonymous has its own means and methods which you may or may not agree with.
If you agree that something needs to be done but think there is a better way to do it, then you need to carry it out, enough "armchair quarterback"-ing.
Maybe this isn't the way you'd like to go about it. It sure isn't what I had hoped for, but the fact of the matter is, it's time. This needs to happen. And if you hadn't noticed, in the age of the internet, sometimes you have to be loud to be heard.
So when censorship fits their needs, it's okay.
Again, I don't agree with it, but it's not necessarily hypocrisy, just different values.
Sorry, you've lost me there. Get off your high horse.
From a current Government's view, all revolutions are illegal, too.
This is the very definition of a government's job in many western countries. The government is elected by the electorate in order to make decisions on our behalf while we get about our lives.
Whether or not governments "allow" protest to certain levels or not is a different matter, but the design of most current western democracies is one that should, in essence, not require significant levels of protest, since they were elected to do exactly what they're doing by a plurality (or even majority) of the electorate.
But ideally, the Governments wouldn't want you to protest at all, whether you do it in crowds or on your own on Twitter.
Ideally, would anyone want to protest or want other people protesting? Ideally, I certainly wouldn't. Of course, in our less than ideal world, sometimes it is necessary, but unless they're doing it for fun or attention, I doubt anyone "wants" to have to protest.