Anonymous Hackers Threaten the EFF!

Yes! I’ve waited thirty years to have it proven! I’m referring, of course, to that sermon Daily Planet editor Perry White delivered in that early-’80s Superman comic where Superman gets to eat Kryptonite to prove he’s now immune to it: “Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

No, I still don’t have the foggiest idea what it means. But Anon_Operations still seems driven to prove it.

Anon_Operations — aka Anonymous, aka whatever, is of course the hacker group acting on behalf of Wikileaks. They’ve taken on Mastercard, Paypal, Amazon, some dumb Swiss bank I’ve never heard of before, blah blah blah, we’re all really impressed down here, thanks guys, you struck a blow for freedom, awesome.

Want to know who they’re directly threatening now? That’s right!!! The goose-steppers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation!!!!!

Spouting what blogger Nadim Kobeissi called a “thuggish, power-crazy tweet,” AnonOps said something that would be absolutely hilarious if it wasn’t so disillusioning.

I quote here from said thuggish, power-crazy tweet, delivered around noon California Time. It seems pretty thuggish and power-crazy if you ask me:

So @EFF doesn’t condone cyber-vigilantism?? Wanna be next, wise guy? #AnonOps #BradAss87 #WikiLeaks

You know, this quoting thing’s a lot easier when people only have 140 characters to work with. Anyway, our favorite power-crazy thugs are, of course, referring to (without @-replying to it) the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s earlier tweet  this morning that:

EFF doesn’t condone cyber-vigilantism, be it against Mastercard or #WikiLeaks. The answer to bad speech is more speech. #netfreedom

In the face of what Anonymous clearly (and rightly) considers concrete governmental legal and diplomatic pressure, “not condoning” something suddenly means I’m their next target? Um….is your problem with monolithic and oppressive structures that silence free speech? Or is your problem with the speech of anyone who disagrees with you? ‘Cause, Anonymous…if you’re gonna start attacking people who disagree with you, the EFF should kinda be wwwaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy down the list. Why don’t you start with the people who are calling for Julian Assange to be assassinated…rather than the ones who “don’t condone cyber-vigillantism”?

Anonymous, if you’re such bad-asses, and if your vigilante actions are really intended line with the principles of free of speech — rather than merely a show of virtual penis size — then don’t start a War on the Voice of Moderation.

Don’t the principles of vigilantism permit vigilantes the moral high ground because the deck is stacked against them — by banks, credit card companies, governments, etc. etc.?

Directly threatening the EFF for advocating “more speech” rather than cyber-vigilantism?

Seriously…that’s really where you wanna take this, Anonymous? That’s what you stand for?

Wow. I guess I really did wake up in Hell this morning.

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3 comments on “Anonymous Hackers Threaten the EFF!
  1. You made a mistake, the same that @doctorow and @JPbarlow (and later corrected itself) made.

    The @Anon_Operations is not the official account of Operation:Payback, it was a satire/mock account. Right now the official account for OP is @operpayback (it was @op_payback, but was banned some hours ago).

    The fact is that Anonymous don’t have any kind of leaders. Operation Payback has an oficcial account, not Anonymous. The same way that Operation Leakspin was made also by Anonymous, but not by the same ones (maybe) of Operation Payback.

    The guys coordinating Operation Payback never threatened of attacked EFF. Join their irc channel if you want to know what is really happening.

  2. When I saw JPB say that Anon was after the EFF, I knew there had to be a mistake. It did not surprise me, however to see Doctorow get it wrong without fact checking. He’s the one who is “jake” with BoingBoing “unpublishing” people (like me) that they decide they don’t like anymore. He used to pretend to be my friend, and he is a total fucking hypocrite.

    What I’m most surprised about is seeing people go onto mainstream media yesterday and today (like NPR, etc) to say that they are “from Anonymous.” How can that be? Even I know there is no leader.

    I was bummed when the other account got pulled by Twitter, I really enjoy following along here at home. I was especially angry at Facebook for pulling the page, moreso than Twitter.

    IMO: If they pull Anon’s they should pull Sarah Palin’s.

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