FBI Raids Texas Company in Hunt for Anonymous

[RA92]

@Mornelithe

Yeah, it's just that I don't see any other countries using all it's force to take down one whistle-blowing website, with its government officials, media, and people in general calling for the assassination of one guy who's only crime was to reveal the truth. WikiLeaks exposed damning evidences against other European nations, China, Russia, etc, but nowhere has the backlash been so severe...

As for nations with blood in their hands, please, don't even get me started. USA currently spends more than $650 billion on military expenditure (even in the middle of one of the worst recessions in America's history, they won't bring this down). More than double that of China, Russia, France, UK - combined. (link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures)

Please care to point out any other discrepancies in my last post?

 

[Averant]

Sad thing is, once the FBI find the people who did it, they'll just turn around and hire them to work for them as well paid "consultants" to help stop other hackers.

Don't see what's so sad about it. Use a thief to catch a thief, plus it gives them a chance to use their talents for pay/good use.

Because it's hypocritical and legitimizes, and rewards, criminal activity. It's saying "Hey, this is a crime...unless it's for our side", or "If you want to commit crimes then just make sure you get real good at it so that the government will hire you and you can commit crimes legally".

Either hacking is wrong or it's not. Either assassinating people is wrong or it's not. Same for spying, smoking pot, prostitution or whatever.

How is it that one man can get arrested and thrown in prison, ruining his life, for possessing and smoking marijuana and yet another man can openly admit that he did the same thing and we go ahead and make him President of the U.S.?

Why would you or I get fired from our job if we were caught getting a blowjob from another employee while at work yet when the President gets caught he keeps his job and is admired for his way with women?

Why is it o.k. for us to go to another country, blow up their buildings killing hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children over the course of the last decade all in the name of "protecting ourselves" and yet when someone else comes into our country, blows up some buildings killing a few thousand innocent men & women all in the name of "protecting themselves" we condemn it as a crime?

I was taught growing up that things are either right or wrong. Now I'm an adult and I see that really things are only wrong when it's the other guy doing it and right if it's us doing it...and it pisses me off.

......yup. yup, that sounds about right. Welcome to Humanity, mate.

I've learned a while ago that DnD had it better than any religion. In my opinion, there's not so much Good and Evil as there is Lawful and Chaotic. Right and Wrong is COMPLETELY subjective, whereas L&C is a bit less so. I mean, if someone is trying to start an anarchy, it would be wrong for us and right for them, but they would be clearly chaotic, with us clearly lawful. DnD ftw, I say.

Anyway, back on topic, yeah. That's what the government does. The government telling a thief or an assassin, "hey, come work for us, we'll pay you." is them saying "We'll pay you to work for us, but more importantly, we'll pay you NOT to work against us." The government and all it's business/military oriented people are in the business of coming out on top, not of doing the right thing. They might TRY to do the right thing, they might WANT to, but their JOB is to come out on top. If the two happen to coincide, well, lucky them, happy us.

The blowjob issue? He's the president and he has priveliges. You're not, you don't. Same with any other high ranking job.

With the marijuana issue... being the uninformed little boy that I am and generally not giving a damn about politics these days, when the hell did that happen? Or is it just an example?

And with the thousands of deaths, well. That's propaganda for you. It helps the people support the gov't in coming out on top. They're wrong, we're right, simply because we're who we are, and you're not us.

And before you say it, because I know you will, yes I am cynical, nihilistic, etc, etc. I know. And I don't particularly care.

 

[runedeadthA]

I'm always in favour of the authorities showing that they have a good handle on modern crime but can't really get behind them on this one.

The Paypal DDoS attacks were made in retaliation for the American government putting unlawful pressure on PayPal and other financial institutions and for those organisations bowing to the government pressure.

While two wrongs don't make a right are we really expecting a third wrong, arresting the leaders of the cyber attack, to make the whole sordid affair better?

America! Land of the free except wh- GET DOWN ON THE GROUND! HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD! YOUR OFF TO GUANTANAMO....TERRORIST!(<---magic arresting word there)

OT: I do wonder what the FBI will do when they find out half of Anonymous is underage and the other half is overseas. Especially since the people most likely to be caught are the younger, inexperienced ones who only use a single proxy...

 

[Starke]

Not illegal! Ha! He released government papers without the permission of the government.
He committed espionage, which is punishable by death in most countries. In the US, he'd probably get 40 years hard labor in a work camp. Don't think he broke that law? Lets look at the definition, shall we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage
1. Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information.

He was given the information, he did not obtain it.

It doesn't matter how he got it, the fact that he has it is the illegal part. How the information got there is irrelevant to the crime.

No, by definition he needs to acquire it himself. If he'd committed espionage he'd be in prison, instead the governments are posturing and name calling, trying him in the court of public opinion rather than with real evidence.

Yeah, on the other hand distributing classified information can still be labeled as Treason, which can still carry the death penalty in the US...

 

[BehattedWanderer]

The people's right to know, versus the people's right say...I'm beginning to think Anon might be the equivalent of a PMC in recent fiction--a unit that gets powerful enough to affront the government, whereupon the government finds new ways of shutting them down. Only, it's going to need something much more problematic than a man armed to the teeth with two .9mm clips on his belt and 20 years of making pretty great action movies. It's gonna take lawyers.

 

[Starke]

1) I'm just saying that everything has its bad side. For us the internet has people like Anonymous. Also going to great lengths and bending rules to hunt down some random hackers is frighting. We all know that this isn't because the CIA thinks anonymous are a bunch of internet jerks, its about anonymous supporting Wikileaks and opposing the government.

What rule bending. An investigation was executed, a warrant was issued with probable cause, a warrant was executed. That's how this shit works.

Now if you want to freak out because the NSA may already be well on its way to identifying these individuals already, and passing that info to the FBI so they can put together a legitimate investigation in reverse? That may be more legitimate.

EDIT: Hit the post button too early.

 

[Actual]

Yeah, on the other hand distributing classified information can still be labeled as Treason, which can still carry the death penalty in the US...

Treason is betrayal of your monarch or nation, only a citizen of the U.S. can commit treason against the U.S. government. As Assange is Australian he could never be tried for that crime. And if an American person did distribute this information I'd say that while they were betraying the government they did not betray the nation or its people, which to me is far more important.

 

[Starke]

YOUR OFF TO GUANTANAMO....TERRORIST!(<---magic arresting word there)

Yeah, the trick with Guantanamo was that the people arrested there were not American nationals. So, the military maintained that they were not afforded constitutional protections. Now, in actual legal tradition this is in fact the other way round, constitutional protections attach when you get arrested by an American entity, regardless of your own nationality.

As to charging minors? Yeah, that will probably happen. But, more likely the minors will get leaned on by the police to hand over the higher ups. Cops do this professionally, and they're better at getting people to talk than a fourteen year old in Ohio is at lying.

As for people in another country, if they get picked up by their own police forces, expect a lot more "cooperation". Remember, outside of the US, the Police are not nearly as "restrained" in their interrogation techniques as they are in the state.

EDITed for clarity.

 

[Starke]

Yeah, on the other hand distributing classified information can still be labeled as Treason, which can still carry the death penalty in the US...

Treason is betrayal of your monarch or nation, only a citizen of the U.S. can commit treason against the U.S. government. As Assange is Australian he could never be tried for that crime. And if an American person did distribute this information I'd say that while they were betraying the government they did not betray the nation or its people, which to me is far more important.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about the individual or individuals who passed information to Wikileaks, not Assange. Assange could be charged with receiving classified information. It's a distinct charge from Espionage or Treason. I think the technical name is "Receiving State Secrets", but don't quote me on that.

 

[ace_of_something]

So much for equal stance on crime. /b/ puts up child porn 5 years ago, no one bats an eye. They help a man fight an unlawful case against him, they get rolled.

Umm I call BS on that. My brother who is a SCU detective has worked with the FBI many times on child porn that pops up there. As recently as 2 months ago.

To my knowledge the FBI and homeland security have had an investigation on them specifically for the Chimos for several years.

(Not sure where that is now though)

 

[LCP]

Yeahhh! nothing would make me happier!

Looks like anonymous isn't that anonymous after all hahahahaha!

 

[ace_of_something]

They did those attacks because they were letting the government force them to deny Wikileaks money to force the site to go down. Basically, they were protecting freedom of free speech.

You realise that that means:

'Anonymous attacked them because the Government forced them to do this.'

You can't 'let yourself be forced to' do anything. It's a contradiction. What that either means is that the companies decided to do that on their own OR that the Government forced them to do something against their will and now Anonymous is punishing them for being forced to do something.

The government told them, illegally mind you, to deny Wikileaks their money and they did. The government made them do it, but they didn't put up a fight.

In the USA it's not illegal to tell a company not to do business with something else that is deemed illegal or doing something that is known to be illegal. (Wikileaks could be construed as espionage or treason)

 

[S_K]

While I can support some of anonymous raids (habbo hotel for being racist and showing the world scientology in all it's ugly form for example) this time they're treading dangerous water. Surely it must occur to the fbi though that the real people with the power behind the raids have the best security to stay... well anonymous? if I remeber correctly anon was recruiting 'Troop' bystanders to download and also run their DNS program, so those ips could be a dead end.

 

[pokepuke]

Not illegal! Ha! He released government papers without the permission of the government.
He committed espionage, which is punishable by death in most countries. In the US, he'd probably get 40 years hard labor in a work camp. Don't think he broke that law? Lets look at the definition, shall we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage
1. Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it is known that the information is in unauthorized hands.

Yup, he did that. Get your head out of the clouds. I'm with you in the fact that I'm all for whistle-blowing. As long as it doesn't mean people committing crimes punishable by death.

And the Sergent that gave him the documents committed High Treason, a crime punishable by death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_treason
High treason is criminal disloyalty to one's government. Participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state are perhaps the best known examples of high treason.

Yup, the Sergent certainly did that. And he should be punished. Should they make an exception in the law just because a few people agree with what he did? No way.
There may be situational ethics in your mind. But there are no situational ethics in the law.

Blah blah blah. Look up "pentagon papers" and chew on that for a while.

WikiLeaks is a whistleblower organization and they deserve the same protection that the newspaper have, which you didn't bother to argue against.

 

[Kelethor]

Its like a pissing contest. only on the internet.

 

[KCL]

If they take out the "troops", who will risk being one?

How many people have been sued for pirating? How many people have stopped pirating as a result?

 

[Rawker]

I always thought anonymous had good intentions through a really distorted and twisted means. Had they not been neo-terrorists, i'da said it's a shame.