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FBI Cybercrime Director Comments On Hacktivism
bdcny7927 writes "In an exclusive interview with CIO.com, the FBI official in charge of cybercrime speaks for the first time with the media specifically about hacktivism. Here, Assistant Executive Director Shawn Henry describes the threats hacktivists pose, the challenges associated with investigating them, and the FBI's success disrupting these groups. He also delivers a special message to hacktivists."
The so-called special message: "My organization is a believer in civil rights and civil liberties, and the first amendment is something I hold very dear personally and professionally. I have no problem with people picketing and protesting in the street. I get all that. But the freedom for me to swing my arm ends where your nose begins. If you are impinging on others' rights, that's illegal."
Except when it gets in the way of my job or something I want to do. Also the 4th amendment is definitely out. Can't have that
O'DOYLE RULES!
bank will he go after first?
Yes, that was my thought exactly.
We had those amendments and civil liberties. They are in the process of being destroyed or made to be impotent often by the companies being attacked. Do you have any suggestions as to the correct course of action in the face of that Mr. Shawn Henry?
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>>believer in civil rights and civil liberties
I believe as much in Santa Claus as the FBI does in civil rights and civil liberties
"Hacking is illegal." Wow, and the sky is blue. I'm sure Anonymous will be deeply moved by that one.
I'll bet this first public FBI chat will be rewarded by Anonymous in some way that he won't like.
I shudder to think who would win in a hacking duel, Anonymous or the FBI.
And three letter agencies, hell, police in general, seem to want to ignore civil rights whenever it is convenient. They're the annoying things you need to work around, not uphold.
Sent from my PDP-11
"in a dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attack" didn't read further.
is this an example of ANONYMOUS policy making at work? Not very impressive...
So let me get this straight. He's fine with protesting in person-- you know, in designated protest areas, with a permit, a mile away from where anyone would notice or care, in which you may be legally beaten, pepper-sprayed, or arrested by police-- but he considers hacktivism "impinging on others' rights".
I would say that either 1) he doesn't understand that the purpose of hacktivism is to be high-profile, or 2) he's a lying assbag talking about rights when the purpose of his job to silence agitation.
wake me up when the federal government stops using existing and new legislation to violate the rights of US citizens, including those who may have different religious or political views.
who watches the watchers?
who speaks when others can't speak for themselves?
who exposes that which is hidden by the government that has sworn to protect it's citizens?
who exposes that which is hidden by corporations actively paying politicians to pass legislation for the benefit of those corporations?
do your f-ing job you douche bag.
Vigilantes have no regard for the law. The law is not their concern. Their concern is getting retribution for offenses delivered or pending delivery by an entity they do not agree with or feel wronged by.
Pinning hacktivism as a form of illegal activity will only deter kids who jumped onto the bandwagon for fun or to revolt.
I hope for his sake the SOPA bill doesn't pass, or its going to push many of these hacktivists further away. Any legitimate protection of rights online they hoped for will be lost.
"when your right to free speech conflicts with my sacred right to business profit and the unimpeded influence of politics and policy, then I must strenuously object to your material support for terrorism and your declared enmity toward America."
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The director of KGB gives an interview and answers a question about freedom of speech: "Our country has complete freedom of speech. But freedom after speech, that's a whole different matter."
Shawn Henry, do you want to stop hacktivism?
Then step up.
When you see the Church of Scientology interfering with someone's right to freedom of the press on the Internet, then announce that you are starting an investigation into the Church of Scientology.
Or... Hacktivists are doing your job, because they don't see you doing it.
Yes, grow up and stop being so melodramatic.
We have so many freedoms in that area that people who violate the law are way outside their lane. There are so many opportunities for people to do it lawfully that it's irresponsible for them to do it otherwise.
How, precisely, are your rights and liberties being destroyed? What can you no longer do that you could do 20 years ago?
And if you do come up with a concrete example - please ask yourself sincerely if it's because of the FBI or because of selfish brats like Anonymous that things have changed.
Introduce your friends and family to The Onion Router.
Set up a Tor node yourself. Amazon will provide an entry level EC3 host to anyone free of charge for a year.
Register a domain that is not under US control and so cannot be taken from you by the Feds. .is looks good - Iceland.
Mirror some Samizdat at PRQ AB of Sweden. They have a full time legal staff to defend their customers against takedown orders. you can host anonymously and pay them with anonymous money orders.
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Mr. Henry mentions the First Amendment, but says nothing about the Declaration of Independence. The First Amendment specifies that free speech is not subject to the discretion of the government, and he swore an oath to defend that boundary of Federal authority. Saying he supports that is like saying he does not support interstate trafficking in illegal goods. That's just doing what he swore he would do -- he doesn't get a pat on the back for that beyond what we inherently owe him for his civil service. The First is not what is in question regarding hacktivism.
The Declaration is the closest thing we have to an official US document that covers what a hacktivist would claim gives him a legitimate mandate to act. Civil disobedience may often include elements of free speech, but it is the illegality of the action that define it as civil disobedience -- it is right in the name.
It is an easy topic to address from the official position of the FBI: "The role of the FBI is to enforce law, and the kind of civil disobedience embodied in the Declaration of Independence is unlawful activity. The Declaration does not make civil disobedience legal, and my job is to enforce the law."
The fact that he did not address it head-on implies one of two things to me: He may not have a deep understanding of the founding of this nation, and the reasons that it had to be founded as it was. Alternately, he may understand the disobedient nature of our founding, but be choosing not broaching the topic.
If a person in his position is not aware of the anarchic nature of this nation's founding, and the reason that disobedience resonates even with lawful patriots, he should be removed from office. He has to at least understand that mentality in order to fight it, if nothing else.
If he is just not broaching the topic, I guess I understand his pragmatic decision, but I find it sleazy. He is being disingenuous and trivializing the extraordinarily delicate balance of true democracy.
It is intrinsic in the nature of Western Democracy that civil disobedience both violates the law and is necessary to refresh the tree of liberty. It is also clearly the charter of the FBI to enforce the law including by arresting people who engage in civil disobedience. Even if he thought it was wrong to arrest such people he would still be obligated to do so -- he is in the executive, not the judicial. The fact that those things are true and also in tension is part of what makes the FBI's job such a difficult task for the men and women who serve. Ignoring that fact does us all a disservice.
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Board a plane without being sexually assaulted?
Sure, saying my rights end at the end of my nose etc. makes for a good soundbite but the problem is that especially with digital media you have large monied interests who get to define their own nasal boundaries. SOPA is a good example where the mere implication that someone is TOUCHING MY CORPORATE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY'S NOSE can have far reaching penalties without any actual proof that there was harm done.
That sounds all fair and reasonable. But then I find myself asking this: If picketing and protesting are "cool" with you then why are we not permitted this exercise of civil liberties/rights? Oh, that's right, because embarrassing and generally offending the establishment is considered blooding their nose...
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
My organization is a believer in civil rights and civil liberties
That's odd, because the organization your organization works for isn't.
... the problem with these organizations is that it depends on the quality of human beings of said institutions and said society. If human beings are stupid and corrupt then they will corrupt the institutions (media, school, business, government) and especially the lawmakers. If that wasn't bad enough the law makers are too old/ignorant/stupid to even process the social complexity of modern societies. His platitudes mean little.
If anything these guys are simply blindly following dogma and not being able to think critically about how money allows you to game the system and transform what was once a free society into a society in which the people have rights in name only. The whole idea that the loss of rights would be 'obvious' to these organizations is nonsense. People are stupid, especially people in power. Most of humanity is too unsophisticated to understand the complexity inherent in how money transforms institutions and their effects on society and culture.
This guy sounds lawful neutral. The law allows you to be "free", but only to the point that the law tells you to stop. If we lived in soviet russia, his attitude may still be lawful neutral, and we'd get off way worse.
It's been a long time.
is this an example of a "good german" denier enabling his or her puppetmaster? not very impressive either.
If you started going after someone like the FBI systematically, they'd track you down. You aren't anonymous on the Internet. Everything you do can be tracked. Now usually it isn't because why would anyone bother? However if there was a reason, it could be done. If they continually attacked the FBI, you'd better believe that the FBI, and other government agencies, would work to track them down.
Basically when it comes to someone with the resources of the US government it is all a matter of if they care enough to spend the resources to make you stop.
The ultimate example would be Bin Laden. Here is a man who is skilled in guerrilla warfare, knowledgeable in intelligence and counterintelligence, protected by zealous followers, hidden in a foreign country, cut off from the outside world, using only a contact chain for any kind of communication. However the US found him, and killed him. Reason was they cared enough to go to the great lengths necessary to track him down.
Now in the case of a group of people in a "hacking duel" with them they wouldn't care nearly as much. However it wouldn't be nearly as hard. The /b/tards are not nearly as smart as they like to think they are and when you get down to it, your ISP can monitor everything you do, if they want, and will do so upon a wire tap warrant from the government.
All that aside, please remember the US owns the very best of the best in signals intelligence: the NSA.
Dance in public without being arrested?
Those are just some of the things I've lost in the past 20 years. Some of those are related to the first amendment, some to the fourth. Some of them are rights we've always had, but are not specifically enumerated in the constitution. Some represent a weakening of first amendment rights due to the right being made useless for its intended purpose (like getting my representative to pay attention to me).
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That Shawn guy is all huffy because Anonymous and LulzSec break the law, as if legitimate political protest is on the same level as robbery or mindless vandalism.
During the Civil Rights Movement some white clergymen published an open letter thatvwhile ostensibly supporting equal rights for blacks, urged them to comply with The Whie Mans law during their protests, for example by not shutting down entire cities for days on end.
While spending some time in the slammer, The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior wrote "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" on a few scraps of paper that he begged from the jailer, in which he said "One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
I regard that letter as King's most important written work.
My colleagues at Kuro5hin fault me for not being a Team Player because I regard raising Hell as the greatest contribution I can make to society. We would all be better off if there were fewer Team Players not more of them. Consider what happened when the "Guter Deutschers" - that was the German word for Team Player back in the day - failed to heed the dictates of their consciences and so encouraged Hitler's rise to power.
If you are not up to Hacktivism, don't just politely hand out some leaflets when you protest in meatspace. No, get yourself hauled off to jail by shutting down the entire business district of a city.
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Be "suspected" of terrorism and yet not have due process completely thrown out the window when I'm being investigated?
I could take the easy route and point out that the Patriot Act was passed years before Anonymous was ever conceived, but instead I'll point out the stronger fact: each and every piece of bad legislation is 100% the responsibility of the government that passes it. So the answer to your question can never, ever be the latter.
Some German friends asked me what Americans celebrated on The Fourthnof July. "Thats when we started shooting at the British," I replied. I was joking - we started shooting a couple years earlier - but that is what I said.
All of Our Founding Fathers who signed The Declaration of Independence had sufficiently many testicles to do so with their real names. They all knew that if they were caught by the British, they would not just be spending some time in the slammer, theybwould be swinging from a noose for treason.
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No, Anonymous is a worthless, self-righteous sack of shit "organization" who gives a bad name to people are actually trying to help and make the world better.
Gone!
Or to put it another way ... "But the freedom for me to swing my arm ends where your nose begins".
And when the "person" being affected does not have a nose?
Because said "person" is a corporation?
The property rights of corporations have become more important than human rights.
Corporations are not people. Despite what the law would say.
The fucking FBI doesnt have the balls to investigate the faggots we have in office right now who are in bed with the billionaires on wallstreet that are destroying our nation...
But the kid in his bedroom, raised with the bullshit we call "American ideals" is the criminal?
FBI.. go fuck yourself.
"better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone's_formulation
Fascism begins when the efficiency of the Government becomes more important than the Rights of the People.
Thanks, Stazi Vichy scum(I'm guessing "Unknown Lamer" is a JIDF transplant with a provably pro-Israel slant like Timothy) American intelligence is nowhere near what they wish they were, and you are a spineless fuck.
The FBI are morons.
A competent person can make themselves anonymous on the web. If you're going to do something truly criminal/evil go buy a USB wireless card (with cash) do your nasty hacking at either a free wi-fi spot or piggy back off of some fool's open network. Dispose of USB wireless card and you disappear.
Today, it's more menacing. Consider the outcomes of just three data breaches launched in the name of hacktivism:
OK, let's consider these outcomes and see if we come up with something that would suitably be called "menacing", with the full emotional meaning of that word.
LulzSec's hack into Sony's PlayStation network in April 2011 is reportedly expected to cost Sony $171 million by the end of the entertainment company's 2012 fiscal year.
Giant corporation that makes a lot more than $171 million per year, due to the economic system that We The People have agreed to use, loses some of that money one year because some of We The People break the law. Giant corporation that gets a helluva lot more taxpayer money spent on protecting its goods every year than the typical American citizen gets in a lifetime (with good reason, but they are the beneficiaries of the good side of We The People). Giant corporation that is the beneficiary of the good nature of We The People loses some of its money one year due to the bad nature of We The People. Not good, and the perpetrators should be charged, but hard for me to see that as "menacing." When I think "menacing", I think hooded figure in a darkened alley with blood spatter on his ratty sneakers, not "Company that is doing very well because of the good of society sometimes loses a little bit to the darker nature of society."
When Former HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr threatened to expose top members of Anonymous, the hacktivist group retaliated by breaking into the security company's systems and exposing controversial and confidential emails. Barr subsequently received death threats and was forced to step down from his job.
Ummm, the death threats are bad, but the reason he had to step down was not because the emails were exposed -- it was because he was directing his company to do some seriously evil and un-American shit. The death threats are probably in the "menacing" category, but given they came to nothing, they are a damned sight less menacing than it was to have a person as malevolent as Aaron Barr in a position with so much power over so many American citizens. Failure to see his exposure and removal as a grand slam win for the citizens of the United States betrays a deeply disturbed sense of justice.
After Anonymous broke into the member database for Bill O'Reilly's website, a woman who's name, email address, physical address and password were exposed during the breach suffered $400 in fraudulent credit card charges and huge amounts of embarrassment after hackers posted pornographic pictures to her Facebook page and sent pornographic emails via her AOL account, according to Ars Technica.
$400 and some porn? Yawn. Bad, but not "menacing" like the part in the old silent movies and radio theater where the organ player would play the big creepy chord (called a "sting", I think).
I understand the motive for CIO to write a piece like this blowing sunshine up the Mr. Henry's skirt and pandering to it's anti-social executive target market, but I'd like to see it at least be a little more artful. This article shows all the subtlety of pooping on the hood of your ex's car.
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Note that he's advocating disobeying unjust laws like, say, laws requiring segregation, laws treating people with a little more melanin in their skin as inferior.
So what are the laws "hacktivists" break? Laws like "You aren't allowed to DDoS someone's website," or "You aren't allowed to access someone's computer without their permission." Hmmm, those laws sound pretty just to me. I think when there's a victim, it is quite just to have a law against victimizing that person.
So if you believe that copyright law is unjust, and you distribute copyrighted works for that reason then ok I can understand that. However if you believe that the government doesn't respect your rights so you go and DDoS Amazon, I can't respect that. The first is like you refusing to obey a law banning breast feeding, because you believe it is unjust, by breastfeeding a baby in public. The second is like you burning down my house because you believe the city council isn't respecting your rights.
Something else to remember, something important: Those people involved in great acts of civil disobedience did so knowing the consequences, and putting their names on it all the same. They stood up publicly, and accepted the consequences they faced. Again look at Dr. King's letter you linked, that he wrote from jail, again with his name on it. He didn't try and circulate a manifesto anonymously, he was a public face for a movement and accepted the consequences for it. Or take the start of it all int he US, the Declaration of Independence. The founding fathers signed their names on it, knowing they were signing a death warrant for them if they lost the fight. They didn't write it anonymously and pin it to a tree then play dumb, they said "Yes this is us, we stand behind this with our lives if necessary."
This bullshit of random hacking and DDoSing of sites is not civil disobedience and is not the sort of thing people like Dr. King would respect.
My personal objective is in part to do away with the greed, corruption and incompetence that permeates the software industry. I have never made a secret of that fact, because the software industry sickens me so.
Yet the not men but mice who inhabit Kuro5hin fault me for not devoting more of my time to shipping software products. I really don't see how that would be a productive use of my limited time on The Mortal Plane. We have lots of software products, but few who are willing to take a stand against corruption.
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The FBI isn't all bad. they really do investigate corrupt politicians, such as the Portland, Oregon city official who now stands accused ofvtaking bribes from a parking meter company.
The problem we have is that it is not illegal to change your vote in response to a campaign "donation". I would like to see a Constitutional amendment that forbid any but individual live humans from contributing nonpolitical campaigns.
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Downloading my TV shows from the pirate bay so I can stop paying for cable?
-h.
Someone was charged with distributing political pamphlets without complying bwith campaign finance laws by declaring who paid for it. The court found that they had the right to anonymity. Sooty I don't have the citation.
Anonymous pamphleteering has a long tradition. nowadays we have Anonymous and LulzSec, but the USSR had typewritten Samizdat, and the British faced hand-operated printing presses operated in thevdark of the night.
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Director Henry, could I please get your take on "Section 1031 of the National Defense Authorization Act". President Obama has already signed this piece of legislation and it declares the entire world including The United States of America as the battlefield. In short it give our government the authority to detain or assassinate American citizens, without due process, the right to an attorney, or even the dignity of informing our friends and families that y'all decided we should be shot.
Our government has just declared war on the American people, and how exactly would you expect that we deal with this? Tea and crumpets? A harsh dressing down of our political representatives... posh, you naughty boys have subjugates my civil rights and get off my lawn! Sir, our founding fathers fought and died to give us the rights we now cherish, and with the stroke of a pen, we've seen these rights obliterated by self serving sycophants.
You sir say you are a keeper of law, a protector of America's freedom, well then why have you not arrested the very people who have seen fit to rob every American of that which is most precious. We've seen this behavior before, in Germany in the 1930s. The rich and powerful building a mote around themselves to protect themselves from the havoc that followed. This is not the America of our Founding Fathers, and for myself, I protest, I protest to high heaven, and I demand that my government be returned immediately.
They wrent just violating segregation laws by refusing to sit in the back of the bus. They violated all manner of laws by braising all kinds if Hell. The "Civil" in Civil Disobedience doesn't mean one is polite, just that one is nonviolent.
An example of the way the Civil Rights Movement would violate the law, which those white ministers I mentioned claimed was wrong, was that the protestors would shut down entire cities by blocking the streets.
That negatively impacted corporate profits, pretty much what Anonymous has been doing.
In principle I agree with younthat one should commit such crimes under ones own real name. That lends legitimacy to ones argument. but consider the good sense that the French Underground and Eastern European Partisans had in hiding their identities from the Nazis. By not getting shot - or prosecuted in the case of Anonymous - they can survive to fight another day.
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I've heard this many times, but I'm wondering if and where you find anything like this notion in the US Constitution. Or is it part of the writings of Madison or Jefferson? Or maybe it's something Thomas Paine wrote, or some other Enlightenment thinker?
Or is it just another one of the many insufficiencies of the US Constitution that needed to be added by a wise and powerful Supreme Court? Sort of like "money is speech" and "corporations are people" and "war is peace".
I'm not saying I disagree with the notion of freedom and arms and noses and all that, but I really wonder how that gets morphed into "You have freedom of speech as long as it does not inconvenience anyone".
I think about the original Boston Tea Party and the mess those guys must have made in Boston Harbor, dumping all those crates and barrels and tea into the harbor. Plus, I'm sure that there were quite a few hard working colonial farmers and tradesmen and merchants who just wanted to sit down with a nice cup of tea with their dinner who were really put out by the fact that all that Ceylon and Oolong and Earl Grey got dumped into the drink. And what about the colonial merchants who just got by making a meager living selling tea to those folks? I wonder how much income they lost because of the Boston Tea Party and how many of them had their businesses shuttered because they couldn't float their expenses until the next shipment of tea came? Or the longshoremen who loaded the tea onto wagons and shipped it inland? Do you think they were inconvenienced? Did they lose income too, you think?
I think about that original Boston Tea Party in light of all the comparisons that get made between the misnamed "modern" Tea Party Patriots and the Occupy Wall Street movement. A lot is made about how well-behaved and "clean" and obedient the Tea Party Patriots are compared to the "filthy" and "violent" and obstructive OWS protestors, who caused the poor sandwich shop near Wall Street to lose income while they held their protest. The horror! LOST REVENUE!
I wonder how "clean" and "obedient" and "well-behaved" the original Tea Party dudes were when they dressed up like Indians and started dumping other people's property into Boston Harbor. I wonder if they cared that they were inconveniencing all the tea drinkers and/or tea sellers (which meant just about everyone at the time).
No, I just took a quick look at the Constitution again and I don't see any "right not to be inconvenienced by someone else's free speech". I see an "inalienable" right to free speech, but not the former. No "inalienable" right not to have protestors cause you to have a bad day. This is important, because it speaks directly to the notion of the innovative "free speech zones" that have been going up since the 2000 Republican Convention. And the idea that you can be arrested for singing near the Lincoln Memorial, or that free speech in Zucotti Park ends at 11pm (for safety purposes).
I'll have to think about this a little bit...
You are welcome on my lawn.
"My organization is a believer in civil rights and civil liberties, and the first amendment is something I hold very dear personally and professionally."
No he doesn't.
Nobody in government cares about rights. Just look at the votes for NDAA and the paucity of votes against, and the current SOPA bullshit.
Habeas Corpus - Eliminated
Due Process - Eliminated.
It's like the Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights never happened. At least in England they still have the right to due process retained from the Magna Carta (there are only like 3 rights retained from the Magna Carta in England anyway, but the right to due process is a biggie).
As much as I thought Prison Planet and all that shit was bullshit, the past month has changed my mind.
I seriously think that Chilean style "Disappearances" are in the offing. But instead of a military junta doing it, it will be our "elected" government.
Remember, the dems and republicans are the same, so vote republican. *spit*
--
BMO
You haven't paid attention in the last month.
NDAA has just eliminated due process.
If you are a "hacktivist" you will be accused of terrorism (this has already been bandied about by various politicians, so I'm not making it up) and you will simply disappear.
Not kidding.
Even the guy over at Bad Astronomy is highly upset. You should be too.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/12/19/a-public-letter-to-the-us-government-upon-the-passing-of-ndaa/
--
BMO
However if there was a reason, it could be done.
It could be done. It's possible.
But it's also possible to make it near impossible for them to find you. Even if they wanted to. If you're competent (which much of 'anonymous' isn't), that is.
The only reason they bust anyone is because these people are imbeciles.
Is it just me, or is the U.S. starting to look very similar to China in the area of freedom (or lack thereof)?
Consider the End User License Agreements that disclaims liability for causing real damage, as when a completely reproducible bug in Excel led my boss to overdraw the company checking account by four grand.
I recently turned down a lucrative remote consulting gig because the client was in Arizona, which recently passed an appallingly racist law that is clearly intended to keep Hispanic people down. I didn't just decline the gig, my email about it went on at some length about how wrong I feel that law is.
Human Machine Interface / Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition is some of the most human life critical software there is. I resigned from that job not because their code isn't exception safe but because the company president specifically forbid me from teaching my colleagues how to do exception safe resource management. I am completely convinced that that company's industrial control system code will someday make Stuxnet look like a walk in the park.
I resigned in protest from the highest paying job I ever had because I was convinced their failure to adequately test our hardware RAID put end user data and possibly even human lives at risk.
the first time I resigned in protest it was over the CEOs decision to move our office out of scenic Scotts Valley California so she personally would have a shorter commute. While she was hired to take Live Picture public, instead she drove the company into bankruptcy.
I regard my real life's work not any kind of software I overwrite, but the essays and articles I write. I have always been clear about that. but even so, my colleagues at Kuro5hin give me no end of crap for not having gotten my first iOS App intonthebapp Store yet.
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Even it everything you claim is true (it isn't) you aren't a bit disturbed that the people who own all these things are taking all those rights away? It still holds that these experiences are quite a bit different over the last 20 years, regardless of who "owns" them.
Besides which, it is the TSA and not the airlines, buses, and trains that are instituting the ridiculous level of searches today. I started taking Amtrak all the time starting 3 years ago to get away from them, but now they've taken over that too. Amtrak is not privately owned.
Not all of us are interested in living in a world where our existence is dependent on more powerful entities bestowing on us the privilege of existing, regardless of whether these powerful entities are government or commercial in nature. If that's the world you want to live in, why do you want to force it on the rest of us?
Sure if I were to ride in your own personal car then I would be obligated to follow your rules. But if I wanted to ride in your bus, despite your bus company being privately owned, your bus is a "public accommodation". That's a legal Term of Art that enables the government to require that YOU follow certain rulers and that I have certain rights.
Some Americans are heavily into the ideavthat property rights are absolute and inalienable, but that is not and has never been the case.
I have quite a serious mental illness. I have spent quite a lot of time being one of those bums in the street that you claim has no right to elected representation. the very fact that the stigma against mental illness led someone to direct three security guards to beat the living crap out of me for no other crime than that I was photographing my own hallucinations is the reason I devote psych tireless effort to pointing out the error of your ways to gentlemen such as yourself.
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...
The ultimate example would be Bin Laden. Here is a man who is skilled in guerrilla warfare, knowledgeable in intelligence and counterintelligence, protected by zealous followers, hidden in a foreign country, cut off from the outside world, using only a contact chain for any kind of communication. However the US found him, and killed him. ...
Well, actually, our government claimed they killed him, then destroyed any evidence that could of proved it. That is what we call a classic coverup. Did we kill
Bin Laden? Probably not, dude probably died a decade ago or so, but hey, it makes our government look good to it's people, mainly in a time when people were getting fed up.
Be seeing you...
in the country from just one room in Stasi headquarters in East Berlin.
Digital telephony - not VoIP but digital POTS - was making phones hard to tap so the apparently reasonable law was passedbto require that phone switching equipment be equipped with automated wiretap interfaces, that would of course require a signed warrant from a judge to activate.
But now the PATRIOT Act authorizes warrantless wiretaps, with it having made headlines a few years ago that Oacific Bell provided the NSA with abwiretap facility in downtown San Francisco.
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Most software people are rules based system builders.
Many have issues violating the rules of systems, even if those rules are obviously defective. (Really? Your old boss wanted you to train people to ignore exception safe practices? How, other than "we can't be held liable, so why invest the time and energy?" Could he possibly justify that position? This is exactly what I meant when I said "personal responsibility." That man is personally responsible for the poor code practices at the firm he manages.)
Often, due to the obviously onesided nature of pretty much all employment contracts, software people accept the rulesets given to them, and do the best they can with them.
The disobedent recognize the insanity of purposefully broken rules, and rightly ignore them. This is the essence of civil disobedience.
Personally, that you are willing to disobey convention tells me quite a bit about your character, and I expect that it is reflected in the software you write. In order to innovate, you have to break convention. It is a fundemental prerequisite. I have never seen any of your source, but I expect it to be "inventive". (I mean that in a good way.)
Another trait software people tend to have is the "efficiency" complex. Efficiency is often equated in product per unit time, rather than quality per unit time. That is to say, the number of applications you write in say, a week, vs the efficiency of an algorithm you are working on, concerning loop execution time against computations done. (Tight and efficient, vs quickly written, does the job, but slow.)
It sounds like your compatriots kuro5hin are of the former species. I suspect that a foray into embedded system design where you are working under extreme memory and processor restraints would teach them the error of their ways. (I actually lament that application software is often written with buggy, inefficient code because people in marketing couldn't set realistic release dates. That's why netbios over tcp/ip on windows more easily exploited than a recovering heroine addict. [As shown through the epically massive number of network worms that target this part of the windows networking system, qed.] I would much rather have software that actually works and is internally efficient and stable, than software hitting the market conveniently at christmas time. Then again, I am a dying breed.)
OMG, do you mean none of those contracts I wrote, revised and/or had signed between the corporations I worked for and other corporations were done right? I guess I'd better write a nasty email to my contracts professor. BTW, where and when did you get your law degree?
Checking IPs and ports.
Seems there is something not quite rigth about this FBI Assistant Executive Director Shawn Henry.
but then I actually read your post.
The modern concept of Civil Disobedience originated with Mohandas K. Gandhi's work to free India from British Colonial Rule. As part of his protest he violated British Law by making salt from seawater. The franchise for the production of India's salt had been granted to a British company by the king of England.
Did Gandhi break the law by going to the sea to make salt? the British Crown claimed he did but the Indian people hastened to disagree.
Reverend King personally spent a lot of time in the slammer during the Civil Rights movement for doing all kinds of things that would be rightly regarded as hooliganism were he and his people not working for peaceful political change.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Ride a bike without being electrocuted to death?
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
And the Pope wasn't as good an astronomer as Galileo. But he did have the Inquisition.
it took the US *how* long, again, to find this bin laden guy?
were we serious in wanting to find him? I'm not so sure. otoh, taking as long as it did, maybe we really are that incompetant.
it would seem we cared more about spying on our own people than to catch foreign 'bad guys'. the foreign bad guys are just reasons to whittle away at local rights.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
So, Mr. Henry, if the DDoS attacks against Wikileaks were launched from America, by an American citizen, or by an American governmental agency, would you prosecute them to the best of your ability?
you can't blame the criminal for the deplorable actions of authority.
You can board a train or bus without being searched, if YOU OWN the plane or bus in question. If someone else owns it, then you are going to follow their rules or be denied service, just like you as the owner of a vehicle can refuse to give anyone you want a ride for any reason. Nothing here has changed.
and i suppose that because someone's on/in/using my property I can rape them, rummage through their property, their person, and confiscate things I don't like? (or do like and want to steal from them). the problem of course is that it's not just privateers, but the government they fund, which can't be opted out of. as a result, these organizations can do just about whatever they want, twisting the law to justify their actions as they go. questioning these actions require exorbitant sums most cannot afford. You can preach black and white ideology all you want, but this is the pragmatic reality on the ground. It's what spawned Anonymous.
You can post a video on your own website that is critical of any company you want using whatever content you have legal right to publish. If it is youtubes website then you will follow youtubes rules or be denied service. If the criticism you post is baseless, you may be subject to lawsuits. Nothing here has changed.
yes and the law is just so black and white and fair all around right? it doesn't matter who has more money to throw at lawyers or bribe politicians. get your head out of your ass.
Have people who sought and gained and wielded power ever cared what the bum in the street thinks ? No. The bum in the street brings nothing to the table, and odds are high he speaks from a position of ignorance and irresponsibility, not from a position of success and responsibility, and this is why the street bums voice is ignored. He can't manage his own life, let alone national policies. Nothing here has changed.
ad hominem fallacy. the correctness of an idea is what's important, not who said it.
Politics and governance are dirty businesses, and society and the individual are at odds. It has always been this way. Scandals are swept under the rug if possible. If not possible, damage control plans are executed. FYI ... watergate was exposed, and Nixon did resign from office. Nothing here has changed.
so punish the dirty individual when he crosses the line, but when it's a dirty business or government..?
In summary, none of the things you claim are different now, are any different than they always have been. You haven't lost anything that someone else wasn't gifting you in the first place. It was theirs to take away.
lots has changed over the last 80 years or so. Most recently, all sorts of shortcuts around the bill of rights now in place are what's being discussed here. It's bad enough that if the feds just ditched the constitution entirely, it would be a comparatively fresh breath of honesty on their part.
that is what he means right? There is never a case for civil disobedience like written by Thomas Paine in Common Sense?
Posting AC because I moderated on this thread. There is a lot I am not allowed to do now that was acceptable 20 years ago:
1: Be treated as a paying customer when boarding a plane.
2: Ride a bicycle to the university campus without having it impounded as being unlicensed.
3: Walk in a local university building to use the bowling alley or bar without being threatened with criminal trespass (and no signs present stating this.)
4: Walk into the state capitol building anytime, 24/7.
5: Go on an open Army post to show a friend's kids a local museum and fallen soldier memorial.
6: Drive down a state highway at night with intersection lights flashing yellow. (These were replaced by stoplights with cameras and road sensors for increasing town revenues.)
7: Firing off model rockets in the air at a city park.
8: Use a jogging track at a nearby high school in the summer when school isn't in session.
9: Carrying a piece of electronic equipment in my vehicle and not being subject to searches at whim.
10: Being arrested for hacking actually required definite proof. Now, just a phone hunting for an open wi-fi connection is grounds for an electronic criminal trespass charge.
11: Drink a beer in public.
12: Piss on a building, or bush on the side of the highway. These days, one can rack up enough felonies for a life prison sentence under three strikes, as well as a sex crime registration for doing this.
13: Have a suitcase that had actual sturdy locks on it for checked baggage.
14: Ride Amtrak without having freight trains always have right of way, forcing you to end up having to take Greyhound buses for your intended trip instead.
15: Smoke. I personally don't care for this, but it definitely was a right that was utterly destroyed.
16: Make mistakes. One arrest (not conviction) for *anything*, and I'm talking PI, failure to identify, or anything, and one can never get a meaningful job. Almost every place of employment checks *arrest* records and not *conviction* records because they believe "you can buy your acquittal, but if a cop thinks you are guilty enough to yank out cuffs and do paperwork, you are guilty". I see people, with far more qualifications in IT than I ever will have, denied employment because they got arrested for something stupid like public intoxication when they were 21 and stuffed in the drunk tank for a few hours. Now because their fingerprints show "arrested for something", their resume gets shitcanned every place they apply.
17: Change opinions. What is posted is posted forever.
18: Actually be able to take a political side without having it affect your employment. In one company I worked for's HR department, part of a potential employee's employablity score is what politicians they donate money to for campaigns (this is public info). Too many donations to lefties, and that person's resume gets chucked for the guy who donates to the Tea Party candidates.
19: Actually fixing or dealing with deliberately broken products and not having to deal with DMCA laws so you can use third party ink in your printer for example.
20: If arrested, just shutting the heck up was enough to invoke the right to remain silent.
I really fear to see what life will be like in 20 years. I think we will be rendered into serfs because revolution is completely impossible in most First World countries like the UK and US.
yeah, many racists seem to think not hating minorities equates to hating the majority. like many conspiracy theorists, hard or impossible to reason with.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
To be more precise:
"I support people's rights as long as they're inconsequential meaningless displays like chanting and singing in drum circles while holding clever signs in the streets, but taking any actions that could actually lead to accomplishing something is a step too damn far."
Indeed. We have always been at war with Eastasia. So do not be critical of things you claim are "new" for they always have been and always will be. Rest assured, Citizen, you will not be able to change things for the better.
I think that about sums you up.
The FBI believes in the First Amendment about as much as Wilt Chamberlain believed in safe sex.
This is the same FBI that:
* Claimed Wikipedia couldn't host a copy of the FBI seal
* Once took a dozen news websites off the internet because one of them published a photograph of an undercover police office, in Italy!
* Tried to smear Martin Luther King as a Communist because he opposed the Vietnam War
* Tried to smear Judi Bari as a terrorist because she opposed clear-cutting California's redwood forests
Give me a break!
For no reason I can fathom Apple's iOS UI designers had the idea that it would be cool to just blindly replace words with it's very first guess.
This has the effect of rendering entire paragraphs into complete gibberish. I can fix that by backspacing and retyping but it is a huge PITA.
I did try disabling autocorrect completely but that was actually worse.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
you forgot the opposing point: minorities who claim any questioning that suggests hypocrisy on their part is racism.
sometimes working within the system doesn't work. the fact anonymous was spawned suggests we're heading to an era where it doesn't. they are a symptom. if you want the symptom to go away treat the cause.
ad hominem fallacy. the correctness of an idea is what's important, not who said it.
further more, what if the economy collapses again? what if it doesn't even resemble a recovery, what happens if civil war breaks out (which is looking more and more possible the longer these issues are ignored.) leaving large amounts of the country unable to afford housing or food? do their opinions no longer mean anything too?
if anything, its the homeless and the week who should have the most say as they have no financial buffer and very few methods of controlling their situation. And none of us are immune to becoming homeless. it just takes a single mistake, it doesn't even have to be you're fault.
http://www.uha1.com/15-mug.jpg
yes it was working a few years back and yes i had cafepress make a mug of it and it sold 964 timesbefore they realized what was on it ...and LOL turned it sideways....
nothing there kids to see however....
payback for the illegal DOS they did on us aobut 6 months before.
ENJOY
Trying to locate one man on the planet who took elaborate precautions to avoid detection can take some time. Add the fact that some people within the Pakistani government, military, and ISI security services were most certainly protecting him also added problems for the people doing the search. The reason the US did not notify Pakistan prior to the raid is because their military and intelligence services are infested with people who actively support and use terrorist organizations as part of their foreign policy. Bin Laden would have been long gone if the US notified Pakistan in advance. I still don't know why the US has not cut ties and financial support to the country.
I don't like supporting the Mexican illegal immigrant invasion, but at least you seem to put your money where your mouth is on that and the other comments
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
that's definitely a problem too, it simply wasn't on mind mind when I posted
Zionists who think it's anti-Semitic to criticize Israel = a prime example of what you said?
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Has no one at all noticed the glitch in the phrasing, here? It's all "I hold" and "I have"... oddly, including this bit:
But the freedom for me to swing my arm ends where your nose begins.
Bin Laden died in late 2001 of severe medical issues.
The recent "Kill Osama" mess was smoke and mirrors.
Board a plane without being sexually assaulted?
Despite your insightful +5 rating, the FBI has nothing at all to do with the TSA or you getting groped at the airport. Your statement also does not have anything to do with gathering in a public place and protesting, which is what we're discussing.
You have a right to peacefully assemble. That means you can stand on the street in front of my house, but your right to protest ends when you try to shit on my lawn or spraypaint "Down with The Man" on my front door. And that is all the FBI was saying, plain and simple.
The phrase "Your right to swing your fist ends when it reaches my nose" is a fucking textbook statement that anybody who has ever studied government at all should be instantly familiar with. The fact that so many people are having a fucking hissy fit and completely misinterpreting it as "We'll let you protest until we don't feel like it" is further proof that all you OWS dipshits have got your heads so far up your own asses you're seeing sunlight.
Bin Laden died in late 2001 of severe medical issues.
The recent "Kill Osama" mess was smoke and mirrors.
I find it rather interesting that the only people who question his death are either Europeans who have an axe to grind with the USA or Americans who have an axe to grind with Obama.
...and we know whose nose is the longest and most nosey of all...
their military and intelligence services are infested with people who actively support and use terrorist organizations as part of their foreign policy
Sorry, which country were you talking about again?
Tom The Dancing Bug
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
You are getting into classic conspiracy theorist territory. You are crossing over the border of being dutifully skeptical of the government into the Land of Tinfoil Hats and Aliens.
Ten years of kill Osama. Ten years that culminated in the destruction of a stealth air crash in a botched landing on Pakistan's sovereign lands under a different President. One that, if smoke and mirrors, could have easily ended with the destruction of some random cave instead of invading near the Pakistan equivalent of West Point just to freaking provide a cover story.
The President right now, for many reasons, is more ineffectual than I'd like. The military is under the influence of contractors. However, to consider how long they would have had been doing this smoke and mirrors and to do something so entirely hair brained stupid with a unstable nation that possesses nuclear weaponry is outright moronic. You are proposing the government is a quantum waveform that is simultaniously a hyper-competent entity and someone who would try playing hot potato with a live hand grenade.
I'm european, dutch even. I'm ashamed to say I felt elation at hearing of his death.
So weird to feel happy about a death and then guilty about feeling that happy, that was a feeling I only had once before.
I guess it had to do with the danger he posed and feeling happy for the victims of 9/11 that they finally may have some closure and if possible get on with their lives.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Didn't expect that.
Being reasonably confident that my representative cares more about what I and 50 of my neighbors say than what his or her corporate sponsor says (though that's been a serious problem for more than 20 years).
This is why we need to ban all donations to political entities. Money, gifts, expensive restaurants, 3rd party support ads etc. Give each candidate a fixed budget to work with, paid for from taxation. The only requirement for getting this allowance is to have polled at least say 5% in a previous election that you paid for yourself (with strict limits on spending).
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
All of those 3 and sometimes 4 letter agencies must be shut down, they exist to destroy your liberties, economy and society, not to help anybody but the very very special interests and politicians.
You can't handle the truth.
interesting way to phrase it. ... jimminy-cricket.
let's turn it around:
"But the freedom for you to swing your arms ends where my (fbi) nose begins."
i can see, that it might b a problem if someone grew a really really long nose
Remember back in the good ole' days when it was not only the right, but the responsibility of every individual to police the community in which they lived. Then there used to be stacks of rifles at the end of the church pews. Going a mile from your home without carrying a rifle was shirking your responsibilities to the rest of the community...
Being sure that if Watergate happened again it would be exposed and the president forced to resign over it.
Something similar has happened, but this time it's more than just political advantage at stake - many people have died. We don't know if the President was involved, but it's clear at this point that the Attorney General Eric Holder has lied and is lying to congress and Issa, and refused to provide Justice Department documents. John Mitchell served 19 months in prison for the exact thing that Holder has done.
I don't know why the media isn't covering this on a daily basis, maybe the executive is so powerful they can get away with these things now. After J. Edgar Hoover's reign over the FBI ended, then the obstruction witnessed during Watergate, a law was passed barring anyone from being FBI Director for more than 10 years. But the administration and the Senate have decided to ignore that, and Robert Mueller remains director for at least 2 more years. So, I'm sorry, I think the time is over that "if Watergate happened again it would be exposed".
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
When governments thwart the rights of the people, it is the duty of the people to thwart the behavior of the government. Also, as "antiquated" as some might see it, what was true for the founding fathers is as true today: it is the right and duty of the people, should a government grow oppressive of its own people, to throw off and/or reform government.
I also firmly believe that the government's sole purpose is and should be to do only the minimum necessary to provide for the common defense, protect the rights of people, and ensure fair and free enterprise. Any further use of government power is an abuse thereof.
Finally, the second amendment provides for the defense and security of the citizens from all threats, and allows for the protection of their rights, from all sources, should peaceful dissent and controls of government fail.
To be fair, the Feds had nothing to do with that second point. You can thank Google for dealing with the devil on that one.
I would also be more inclined to agree with you if it didn't seem like customers were getting hurt more than corporations in a lot of the "hackivist" stuff. I mean, I'm not aware of any Sony executives losing their personal information. And I just can't accept that "if you buy their product, you're part of the problem" garbage. It's pathetic but, if people were forced to patronize only companies whom have never done anything amoral... Well, most (if not all) of us would be in trouble.
Having said that, I would LOVE to kick Senator Casey Jr (D-PA) in the shins. Not only does he support PROTECT-IP, bust he didn't even capitalize "Fire Amendment" in his email saying so. I will be sure to not touch his nose.
Didn't expect that.
nobody expected that.
-Turkey
"I have no problem with people fighting for their rights, as long as they're not doing so in a way that it would actually make a difference."
"The government doesn't respect civil rights, so it is not wrong for me to impinge on the rights of others"
If you deny that you are a victimizer - hacking into people's sites, accounts, data and what not (whoever they are, whatever the data is) - how can you possibly argue that you are ever a victim? You have to deny that things like personal property and freedom from unjust privacy breaches exist so discharge the notiont hat hackin is wrong, so how can any person or organization or government then infringe on your rights?
You'll call the cops all the same if someone breaks into your house and steals your shit, or goes through your bank statements and tax records, or whatever. but you pretend it's not wrong for you to do that to someone's server which you don't own? you call the cops if someone spray paints your house, but you think it's ok to deface a website? You call the cops if someone drives off with your car, because your "weak security" of leaving the doors unlocked, but you gloat over exploiting the weak security of someone else's server and making off with things you have no business accessing?
but do you think a hacker has the honesty and integrity to admit they're practicing exactly what things they condemn? they violate the rights of others, as an exercise to decry the violations of the rights of others?? no way you'll get them to think truthfully. so let's just get it straight. hackers don't care about rights, free speech, laws, property, or anything. they're hypocrites, criminals, and this "hacktivism" thing is just media spin and a convenient lie the hackers can hide behind to obscure what they really are. they don't respect anyone or anything. so let's all just call it what it is.
this
The ultimate example would be Bin Laden. Here is a man who is skilled in guerrilla warfare, knowledgeable in intelligence and counterintelligence, protected by zealous followers, hidden in a foreign country, cut off from the outside world, using only a contact chain for any kind of communication. However the US found him, and killed him.
Though I agree with your overall point, I find it interesting that there is no evidence of the US having killed bin Laden last May other than the US government's statements to that effect. I know about the DNA testing and all that. But the fact remains that official statements are all the proof we will get.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I apologize for not responding to each reply individually, but I'm tired of my posts being marked -1 troll for simply pointing out the truth.
17: Change opinions. What is posted is posted forever.
You can still change opinions, it's just that there will be a concrete record of your old opinion. It would be better to change this to "do something really embarassing without becoming an international laughing stock"
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Bingo.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Ah, yes. Throw out that "conspiracy theory" label, and shut it all down. The US government has provided no proof, other than its own statements, that it killed bin Laden last May. The US government is known to have lied in the past to manage people's perception. I'd say asking for actual proof falls under being dutifully skeptical.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
You are proposing the government is a quantum waveform that is simultaniously a hyper-competent entity and someone who would try playing hot potato with a live hand grenade.
Considering how large the US government is, and how many moving parts it has, being simultaneously both of those things is entirely possible.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
You should put this in a journal entry and link it in your sig. I'm assuming you really mean this because you're trashing the karma on a 6-digit UID account to post this.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
> How, precisely, are your rights and liberties being destroyed? What can you no longer do that you could do 20 years ago?
How about work for a corporation (in a non-public-safety-related position) without having to give them urine or blood specimens just to remain employed?
How about the corporations and government impinging on MY right to picket, protest, speak, search my person, invade my privacy.... huh? You self-righteous assclown.
Yes, I know I get modded down and he'll never see, but what a shitlicker.
Ass someone who has known FBI agents before, they were also self-righteous chunderheads who could see what was right, but not what might be *good*.
-
that's hardly an indicator of seriousness. someone could maintain awesome karma and post some rubbish every two weeks, with a 4 digit slashdot UID. This could be some drunkard's get rich quick scheme. Four, five, or six digit slashdot UID, excellent karma, and $4 will get you a latte at StarBucks.
Board a plane without being sexually assaulted?
Just because a few people on the autistic spectrum consider someone touching them to be sexual assault doesn't make it so..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
12: Piss on a building, or bush on the side of the highway.
I personally pretty glad you are no longer allowed to pee on my building (if you really ever were). I agree sex offender is a bit overkill for this, but really, you shouldn't be allowed to pee on any property that isn't yours unless explicitly allowed by the owner. Proper sanitation is one of the fundamentals of modern civilization.
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Urine is sterile, if you're healthy.
I haven't been playing much lately while I have focussed on learning ios development. but I am planning to resume lessons and open mic appearances soon. that should lead to a new album.
thank you for the encouragement. I'm the first to admit that geometric visions isn't everyone's cup of tea.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
RIght to free speech and right to protest never encapsulate hacking a server, no matter what parties are on each end of the hacking. It also never allows breaking a law (of course, that raises the question of whether said law violates the first amendment).
To be clear, it would not be protected speech if you walked up and punched me in the mouth for some alleged wrongdoing, and then tried to claim it was an expression of protest and free speech.
Unfortunately, none of those are related to the first amendment at all. The BoR relates to what congress and the state legislature does, not what private entities do; there are separate laws for those.
For instance, your example of having a critical video taken off of youtube is not protected by any amendment: Youtube can do whatever it pleases with your video. Another example: If I run a private train business, and I want my passengers to undergo a strip search before boarding, that is not a first or fourth amendment issue; its an issue of whether the area Im in has laws forbidding or allowing it. If Congress were to mandate it, it would then become a first amendment issue.
THis post isnt meant to support any of the things in your post, but to simply correct a gross falsity. The only thing possibly on target is your first example, since the TSA is a quasi-government body, but if it were privately run (as it used to be) then even that point would be incorrect.
and i suppose that because someone's on/in/using my property I can rape them,
No, because there are clear laws against that. Not a Bill of Rights issue, though, so its silly to drag it in as parent did.
, rummage through their property, their person, and confiscate things I don't like?
If it was part of the terms of using your service, property, or store, and they agreed, absolutely. They are free of course to go elsewhere. Again, not a Bill of Rights issue.
Oh good grief, im not even sure what specifically you are complaining about-- several points (2, 3, 8, 12, 17, 18) have nothing whatsoever to do with the government, and are not related.
11: Public drunkenness has been illegal in various places for a long long time, and its decided on a state level. Either change your state or stop being drunk in public; you certainly couldnt do this 20 years ago in the vast majority of places.
12-- are you kidding me? Youre complaining that you cant piss, in public, on someone elses building?
14: This isnt new, Amtrak has always run over freight rails. To quote wikipedia,
Amtrak employs nearly 19,000 people. It operates passenger service on 21,000 miles (34,000 km) of track primarily owned by freight railroads
So youre complaining that those terrible freight companies are using THEIR rails to run freight trains? Boo hoo, build your own rail system. Maybe I should complain that you dont let me come over and eat the food out of your fridge.
15: What? I have several friends who smoke.
17: youre complaining about the internet, basically. Thats swell, we should dismantle it now. TOTALLY the government's fault that slashdot doesnt allow post deletion (Protip, there are forums that do).
18: Try finding a company that doesnt suck. We have democrats and republicans at our office, and I regularly argue with my VP about politics, as do a few other employees. We manage not to get fired, somehow. I could go vote for Ron Paul, and another employee for Obama, and a third for Michelle Bachman, and it wouldnt make a lick of difference. Incidentally, Id be really suprised if companies acting how you described was a recent phenomenon.
20: Baloney. You can keep silent, and the cops are required to tell you as much-- there was this case involving some dude named "miranda" which established this.
TLDR, youre full of crap. You have like 1 or two insightful points, most are ridiculous, wrong, not a government issue, or irresponsible (still cant get over that you think pissing on a building should be a protected right).
The point of many of the actions of Anonymous is that these restrictions render the first amendment significantly less important or useful for its intended purpose when all these different modes of expression are controlled by monolithic corporate entities who campaign vigorously for laws that make it easier and easier for them to do these things.
In the end, if you can't say something because the entities that control the primary means of expression won't allow you to say it, does it matter if those entities are a corporation or the government? A corporation is perfectly capable of using existing laws to mobilize the use of violence against you for trying to say it.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop