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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
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?
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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
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.
"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..."
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
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).
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Request your free CD of my piano music.