nipsen said:
[Still, government is supposed to be us. Representative democracy, republic, it's not designed to protect "us" from the people we disagree with and don't like. It's supposed to work for us. So this isn't really about whether you agree or not with, say, war or detention policies - it's about to what degree you accept limitation on people's behaviour as sanctioned by the state.
As a citizen in the last Soviet state, as they call it
, I accept certain things are off limits. Such as hurting other people, stealing, and various other things typically falling under criminal behaviour. ..not very different from other places.
Meaning that what we're actually arguing about is what type of activity can legitimately be called criminal behaviour. As well as how law-enforcement is supposed to operate.
For example, if it turned out that a police-department here was.. real example, by the way.. starting to pick up and beat typical suspects to keep them from doing crimes. Then we have a problem. No matter what the good intentions of the police-officers, and no matter how grave the "possible future crime" would be imagined to be, this would be a serious problem. And as it happens, punishable by law. Since punishment without crime would be called assault.
It's really the same question I'm wondering here - what are they actually guilty of? What sort of damage or chaos have they caused? Is declaring war on the US government - as a private citizen - in itself a crime? Should certain activity be discouraged, however distasteful, by "preventive" arrests and punishment?
That's the real question. Or.. if you prefer.. a different way of questioning whether citizens, with their dangerous liberties, should be protected from themselves.
They are engaged in a campaign of vandalism and intimidation, as well as cutting people off from govermental resources and information (ie people needing to call a website to find things out). That's criminal behavior. What's more our tax dollars are what paid for those things as well.
There is no doubt what they did is considered to be a crime, and yes, acting against the goverment and trying to overthrow it or intimidate it into doing what you want is also a crime.
When I talk about armed insurrection about the goverment (which comes up occasionally) I am not suggesting it from the perspective of it being a lawful behavior, but something you do when it no longer matters.
You keep saying "us" as if you speak from a position of being an overwhelming majority, like Anonymous is representing the majority of US citizens under the heel of a tyranical goverment. That's hardly the case. No system is going to make everyone happy, and while the US is a representitive republic it operates under a spirit of democracy, which is our central moral idea. Democracy is simply put the majority of people getting what it wants, with the minority position(s) going along with it. A smaller group of people trying to force the majority to do what they want is contrary to the ideals of the USA.
In a lot of cases I do cheer for the little guy, especially when I agree with them. After all stunts like this by a minority group exist to try and convince more people to agree with them, hoping to get majority support. That doesn't make them lawful however. What's more I think Anonymous' recent behavior with wikileaks (which is what brought heir hammer down) was reckless and irresponsible. By supporting a group outing classified data it put a lot of goverment operations at risk. Diplomacy can be sort of like playing poker, and bluffing, what diplomats tell their superiors about what they think of other players, and what they are planning on doing is a BIG deal and can do a lot of damage to their portion of the game, it's like being able to see the other guy's cards. Wikileaks was trying to undermine a lot of nations, including the USA, it definatly had a political Agenda, and when Anonymous decided to get involve in that and start taking actions against the goverment itself... well, I think they went too far. What's more anyone doing stuff like this is taking risks, and one of those risks has always been that people would start to come after them which is going on right now.
I do agree with a lot of what Anonymous has done, but I do think they are kind of deserving of what's going on right now. Likewise, as I've pointed out, Anonymous isn't just a group of political activists or online freedom fighters. They also tend to go running around harassing people for the lulz, and they have always been pretty straightforward about that. Liking some things they have done, does not mean that I'm a fanboy, or that I am going to forget about what the group actually is, or it's mission statement (or lack thereof).
Seriously, look these guys up on Encyclopedia Dramatica and check out their list of handiwork going back years. It's a very mixed bag.
Also they aren't being beaten up, or officially punished yet. Right now they have had search warrents served against people suspected of being members of Anonymous. The next step is of course to arrest them, and then they will stand trial. Nobody is beating anyone up, they are just under investigation right now.
We'll see what happens in the long run, I admit they seem to be going overboard with these specific charges, but at the same time they are doubtlessly using what they have.
If Anonymous was just a group of freedom fighters and political activists, I might be a bit more sympathetic, but this is not a single faceted group, and that's something people shouldn't be forgetting.
