Anonymous Be Warned: You’ve now crossed the line

While I applauded some of their efforts in the past, Anonymous has gone too far. As Hot Air’s Allahpundit wrote about earlier this week, Anonymous, along with other Julian Assange and WikiLeaks supporters, attacked VISA, Mastercard, as well as the websites as prominent figures, like Sarah Palin, were attacked in what is being called “Operation: Payback.” Aside from the blogs, this story has also been reported in the mainstream media. One such news outlet, the Financial Post, where Jameson Berkow is reporting on Anonymous’ failed attack on Amazon.com and PayPal, a message was left from one of the group’s members, anon9001.

Wikileak’s release of the diplomatic cables is a powerful act of transparency in a world that sees much lauding of the term but precious little practice. The attempts to silence Wikileaks are an equally worrying act of censorship. What is clear is that our Western governments, in spite of the liberal democratic values and norms enshrined in their many constitutions, are ever more eager to push for a system of restrictive internet governance that threatens this final frontier of free expression and association

The principles of liberty that this represents; the attack on the internet, which is so dear to my generation, that this represents, these are the reasons why I have supported and perhaps even participated in Anonymous’ attacks on the corporations and government institutions which have conspired to silence Wikileaks. These are the same principles that have driven countless individuals, known and anonymous, before us to take part in the same type of protest and action. Our support for the DDOS attacks online today is the same as support for the sit-ins of yesteryear.

This is a watershed moment in the history of free speech on the internet; a cyberspace equivalent of the May 1968 student protests in Paris, or the 1969 Vietnam marches in the United States. We are not agitating for something new, we are not revolutionaries. We are resisting the destruction of something old: the free internet which has characterized our lives and our experiences up to this point.

What the outcome will be, remains to be seen.

I am Anonymous, and like thousands of other men and woman, mothers and husbands sat at computers in homes and offices around the world, I am adding my one small voice to many voices, so that we might be heard:

The Internet belongs to us, and we want it to stay that way

Many voices? According to Berkow’s article, they didn’t have the numbers to bring down Amazon.com, which might mean many of the group’s members are realizing that they have gone too far. Aside from demonstrating historical ignorance, anon9001′s comment shows that Anonymous, a group which claims to fight against perceived tyranny, is itself tyrannical. How else are we supposed to interpret the final line of that comment? Only tyrants speak in such absolutes. The internet wasn’t created for only them, and they have no reasonable claim to the “information superhighway.”

So what does one say about Anonymous? What are their motivations? While members like anon9001 claim to be defenders of liberty, they are very selective about who’s rights they choose to defend. The truth is that to Anonymous, rights only belong to those they believe deserve them. Last time I checked, neither Sarah Palin nor Gene Simmons, a past target of the group’s attacks, is wanted on sexual assault charges in Sweden, let alone the various charges Assange and his group are likely to face for leaking sensitive information. How is it that this serial offender, as John Perazzo from FrontPageMag.com pointed out earlier this year, worthy of any support, let alone theirs? It isn’t just myself who recognizes this hypocrisy though. Returning to the attacks on Gene Simmons, as a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America stated, “It’s troubling that these groups seem more concerned about the rights of those who steal and copy films, music, books, and other creative resources than the rights of American workers who are producing these products.”

It isn’t just individual rights that Anonymous threatens with these campaigns, but by supporting WikiLeaks, they are also attacking those who defend the democratic values and norms enshrined in various constitutions throughout the Western world. anon9001 and other Anonymous members are downright self-righteous, believing that their defense of WikiLeaks, which is not only undermining American diplomacy, as Michelle Malkin has pointed out, but the war effort in Afghanistan by exposing Afghan informants, is somehow justified. Do they not understand that the leaking of this information has put these Afghanis, as well as their families, at risk to Taliban retaliation? It is clear they don’t. Anonymous is dedicated to a “means justifies the ends” approach, and if defending WikiLeaks, which may already have blood on its hands as a result of releasing these sensitive documents, is seen as beneficial in their fight against all forms of censorship, then it doesn’t matter who suffers. No reasonable person could justify this, but then again, this group is far from reasonable isn’t it?

Operation: Payback is far from the watershed moment in history anon9001 claims it to be as it has failed to do anything but get a mention in media. This is, however, not taking into account one of the unintended consequences of this campaign; There will now be additional pressure put on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who are already conducting an investigation into this group for its attack on U.S. Copyright Office, to bring those responsible for these latest attacks to justice. It should come as no surprise that a group which pays homage to Guy Fawkes, the leader of the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605 and inspiration for Alan Moore’s V, the anarchist terrorist from the graphic novel V for Vendetta, would eventually come to the attention of law enforcement. Anonymous’ latest actions are well beyond that of simple cyber-bullying. These kind of attacks are as acts of cyberterrorism. It doesn’t matter whether or not this campaign was well intentioned, it crossed legal lines and Anonymous will most likely be facing additional federal charges for these attacks.

In conclusion, what Operation: Payback does is exposes Anonymous as an immature and misguided group of hackers, but that isn’t the extent of their faults. They’re hypocritical, arrogant and downright dangerous, having moved from cyber-bullying to outright cyberterrorism. Anonymity will not protect these self-righteous self-appointed protectors of the internet freedom and now they will pay the price for their crimes. If the FBI can track homegrown Islamic terrorists, as they recently demonstrated with the arrest of Muhammed Hussain, an Islamic convert who was planning on blowing up a military recruitment center, they most certainly can infiltrate an internet-based group of anarchists.

No matter how noble Anonymous wants to portray itself as, they’ve always been more like children than champions… Pathetic…

UPDATE: A Fox News report from Shepard Smith reveals that a 16-year-old boy was arrested in the Netherlands for his part in Operation: Payback. I figured the FBI wouldn’t be the only law enforcement agency involved, but I did think that the first arrests would be in the United States considering that they already have an ongoing investigation into Anonymous following the group’s attack on the U.S. Copyright Office.

Should Hillary Clinton Resign? The “Secret Police” and International Concerns About Diplomats Acting as Spies

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann at TownHall.com have an article out concerning one of the issues raised by the document drop by Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “secret police” who were gather personal data about their foreign counterparts.

…The Wikileaks information indicates that Hillary — and her predecessor, Condolleeza Rice — instructed American diplomats to gather information about “office and organizational titles; names, position titles and other information on business cards; numbers of telephones, cell phones, pagers, and faxes,” as well as “Internet and intranet ‘handles’; Internet e-mail addresses, website identification-URLs; credit card account numbers; frequent-flier account numbers; work schedules, and other relevant biographical information.”

The New York Times explains that this information could be used to develop intelligence about the activities and whereabouts of foreign diplomatic personnel…

…The fact that this current State Department covert operation was initiated under Rice does not lessen Hillary’s guilt for having pursued it. Clinton, not Rice, has run for president and is presumed to continue to be interested in the job. Her addiction to spies, dumpster divers, sleuths and negative research operatives has always been a cause for concern….

While Morris and McGann do point out that this program started under former Secretary of State Condolleeza Rice, I personally doubt Rice would use such information to intimidate and extort foreign diplomats as Clinton apparently would. After all, it wasn’t Condolleeza that leaked Linda Tripp’s personnel file to the media during the Monica Lewinsky fiasco.

Now that Clinton has been exposed for returning to her old ways, what is to be done? Surprisingly former Clinton administration adviser and present ABC journalist George Stephanopoulos was echoing both WikiLeaks founder Assange’s and Jack Shafer of Slate’s calls for her resignation during an interview with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. This from Scott Whitlock at NewsBusters.org.

…And we just heard Jim Sciutto say the White House, I mean the State Department brushed off this call by Julian Assange for Hillary Clinton to resign. But Assange is not alone. Jack Shafer in Slate says that this cable asking State Department officials to collect information on U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon and others, is a sign that Hillary Clinton is going to have to go. He writes, “Diplomacy is about face. And the only way for other nations to save face will be to give them Clinton’s scalp. There’s no way that the new WikiLeaks leaks don’t leave Hillary Clinton holding the smoking gun. Sooner or later, the weakened and humiliated Secretary of State will have to pay”…

I am torn on this. I understand the position of those who want Clinton to resign, that American diplomats are now seen as spies and cannot be trusted. The issue here is whether or not regaining the trust of the international community, assuming that they were trusted before the document drop, is worth Hillary’s “scalp.” Aside from this, I don’t like giving Assange, who is now on Interpol’s most wanted list as Allahpundit pointed out yesterday, even a small victory for leaking sensitive information. Doing so would only embolden him and others to continue such criminal action.

Whatever does happen, this scandal does serious damage to Hillary Clinton. I doubt her political career, let alone her presidential ambitions, could survive being forced to resign her position as Secretary of State. This will cost Clinton, but right now it isn’t known whether that will be just political points or the position she now occupies.

WikiLeaks twists the facts: The viral video, the truth, and Code Pink

This from Patriotsandheroes.

Much has been said about the video that WikiLeaks produced (edited and published), which they claim is “collateral murder”. Leave it to the fringe to twist the facts on a story to push their anti-war politics. Even the quote from George Orwell used at the start of the video, which should have hinted at the credibility of WikiLeaks, is used to push their politics before viewers see the edited video. As Fox News’ Megyn Kelly points out, the far-left website “missed” a few things, most importantly that the “innocent civilians” the Reuters reporters were with were insurgents carrying AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) as the video and audio from troops on the ground clear indicates. Instead of releasing the unedited raw footage of the 2007 incident in Iraq, WikiLeaks went to work to produce what can only be described as anti-war propaganda.

While the debate was “fair and balanced”, there is nothing balanced about Medea Benjamin, co-founder or Code Pink. Instead of discussing the facts of this incident like the fact that these individuals were armed, that there was ground confirmation of the weapons, that there had been attacks in this area by individuals carrying these weapons, that they were turning towards coalition forces down the street, Medea rants about how this was an “unprovoked attack”. What does she expect these insurgents were going to do with these weapons? As for the van that was attacked, contrary to what WikiLeaks and Medea claim about the Rule of Engagement, being unmarked as a rescue vehicle (which I doubt it was) makes it a fair target. As Fox News military analyst Chuck Nash stated, these vans were used by insurgents to conceal RPGs before attacks. Let’s also not forget that children are simply human shields to these people, something which they demonstrate time and time again.

While the language used by the Apache helicopter pilots may be unsettling, the rest of the video was not and should not be viewed as such. The reporters knowingly put themselves in danger by associating with insurgents who were in a war zone looking to attack coalition forces, so while their families grieve, let’s not pretend that they were innocent victims of an unprofessional and uncaring military force. Now that the truth has come out, will we see a retraction from those involved? Of course not. WikiLeaks and Code Pink don’t let the facts get in the way of the story they don’t want to tell, and while they have been shown to be liars and that the video was manufactured, the damage is already done. Jihadists will use this video to embolden others to take up arms against our soldiers, American, Canadian, etc who are fighting over there to protect us here at home, not only undermining the war effort, but put putting those on the front lines in more danger.

Once again we see the lengths the far-left is willing to go to smear our troops in uniform. Instead of supporting those who protect us, they have become apologists for groups that would like nothing more than to see them on the other side of that Apache helicopter camera lens… Pathetic…

UPDATE: The Jawa Report is following this story as well. While the fringe left are still claiming this as an example of “murder” on the part of the coalition forces, as Jawa points out, there is twenty minutes of audio and video missing from the WikiLeaks production. Are these radicals demanding to see the full unedited video of these events? Of course not. They prefer their own version of this fiasco, no matter what facts are missing, like the fact that those “unarmed civilians” were weapon carrying insurgents who were attacking coalition forces… Pathetic…

UPDATE: For those looking a far more detailed account of these events, including information from the military investigation of this event, the Mudville Gazette has a great piece on it. The article debunks WikiLeaks’ production through various facts from the investigation and camera stills from after the attack, which includes pictures of coalition soldiers rescuing the children from the destroyed van. Once again, the truth of this event doesn’t matter to the radical fringe. They would prefer that the facts not get in the way of their anti-war smears… Disgusting…

UPDATE: Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey, who has reported on this event previously, discusses the Stephen Colbert interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. While I would like to believe that Colbert was being serious, as Morrissey has stated, I am having trouble accepting this as serious journalism. That is the nature of the Colbert Report isn’t it? Satire? The problem with dismissing this entire exchange as satire is that the right questions were asked, the right conclusions were reached, and Colbert, to his credit, exposes Assange as a propagandist and a rabid anti-war activist. Here’s the problem with accepting this as satire is that, on its face, it does seem like a sincere journalist effort to expose this man. Could it be that those on the left, like Colbert felt betrayed when this “smoking gun” turned out to be anything but? A reverse Eric Massa? While the show is known for its satire and not its serious take on the news, there isn’t anything funny about the way Colbert called Assange a “manipulator” and telling the WikiLeaks founder “That’s not leaking, that’s a pure editorial”.

While I am not entirely convinced, I will for now applaud Colbert’s seriousness during this interview… Admirable…

UPDATE: While the videos I had posted previously have been removed from Youtube, there is this video from The Jawa Report of footage from the WikiLeaks video.

As anyone can see, these individuals were far from “unarmed civilians”, one carrying an AK-47 and the other an RPG. Obviously this evidence doesn’t change the fact that so many anti-war/ anti-American radicals will use the fiction created by WikiLeaks as to undermine the war effort and our troops, but at least those paying attention know the facts. Is it enough? Of course not. The truth isn’t as popular as these hateful lies being spread, and there is nothing anyone can do once these extremist make up their mind that this incident was “murder”… Pitiful…