

Anonymous takes the fight to the U.S. Government



Aaron Swartz


It is our hope that this warhead need never be detonated.

Anonymous plans to detonate its warhead if its demands aren't met.

III. What Does Anonymous Hope to Gain from These Actions?


Sources: Wired, CNET, CNN, Media Nation

Comments     Threshold


RE: Really?
By guffwd13 on 1/26/2013 4:38:11 PM , Rating: 2
I think you're missing the point. Let me preface this by saying I am no conspiracist and, in fact, laugh add the fanaticism that conspiracy hobbyists exhibit.

Anonymous could gather information as sensitive as say, for example (and this is entirely hypothetical as I do not believe the conspiracy to be true), they were to find some evidence to prove the US government manufactured 911 to bring American patriotism back. Or perhaps certain members of the government and how they act completely contrary to legal systems in order to maintain order.

They could, if the information is digitized somewhere, find enough evidence that could create enough civic discord to provide instability to the system of western government as we know it. Because (this is not conspiracist, this is just how things have to operate to maintain systemic order over imperfect variabels - ie people) the average Joe does not understand the principal and complexity of contracting entropy.

Of course some will meet any evidence with disbelief, others will go crazy over the idea, and some will parse the information and learn from it. Either way, information is the single most important weapon anyone could have. And Anonymous has the tools to acquire it should they desire to do so.

RE: Really?
RE: Really?
By Lord 666 on 1/26/2013 9:28:24 PM , Rating: 5
Voting?! Its a rigged system. Who did you vote for; the guy who will not share his school records (signing an eo on the first day of office in 2009 research on those records) or the other guy who wouldn't share his tax records?

Politics itself is a distraction, just like that Te'o crap. Red state, blue state... its all bs. The only thing that is real is the power of money. Specifically avoided the word "dollar" because its obvious where that is going.

RE: Really?
By TSS on 1/27/2013 4:06:56 AM , Rating: 4
I hate to point something out, but you just said that if you wanted to get something real done, all you get done is voting in another set of idiots. I mean as i understand it, nothing changed in the election, nothing at all. Obama's still president, democrats still have the senate, republicans still have the house, and there's still no budget. Exactly 0 change from the year before that.

It's true that the vote is your power, and it could indeed be used effectively, but that's only if the people themselves have the intelligence to figure out what's going on, and who to vote for. Or at the very least the intelligence to discern who to listen to from the wealth of people that'll tell you what to do. For example, why did nobody vote for a 3rd party? I looked it up the US has like 8 political parties who participate in the presidential elections each time, of which 6 get next to no votes (the independants get just enough to be a statistic).

So if all you manage to do is vote in another set of idiots, why can't you even get it done to vote in a different set of idiots of a different colour? How could it possibly be worse then the current colours of idiots in charge?

It's in this that anonymous can have power. By disrupting the bubble of propaganda so far built up by decades and decades of electing the same people over and over again, by making it public how bad they really are. I mean we know they're bad, but it's still private information, as in it could still possibly all work out in the end and the leaders are actually competent, if what misguided themselves. Once evidence is made public of their incompetence, that option dissapears completly and people are forced to act.

If they manage to dig up and expose enough dirt on both republicans and democrats, maybe the 2 party system will finally break. That'll be a big step forward in itself. Faith in federal government will evaporate, bringing stuff back down to the local level and the people that actually have to live with the rules, wouldn't call that a bad thing either.

That being said though i'm not sure if anonymous is the right group for this job. Without a clear leader to focus that power it's just going to disperse all over the place without getting anything effective done, while the way it was done will be shut down as soon as it's exposed. Simply put, they're exposing backdoors to the system without really hurting the system.

Now if somebody starts leading them into a direction and starts focussing people's attacks, as well as being able to become a symbol for this revolution, then they can start doing some real damage. But since that goes against the whole idea of anonymous in the first place... eh...

I'll take what i can get i suppose.

RE: Really?
By retrospooty on 1/27/2013 8:06:12 AM , Rating: 3
That is because the US election isn't at all about putting up the rep vs. the dem and having the country vote which way to go. The UD elections are about the powers that be, putting up both candidates to give the facade that we have a choice. They keep the dull masses fighting with each other and ignoring whats really going on.

RE: Really?
By guffwd13 on 1/27/2013 6:11:06 PM , Rating: 1
First of all, I said "if" not "when" the information is digitized. I have no proof and as I said am no conspiracist. To suggest its the fault of the American people to vote those into office with secrets is entirely ridiculous. Why do you think we have the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, Homeland Security, the Secret Service, etc etc etc? SECRETS! Information is absolute power.

This isn't about some trivial socio-political or economic system. We're talking the big idea above that. Many forms of government have, do, and will work in the future. The American system is just one of those systems - no more or less successful than the others (for the record the longest standing western empire on the planet is a dictatorship - ie the Catholic Church). And behind every signal one of those systems are a bunch of lies, deceit, murder, assignations, death, and deals behind closed doors. That is what politicking is. It isn't pitching some lowest common denominator bullshit to the masses while pretending everything is all idealistically perfect and hunky-dory.

The irony behind your comment is that I assume there is stuff I don't know going on all around me. You assume you know exactly whats going on. Who's naive?

RE: Really?

RE: Really?

