

Anonymous threatens Justice Department over hacktivist death - ytadesse
http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/26/tech/anonymous-threat/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

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maxharris
I am sick of hearing about Anonymous and its vigilantism. We have courts and a
justice system for a reason: to place retaliatory force under objective
controls (laws) so that the rights of individuals are not violated. Their
tactics are both dangerous to freedom and to justice.

In addition, while a few of the things they're against are actually bad
things, not all of the causes they fight are just. And their illegal methods
serve mainly to hurt the good fights (such as the fight against Scientology)
rather than help.

~~~
Havoc
>I am sick of hearing about Anonymous and its vigilantism. We have courts and
a justice system for a reason

So much irony. You didn't watch the video did you?

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maxharris
I have a right to disagree. I have a right to put what I want on a web server,
at my own expense, without fear of DoS attacks or website defacement.

If anarchy rules, any person group can do those things without fear of
reprisal. That's basically what Anonymous does, and that's why they have to be
stopped.

~~~
dmix
Anarchy doesn't have to mean chaos. The government and individuals could
easily defend themselves from anonymous attacks if they utilized proper
information security.

~~~
maxharris
_Anarchy doesn't have to mean chaos._

anarchy |ˈanərkē|

noun

* a state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority: he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy.

* absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.

[New Oxford American Dictionary, Dictionary.app, OS X 10.7]

If you want to convince me that this definition is wrong, show me why it's not
a valid concept to hold, given the facts of reality.

~~~
dmix
There is a distinction between the commonly held meaning of anarchy (as chaos)
and the political philosophy (which is why there are 2 asterisks).

Anarchism the political ideology believe that order doesn't not _have_ to come
from a centralized state via force. Rather it can happen organically... since
the vast majority of humans desire order. We all value security, eatting, etc.

The difference is that order is maintained not via coercion by a central
authority but by individuals, communities or markets (depending on the various
branches of anarchy).

This book explores the concept very well and is heavily cited in philosophy
circles:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia>

One of his arguments is that a sort of minimal state will eventually begin to
appear in an anarchist society (minarchy).

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film42
Did anyone grab a mirror or better screenshot of the page?

UPDATE: Google Cached it:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sV8dPXf...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sV8dPXftnTcJ:www.ussc.gov/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

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Claudus
Wow, CNN, the opposite of Hacker News. What an ignorant comment:

 _The "warhead" names appeared as links, most leading to 404 error messages of
pages not found, but some leading to pages of raw programming code._

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Zarathust
"Swartz was facing up to 50+ years in prison and a $4 million fine". 50 years
from now, people will relate this saying that he was facing death penalty

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mayneack
"Reform or we'll release this incriminating stuff."

Clearly, the better way to get them to reform is to release the incriminating
material and have a scandal about it. If it's really bad enough to be worth
this headline, it'll do a lot more good when it's not a threat. Of course,
that means it's probably irrelevant and/or useless.

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nitrogen
I'm sure the mainstream news outlets were _begging_ for a more status-quo-
friendly angle to take on the Swartz story, and this just gives it to them. If
Anonymous takes the spotlight, all the discussion about prosecutorial
overreach could come crashing down, and (to extend the metaphor) at best we'll
be back to preaching to the choir while the congregation starts throwing
stones.

