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[Shakes his head in disgust.] Hackers, it's time for me to hack the discussion. You and your first world problems have NO IDEA how to fight for freedom. This is

[Shakes his head in disgust.] Hackers, it's time for me to hack the discussion. You and your first world problems have NO IDEA how to fight for freedom. This is the wimpy way to protest whatever it is you are protesting. Unlike most people who post here, I have actually lived under a dictatorial regime that ruled a territory that later had a peaceful transition to democracy and legally protected civil rights. Anonymous or whatever the name of the latest Western hacktivist group is going about things all wrong. If you really want to learn about effective popular action to bring about more freedom, point your Web browser to the Albert Einstein Institute publications http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html http://www.aeinstein.org/organizationsde07.html and choose your language for titles like From Dictatorship to Democracy and The Role of Power in Nonviolent Struggle and others. Note that the main author of these publications has consulted with freedom movements all over the world and has had notable success in the Philippines, Thailand, Burma, and other countries, and is credited with much of the mobilization of the two-year-old Arab Spring movement. Going after the United States Sentencing Commission website is beyond stupid. The federal sentencing guidelines were a helpful reform. Before they were adopted, on the example of Minnesota's sentencing guidelines, federal sentences were just about wholly indeterminate, making each judge could make up his or her own law of sentencing at trial. The Minnesota reform, which was the example for the federal reform, set up guidelines based on a "severity score" of the offense--so that for the first time legislative statutes from many different decades were compared as to the actual social harm resulting from each offense, based on community standards as of the time of the reform--and on a "criminal history score" of the offender, so that prison time was reserved only for the most dangerous repeat offenders. (Minnesota imprisons fewer convicted criminals than most states of the United States, being much like Scandinavia in this regard. Minnesota spends more dollars per prisoner but fewer dollars per taxpayer on its prison system than almost any other state.) I know actual freedom fighters, that is publishers of opposition magazines and organizers of nonviolent protests, from Taiwan. Some of them experienced hard prison time while in the struggle for freedom, with family break up and ill health and the other consequences of imprisonment. But today they can look at a much freer country in their homeland than they grew up in. The biggest problem with website-defacing movements is their cowardice (no one in Anonymous seems courageous enough to go to prison) and lack of perspective (they complain about first world problems that they mischaracterize as important problems for the common people). It's time for the discussion on Hacker News to grow up and make more room for the real freedom fighters.

brendyn 14y ago
Thanks for the aeinstein.org link. One thing: "no one in Anonymous seems courageous enough to go prison" - What use is it to go to prison? Maybe you will get some article produced about you generation some attention, but it really doesn't seem helpful. Courageous, I agree, but is it rational? Recently I read about a small protest in mainland China about an instance of media censorship. A bunch of people singed there names on some document complaining about it, and Chinese man who was speaking to some journalists got thrown into a van and taken away. It would not surprise me if some of those people who signed their names will end up getting attacked, so anonymity is beneficial here.
- z0ot 14y ago
  "Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest. I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...
- knowtheory 14y ago
  You are comparing apples and oranges. This was not a protest in rural China where corrupt local communist party officials are going to come and disappear you. This was an attack on a US Federal Government website. Whoever defaced the site might get prosecuted for their endeavor, but the only purpose for anonymity here is for the instigators to avoid official reprisal and prosecution (.e.g to get away with it). Nobody in the US is going to persecute you because you think academic articles should be free (they'll largely just ignore you).

brendyn 14y ago

Thanks for the aeinstein.org link. One thing: "no one in Anonymous seems courageous enough to go prison" - What use is it to go to prison? Maybe you will get some article produced about you generation some attention, but it really doesn't seem helpful. Courageous, I agree, but is it rational? Recently I read about a small protest in mainland China about an instance of media censorship. A bunch of people singed there names on some document complaining about it, and Chinese man who was speaking to some journalists got thrown into a van and taken away. It would not surprise me if some of those people who signed their names will end up getting attacked, so anonymity is beneficial here.

z0ot 14y ago
"Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest. I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law." http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...
knowtheory 14y ago
You are comparing apples and oranges. This was not a protest in rural China where corrupt local communist party officials are going to come and disappear you. This was an attack on a US Federal Government website. Whoever defaced the site might get prosecuted for their endeavor, but the only purpose for anonymity here is for the instigators to avoid official reprisal and prosecution (.e.g to get away with it). Nobody in the US is going to persecute you because you think academic articles should be free (they'll largely just ignore you).