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Were I to hazard a guess, I'd say I was better informed than 95% of my fellow US Citizens. Yet though I'd heard of the HBGary incident, the fact that a journali

Were I to hazard a guess, I'd say I was better informed than 95% of my fellow US Citizens. Yet though I'd heard of the HBGary incident, the fact that a journalist reporting about it was facing a criminal inquiry completely escaped my radar. Perhaps this is a reflection on my own ignorance, but if so I fear it's a worse reflection on the ignorance of the average well-informed citizen. It goes beyond saying that any sentence counted in "years" for making an online threat against an individual is beyond ridiculous, and clearly sought for politics and in this case for the purposes of retribution and precedent .. don't you dare oppose the FBI or we will destroy you. I can't exactly express why, but having an administration with such an attitude (that of a bully) makes me sick. Sick to the point that I would sacrifice all common ground I may have had with them in order to kick them out of office.

rdouble 13y ago
It's less about politics and more about cop tribalism. All police forces in the USA behave in this manner - if you threaten them, they will make your life miserable.
- ironic_ali 13y ago
  cop tribalism is, to varying degrees, the same in every country (unfortunately). Giving someone 'power' in any form, creates corruption in most individuals. History, psychology and no doubt our own experiences prove this (again, unfortunately).
forgotAgain 13y ago
It's actually become much more difficult to be informed. Print media's collapse in revenue has cut their investigative abilities. Network broadcast media has lost resources as the networks have been bought out by larger corporations. What's left is mostly the echo chamber of the web and it's aggregation sites. There are very few organizations doing deep investigations these days. Anything deep is being done by individuals and sadly they are easily picked off by the police state.
peterwwillis 13y ago
See, this is what happens when you make assumptions. You made assumptions then, and you're surprised to learn new information. But you're making assumptions now as well. Please don't assume the only reason he's being prosecuted is for reporting a story, or for ranting about an FBI agent. He is more like a reporter who is embedded with drug dealers, and during the course of being embedded, committed crimes. But a little bit differently; he isn't just reporting Anonymous, he is the self-appointed representative face and mouthpiece for them. And also please don't point this at the executive branch. Law enforcement and prosecutors around the country do this kind of bullying all the time, and have for decades. A horrible but justified example is the TV show Law & Order, which is modeled after real life case studies. Often they're hunting for anything they can use to prosecute someone after they blindly accept the person is guilty and must be prevented from doing some as-yet-unknown illegal act. (Of course on TV they never do wrong to someone they prosecute)
- EdSharkey 13y ago
  Reading disturbing articles like this, my thoughts race to the conclusion that the federal government has grown too large. It now seems only interested in crushing opposition and growing larger. The fact that the executive (Obama) administration was cited does not seem to me to be inappropriate: they are the face and mouthpiece of government. Perhaps consider the possible negatives (tyranny) that can come with a growing central government
  - chrischen 13y ago
    The problem you describe is not intrinsic to governments, it's intrinsic to any powerful entity. If the government were weak, then corporations would take its place in abusing power. The key is to create a system where it's very difficult for any single entity to gain power outside of their niche or purpose. The system of checks and balances in government was designed for this purpose.
    - aric 13y ago
      "Corporations" are a protected class. Corporations are able to exploit society, buffering themselves from many forms of recourse - not unlike any powerful government - specifically because they hold position as a protected class. The entity known as a "corporation" is granted the security of police and military systems thanks to the rule of corporate law. I agree with you on the first part but let me interject a disagreement. Corruption seems intrinsic to any powerful entity, yes. However, it's important to recognize the fact that business entities in and of themselves are not powerful. They are not powerful without a societal structure that ensures that corporate law is enforced as "the rule of law." Translation: artificial entities - corporations - are only powerful because of consolidated government power. The problem isn't that corporations would take the place of abusing power. That's somewhat of a misconception. In a humane government with a free market, corporations would not exist. The protected entity could not exist. The larger problem is that the structure of governance we have does not go far enough to preserve the freedom of people, nor does it go far enough to compartmentalize most forms of the collective force it wields. Corporatism stands in strict contradiction to humanitarianism, freedom, and free and open markets. Yet it is the model of this government. The checks and balances that exist are rather superficial. Oligarchical mob rule exists. Some euphemistically call it a representative democracy. Abuse isn't the fault of [business entities] per se. That's the cough. It's the fault of the structure of government. That's the body. -- Wars of luxury and aggression. -- Surveillance states. -- Prison industry with dependent economies. -- War industry with dependent economies. -- Assault on civil liberties. -- Loss of human freedom to manufactured "law." -- Killing and dropping bombs on people and groups in the name of security. -- Secret organizations plundering and abusing the public. -- Loss of due process. -- The war on humanity... It continues. There are reasons in the scope of human history for so much suffering, in light of the lack of information that people had at their disposal combined with the technologies and tribalism that drive people into seeking power, security, and fortune. Though there are no arguable defenses for the structure we have that continues the bloodshed, in light of the connected world that grows, and a trend toward seeking transparency amid the every-growing classification and hiding from the public trust. There are no arguable defenses other than the chain of succession, the companies, the propaganda, and the millions of Americans whose paychecks and careers depend on this apparatus of exploitation. It has consolidated enough power to get to this point where rendering it undone is the fantastical proposition it once was: a feat for humanitarian activists. Where are the checks and balances? Why did this system fail people to such a large degree? One of the largest structural failures is when consolidated power is granted the ability to levy taxes: forced funding. It ensures that no one can disassociate physically or economically. Forced funding ensures that no one may engage in any practical form of disobedience beyond the last remaining threads of freedom of speech and any semblance of good left in the human spirit that is willing to engage in conscientious objection and civil disobedience. Forced funding ensures over the long haul that everything else will fall into play. Guaranteed revenue manifests the artifices used by power to sustain itself. This is why all forms of governance that rely on it: corporatism, socialism, communism, and flavors therein are inhumane and prone to failure into various states of fascist governance. They all surrender the people's own voluntary choices and labor unto a Cesar. The US Consitution didn't have enough language to protect people from its government. The idea was grand at the time. Though it didn't save people from the long-term threat of Congress. The federation should have only existed in the role of its Bill of Rights. A small central power, 535 people in Congress, should never have been granted ownership over the labor and humanity of so great number of people, 300 million people now. It is un-fixable for now. The article suggests at the end that the particular issue of persecuting people who reveal information points to a much larger systemic failure. It is, indeed, a systemic failure.
dram 13y ago
I never realized how powerful HBGary was. I knew they employed dirty tricks but I did not know they had so many unpublished 0-day exploits and sophisticated rootkits. I had this impression from the Colbert Report that they were inept government contractors who taunted Anonymous. Reading this article from Ars is rather terrifying- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbgary-wrote-backdoors-and-rootkits-for-the-government/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbg...

rdouble 13y ago

It's less about politics and more about cop tribalism. All police forces in the USA behave in this manner - if you threaten them, they will make your life miserable.

ironic_ali 13y ago
cop tribalism is, to varying degrees, the same in every country (unfortunately). Giving someone 'power' in any form, creates corruption in most individuals. History, psychology and no doubt our own experiences prove this (again, unfortunately).

forgotAgain 13y ago

It's actually become much more difficult to be informed. Print media's collapse in revenue has cut their investigative abilities. Network broadcast media has lost resources as the networks have been bought out by larger corporations. What's left is mostly the echo chamber of the web and it's aggregation sites. There are very few organizations doing deep investigations these days. Anything deep is being done by individuals and sadly they are easily picked off by the police state.

peterwwillis 13y ago

See, this is what happens when you make assumptions. You made assumptions then, and you're surprised to learn new information. But you're making assumptions now as well. Please don't assume the only reason he's being prosecuted is for reporting a story, or for ranting about an FBI agent. He is more like a reporter who is embedded with drug dealers, and during the course of being embedded, committed crimes. But a little bit differently; he isn't just reporting Anonymous, he is the self-appointed representative face and mouthpiece for them. And also please don't point this at the executive branch. Law enforcement and prosecutors around the country do this kind of bullying all the time, and have for decades. A horrible but justified example is the TV show Law & Order, which is modeled after real life case studies. Often they're hunting for anything they can use to prosecute someone after they blindly accept the person is guilty and must be prevented from doing some as-yet-unknown illegal act. (Of course on TV they never do wrong to someone they prosecute)

EdSharkey 13y ago
Reading disturbing articles like this, my thoughts race to the conclusion that the federal government has grown too large. It now seems only interested in crushing opposition and growing larger. The fact that the executive (Obama) administration was cited does not seem to me to be inappropriate: they are the face and mouthpiece of government. Perhaps consider the possible negatives (tyranny) that can come with a growing central government
- chrischen 13y ago
  The problem you describe is not intrinsic to governments, it's intrinsic to any powerful entity. If the government were weak, then corporations would take its place in abusing power. The key is to create a system where it's very difficult for any single entity to gain power outside of their niche or purpose. The system of checks and balances in government was designed for this purpose.
  - aric 13y ago
    "Corporations" are a protected class. Corporations are able to exploit society, buffering themselves from many forms of recourse - not unlike any powerful government - specifically because they hold position as a protected class. The entity known as a "corporation" is granted the security of police and military systems thanks to the rule of corporate law. I agree with you on the first part but let me interject a disagreement. Corruption seems intrinsic to any powerful entity, yes. However, it's important to recognize the fact that business entities in and of themselves are not powerful. They are not powerful without a societal structure that ensures that corporate law is enforced as "the rule of law." Translation: artificial entities - corporations - are only powerful because of consolidated government power. The problem isn't that corporations would take the place of abusing power. That's somewhat of a misconception. In a humane government with a free market, corporations would not exist. The protected entity could not exist. The larger problem is that the structure of governance we have does not go far enough to preserve the freedom of people, nor does it go far enough to compartmentalize most forms of the collective force it wields. Corporatism stands in strict contradiction to humanitarianism, freedom, and free and open markets. Yet it is the model of this government. The checks and balances that exist are rather superficial. Oligarchical mob rule exists. Some euphemistically call it a representative democracy. Abuse isn't the fault of [business entities] per se. That's the cough. It's the fault of the structure of government. That's the body. -- Wars of luxury and aggression. -- Surveillance states. -- Prison industry with dependent economies. -- War industry with dependent economies. -- Assault on civil liberties. -- Loss of human freedom to manufactured "law." -- Killing and dropping bombs on people and groups in the name of security. -- Secret organizations plundering and abusing the public. -- Loss of due process. -- The war on humanity... It continues. There are reasons in the scope of human history for so much suffering, in light of the lack of information that people had at their disposal combined with the technologies and tribalism that drive people into seeking power, security, and fortune. Though there are no arguable defenses for the structure we have that continues the bloodshed, in light of the connected world that grows, and a trend toward seeking transparency amid the every-growing classification and hiding from the public trust. There are no arguable defenses other than the chain of succession, the companies, the propaganda, and the millions of Americans whose paychecks and careers depend on this apparatus of exploitation. It has consolidated enough power to get to this point where rendering it undone is the fantastical proposition it once was: a feat for humanitarian activists. Where are the checks and balances? Why did this system fail people to such a large degree? One of the largest structural failures is when consolidated power is granted the ability to levy taxes: forced funding. It ensures that no one can disassociate physically or economically. Forced funding ensures that no one may engage in any practical form of disobedience beyond the last remaining threads of freedom of speech and any semblance of good left in the human spirit that is willing to engage in conscientious objection and civil disobedience. Forced funding ensures over the long haul that everything else will fall into play. Guaranteed revenue manifests the artifices used by power to sustain itself. This is why all forms of governance that rely on it: corporatism, socialism, communism, and flavors therein are inhumane and prone to failure into various states of fascist governance. They all surrender the people's own voluntary choices and labor unto a Cesar. The US Consitution didn't have enough language to protect people from its government. The idea was grand at the time. Though it didn't save people from the long-term threat of Congress. The federation should have only existed in the role of its Bill of Rights. A small central power, 535 people in Congress, should never have been granted ownership over the labor and humanity of so great number of people, 300 million people now. It is un-fixable for now. The article suggests at the end that the particular issue of persecuting people who reveal information points to a much larger systemic failure. It is, indeed, a systemic failure.

dram 13y ago

I never realized how powerful HBGary was. I knew they employed dirty tricks but I did not know they had so many unpublished 0-day exploits and sophisticated rootkits. I had this impression from the Colbert Report that they were inept government contractors who taunted Anonymous. Reading this article from Ars is rather terrifying- http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbgary-wrote-backdoors-and-rootkits-for-the-government/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/02/black-ops-how-hbg...