Slashdot Mentioned In Virginia Terrorism Report 779
megamerican alerted us to a leaked document (PDF) from a Virginia Fusion Center titled "2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment." The document is marked as "Law Enforcement Sensitive," not to be shown to public. Citizens for Legitimate Government has a write-up. Slashdot gets a mention on page 45 — not as a terrorist organization itself, but as one of the places that members of Anonymous may hang out: "A 'loose coalition of Internet denizens,' Anonymous consists largely of users from multiple internet sites such as 4chan, 711chan, 420chan, Something Awful, Fark, Encyclopedia Dramatica, Slashdot, IRC channels, and YouTube. Other social networking sites are also utilized to mobilize physical protests. ... Anonymous is of interest not only because of the sentiments expressed by affiliates and their potential for physical protest, but because they have innovated the use of e-protests and mobilization. Given the lack of a unifying creed, this movement has the potential to inspire lone wolf behavior in the cyber realms." According to the report, cell phones and digital music players have been used to transfer plans related to criminal activity, and therefore presumably could be grounds for suspicion. Podcasting is also suspicious.
Level Up (Score:2, Interesting)
Terrorism (Score:5, Interesting)
That silly Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
How DARE citizens engage in the rights to:
Free speech
Assembly
Petition the government (or government institutions).
Why those subversives who not only wrote it into law, but preceded those rights with the words "Congress shall make no law abridging..." must have been terrorists or something.
No wonder this was marked "not to show to public". How dare we engage in such subversion of the LAW enforcement establishment.
The way I read this is that they are setting up pretexts for "probable cause" to detain and search people who engage in normal, legal behavior. Yet more evidence that the "war on terror" and the PATRIOT act are being used to expand law enforcement power over the law abiding, when instead such energy would be better spent guarding the porous borders or monitoring the FOREIGN FUNDED (Saudi) mosques (which is where most world wide terrorism originates).
What a bunch of idiots. (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, why bother? Seriously. My name REALLY IS Ralph Spoilsport. I live in Ukaipah on Rhode Island School of Design Terrace. Every morning I commute to work at Ralph Spoilsport Motors, over in West Gommorah.
And about this "Terrorism" meme floating since 9/11. What these people don't understand is violence. When it flows from the top of the social hierarchy down, it is invisible (like being forced to work to feed yourself) or rationalised (viz. warfare).
When violence flows UP the hierarchy from below, it is condemned (as terrorism, laziness, whatever) and persecuted (with invasions, arrests, assassinations, gitmo, etc.)
I don't see middle eastern terrorists flying planes into towers in Oslo, or the USA invading China to remove its brutal totalitarian government. Why? Because Norway hasn't been an invasive empire since the Vikings called it quits centuries ago, and China has the ability to readily defend itself, unlike Iraq in 2003, or (as it was perceived at the time) Viet Nam in 1964, or Poland in 1939.
If you want to stop terrorism, renounce your Empire and leave people the fuck alone. Eventually you won't be targeted for being a belligerent asshole, and you won't have to worry about scribblings by anonymous douchebags.
It's not a problem WITH civilisation, but more the problem OF civilisation and its inherent unsustainability. If you want a better explanation, read Endgame vol 2 by Derek Jensen.
RS
Re:Me too (Score:1, Interesting)
Slashdot should change "Anonymous Coward" to "Anonymous Terrorist" and claim anyone posting as such is enough for an admission of guilt
Anonymous has always been a threat to power (Score:3, Interesting)
The US government takes fingerprints, footprints, blood type, and DNA information from people when they are born. Later they take dental prints. Until a few years ago they enforced traceable information to be placed on products that can be used destructively. Now everything has RFID tags. Communicating by phone or mail can easily be monitored, and arguably is. No thing and no body is anonymous in the physical world. Now something existing that tears down that wall, anonymous communication. Ironically, it originated by the US government so they (the government) could be free in case of a power switch. I guess there is nothing more frightening to power than freedom you must share.
Re:That silly Constitution (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Terrorism (Score:5, Interesting)
Dammit. A group of us did this in Auckland city one Friday night when I was a bit younger and we were bored. Any casual observer would've seen a group of six or seven of us carefully timing the traffic lights at the bottom of Queen Street for, oh, 20 or 30 minutes.
After we'd figured out the timing perfectly, we executed our nefarious plot. As soon as the lights turned red, we rushed into the middle of the intersection with a small couch, a couple of chairs, and a lamp, set up a mock living room, quickly took some photographs, and rushed back to safety just as the lights turned green.
And we thought we were just having some innocent fun on a Friday night!
cell phones and music players (Score:3, Interesting)
" According to the report, cell phones and digital music players have been used to transfer plans related to criminal activity, and therefore presumably could be grounds for suspicion. Podcasting is also suspicious.
"
Wow.... "THEY" (ie, the "man") really fear us... I was @ DC for Cherry Festival just last week. I didn't understand why they made an announcement on the subway ("Metro" for the knowledgables) about how we were not to have our cell phones and digital music players out on the train, and to report supicious packages. I didn't understand the cell phone / mp3 player part till I reall the above. And as far as supicious packages go, all packages are supicious now-a-days if they are not mine.. How many times do you hear about donuts and flower/chalk being blown up by police because someone dropped a box and didn't get back to it in time...
I thought we would get "Change" but I guess not yet...
Re:VA better watch out! (Score:3, Interesting)
The biggest problem with this particular instance is that, unlike the Ron Paige matter, technophobes won't be able to dismiss it as the grossly hyperbolic bullshit it is. It's highly irresponsible for public officials to label non-violent protesters as terrorists in a nation with a frightened, well armed public. This seems by far more of an act of terrorism than anything Anonymous has done.
Re:A.C. (Score:5, Interesting)
How can any member of Anonymous be "from" a site like fark? Do they issue Anonymous press pass credentials or something?
This gets the whole idea of Anonymous wrong. Anonymous isn't "from" anywhere. The moment you start thinking you know something about Anonymous, the moment you start trying to put Anonymous into a box, you're no longer talking about Anonymous...you're talking onymous [reference.com].
Re:Message to Virginia Fusion Center, from Anonymo (Score:2, Interesting)
I Groovy'd it:
println str.tokenize().collect({(char) Integer.parseInt(it, 16)})
Not as good (it returns a list), but quick...
Re:A.C. (Score:5, Interesting)
From the U.S. Constitution, Ammendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble , and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The keyword is "peaceably", but TFS seems to imply that they are trying to prohibit people from assembling, which is unconstitutional.
The correct response, I believe, is to arrange a "peaceful assembly" on the front door of the "Virginia Fusion Center" and generate enough publicity from the press so these clowns in Virginia can be made to understand that internet sites like Slashdot.org don't make any attempt to rally any violent political movements.
Re:Message to Virginia Fusion Center, from Anonymo (Score:2, Interesting)
str.split(/\s/).map { |c| c.hex.chr }.join