I woke up the other day to a dozen or so queries from reporters about allegations that the Anonymous collective is responsible for the theft of more than a hundred million user accounts and their associated information from Sony's Playstation network, allegations that have gained steam through Sony's claims to Congress that the perpetrators left behind a file titled "Anonymous" and containing the phrase "We are Legion," a fragment of our unofficial motto. Not only is this flimsy evidence of Anonymous' guilt; it in fact raises the strong possibility that one of the various intelligence contractors and "law enforcement" bodies that have already been caught planning acts by which to discredit such "enemies" as Wikileaks may very well have arranged this act, possibly in conjunction with Sony itself.
As our press release noted yesterday:
It should be remembered that several federal contractors such as HBGary and Palantir have been caught planning a variety of unethical and potentially criminal conspiracies by which to discredit the enemies of their clients. This is not a theory - this is a fact that has been reported at great length by dozens of journalists with major publications. Insomuch as that our enemies have either engaged in or planned to engage in false flag efforts, it should not be surprising that many of the journalists who have covered us, who know who we are and what motivates us - and who have alternatively seen the monstrous behavior of those large and "respectable" firms that are all too happy to throw aside common decency at the behest of such clients as Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - also have their suspicions that some capable party performed this operation as a means by which to do great damage to Anonymous in the public eye. Those who consider such a prospect to be somehow unlikely are advised to read about what was proposed by Team Themis in their efforts to destroy Wikileaks, and should otherwise take a few minutes to learn about COINTELPRO and other admitted practices by the U.S. intelligence community. The fact is that Anonymous has brought a great deal of discomfort to powerful entities such as Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, and much of the federal government; the Justice Department in particular is likely unhappy that our efforts revealed that it was they themselves who recommended the now-discredited "law firm" Hunton & Williams to Bank of America in order that the latter might better be able to fight back against Wikileaks. All of this is now public record, and anyone who finds it laughable that those or other entities may have again engaged in tactics that they are known to have engaged in in the past is not qualified to comment on the situation.
Today The Guardian has run an op-ed I wrote last night in which I have taken the occasion to remind interested parties of the absolute mockery that has already been made of the rule of law by the very institutions that are supposed to represent that non-existent dynamic, and who have already been revealed to have colluded with one another in a common campaign by which to destroy those of us who choose to fight back. I would like to bring attention to the following facts in particular:
At any rate, an investigation is being conducted by the usual people. Congress is now on the job. Even more heartening, Attorney General Eric Holder says that the justice department is taking this "very seriously". It is good to see those two entities adopting a healthier work ethic: when, a few months ago, Representative Hank Johson called for Congress to look into the activities of Team Themis in coordination with Hunton & Williams, Representative Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, declined, asserting that this was the responsibility of the justice department. He did not seem to think it problematic that, as shown by the HBGary emails, it was the justice department itself that recommended Hunton & Williams to Bank of America.
Eric Holder having presumably been too busy to investigate that particular matter, Anonymous is, of course, flattered to learn that criminal activity that allegedly involves us is a higher priority than dubious activity that definitely involved his own department. Or perhaps, there is some other explanation.
When participants within Anonymous violate the law for the purpose of the established practice of civil disobedience - a practice that, throughout history, has often been deployed in support of causes that themselves tend to place the "criminals" in question on the right side of history - they do so knowing that they put themselves at great risk of being subject to punishment. After all, they are individual citizens with no pull in the corridors of power, and their work tends to be of the sort that brings discomfort to those with the means to deploy the state and its monopoly on violence in service to their interests. When equal or worse crimes are perpetrated by those who have arrayed against us for purposes of profit and in service to the state's whims, those who commit them do so knowing that even if exposed, they will be protected by the same government officials with whom they collaborated on those crimes.
The idea that the United States is a nation of laws rather than men is a joke, ascribed to only by those who pay no attention or who depend on that concept in order to maintain their respectability. The true crime for which Wikileaks and Anonymous is pursued is to have been so effective as of late in revealing the absurdity that underpins the order of things.