Anonymous - We Are Legion - The Story of the Hacktivists (2012) from Anon Best Videoes on Vimeo.

In recent years, the radical online community known as Anonymous has been associated with attacks or “raids” on hundreds of targets. Angered by issues as diverse as copyright abuse and police brutality, they’ve taken on child pornographers, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and even forced a standoff with Mexican drug cartels. They’ve hit corporate targets like Sony, cyber-security firms like HBGary Federal and would-be web controllers like the Church of Scientology.

They shut down Mastercard, Visa and Paypal after those groups froze financial transactions to Wikileaks. Along with other hacktivist groups like Telecomix, they’ve launched cyber attacks against foreign governments in support of the Arab Spring. They served as tech support for the Occupy movement and have put their mark on countless uprisings around the world. One participant described their protests as “ultra coordinated motherf*ckery.”

So who is Anonymous?

They’ve been called criminals, “hackers on steroids” and even terrorists. But the vast majority of those who identify as Anonymous don’t break the law. They see themselves as activists and protectors of free speech, and tend to rise up most powerfully when they perceive a threat to internet freedom or personal privacy. Whether you are a soccer mom or a member of Congress, you live in an electronic landscape that has exploded with largely unchecked intrusion and surveillance. You are tracked by government databases while corporate advertisers are looking to buy your personal data for pennies. In this landscape, the existence of the collective internet culture called Anonymous makes the case for anonymity.

Using tools of disruption and spectacle, they have also become the face of dissent for a variety of human rights and information freedom groups around the globe. They are a legion of loud but largely masked geeks, hackers, pranksters and outraged citizens who have unwittingly redefined civil disobedience for the digital age, and found themselves in the middle of one of the most important battles of our time.

WE ARE LEGION: The Story of the Hacktivists, from Director, Writer, Producer Brian Knappenberger, takes us inside the complex culture and history of Anonymous. The film explores early hacktivist groups like Cult of the Dead Cow and Electronic Disturbance Theater, and then moves to Anonymous’ own raucous and unruly beginnings on the website 4Chan.

Through interviews with current members – some recently returned from prison, others still awaiting trial – as well as writers, academics and major players in various “raids,” WE ARE LEGION traces the collective’s breathtaking evolution from merry pranksters to a full-blown, global movement, one armed with new weapons of civil disobedience for an online world.

Hacktivist group members of the Anonymous collective are calling for a global protest against Trapwire, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security deployed electronic surveillance system uncovered in WikiLeaks latest Global Intelligence Files (GIF) series documents.

The global protest is scheduled for Saturday, October 20.

Information about the protest is being shared by Operation INDECT (OpINDECT International) and there is an #OpINDECT/#TrapWire Facebook Event Page.

It is not the first INDECT protest, but recent news about TrapWire from the Wikileaks leak of private intelligence firm Stratfor's documents has added new fuel to the fire.

According to Trapwire's website, the surveillance system uses data from a network of CCTV systems and numberplate readers to figure out the threat level in huge numbers of locations:

"Trapwire detects, analyzes and alerts on suspicious events as they are collected over periods of time and across multiple locations. Through the systematic capture of these pre-attack indicators, terrorist or criminal surveillance and pre-attack planning operations can be identified"

An in-depth report published by RT.com, states that TrapWire has been deployed "in most major American cities at selected high value targets (HVTs)," as well as in multiple Las Vegas casinos, for the state of Texas, as well as for the Pentagon and other military agencies. It said TrapWire was created by a company called Abraxas, which features a management team largely drawn from the intelligence services and military branches. An Abraxas spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about the company's relationship with TrapWire.

Hacktivists claiming allegiance to the international Internet collective known as Anonymous hacked and defaced Alpha Unmanned Systems Saturday, May 27.

Anonymous claims that Alpha Unmanned Systems, experts in designing simple and portable flight control systems, is “just another covert corporation funded by the CIA.

The group further claimed that border patrols and law enforcement agencies will be missing some drones soon, and imply there are serious problems with “manual remote control of the UAVs plus the video transmission.”

Anonymous is also asking for the release of Bradley Manning; an end to the violence in Bahrain and Syria; an end to the attacks on peaceful Occupy protesters in USA, Canada, Germany, and all over the world; an end to INDECT, a massive European surveillance program that threatens personal privacy; and the closing of Guantanamo Bay.

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"Ring of Steel" likens the surveillance-happy police state in New York City—whose violent, militaristic tactics were exposed thanks to the emergence of Occupy Wall Street—to a discordant cacophony of noise music set against stark concrete from which cameras sinisterly protrude. Thousands of cameras capture our visage each day—something this film won't let you forget.

Shot and cut by g r o s s y m m e t r i c

All music recorded live at Secret Project Robot

Occupy Detroit gets a home base:

With its comfy sofas, kitchen and sunlit windows, the brick building at 5900 Michigan Ave. in Detroit that opened this year could pass for a spacious café.

But a banner high on the wall that reads "We are the 99%" signifies this is a different type of place, one that's become the center for activists in metro Detroit. After leaving their encampment in Grand Circus Park in November, Occupy Detroit has found a new home in the heart of southwest Detroit.

Across the street from a grocery store, the two-floor 12,000-square-foot building with a tall ceiling was refurbished by activists and is a striking symbol of the movement's attempts to establish a solid base in the region for its activities. "OCCUPY," it reads on the windowpanes outside.

Awesome news!

Social Security is not going broke. I repeat, Social Security is not going broke.

Which federal program took in more than it spent last year, added $95 billion to its surplus and lifted 20 million Americans of all ages out of poverty? Why, Social Security, of course...

Tom Morello, Worldwide Rebel Tour, performing "Night Watchman."

Tom Morello has done it again. Always looking to support the Occupy Movement in one way or another, he has now released a free 30-minute documentary , (did I mention it's free?) in celebration of May Day. Directed by Bobby Roth and filmed at Henson Studios in Los Angeles last August, the film features interviews with Morello juxtaposed with live performances of “Black Spartacus Heart Attack Machine,” “Save The Hammer For The Man,” “It Begins Tonight,” and “World Wide Rebel Songs.” The film is sure to inspire fans both in and out of the Occupy Movement.

Says Morello, "Remember that old Coca-Cola commercial? ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing/in perfect harmony'? It’s like that. But with class warfare."

Tom Morello was also honored for his activism:

The Rage Against The Machine star has been one of the most fervent supporters of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began in New York last year (11), and has traveled across the U.S. and Canada, and even to London to perform for demonstrators calling for an end to corporate greed.

He also led hundreds of protesters in a musical march through the streets of the Big Apple on May Day (01May12) for the so-called Occupy Guitarmy event, and his campaign work earned him special recognition for public service at the 2012 Hillman Prizes ceremony.

Morello was presented with the award by singer and fellow civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, Jr. at the prizegiving in New York on Tuesday night (01May12), but the rocker admitted he didn't think he'd make it to the event when Occupy demonstrators clashed with police earlier that day.

From ThinkProgress: Wall Street CEOs Personally Lobby Federal Reserve To Weaken New Financial Regulations.

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According to internal Department of Homeland Security documents, it seems that DHS didn't want to monitor Occupy Wall Street and tried to avoid doing so. Apparently, they didn't want to infringe on people's legal and constitutional rights. This surprises me far more than the news that the movement was being monitored.

Via:

The Department of Homeland Security struggled to avoid monitoring or suppressing the Occupy Wall Street movement last year, despite being bombarded with requests from various federal agencies for intelligence on the protests, according to documents released via the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents show that officials in DHS's offices of Intelligence Analysis and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties were keenly aware of the legal and constitutional issues raised by federal agencies monitoring political protesters, and sought to tamp down the appetite for intelligence on the Occupy protesters from their colleagues in DHS and other federal agencies that rely on DHS bulletins and intelligence.

The records also show that the efforts weren't always successful—there are several instances of DHS gathering and distributing intelligence on Occupy protesters without much justification. DHS released 340 redacted pages in response to a Freedom of Information Request we filed for records concerning the Occupy movement; it characterized them as an "interim release," suggesting that more records will be forthcoming.

According to the documents, officials in the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties took a hard line on curbing DHS intel-gathering on Occupy after the Pittsburgh Office of Emergency Management released a bulletin, apparently produced with DHS help, on potential threats the movement posed. "Both myself and [redacted] are somewhat concerned that several items contained in this Intel Bulletin might be advocating surveillance and other countermeasures to be employed against activities protected under the 1st Amendment," wrote one official in an October 7, 2011.

You can read the documents released today online here, although it's a bit difficult to come to any conclusions until the rest of the documents are released. That's right, DHS didn't want to spy on Occupy and they're sending more internal documents, and without another FOIA request. Something weird is going on here.