Anonymous is the best that could ever happen for proponents of a crackdown on freedom (through/via/on the internet).
No one knows who's behind it, so no one will stand up for them, no one will complain if they get harassed and all the blaim for everything that goes wrong in the future goes to Anon/hackers. It's the perfect scapegoat for incompetence.
Does it really matter who the scapegoat is? At all? A few short years ago we had scary arab terrorists, I think they're still a bigger scapegoat than anon.
Anonymous doesn't change anything as far as excuses. If they're looking for an excuse to crack down, they can always make up an Emmanuel Goldstein.
Awesome. Great way to cram them into the same sentence. They both start with "a", too!
We've already proven that if you put "Saddam" and "al Qaeda" in the same sentence enough times, you can convince a majority of the USA that they're buddies. Let's see if we can do it here, too.
More to the point.. I can't stand the logic of "they should quit attempting to fight for freedom because authorities will use them as an excuse to crack down". It's exactly backwards to me. You can disagree with their motives or goals or whatever but that particular logic is terrible.
> "they should quit attempting to fight for freedom because authorities will use them as an excuse to crack down"
Who's fighting for freedom? Anon is a bunch of man-children (or actual children) 'fighting the man' behind anonymity from their parents' basements in suburbia. It's not cool or heroic. I completely don't understand this mentality that what Anon is doing should be commended. It's vigilantism and there's a reason that's not good 'IRL'.
Also I don't know what 'freedom' Arab terrorists are fighting for. The common trope is that they're fighting 'Western imperialism', but that's insane -- the most worn out excuse that the Arab world has used for their lack of innovation or scientific contribution since 1100[1]. I hope you're fine getting blown up for their cause[2].
1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oxTMUTOz0w (lecture from Neil Degrassi Tyson)
Oh please, like proponents of a crackdown on freedom need any excuses.
Or like "save the children" isn't the political slogan which always has been, and always will be, used to justify anything.
I am not sure if LuLzSec is good or bad, or a wash, in terms of how politician will use them. It does not really matter, politicians will use anything and nothing to get what they want.
But this BBC coverage is surprisingly fair. And if coverage like this becomes the norm, who knows LulzSec might actually be good for the public image of what anonymous hackers on the internet are.
And that may be even worse when it comes to a potential "crackdown": if it is just one group of hackers running amok, putting them down solves the problem, or at least the public discourse can pretend so. But if we come to have two, three, four, or even more groups on the loose, then there is an "epidemic" that will "require" a broader, more draconian response.
No one knows who's behind it, so no one will stand up for them, no one will complain if they get harassed and all the blaim for everything that goes wrong in the future goes to Anon/hackers. It's the perfect scapegoat for incompetence.