We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists Page #7

not have, for years probably.

That's why those protests were so important.

It was a chance to finally meet other people

that were previously Anonymous and unknown

and hence it was the moment

of the end of their anonymity.

Scientology, they kind of fought back,

so to speak. They posted stuff online.

While claiming they are peaceful,

in less than 3 weeks,

Anonymous members made or encouraged:

and 8 death threats against members

and officials of the church of scientology.

They basically antagonized,

really is what they did,

which is really one of

the things they're great at.

They wanted to find me.

They did. They hired PI's.

They started taking pictures of us,

threatening to sue us.

People were getting followed,

people were getting followed home,

(..) be a regular thing for someone to say,

oh, I had to lose someone on the subway,

I saw someone from the scientology center

and they were following me.

They would follow us to our houses,

tried to intimidate us,

send us cease-and-desist letters.

They had a P.I. hand deliver a

cease-and-desist letter from a very expensive lawyer.

It was a double message there,

you know, it was a hey,

we know were you live, man we know your

name and here's something from our lawyer.

These old tactics that they used,

to fight the activism they

faced before the internet just..,

were completely ineffective against chanology.

Most of the people who received them,

actually framed them and put them on their wall.

I've seen multiple of them

framed and put on the wall.

Mine is sitting in my

closet somewhere, in a box.

They don't care to actually

use the legal system to

get you thrown in jail, they care to

use the legal system to get you to stop.

I did the whole Low Orbit

Ion Cannon stuff and then

I pretty much just went

about my life after that

for probably,

here at my parents house, where I wasn't,

looking for me.

(-flashed their guns)

took their jackets off

and laid their guns on the

front seat and came out

to ask us if Brian was home

and explained that they were the FBI

and they were looking for Brian

and I've never been so scared.

And then my parents directed

them to where I was living

and they showed up and said,

I'd like to have a friendly

conversation with you

and I had the worst friendly

conversation of my life.

We sat down at my dining room table

and they just started asking me questions

and I'm trying to figure out what

they are here for, 'cause I have no idea

and they eventually started

asking me questions about Anonymous.

I was scared to death.

I mean, my son is,

is looking at 5 years in jail

and a 100.000$ fine.

I had no idea, that

it was any sort of

dispicable crime to do what I did.

I thought it was the kind of 'slap on the wrist',

So I actually told them,

that I did it at that point.

Then it went from there.

I would've never ever believed that,

the maximum punishment for this,

was 5 years in prison.

It was a very eye-opening experience.

I had a little bit of

trouble accepting it,

knowing that, I could

go to prison for 5 years,

knowing that, I would be

imprisoned from age 20 to 25 for this.

I thought, that was

a little bit extreme.

I tell people, that it

would be different if they

drank and drove and killed somebody.

But he didn't do that.

It's hard to deal with,

harder to deal with,

'cause he didn't do that.

He just pushed a button on his computer and,

as he explained it to me at the time,

it was like pushing the refresh button

over and over, 800.000 times

and it seems like

such a little thing.

I did the 2nd-most damages,

what scientology said I did,

I sent 2nd-most out of everybody,

so I got the maximum, for my category,

which was 1 year in prison

and 1 year supervised release.

I think the way I

feel for what I did,

was one of the most

lopsided punishments I've ever

read about or heard of.

Yeah, I think it's ridiculous,

especially the year supervised release

where I can't touch

a computer for a year.

I'm not sure what's that supposed to

solve, except make my life difficult.

So, that computer behind me back there,

I could go back to prison

if I went over and touched it.

I can't knowingly associate

with members of Anonymous.

They just made a big deal about

scientology's religion and that

this is America and you can

believe in whatever you wanna believe.

I'm pretty sure they

actually compared me to

the KKK and the nazis

and stuff in the court room.

It's a completely different issue.

I'm very proud of what he did.

He stood up for what he believed in,

but that was never ever mentioned.

I never would even dream of hurting anybody.

Not me.

Prior to Anonymous,

critics of the church

still had to be very-very careful,

because of the agressive lawsuits

that were launched against academics,

journalists and other critics.

I would say that era is over

and Anonymous more than any other

sort of intervention is probably

responsible for that change.

This is actually called

a decent rift in Anonymous.

There was one big group,

significant group of people who'd say:

this chanology stuff is

cancer, is awful, is bad,

is just bringing attention

to us that we don't want.

The trolling isn't happening,

we're not getting our jollies,

now this is all really serious

and moral and somber,

that's not what I signed

up for, that kind of thing

and then there are the people who

were on the other side who were going,

I only signed up for the serious and somber.

You guys, go away.

(..) and it became this fierce clash

of ideologies and it was alien to us.

They decided that, in their own words,

which I was privy to 'cause it was told to me,

stop ruinning our bad name.

So to make Anonymous look bad,

they go off and they post

animated .gifs, animated images

to epilepsy forums,

that are black and white

just strobing really quickly,

so any of the epilepsy people on these support forums

see it and they fall off their chairs and seizure.

You start hearing this term, moralfag.

If you're not out there making epileptics

have seizures, then you're doing it wrong.

So you're a moral fag.

Which is what I am, a moralfag.

Those who wanna use Anonymous as

a tool for good in some sense

rather than just do what we were used

to do, which is to screw with video games.

One anon said it well once.

There is no leader,

their ops have

momentary leaders, defacto leaders.

I like to describe this

with a picture of a bird swarm.

Everybody's flying very, very quiet

suddenly one bird flies in another direction

and the mass fly into the same direction, following that person.

It's totally okay to say, "I'm sorry, I don't take part."

When Chanology was running full force

it was like a kid stretching for the first time

and actually seeing their real power.

It's the teenage period actually...

...trying Operation Titstorm.

Operation Titstorm.

Australia over the past couple

of years, has been relatively

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