Victims Of GCHQ's Denial Of Service Attacks Ask: Who Are The Real Criminals?

Thu Feb 6 00:39:19 GMT 2014

FULL VIDEO  Edward Snowden on German TV  NATO zone Media Blackout
This interview with Edward Snowden was blocked 
from US & German television networks. No major 
news outlets are covering this story. The video 
is immediately taken down every time its posted on Youtube.
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=166544#166544
http://nextnewsnetwork.com/news/full-video-edward-snowden-on-german-tv-us-media-blackout/ 

Victims Of GCHQ's Denial Of Service Attacks Start 
Asking Who Are The Real Criminals?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/those-convicted-ddos-attacks-uk-wondering-why-gchq-was-allowed-to-ddos-them.shtml
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=166544#166544

from the doesn't-seem-right dept

Earlier today, we wrote about the latest Snowden 
docs, in which it was revealed that the UK spy 
agency, GCHQ, was engaged in 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140204/22511226092/snowden-docs-show-gchq-tried-to-ddos-anonymous.shtml>DDoS 
attacks on people participating in Anonymous 
chats and other events, while also helping to 
identify certain participants, leading to their 
eventual arrests and convictions. Basically, it 
looks like GCHQ was engaged in widespread 
DDoSing, while at the same time helping to 
convict some kids for doing their own DDoSing. 
We've already questioned whether or not GCHQ is 
even supposed to be doing that to UK citizens 
(they're supposed to be focused on foreign 
targets), but some of those convicted are already 
questioning how it's right that they were 
convicted of the same thing that the GCHQ itself was doing to them.

Chris Weatherhead was 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jan/24/anonymous-hackers-jailed-cyber-attacks>sentenced 
to 18 months in prison for participating in a 
DDoS against Paypal, Mastercard and Visa (one of 
the first big Anonymous DDoS attacks, in response 
to those 3 companies cutting off payments to 
Wikileaks). Now he's pointing out that GCHQ was 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/https://twitter.com/CJFWeatherhead/status/431059633071878144>DDoSing 
his own servers, and he wonders how that's right:
Meanwhile, another Anonymous participant, Jake 
Davis, who was 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/18/jake-davis-topiary>arrested 
and banned from the internet seems 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/https://twitter.com/DoubleJake/status/430977340131143680>equally 
angry about things for pretty good reasons:
Davis has also written a long piece concerning 
all this that is absolutely worth reading, asking 
a simple question: 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/jake-davis-following-latest-gchq-revelations-who-are-real-criminals-1435193>who 
are the real criminals here?
Why do British government spooks so brazenly 
attempt to inhibit the activities of acephalous 
online collectives and not, say, the hate-filled 
Westboro Baptist Church, or chat networks that 
encourage racism or paedophilia?

Or maybe the more important question: how can 
they even be permitted to launch these attacks at 
all? There's no justification for how nonchalant 
a democratic government can be when they breach 
the very computer misuse rules they strongly pushed to set in place.

When we look at what Western governments are 
doing - snooping on our emails, infecting our 
computers, intercepting our phone communications, 
following our avatars around in online games, 
backdooring our public encryption, discrediting 
our Internet viewing habits, encouraging illicit 
activity and even engaging in their own illicit 
activity - we have to ask ourselves: who are the real criminals here?

Others have similarly wondered if GCHQ is going 
to 
<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140205/09440926098/http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2014/02/an-offensive-gchq-may-soon-need-to-defend-itself-in-the-courts/index.htm>have 
to face charges over this, given that these 
actions appear to be entirely outside of its 
mandate and mission, and seem more compelled by 
just general dislike of some kids messing around.

FULL VIDEO  Edward Snowden on German TV  NATO zone Media Blackout
This interview with Edward Snowden was blocked 
from US & German television networks. No major 
news outlets are covering this story. The video 
is immediately taken down every time its posted on Youtube.
<http://nextnewsnetwork.com/news/full-video-edward-snowden-on-german-tv-us-media-blackout/>http://nextnewsnetwork.com/news/full-video-edward-snowden-on-german-tv-us-media-blackout/ 

FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Interviewer: Mr. Snowden, did you sleep well the 
last couple of nights? Because, I was reading 
that you asked for a kind of police protection. Are there any threats?

Snowden: There are significant threats but I 
sleep very well. There was an article that came 
out in an online outlet called BuzzFeed where 
they interviewed officials from the Pentagon, 
from the National Security Agency and they gave 
them anonymity to be able to say what they 
wanted, and what they told the reporter was that 
they wanted to murder me. These individuals, and 
these are acting government officials, they said 
they would be happy, they would love to put a 
bullet in my head, to poison me as I was 
returning from the grocery store, and have me die in the shower.

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