San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr promises regarding #OpBART 3 on Monday August 29:

It will be different.

Hopefully he means “different,” as the San Francisco  police will not hit people with batons as seen in this video below. Or maybe that San Francisco police officers will not order people off the sidewalks then arrest them for being on the streets, something reported repeatedly on the #OpBART Twitter feed after the Auguest 22nd protest.

Or maybe “different” in that the SFPD will pay more attention to their arrest lists: The name of a 17-year old–date of birth 9-15-1993, arrested at the #OpBART2 protest, then booked and held in San Francisco County Jail under section 601 (missing person/runaway)–was released to the media, against SFPD media guidelines, followed by another email from the SFPD asking reporters to delete the previous list and use the updated one attached, whihc omitted the juvenile.

Oh wait, this is how San Francisco Police Chief Suhr means “different”:

I don’t want this to be construed as delivering a threat, but enough is enough. They made their point, and they are now losing in the court of public opinion. We don’t feel that we took appropriate action at the appropriate pace (on Monday). The next response will be quicker.

Anonymous responded to Chief Suhr’s words thusly:

Now you have our attention.  We do not appreciate threats nor do we take well to them, especially from a chief of police who has a very interesting background himself. May we remind you of 2003?  Allegedly conspiring to obstruct the investigation into the infamous Fajitagate affair, in which three off-duty cops allegedly beat up two men for their Mexican takeout.  Or maybe we should ask Chief Heather Fong why she had to reprimanded you in 2009.

Oh and in 2005, Chief Fong demoted Suhr to the backwater, literally–making him chief of security for SF’s water supply.

The police department replied to Anonymous, issuing a written statement:

As Chief Suhr has stated this is NOT a threat. We as a department will continue to facilitate first amendment rights to protest. Our goal is to provide a safe environment for everyone. While the demonstrators have the right to protest, we will continue to facilitate it to an extent where it does not infringe the rights of others. We as a law enforcement agency had a duty to protect the constitutional rights of all.

BART has stated that

expressive activities

are not permitted on the paid area of BART stations, meaning any area beyond the turnstiles, and expressive activity in the station requires a permit. Is standing on a platform in a tee shirt reading

I <3 Free Speech. Please Don’t Shoot Me!

a violation of BART’s rules and regulations? Is standing in the station area with duct tape over your mouth? Do these actions require a permit on BART property?

Police ienforced BART rules, making arrests of people chanting and passing out fliers on the platforms during the first two #OpBART protests; none of the arrestees were Anonymous, who confined their protests to outside the station, (though one Anon was  photographed tweeting behind a post on the BART Civic Center platform).

It’s important to remember that there are two groups which are uniting to protest BART (along with random unaffiliated citizens). No Justice No BART is demonstrating against the transportation agency’s police department and policies; BART police officers have shot two men in two years. No Justice No BART has successfully disrupted train service in the past during their demonstrations, most recently on July 11 in response to the shooting of Charles Hill, BART service was suspended when protesters climbed on trains.

Anonymous–which for the most part rallies for freedom of information and communication–was drawn into the fray when BART shut off cellphone service on BART platforms and in trains on August 11 to prevent a planned protest by No Justice No BART which BART Chief of police Rainey said was discovered on a

blog webpage.

In the past two and a half weeks, Anons have swiftly educated themselves on the background of BART and the shooting deaths of Oscar Grant and Charles Hill, much they did in 2008 when the removal of a Tom Cruise video on YouTube led to the development of  Anonymous’ Project Chanology, a year long series of real life  protests–the first time Anonymous moved off the interwebz –that embarrassed Scientology, and aided a number of high ranking members to leave what ex-members describe as an abusive cult.

During the #OpBART protests, it has been members of No Justice No BART who have been on the train platforms chanting and shouting, holding signs, while Anonymous and others have marched up top.

How will Anonymous make #OpBART3 different for the SFPD and the BART police? Civil disobedience tactics like chains, padlocks and “blackbear” lockboxes seem a bit old school for Anonymous who have shown their displeasure for BART spokesperson Linton Johnson’s high-handed tactics by scouring the internet for information about the  former anchorman and then providing a treasure trove of  photos featuring Linton Johnson frolicking topless in the Land Down Under. And wearing really stupid tee shirts. All from Linton Johnson’s publicly available blogs (since shuttered).  Anonymous also redecorated MyBART.org; and someone claiming Anonymity easily hacked into both the MyBART.org and the BART police databases, then released names and other information from both sites.

Anonymous’ effort have proven them to be a force with which to be reckoned: The international uproar over the suspension of cellphone service, made hugely public by the MyBART.org hack and the ensuing protests, has prompted an FCC investigation and forced BART to develop a policy limiting cellphone shutoffs. The majority of BART’s Board of Directors expressed emotions ranging from dismay and outrage over the suspension of cellphone service.

Anonymous has proven themselves to be rapidly mutable, highly adaptable organism with fluid intelligence and Trickster‘s sense of humor which can, to some at times, appear cruel or insensitive. At the core, Anonymous is doing it for the lulz. And like Trickster, Anonymous does not forgive, nor forget. Expect them. And expect them to do it differently, too.

Oh and the SFPD has opened its doors for new recruits. Preferably ones fluent in meme-speak and lolcats.

photo: OpBARTsf

Detail: Boucher, Toilet of Venus

I’m currently mulling intellectual property law, the importance of copyright, and Anonymous, all whom I respect.

Prosecuting a granny for downloading songs: You’re doing it wrong. One Huge Industry Giant wrote:

Headlines about a grandmother being fined hundreds of thousands of dollars did not properly present the big picture, and they were terrible PR for the industry.

He’s right.  (America and businesses based here being huge bullies over Wikileaks is another post for another time).

Some Anonymous are getting very DdoSy via Operation Payback which to me seems a bit misplaced and possibly short-sighted. And there is no way Assange is gonna distract from OpPayback, so give up that concept! There are reasons copyrights exist, these reasons are tl/dr, but copying without permission or pay is an uneven social exchange:

I’ll give you my Space Food Stick if I can crib off your math test

is making a deal; lifting off someone’s page without permission (or attribution, or a processed food snack) is cheating. Residuals and royalties from legal sales and downloads create income streams which allow for a vital economy through employment, purchases, use of services and other businesses, trickle down. As the writers’ strikes proved in Los Angeles, when creative income stops, the economy suffers. Badly.

The studios, at least in Bollywood who admits to it, hired their own private DDoS service, which went and boasted on their gig, hoisting themselves on their own petard, only to fall like a T. rex toe-walking Chihuahua. The RIAA, BPI, MPAA and US Copyright Office have all been recent targets. OMG, WTF!? Somebody crashed the Copyright Office.

First off:  Media interpretation of “Anonymous” needs to be flexible; heck Anonymous is flexible, fluid. Anyone can be “anonymous” online in certain areas of the web, when writing old fashioned letters, or checking on Prince Albert in a can. Princess Di made anonymous calls to a lover. Imagine if she’d been able to organize HRHOPA* on 4Chan…

There may be some Venn diagram spillover of unnamed Anon sets opposed to breast censorship in Australia and sets who think cULtz R cR33PY but never leave the house; sets who raid Second Life; and sets who show up IRL EGF (oh hai!). They may not all interact on 4Chan, either; it’s not like that is the only sandbox. (Trying to shut down IRCs was pretty bush league.)

Sonny Bono is an interesting case. While a Congressperson, he extended creative copyright, benefitting him as a songwriter and his heirs–and members of his faith/a huge corporation by maintaining certain Top Skeret texts as copyrighted. Then he hit a  tree while skiing which was really freaky. I am wondering if it is ethical for a Congressperson to bring forth a bill that directly benefits said C’member. I wonder if Congress is allowed to set forth a law, or the IRS to proffer a deal, which benefits a specific religion over all others.

(Granted, with pressure from congressmembers with ears to the bar and restaurant industry, the Sonny Bono bill was amended to include the Fairness in Music Licensing Act, which exempted smaller establishments from needing a public performance license to play music).

I have a solution to this whole copyright Bobby i$$ue:

Make the telecom companies pay for carrying the transmissions, not unlike radio stations.

According to U2′s manager, Paul McGuinness who I quote above and below, that isn’t an option, despite free content being

part of the commercial agenda of powerful technology and telecoms industries. Look at the figures as free music helped drive an explosion of broadband revenues in the past decade. Revenues from the “internet access” (fixed line and mobile) business quadrupled from 2004 to 2009 to $226bn. Passing them on the way down, music industry revenues fell in the same time period from $25bn to $16bn. Free content has helped fuel the vast profits of the technology and telecoms industries.

Tax the means of delivery!  Like taxing the ships that carry tea, rather than tea.

Oh noes, but if the telecoms don’t liek the tax, then what? They are the t00bs, both of them. Recent activity–against Wikileaks and by security teams (click the lings, plox)– has proven that the clouds aren’t safe either, so dream on over that model.

And while we are on the subject of copyright, for it was copyright what brought forth the Freeweb Cruise, could DMCA be cited on Wikileaks? But do we as taxpayers technically hold part of that copyright? I wonder if the American govt could collect a royalty from the telecoms for each download, link, etc to Wikileaks and share the revenue with the embattled free speech fighters… ??? Profit!

Also I see a whole micro-industry springing up around searching the cables for keywords, dates, concepts.

Will keyword search for giftcards

Full disclosure: I could never figure out how to use Napster, Kazaa, or Pirate Bay and sorta thought they were scary and germy, and like, hard to figure out. I have no clue how to use a torrent, but someone gave me some music once from one of those keychain beer opener things that plugs into the side of the computer. I style several EFG masks and have seen some amazing U2 shows over the years, some for free. I also wrote an essay once about U2 and Negativland; later I got paid for its use, which was kind cool.  And I am prolly gonna annoy a bunch of people with this essay, but really if you can’t speak your mind, what is the point of existing? We are communicating creatures, it is our nature.

*Her Royal Highness’ Own Personal Army

Many, many years ago, 76 million years ago to be exact, in a galaxy beyond the Marcabian vortexes, the internets (both of them) were in a before-spore state–the not the thought of spores, not even a logos of spores; rather the frisson of an idea which would begin to fruit with the Domain Name Scams of the 90s and the DdoS battles, the ongoing Sockpuppet Wars and of course the Freewebs Cruise which launched a gajillion hits from 2008 on.

The tools tried true by  CULT (Crazy Ultra Loony Tunes) and ANON (nice oxy- and hydro-morons in it for teh lulz; how can a nothing be a something?) laid a template for the current Wikileaks Web War, wherein a website is shut down by malicious, rapid fire hits, the nowadays equivalent of hitting AOL’s IM key repeatedly to knock someone off line.

Digby had this to say:

Wikileaks exposed the graft and corruption of a particular group of Icelandic bankers and they are being called to account for it by their people. It exposed the secretive Church of Scientology [LaFiga: The first wave of stuff from CoS was originally a doxdump on alt.rel.scientology and Xenu.net and mirrored elsewhere circa 1994 before there was Wikileaks; the volcanic space opera OT3 appeared online, and props need to go to 2005's "Trapped in the Closet" episode of South Park before the Wikileaks super sexy secondary big dump which thumbed its nose at the cult and stoked the fires of Chanology, itself a bunch of Anonymous] It exposed the ongoing war between China and Google (which, by the way, Joe Lieberman sees as an excellent template for the US to emulate.) And, if they don’t succeed in threatening the entire internet, we are likely to soon see a trove of communications exposing corruption in the US banking system.

What baffles me is that when a bunch of self-mythologized, basement dwelling, distance-learning, snap-crackle-pop culture munchers–though stereotypes begin somewhere–allegedly acting as individuals or with a queen-less hivemind–are seemingly at cause for allegedly Being Bad by publishing Top Sekret relidjush doktrines, and then deciding ot shut down sites, it’s

Oh noes cyber-tewwowism

and there’s prosecution. But when like, it’s Other Somebodies publishing Top Sekret dokumints and the governments don’t like them, it’s okay that there’s an organized DdoS against those Other Somebodies? Now something even uglier has happened:

Today Wikileaks encountered a new form of censorship that should make all of us shudder. Rather than being shutdown at the web hosting level, EveryDNS shutdown the wikleaks.org domain name.

Maybe it’s not “organized”, but just a tribillion of self-mythologizing individuals all butthurt at Wikileaks for as many reasons as they have Cheeto stains, all sleepy hollowed and riding the refresh button. And some I bet wish they’d thought of it, cuz the click thrus must >9000. Think of the stats!

And where exactly do some of these people work who do all this neato stuff?  For whom? And what do they do in their spare time?

And wow, how many mega-cloud servers are there? Can a site get effectively disappeared because Lots of Corps & Govts don’t like it? Can it be renamed and mirrored and hidden? It’s happened before–giant games of whackamole, but that was before white hats got hired as experts, some who might have costumes and coats of many colors.

In any case, It’s from the Internets, expect It. They are never gonna give you up.

So now everyone who wishes to vote in California has registered, the legislative analyses have been mailed out and it’s time to get down to srs bsns.

Californians, it is really important to vote in this election. So fill out your mail-in ballot and leave it for the postperson if you think you can’t manage to get to the polls (gods know I am fairly langurous and prefer the simple stamp to actually leaving the house.)  There are some important races on the ballot, and if you don’t vote, you really need need to STFU about how things are being run.

Okay, along with the gubernatorial and senate races, there’s Prop 19 which should be enough to get you to the polls, ye slackers, stoners, and sybarites!  Politics make strange and sometimes hot bedfellows: There are non-smokers who are yes supporters;  wake’n'bakers who are no;  medical/215 clients and casual users who have divergent views yea vs nay; and people who are still trying to figure out what “space” with regards to a minor means–and if  passing out pot brownies at a party constitutes “personal use.”

Whether or not you are voting for legalizing pot because you are appalled at the way the war on drugs is being run and want the state to have some cash; or against it because of the patchwork of jurisdictional laws and  potential environment impact of acres of indoor growing  on non-renewable resources, figure out what works for you and go vote.

If Prop 19, which is ahead in the polls passes, United States Attorney General Eric Holder is gonna crack down in Cali. Hopefully medical won’t be impacted. I hear the cry across the land

Oh noes I’m a on list!

Prop 19 will feel the effect of whoever is elected as State Attorney General, a post now held by gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown.

Well,  Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley who is running as the Republican candidate is really opposed to CA’s 215 medical marijuana business, and even more so to Prop 19. Earlier this month, he told an audience at a UC Davis debate: