EIGHT
Operation Anon Down
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“I have stood upon the mountain called Anonymous, and looked down on a world inflamed with revolution.”
~~ Commander X
Thursday - July 16, 2015 approx. 9:00 AM ET - Starbucks Toronto, Ontario - CANADA
As I was settling into my day with a latte and a hopeful outlook, on the other side of Canada, thousands of kilometers away, a forty-eight year old First Nations man named James Daniel McIntyre, was protesting a local environmental issue near a restaurant in the tiny town of Dawson Creek, in British Columbia. What happened next will probably remain forever hotly disputed. But we know that like all of these types of incidents, it happened very fast.
There was some sort of disturbance inside the restaurant. It is alleged it was caused by James, and if this is true, was most likely protest related. Things escalated almost instantly, and RCMP was called. They had numerous cruisers in the area to cover the planned protest, and were there in seconds. An officer approached James Daniel McIntyre with his gun drawn, barked several orders that Anonymous came to believe James was attempting to comply with, when an instant later, he was gunned down. He bled out, moaning and screaming why did you shoot me, and then died. We believe it took him two minutes of agony to bleed out and die.
Why the fuck, you might ask, would this even come onto my radar, much less concern, me - sipping my latte thousands of kilometers to the east, as this tragic drama unfolded? Because when James Daniel McIntyre got himself blasted by the RCMP in Dawson Creek, BC that morning, he wasn't just any First Nation environmental protester. James Daniel McIntyre was wearing a Guy Fawkes Mask, and identified as a part of the idea called Anonymous. And that's why within minutes, and again as in Anonymous Operation Ferguson, other Anons and I found ourselves putting up an Anonymous Operation literally before they collected the body out of the street.
In this case, we decided that this being the third Anon killed at a protest wearing a Mask that we had cataloged over the years, the time had come to stand up a permanent Op. And so that very moment was born Anonymous Operation Anon Down. Within an hour of James Daniel McIntyre death, we issued the following Press Release:
Anonymous Press Release: Operation Anon Down
Saturday - July 18, 2015 4:00 PM ET
At approximately 6:30 PM PT on July 17, 2015 at an Anonymous protest in Dawson Creek, British Columbia which the RCMP was informed about in advance, an RCMP officer mercilessly shot and killed a masked Anon without provocation or cause. The situation should have been handled according to Treaty 8 protocols. And, if Canadian police were as brave as Canadian nurses, they could deal with people with knives without hiding behind bullets. This is the fourth Anon to be slain by security forces around the world in as many years. Turkey, Egypt, Palestine and now British Columbia in Canada. As in the past, Anonymous will not stand idly by while our own are cut down in mask. Anonymous has fought for the lives of protesters all over the globe, from Tahir Square in Egypt to Ferguson, Missouri. We will most certainly avenge one of our own when they are cut down in the streets while protesting the earth wrecking environmental policies of the Canadian government.
To this end Anonymous announces the launch of Operation Anon Down. The focus of this Op going forward will be gaining justice (and vengeance if necessary) for our fallen comrade in Dawson Creek. But we will also memorialize our previously slain brethren, and prepare to take action for future Anons killed by police - as we have no doubt they will cut down more of us.
To begin we will identify the RCMP officer involved, thoroughly dox him - and release that dox on the Internet. Because the world has a right to know every detail about killer cops. We will offer support and raise funds if necessary to cover the burial expenses of our fallen comrade. He will be buried with the honor and dignity that his courage has earned him. We will ensure that he is never forgotten, and takes his place in the growing ledger of brave Anonymous martyrs around the world. Then we will press the RCMP and Canadian government for justice. This RCMP officer must be named, fired, and charged - for the murder of our brother Anon. And if we do not receive justice, rest assured there will be revenge.
We call upon our fellow Anons in Canada to take to the streets and protest at the RCMP headquarters in every Province, every day - until our demands for justice are met. We call upon the Global Collective of Anonymous and allied crews to remove the RCMP cyber infrastructure from the Internet. March, create and sign petitions, hack, dox. We may not be able to bring back our fallen comrade, we may not even be able to prevent other Anons from being slain by murderous police - but we can sure as hell show them that there will be a steep price to pay when they kill us.
~~ Anonymous
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While mass protests never developed, Anonymous Operation Anon Down managed to inaugurate itself in style with a whole series of rather punishing hacks against the RCMP and CSIS, Canada's spy agency. The latter resulted in the exfiltration of a number of classified documents which were dumped. And in the end, despite the results of our exhaustive investigation proving that James Daniel McIntyre did not need to be shot to death this fateful day, the officer involved was exonerated.
What was born, however, was a new resolve on the part of Anonymous to keep Operation Anon Down fully active, to catalog and memorialize those already lost to us, and to fight for justice (or at least vengeance) for those who we know by now will fall in the future. Our very own Wall Of Martyrs was inaugurated at the new website www.OperationAnonDown.cf and Anonymous began to be more aware of the need to not just leave no one behind, but to bury our dead. Like I said, after a decade, Anonymous had finally grown up.
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Monday - August 24, 2015 approx. 9:00 AM ET - Second Cup Coffee House Toronto, Ontario - CANADA
At the beginning of this book, President Obama had made the public threat that someday he may order a drone attack on a hacker. No one believed he'd ever do it. No one, that it is, outside of Anonymous. We always knew he would do it. People seem to think Democrats are our natural allies. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obama has locked up more leakers and hacktivists, for insanely long sentences, than all the previous US administrations combined. And Hillary Clinton actually joked about droning Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, a hacker, and my friend. No, Democrats are definitely not our friends.
Today it was announced that President Obama had made good on his threat, and had ordered a drone attack on a former Anon and hacktivist who appeared earlier in this story, who went by the online name of Tr1cK. Tr1cK had slowly radicalized, transitioning out of Anonymous and into more transgressive Middle Eastern hacker circles. Not in and of itself enough to get one droned. But then Tr1cK did the stupidest thing possible, a decision that cost him his life. He joined ISIS. They were so hurting for hackers they made him a Minister of Hackers or some such silly shit. And of course, they then announced this to the world. The next day there were headlines around the world about the ex-Anon who had joined ISIS. Fuck me, Tr1cK - what the fuck were you thinking my brother?
It took only a few months to nail down Tr1cK's location in Syria. The USA by then had hundreds of drones in the Syrian skies. Some of the details that follow have never been revealed publicly, and were discovered by myself in a secret investigation of Tr1cK's killing that I did in the aftermath. Tr1cK always traveled with his nephew, under the well-founded assumption that he would not be droned if he had a child with him. But on the day that would be his last, Tr1cK wanted a little bit of hashish to dull the suffering that living among ISIS caused. So he slipped into an alley behind the coffee house where he often connected to the Internet, to quickly score a gram of the Middle East's finest. He thought he would be fine, only gone a moment - out and back in. Out of propriety, he didn't want to bring his nephew out into the alley for a drug deal. That decision cost Tr1cK his life, and saved the life of his nephew.
Because seconds was all the drone silently loitering at twenty-thousand feet needed to lock onto Tr1cK's mobile (which he so foolishly forgot to leave behind), and fire a hellfire missile. As Tr1cK handed over a wad of Syrian currency and reached for the small package, the missile struck - turning my friend and comrade into pink mist. To say that I did not take it well would be a gross understatement. I was livid beyond words to describe. I was more than mad, I was murderously mad. I wanted blood for blood. And I let the world know it.
Tr1cK was ratted out by an American hacktivist turned FBI informant known as Sm00p. Sm00p, the founder of the detestable troll group Rustle League, had worn a wire to DefCon, gathering evidence on at least one American hacker who went to prison, another close friend of mine actually. In the process she gathered enough intelligence from Anons at DefCon that DoD was able to find Tr1cK's location in Syria. Not only had the first hacker been officially droned, but he was ratted out by an American hacker snitch.
Now I understand what you, the reader, will be thinking. Ok, maybe he was a cool cat, but come on, the dude joined ISIS, right? Ok fine. That was a poor career choice on Tr1cK's part. I wish I had known he had slid so far, he respected me - I might have been able to stop him. But I will never accept living in a world where we drone hackers. No matter who they work for. If they knew where he was in Syria, then stalk him and arrest him. But I will never accept the extra-judicial assassination of hackers. Never. Fuck the USA and NATO.
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Friday - January 15, 2016 approx. 9:30 AM ET - Starbucks Toronto, Ontario - CANADA
Today I was working with the mother of an incarcerated Anon named Matt DeHart. Matt DeHart is an American citizen and former U.S. Air National Guard intelligence analyst known for his involvement with the Anonymous hacker group and WikiLeaks and claims to have received classified documents alleging serious misconduct by the CIA. He was indicted for alleged possession of indecent images from under-aged boys in 2010, but claims that this was a ruse in order to punish him for his online activities. A judge ruling on the case found this credible. He was however imprisoned for 21 months without access to proofs for these allegations. After being released on bond in 2012, he unsuccessfully sought asylum here in Canada, claiming he had been tortured by the FBI with regards to the classified documents. In November 2015 he struck a plea bargain to serve a 7 and a half year sentence. Former whistleblower Jesselyn Radack, his supporters and DeHart himself purports the allegations are a ruse by the FBI to discredit him over the information he has released.
One of the details of Matt's case that has always bothered me is his description of his torture. I had discussed this with Matt's dad early on, and as I didn't really have any evidence, only a story, it really didn't help much. I'm telling it now in hopes that it may help vindicate Matt, and maybe even lighten his load a little as he serves out his hideous sentence in Federal prison in the USA should he read this book. It happened in late 2012 and into 2013. I received a series of three separate reports from Anons living in the Mid and South West of the USA.
They all described being "abducted" by Federal agents, taken to secure locations, tied to chairs, drugged, and slapped around and questioned. When it was over they were simply taken to where they were picked up and unceremoniously dumped. One individual claims he was questioned about the drug cartels in Mexico, the other two quite bizarrely claimed they were questioned about their Anonymous campaign to investigate the Illuminati! These agents were described not as standard issue fibs, but as "MIBs".
For obvious reasons, I dismissed these reports as fantasy. That is until I read the report of Matt DeHart's alleged torture. Tied to a chair, drugged with Thorazine, and beaten with a metal rod while being questioned about secret documents and WikiLeaks. Yeah....hard to buy that is a coincidence. One of my hugest regrets in all this was to dismiss those original reports as lunatic fantasies. There is apparently no length whatsoever that the government of the USA won't go in its war against Anonymous.
What I was working with Matt's mom today on was helping her set up an online support group for the family members of those Anons currently in harm's way. She and my sister intended to found it, and reach out to the other families of the Anons mentioned in this Chapter. What does this say about our movement, that we need such things as support groups for our traumatized family members? I don't know. I try not to think about it too much, to be honest.
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Saturday - November 5, 2016 approx. 6:30 PM ET - Tim Hortons Toronto, Ontario - CANADA
Today was Guy Fawkes Day again, and yet another annual Million Mask March. This year a number of us influential Anons made the hard choice to keep the publicity very low key and muted. Frankly, I was afraid of a "terrorist" attack on a crowd of Mask wearing brothers and sisters. Anonymous Operation ISIS, while not really supported by most of the old-school influential Anons, had nevertheless been a resounding success at hurting ISIS where it counted most. Not on the battlefield, mind you, but in cyber space and the domain of information warfare. But it was still a shitty idea for an Anonymous Operation, and was as I said highly opposed by many influential Anons. Below is an article I wrote on this topic in March 2016:
My Enemies Enemy: Why Operation ISIS Is A Bad Idea For Anonymous
Over the course of this winter several Anon Cells and many individual Anons have participated in “Operation ISIS” also referred to as “Operation Paris”. This massive and global Op successfully targeting ISIS, Al-Nursa, and Boko Harem has absorbed huge resources within the Global Collective, and held much of the world’s attention riveted. To be clear, I am not debating in the least either this Op’s scope, nor its effectiveness. What I will argue though, is that this Op is the single most damaging Op to ever have been launched by Anonymous. In one of his recent communiques from a Federal penal colony in the USA, Jeremy Hammond laid out an incredibly cogent and powerful argument against the continued prosecution of Operation ISIS by Anonymous. I encourage you to pause and read the words of this brilliant Anarchist and faithful Anonymous participant:
"The attacks in France were a terrible but unfortunately predictable response by desperate people who, after a decade of war and occupation, want the west to taste what we have been regularly dishing out. But we cannot allow them to be used to justify more war.
In the wake of the Paris attacks, the Western governments are provoking Islamophobic hatred in order to escalate military operations in the Middle East and push police state powers. It’s a familiar script, and from prison, I’ve been following these developments, disturbed about the attacks on immigrant and Muslim communities and the resurgence of the fascist right.
I remember in the wake of 9/11, the waves of blind patriotism and xenophobia that the war-mongering politicians used to push police-state laws, mass surveillance, and rampant militarization. It was never about fighting terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, but about US empire: control over land, oil, and drug production, like all wars. Hundreds of thousands of innocents were murdered by the US military over the longest war in our history while we escalated drone warfare elsewhere in Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, creating the conditions which gave rise to ISIS in the first place.
That same post-9/11 hysteria is back and all the war-mongers are again frothing at the mouth with hate for immigrants and refugees, pushing for national Muslim registration databases, and for regime change in Syria.
But I never thought Anonymous would join in on their frenzied call for war. Apparently, GhostSec and others purportedly associated with Anonymous have been DDoSing forums, taking down Twitter accounts, and reporting IP addresses to law enforcement in collaboration with shady military contractors like Kronos Advisory. The naïve fools behind the operation are being manipulated by intelligence agents taking advantage of the emotional reaction to the Paris attacks to harness our skills to fight their hypocritical “war on terrorism.”
As someone who hacked with Anonymous and marched against the war in Iraq, I completely oppose #OpISIS and any attempts to co-opt our movement into supporting the government’s militaristic agenda. Escalated US military involvement is certainly going to result in more civilian deaths, as it already has. All deaths of innocent civilians are a tragedy, and we cannot value one life over another. (And you are still more likely to be shot down by police than in a terrorist attack.)
The same intelligence industry that runs their own NSA hacker operations against ISIS uses the same counter-terrorism justification to spy on everyday civilians with no regards for rights to privacy, encryption, or anonymity. They have always targeted Anonymous and other dissident groups as terrorists, and when they aren’t trying to discredit or imprison us, they are attempting to co-opt us – sometimes openly by attending conference like DEFCON, seducing us with promises of money or calls for patriotic duty, other times covertly lurking around IRC channels attempting to steer us unwittingly into supporting their agenda. Remember, Sabu asked me to hack government websites of Syria and Turkey, among others, which I did, unaware he was an FBI informant. They didn’t want to talk about it at my sentencing hearing, but they did condemn my attacks against police and military contractors at length. The agents out there encouraging you to “hack the terrorists” will have no problem turning around and locking you up for years if you are not useful to their agenda.
We won’t let Anonymous be unwittingly used to further the military industrial complex’s imperialistic operations around the world. We don’t work for the government – we are against all governments. We are on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressors. We support the victims of war, not the war-makers. If you want to report membership lists and IP addresses of suspected terrorists, go join the CIA or hang out with wannabes like Stratfor or the th3j35t3r. Call it state-sponsored hacking, patriotic hacktivism, whatever – just don’t you dare call yourselves Anonymous.
I urge my comrades still out there in the trenches, sitting on some hot 0day, ready to loot databases and trash systems. If you want to stop war and terrorism, target who Martin Luther King Jr. called the “largest purveyor of violence in the word today” – the US government. So Anonymous, get to it – drone manufacturers, white hat infosec contractors, CIA directors, Donald Trump, and your local police department – they all have blood on their hands, they are all fair game."
~~ Jeremy Hammond
In this incredible piece, Jeremy focuses on the effect Op ISIS has on world peace and the anti-war movement. This is the crux of his argument, and as I said it’s powerful. Jeremy has mythic stature within the Global Collective of Anonymous, and his brutal indictment of Op ISIS is crucial to those of us active Anons who would like to see this ill-fated action wrapped up.
Lending their voices to this anti-Op ISIS camp, a group of very well respected and influential Anons recently released a joint statement:
Hello World --
We are Anonymous. ISIS is small state that brutally censors visiting journalists and its own people. As such it must be opposed. The question is in what manner should it be opposed.
We think it's great if people want to hack ISIS and publish their secrets. But engaging in social media censorship campaigns and dealing with intelligence contractors and government agents is deeply stupid. The former will contribute to legitimize the spread of internet censorship and will lead to the increased censorship for everyone, including Anonymous. Dealing with government agents et al will not only result in many more informers in Anonymous bu twill also damage its reputation as it will lead to a view that Anonymous is too close to US intelligence interests.
The same intelligence industry that runs their own NSA hacker operations against ISIS uses the same counter-terrorism justification to spy on everyday civilians with no regards for rights to privacy, encryption, or anonymity. They have always targeted Anonymous and other dissident groups as terrorists, and when they aren’t trying to discredit or imprison us, they are attempting to co-opt us – sometimes openly by attending conferences like DEFCON, seducing us with promises of money or calls for patriotic duty, other times covertly lurking around IRC channels attempting to steer us unwittingly into supporting their agenda.
We would like to strongly advise - while we cannot speak for the whole of Anonymous - to always release information to the public, as we want to operate in its interest. Any attempts to act in secrecy, supporting political or governmental organizations, will be discouraged by us or completely ignored to safeguard our allies and supporters fighting for openness and transparency within governments, dictatorships and organizations around the globe that control various aspects of our lives.
We are on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressors. We support the victims of war, not the war-makers.
~~ Anonymous
In this open letter, the ideas of Jeremy Hammond regarding the effect on the anti-war movement were expanded to begin to explore the idea that we are in fact aiding a virulent enemy by fighting that enemies battles for them. And since so much ground has already been covered by these other great Anons above I want to take this last point, which is embodied within my chosen title for this piece – and expand upon it at more length.
Because not only does Op ISIS aid the military-industrial complex, do harm to civilians – and weaken the anti-war movement. In addition to these things, Op ISIS also greatly assists the USA and NATO – both of whom are sworn enemies of Anonymous. In fact both the USA and NATO have actually classified the peaceful movement of Anonymous in the same category as ISIS, Al-Nursa and other radical jihadists. Amazing heroes like Jeremy Hammond and Barrett Brown are doing insane amounts of time in the USA Federal penal system, a system so brutal that several European countries will not extradite hackers to the USA anymore because their prisons fail to meet the minimum standards required by the UN Human Rights Accord.
So if we are at war with (and taking casualties from) NATO and the USA, and if Anonymous is as the Snowden leaks proved classified in the same category as ISIS by our enemies – then why on earth would we want to assist the USA and NATO in their war against these jihadists? Will this not simply free up NATO and USA resources that they can then turn against Anonymous, against us? In what way does this make any strategic sense at all? Will the USA pardon Hammond and Brown from gratitude? Will we even get a “thank you” from NATO? Of course not. President Obama knows all about Anonymous, and he and his administration hate us. NATO Central Command has called us the biggest danger to global stability in the world. These people want Anons either locked in a cage or dead.
Op ISIS is unethical, immoral – and damaging to world peace. It only aids the military industrial complex of the USA and NATO. It weakens Anonymous by aiding our enemies and giving our enemies another easy route by which to infiltrate us. I would guess over half of the “Anons” leading Op ISIS are in fact Federal law enforcement or intelligence agents. And the ample arguments put forth in this piece don’t even begin to delve into the historical fact that the USA, through militaristic and diplomatic blundering – essentially created ISIS in the first place! Along with the other voices of Anonymous quoted in this piece, I add my own: let’s end Op ISIS and let the USA and NATO battle their own monsters. At least until Jeremy and Barrett get their Presidential pardons. Then we’ll talk.
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I spent the day in my new role as a Team Member of the Free Lauri Love Campaign being run out of the UK. Lauri Love is a Finnish-British activist charged extraterritorially with stealing data from United States Government computers including the US Army, Missile Defense Agency, and NASA via computer intrusion. Love is under indictment in the United States (2013 in District of New Jersey, 2014 in Southern District of New York and Eastern District of Virginia). As of 2016, the United States is trying to extradite him to America to face charges and he is fighting the extradition. The National Crime Agency (UK) arrested Love in 2013. In February 2015, the BBC revealed that Love was taking legal action for the return of computers seized by the National Crime Agency (NCA) when he was arrested. This past May, Judge Nina Tempia of the Westminster Magistrates' Court ruled that Love did not have to tell the National Crime Agency (United Kingdom) what his passwords, or encryption keys, are.
So essentially, Lauri encrypted his drives with full-disk encryption, hacked a bunch of fed networks in the USA, and when the cops in the UK said to unlock his drives he gave them the finger, then had the moxie to even sue them to get the computers back. If you read this Lauri, it's because of you that I finally took the time to implement full-disk encryption. Because that shit is straight up hysterical. As of this printing the USA is still fighting to extradite Lauri Love to the USA to stand trial under their brutal CFAA law. Lauri has at least one last appeal left.
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Monday - November 10, 2016 approx. 9:30 AM ET - Tim Hortons North York, Ontario - CANADA
On February 17th of this year, an article popped up in my feeds that caught my attention. It was by Esquire magazine, and the headline could not help but stop any hacktivist and make them curious. Now…, yeah. So that seems pretty bizarre, right? As I read the piece, I recalled seeing the news of the Anonymous cyber-attacks against the Boston Children’s Hospital a couple of years ago. I also remembered not being terribly happy that Anonymous was attacking a hospital. Of course like most people, I didn’t even bother to read up on exactly why Anons were attacking a children’s hospital. And this is the problem when we jump to conclusions without even researching what is really going on.
So, let's first turn this moral dilemma on its head for a second and see where we go. If you have solid evidence that a hospital is torturing children, no like seriously, torturing little kids, and you want to protest this fact – what is the least disruptive method to patient care? You have basically two options to start, so let's examine them thoughtfully. You can call for in-the-streets protest and march with ten thousand on the hospital. Perfectly legal to do that. Some may go to jail briefly, but they’ll be out in hours. But what about that pesky disruption to patient care everyone has their panties in a bunch over? Well, trying to get ambulances and emergency supplies through all those packed streets seems pretty disruptive to patient care to me.
Now, let's say you go the route that Anonymous chose – and protest online. Anonymous chose its targets with surgical precision, taking out only symbolic pages like the donations portal, etc.. By the hospital's own admission, this did not in the least affect patient care. And this online protest cost the hospital far less in “damages” than cleaning up after street marches would have. And so now, as we examine this deeper we see that the actions of Anonymous on those seven fateful days in 2014 were actually pretty reasonable, given what was being protested.
So what does any of this have to do with Martin Gottesfeld the Anon mysteriously arrested by the FBI after being rescued by a Disney Cruise ship? Plenty. The same US prosecutor who drove our dear Aaron Swartz to suicide is accusing Marty of being the orchestrator and manager of the Anonymous Operation which targeted the Boston Children’s Hospital over the barbaric treatment of vulnerable sick children. Something for which he deserves a reward for if true, but instead he faces 15 years in prison thanks to the persecution of Information Activists by the USA using the archaic and ridiculous CFAA.
Those who know my own story know that I have been running and hiding in Canada for 5 years, attempting to escape this exact same persecution of Anons and hacktivists in the USA. And it may perhaps be true that Marty G was on that sailboat attempting to also flee the same persecution in the USA. If so, it’s a damn shame his boat failed him. And Marty G is far from the first Anon to seek to become a political dissident and ex-patriot. I was the first to publicly do so five years ago. Shortly after Matt DeHart and his family also entered Canada, albeit legally – in an ultimately unsuccessful bid to h