It is the tendency of the state to compile as much information as possible about its subjects, but to persecute individuals who collect and divulge information about its agents and the way they operate. The state and its supporters want to keep tabs on you, but angrily (and violently) protest when you try to keep track of state actors. In the news today we saw two examples of this:
- WikiLeaks has fallen victim to a major distributed denial of service attack for which the regime apologists at Anti-Leaks have taken responsibility (though there is speculation about this being a state-sponsored action). The attack, now more than a week in duration, coincides with the whistle-blower site’s recent release of the lastest dump of documents gleaned from the Stratfor intelligence leak. Recently released documents detail a privately administered domestic intelligence-gathering operation called TrapWire. According to PC Magazine and Russia Today, the leaks reveal that the TrapWire program is designed to compile information on targets across the United States from a network of surveillance cameras, incorporating vehicle locations and behavioral data in order to detect patterns that may signal that someone is involved in undesirable activity. The companies behind TrapWire, Abraxas and Stratfor, are reportedly chock full of former U.S. intelligence officials still serving their former masters.
- Adam Mueller (a.k.a. “Ademo Freeman“), a liberty activist in New Hampshire and founder of CopBlock, was convicted of multiple counts of felony wiretapping for his efforts relating to the publicizing of a video-recorded attack by police officer Darren Murphy on a West High School student in Manchester. Mueller recorded conversations with the Manchester Police Department and school officials about the incident, and was charged under New Hampshire’s wiretapping statutes. This article at Pixiq about Mueller’s prosecution does a good job of explaining the “two-party consent” wiretapping laws in New Hampshire that provide the legal basis for Mueller’s persecution, as well as outlining Mueller’s unsuccessful pro se defense strategy. (Mueller was successful in another police recording case in Massachusetts last year.)