Tomorrow, a group of longtime information activists will be convening on the steps of City Hall in New York City tomorrow to present the case for information freedom and transparency over the tyranny that inevitably flows from secrecy. In large part, this event will revolve around the unconscionable treatment of Bradley Manning, who himself has been subject to punishment prior to trial so that he may broken down psychologically. But Manning's emotional torture is merely one aspect of a larger campaign on the part of various states and their corporate partners against humanity's right to know what their rulers are doing in their name; likewise, this event is merely one component of a counter-campaign by which our growing coalition is fighting back against those who would use our resources and our very lives in pursuit of countless objectives that range from misguided to monstrous.
It is only because of the actions of Bradley Manning and Wikileaks that, for the first time in history, the entire world may come together and learn what is being done behind closed doors by those states that claim the right to hide their actions from the very people who fund them. Thanks to those who take the side of humanity against that of certain governments and corporate entities, anyone may learn, for instance, that Shell has infiltrated all levels of the Nigerian government lest it spend too much time improving the lot of its people and too little time catering to the interests of a mercantile oil firm. Had these cables not been leaked to the world, it would not be known that Shell's top executive in that country had gone so far as to brag to U.S. diplomats about the extent of this infiltration - which in turn should tell us all how little U.S. foreign policy now coincides with the cause of liberty and even common ethics. This sort of thing, we are told, is simply none of our business.
Had Anonymous not carried out a forward investigation into the federal contracting firm HBGary in response to its own failed investigation of Anonymous, the American people would not have learned that an alliance of "respectable" companies had sought to engage in some large number of unethical and potentially illegal operations against those who speak out against Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce or in favor of Wikileaks, and that the team which conspired to these ends was put together with the assistance of the Department of Justice, as it is still called for some reason.
The victories that have been attained over the past few months, though, have been largely bittersweet, as such victories tend to entail the revelation of information about our enemies, and to the extent that one analyzes that information, one comes to the realization that the world is a much darker place than even the radicals among us had come to understand. It is one thing to know, in an abstract sort of way, that the system under which we live is forever being used by unethical people to degenerate ends, or to have some sense that populations are always monitored, modeled, and manipulated for various purposes, and that even the most well-intentioned among those pursuing such policies simply lack the competence to ensure that their efforts do not bring us closer to the oblivion of tyranny. It is another thing altogether to see the specifics, to learn the extent, to read over thousands of e-mails in which mundane individuals casually propose to destroy the last remaining of shreds of individual privacy in hopes of winning yet another government contract. Thus it is that last month we launched Operation Metal Gear, a massive effort by which to combat the frighteningly widespread use of "persona management," "attribution," and data collection along with the modelling software/methodology by which any corporation or state may look into the lives of any individual and even engage them in conversation for the purpose of manipulating public opinion. Although the operation originally targeted the federal military and intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, which was partnering with HBGary for the purpose, our informants and other sympathetic parties gradually made clear to us that this sort of thing comprises an entire industry. The end goal of this operation is to investigate the entirety of that industry in order that we might better determine which parties are complicit in its misuse; the press and citizenry can take it from there.
Pursuant to all of this, I will be making an announcement at tomorrow's rally regarding the nature of the coalition that we have been building and the method by which we will be moving forward in these early years of the information age. Suffice to say that the time has come at which each individual must decide for themselves if they wish to continue along the path that has been laid out for them by the powers that be, or if they might instead prefer to take their natural right to freedom of association to its logical and glorious conclusion.