New Anonymous documentary?
I was going through Youtube today and found this. I think this is a new documentary about Anonymous?! Whatever, the hottest news about anon is the US State Attorney Press Release stating:
A New Jersey man was charged today for his role in an attack on Church of Scientology websites in January 2008 that rendered the websites unavailable.
and
According to the criminal information filed in United States District Court in Los Angeles, Guzner participated in the attack because he considered himself a member of an underground group called “Anonymous.”
Kinda obvious, right?
“Anonymous” Web threat against Stevenson school ‘a joke’
Defensive attorneys for the teenager accused of making a Halloween threat against blacks and athletes at Adlai E. Stevenson High School remained adamant during opening arguments Tuesday that the threat was a joke and was not targeting any local school.
Lawyers argued that Jeremie Dalin, 17, of Fox River Grove posted an elaborate threat on Web site 4chan.org because he wanted to elicit reactions from other posters, but he didn’t plan to carry out any action.
The trial is expected to continue this afternoon. If convicted, Dalin could be sentenced to four to 15 years in prison and fined $25,000.
In the Oct. 29 threat, which was accompanied by a photo of a shotgun and two shotgun shells, Dalin wrote that he was tired of being picked on and contemplated suicide. It went on to say that he will take matters into his own hands on Oct. 31 and get revenge at Adlai E. Stevenson High School. The threat specifically targeted athletes and blacks.
“I won’t let anyone get away with this. I have suffered too much,” Dalin wrote in the message.
Ten days later, Lincolnshire police charged Dalin with making a false terrorist threat.
The FBI did not press charges because it deemed the threat not serious.
Dalin did not have any weapons at his home or a history of being picked on at school.
Dalin’s attorney, Michael Levinsohn argued Tuesday that his client was simply posting a “crazy” story on a site that accepts works of fiction. He also said Dalin was unaware of Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, despite being a student at Barrington High School, just a few miles away.
Dalin said he picked the school name randomly from a Web site listing American high schools, and thought he was targeting a school in New York, which is where one of the nation’s four Adlai E. Stevenson High Schools is located.
The threat remained on the 4chan Web site for about nine minutes, until Dalin realized people were taking it seriously and he removed it.
Whether it was meant to be taken seriously or not, the threat was made and that itself is a crime, said prosecutor Mary Stanton, Chief of the Cyber Crimes Division of the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office.
The day after the threat was posted, many concerned parents phoned police in Lincolnshire and Buffalo Grove about the safety of students.
On Halloween, more than 500 Stevenson students were absent.
(Source)
Scientology – Cult or Church?
There are plenty of people not members of the Church of Scientology who have gathered some personal experience. Usually they don’t get a voice but this one has been heard. found this interesting. The original is at Insecure.org (yes, the “hacker site”).
Harvey Silverglate is a former president of the ACLU of Massachusetts and a current board member. He is also a libertarian and co-author (with Alan Kors) of “The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses.”
Here is what his viewpoint is on Scientology.
--- Subject: RE: Arnie Lerma replies to Scientology's Internet position paper Date: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 15:21:14 -0400 Declan, I realize that my objectivity may be questioned, because during a 5-year span in the 1980s I represented the Church of Scientology in a series of bogus "religious fraud" cases brought against the Church in Boston and elsewhere. However, I did get to learn a lot about Scientology during this period. Anyone who takes the trouble to study the Church will understand that while it is of course true that Scientology is careful to portray itself as a religion in part to ward off governmental and individual attacks for "fraud", in fact the reason it is able to do so, with considerable success, is that there is, conceptually, no difference between Scientology and any established and accepted religion of which I'm aware. If one reads the Supreme Court and Court of Appeals case law as to what constitutes a religion, one realizes that there is an enormously wide and diverse group of belief systems that qualify -- belief systems that are traditionally theistic, and belief systems that are very different. Scientology is the quintessential non-theistic belief system. Sceptics ask Scientologists: "How can you believe that stuff?" The very question would appear to admit that Scientology is a religion! Why is it harder to accord First Amendment protection to Hubbard's "religious technology" than to accord such protection to espousal of belief in the Trinity? Hence, the operative question is NOT why Scientology emphasizes its religious nature. It is OBVIOUS that one reason is to gain First Amendment protection. So, what's wrong with that? The operative question is whether Scientology's belief system qualifies for First Amendment protection. The answer is equally obvious: Absolutely. It is neither easier nor harder to believe in Scientology than to believe in One God. There is absolutely no distinction between Scientology and a more traditional religion, from a First Amendment perspective and analysis. It is fair for critics to criticize Scientology's methods and zeal, but it is equally fair, and equally easy, to criticize any more traditional religious organization. Has the Scientology organization done some things worthy of criticism? Yes, and it has at times admitted error. But nothing that Scientology nor Scientologists have done since its founding in the 1950s even compares to the atrocities committed by the world's major religions over centuries. It takes the world's major religions centuries to admit error; Scientology has a better record. Were I a Scientologist, and had I suffered the decades of persecution that Scientology suffered at the hands of the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Justice, I, too, would emphasize the religious nature of the belief system. I am not a true believer, and I do not agree with all of Scientology's policies. (For example, I disagree legally and philosophically with the Church's very restrictive position on copyright issues.) But it is frivolous, and bigoted and narrow-minded, to refuse to recognize that, for First Amendment purposes, Scientology is as much a religion, and as much entitled to First Amendment religion-clause protection, as any of the more traditional, commonplace belief systems. Harvey A. Silverglate Silverglate & Good Boston
Luana's Haven 