As the North Korea Versus Sony Versus The Interview story continues into the Christmas week, there’s one particular online clique that’s been conspicuously silent on this issue: Glenn Greenwald and his legion of superfans. If you’re just joining us, you might be asking yourself (or me), “What the hell does Greenwald have to do with any of this?” Well, directly, nothing. However, Greenwald has been arguably the loudest online voice in defense of hackers, and considering how hackers are at the center of this fracas, it seems odd that he hasn’t weighed in. (There’s only been one article in The Intercept on the Sony leak, written by Micah Lee, in which the author defended the right of reporters to publish the leaked information.)
Throughout Greenwald’s reporting on the Edward Snowden story, Greenwald has repeatedly legitimized, downplayed and defended hackers against top secret government operations to disrupt their illegitimate activities, going so far as to refer to them as “activists” and “hacktivists.”
–Back in April, Greenwald partied with iPad hacker “Weev,” who became a neo-Nazi while in prison.
–Greenwald has also defended one-time Anonymous associate Barrett Brown on numerous occasions. Brown has been accused, among other things, of engaging in the malicious hacking of the Little Green Footballs website.
–Several months ago, Greenwald described hackers who engage in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks as “young online activists,” which is not unlike calling burglars “disgruntled house guests.”
They include invasive methods for online surveillance, as well as some of the very techniques that the U.S. and U.K. have harshly prosecuted young online activists for employing, including “distributed denial of service” attacks and “call bombing.”
–In a previous article… CONTINUE READING