Hackers

 Anonymous claims, “We are a decentralized non-violent resistance movement, which seeks to restore rule of law and fight back against the organized criminal class.” This activist group greatly practices and enforces the act of freedom of speech through protests, but what makes them so different is the kind of protests they hold so powerfully just at their fingertips. Anonymous protests through the World Wide Web through an act of hacking, in the eyes of authority, its a cyber crime; it's a international activist group that, “Has no leadership just influence, influence of thought.” Although this group is labeled as hackers, they claim, “Anonymous is an identity, it is the art of being indignant.” I believe what they are doing is an effective way of protesting, even though this group is breaking numerous laws. 

This group is widely known for its persistent acts of threatening and acting against groups, companies, and political issues that they do not agree with or believe are causing harm/being unfair to the common people. It first started out as a site called 4chan, an “Anti-Facebook” site that encouraged the use of photos of comments with a plethora of users but remaining anonymous. This website sparked the start of the hactivist (term used for an activist that hacks) group Anonymous; what paved the way to making this group famous was when they made large credit card companies temporarily shut down, such as Mastercard and Visa along with other big corporations Amazon and Paypal. What uprooted this was Anonymous’s support of a website called Wikileaks, a website used by whistleblowers (a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government) to release classified material such as information about world leaders, diplomats and their officials, diplomatic missions, and violations and allegations under the governmental political department. Wikileaks used these large credit card companies to receive donations to support its movement, their claim, “We are forced to put all our efforts into raising funds to ensure our economic survival. For almost a year we have been fighting an unlawful financial blockade. We cannot allow giant US finance companies to decide how the whole world votes with its pocket. Our battles are costly. We need your support to fight back. Please donate now” (Wikileaks.org). Since the credit card companies seized the payments going to this movement, Anonymous supported Wikileaks’ unlawful banking blockade placed upon them by hacking into the credit card companies causing them to be offline as a result of the hacking assault. 

Looking through Anonymous's past, present, and even future claims, their archives show that they perform some kind of act almost every day. Mostly stating or leaking information of allegations made through political or government standpoints. They obviously upset these big companies, hindering their services and sales, I think it is a different effective way of protesting, and they should keep doing what they're doing. Except some cyber crimes are sometimes a little outrageous, I believe Anonymous should only act upon issues that are plausible to protest. 

Reed Hanke