>While they consider a DDoS attack a ‘peaceful protest’ the real thing is that it is a crime.
I'm getting really tired of this. "Peaceful" and "criminal" are not mutually exclusive. Sit-ins are often not legal, lying down in the road is not legal, that's why people get arrested for it.
Not that I necessarily support anything anon are doing, I am just tired of the really weak moral arguments made against them over and over again. There are much more internally-consistent ways to criticise them.
Agreed. Indeed, in order to be civil disobedience the act must violate the some law or rule to which the person is subject in a context in which the person is subject to it.
Indeed. Participating in a DDoS is actually about as close as you can get on the Internet to chaining yourself to a public building.
And there's nothing wrong with arresting those people so long as the law they violate is just. Which is of course the point— it's calling the government's bluff.
Of course, I have to imagine that all the people who participate by running LOIC or whatever have no expectation that they might be arrested, and wouldn't be doing it if they thought they might. Even a slight risk of that would probably stop the attacks from succeeding altogether. That fact alone casts the whole "civil disobedience" angle into turmoil— they're willing to do damage as long as they don't face consequences personally. It's politically much closer to a few hardline individuals blowing up a public building, which is much less okay even if their cause is just.
I'm getting really tired of this. "Peaceful" and "criminal" are not mutually exclusive. Sit-ins are often not legal, lying down in the road is not legal, that's why people get arrested for it.
Not that I necessarily support anything anon are doing, I am just tired of the really weak moral arguments made against them over and over again. There are much more internally-consistent ways to criticise them.