A Valentine to Anonymous

This post is an open letter to Anonymous, who hacked the lawyers who represented Sergeant Frank Wuterich. He and others were court marshaled and merely slapped on the wrist “negligent dereliction of duty,” basically a parking ticket) for killing 24 Iraqi civilians. In retaliation for the decision, they took down the website of Puckett and Faraj (still down), the law firm that represented the defendants and posted 3 GB of personal information from the hack. 

Dear Anonymous-

You know I have a deep and abiding respect for you. You’re definitely smarter than us and there’s no question you are mighty. You’ve got every reason to be pissed off that the Marines got off. But, civil rights gotta go both ways. What if that was YOUR information that was hacked and posted online? What if the intimate details of the defense strategy in the government’s criminal case against you were posted?

If you’re gonna be vigilantes and you’re gonna talk the talk, then walk the walk. The Pucket and Faraj website is still down. Come on. The Marines are, admittedly, jerks. They probably deserve more punishment. We weren’t there and we don’t have all the information. That’s what courts are for. Seriously. That’s why we have lawyers on both sides and judges. They go through all the minutia, bit by bit (like the reference?) and something comes out on the other side. Sometimes it’s absolutely idiotic. Sucks. But that’s the price we have to pay, and it’s really hard to swallow, to ensure that we get the benefits of the same rights.

Seriously. Most law firms can’t afford the kind of security required to keep you guys out. (If the feds can't keep you out, we can't keep you out.) Most can’t even afford dedicated IT people, to be perfectly honest. Sometimes the more sophisticated firms encrypt client data and have security on their Internet connections, or they store client data on a separate system from an Internet system, but they can’t be all things to all people. Judges can’t be, either. But, they’ll be there when you need them. 


And someday you may need them. (You know how you hack into people's systems and stuff? That's sort of a crime and the government frowns on that. If the feds ever get a hold of you, you are going to want a really, really good lawyer and a really, really good expert.) And you’re gonnna pray to GOD that nobody hacks their system and posts your personal information. Just sayin. 


And PLEASE don’t hack my site or mess with my data.  Rights have to go both ways if you're going to have them. Otherwise, it's totalitarianism. The stuff you say you're fighting against. . . Again. Just sayin'.