Embattled CEO Aaron Barr says he is stepping down from his post at HBGary Federal to allow the company to move on after an [embarrassing] data breach.
The announcement comes three weeks after Barr became the target of a coordinated attack by members of the online mischief making group Anonymous, which hacked into HBGary Federal’s computer network and published tens of thousands of company e-mail messages on the Internet. HBGary did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comments on Barr’s resignation…
Earlier this week in a Bulgarian court Jock Palfreeman lost his appeal against a 20-year prison sentence for murder. (See Dr Simon Palfreeman’s Closing Summary for more details on his defence.) The following statement from Jock is published as is:
To say I’m disapointed would be an understatement. But I am not disapointed in the Manaf family’s demands for unjustified punishment. I am disapointed in the judges and legal structure that seem to have the moral backbones of jellyfish. When I saw the 15 men attack the two homeless men, I was presented with a choice. Stand back and let the injustice continue or intervien in an attempt to save human life. The Sofia city court and the Sofia court of appeal were all presented with a much easier choice. Their choice was not one that could result in their own deaths as mine was. Yet still they chose to take the easy way. They chose to bow to the political pressure from the Bulgarian socialist party and it’s beaurocrats which float around the ministry of interior and ministry of justice like bad smells. Although this latest decision keeps me with a 20 year prison sentence. It is useful as evidence to show the depth and width of corruption in the Bulgarian courts and justice system. As disheartening as this blatently corrupt decision is. We all must take encouragement from the 10 neautral witnesses who did have the moral backbone to come forward and tell the truth. Also from the 5 police who too eventually told the truth despite overwhelming pressures from their superiours. To all those who fight against racism, nationalism, corruption and injustice. I tell you not to loose focus or direction. Do not loose hope. Those who wish to hide the the shame that the 15 skinheads brought on bulgaria have only been successful in increasing it and legalizing it. Ironically Andrei Manaf was not ashamed of his nationalism and I doubt he would have lied about actions he and his family are clearly proud of. “Bulgaria for Bulgarians” was what Dr Manaf said he and his son believed in. “defending the underdog” is what I believe in, be it Bulgaria or Bangladesh. The supreme court of appeal will not remedy the injustice. The head judge of the supreme court of appeal was even present at Andrei Manaf’s funeral. My prison sentence although outrageous, will be served easier now that the evidence is overwhelmingly in concurance with my statements and that I know I was correct in opposing racism in it’s most disgusting form, violance. My gratitude to my family, friends and comrades. Who have not supported me as an individual. But supported me based on the evidence in my case and the reason for my involvement with the 15 skinheads.
Jock Palfreeman is currently in a Bulgarian jail in the capital of Sofia. Yesterday he lost his appeal against a 20-year prison sentence. Below is the closing summary presented by his father Simon at his trial in December 2009. It provides an alternative account of the events of December 2007 when Jock is accused of having committed murder “performed by hooligan motives” (Article 116 Bulgarian Criminal Code).
Dr Simon Palfreeman’s Closing Summary December 2, 2009
We have to choose between two very different versions of what happened that night. Jock says that while performing a Good Samaritan act he was assaulted by a group of youths. The group maintain that there was absolutely no provocation and that they did not assault Jock in any serious way. Jock’s version is supported by multiple witnesses not associated with either the group or Jock, the CCTV footage, expert psychological report and commonsense. The prosecution relies almost entirely on evidence of the group and has simply ignored the existence of any other evidence to the contrary.
The prosecution would have us believe that Jock, a young man who has had a relaxing evening with friends suddenly and without provocation, runs over 100 metres, past others to viciously attack a group of young men (I will call them the group from now on), who are also enjoying a relaxing evening. He then proceeds to viciously attack the group to kill as many as he can. It is an incredible claim that must be backed up by strong and unequivocal proof. In the 19 months of this trial, however, the prosecution has failed to present one piece of evidence that would prove this motive of hooliganism.
When analysed logically, all the evidence confirms Jock’s innocence and shows Jock’s motive was to go to the aid of another young man being brutally assaulted by the same group. This was in fact a selfless and courageous act. In contrast, the motive of the group for lying about the true sequence of events that night was to hide their own criminal actions in assaulting both the young man and Jock.
As expected, Jock Palfreeman’s appeal against a 20-year prison sentence has been dismissed by the Sofia Court of Appeals. After a further appeal to a higher court has been held, Jock’s case will likely be taken to the European courts: a forum in which there remains some possibility he will obtain a just outcome.
Russia
The trial of two neo-Nazis accused of shooting to death in January 2009 human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and investigative journalist Anastasia Baburova began this week. Michael Schwirtz (Russian Trial to Bare a Face of Nationalism, The New York Times, February 19, 2011) adds that ultra right-wing nationalists “have also singled out those considered sympathetic to ethnic minorities or opposed to right-wing ideas and deeds. They have killed several members of an anti-fascist group called Anti-Fa, which arose in response to growing xenophobic violence”, thus seemingly mistaking a general tendency for an organisation.
Dresden
German police have reacted angrily to the successful disruption of neo-Nazi gatherings in Dresden on the weekend, raiding offices belonging to Nazifrei Dresden! and (temporarily) closing its website. Somewhere between 15–20,000 people protested/blockaded the neo-Nazi rally/march on February 19, which attracted less than 1,000. (Speaking of Germany, The Blog Formerly Known as Anti-German Translation has loads of links of interest to anti-fascists… just sayin’.)
Finally, on a slightly less serious note, National Anarchist! blog has a series of photos of some BANANAs belonging to the San Franciscan-based White supremacist group. A recent post on the Southside Chicago ARA blog reports that a BANANA-inspired blogger may be waving a gnat flag in Indiana (adding that “If they do show up, they’ll be treated the same as BANANA was on May Day last year”).
Australian Deputy Prime Minister (since June 24, 2010) and Treasurer (since December 3, 2007) Wayne Swann has accusedThe Mad Monk of parroting the views of marginal right-wing party One Nation. This follows Shadow Minister for Productivity and Population (since September 14, 2010) and Immigration and Citizenship (since December 8, 2009) Scott Morrison‘s heartfelt plea for The Australian Taxpayer to remember just how much $ it cost Them to transport, to their funerals in Sydney, the families of asylum seekers who drowned in a boating accident at Christmas Island. (In fairness to Morrison, shovelling dirt on to the bodies of the eight people (including two infants) who died in the shipwreck may have been prompted by his own desire to cut costs.)
The Day After his remarks, Morrison admitted that his comic timing may not be what it once was–a fact perhaps reinforced by the frowns on the faces of the few liberals who remain in the party. (If Comedy = Tragedy + Time, a more experienced comic would probably have waited at least a week or two before making cracks about expensive corpses.)
On the plus side, Morrison’s wisecrack has allowed the Coalition to test the waters regarding using dead refugees as a political football, and the results, to this point, are somewhat uncertain. Xenophobic elements welcome any opportunity to make their case; the more psychotic elements among them positively celebrated the deaths. Others have expressed sadness at the tragedy, and reacted with contempt at the Shadow Minister’s attempt to capitalise upon resentment at what was touted as yet another instance of refugees making excess claims upon the public purse.
But can adding refugees and Muslims to the list of The Usual Suspects (indigenous peoples, the unemployed, et al) that politicians (and large segments of the general public) like to bash truly get results? That is, deliver a sufficient number of votes to allow the Coalition to capture Government at the next election? The problem for the Coalition (and occasionally Labor), is that while instituting policies designed to discipline and punish these sectors of society can bring marginal political gains, they also have a tendency to clash with their other political commitments. Thus according to Lenore Taylor (Morrison sees votes in anti-Muslim strategy, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 17, 2011):
Sources say Mr Morrison told the shadow cabinet meeting on December 1 at the Ryde Civic Centre that the Coalition should ramp up its questioning of “multiculturalism” and appeal to deep voter concerns about Muslim immigration and “inability” to integrate.
The sources say Mr Ruddock, the shadow cabinet secretary, was particularly “blunt” in his rejection of the suggestion, saying a well-run and non-discriminatory immigration policy was essential for nation building.
Others said they had picked up on strong anti-Muslim sentiment in their electorates but thought running a campaign against Muslim immigration could be “misconstrued”.
(Note that Morrison has dismissed as “gossip” a report that he had urged shadow cabinet to capitalise on the electorate’s concerns about Muslim immigration: Morrison and Bowen both in firing line, Adam Gartrell, Danielle McGrane and Belinda Cranston, The Sydney Morning Herald, February 17, 2011.)
The misconstrual, in this case, presumably being that the Coalition is intent on gaining office, and that matters of political principle–such as maintaining a “non-discriminatory immigration policy”–is merely a means to that end. The real question, then, is just how popular adopting anti-Muslim rhetoric might be among the electorate, and to what extent it may be adopted without endangering the support of actually existing liberals (those for whom religious freedom is recognised as being one among a number of rights afforded citizens in a liberal democracy). In this instance, a look inside the ballot box may be in order.
At the last Federal election, concern over Creeping Sharia remained more-or-less in the background. The handful of parties on the far right which campaigned (partly) on the basis of phantasies of Islamic rule performed fairly poorly: the one, partial exception being Queensland, where in the Senatorial contest One Nation received just less than 1% of the vote. In the absence of a significant upsurge in support for minor minor parties such as these, the smart $ is on the subsumption of specific paranoias over Muslims and refugees into a broader critique of multiculturalism as such; in other words, the (re-)development in Australia of what British PM David Cameron has recently termed a “muscular liberalism”. Political rhetoric which places un-assimilable Others at the centre of political discourse has the added BONUS! of directing public attention away from other, moar problematic areas of political conflict. In the case of the UK (but also elsewhere), this takes the form of austerity measures and cuts to workers’ incomes and social services that are being imposed as (neoliberal) capitalism is forced to confront economic ‘crisis’. Or…
Muslims! Behind you!
See also : ‘How Much Is Too Much?’, Benjamin Kunkel, London Review of Books (Vol.33, No.3, February 3, 2011).
Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. And that prince who, relying entirely on their promises, has neglected other precautions, is ruined; because friendships that are obtained by payments, and not by greatness or nobility of mind, may indeed be earned, but they are not secured, and in time of need cannot be relied upon; and men have less scruple in offending one who is beloved than one who is feared, for love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.
Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a prince is with his army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never hold his army united or disposed to its duties.
~ The Prince, Niccolò Machiavelli (Translated by W. K. Marriott), Chapter 17: Concerning Cruelty and Clemency, and whether it is Better to be Loved than Feared
With more than a decade as an intelligence and special signals analyst in the U.S. Navy, Aaron Barr spent a significant amount of time learning how systems worked and discovering he had a knack for figuring things out. After he got out of the Navy in 2001, he entered the booming IT market. Knowing he wanted to focus more on IT security, Barr took a position at Northrop Grumman TASC, where he started out conducting vulnerability assessments and penetration tests, as well as teaching the early version of the company’s CyberWarrior course. After moving from Colorado to Washington, D.C., mostly for the career possibilities, Barr was offered a technical director position managing the technical strategy and execution for one of Northrop’s cybersecurity business units, which was “an opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” he told TNNI. After a year, he decided to try something he had always been curious about and transitioned into the small-business side and currently serves as CEO of HBGary Federal…
Or did. Sadly, HBGary Federal’s site is unwell at the moment, so I dunno if Aaron is still serving the corporation (perhaps from under his desk).
Hunting & Investigating: It’s a Challenge!
As an enormous number of “websites” on the ah, “Internets” are busily documenting, late last year Aaron–in an apparent bid to drum up publicity for HBGary Federal–had a bRanestorm: target Anonymous, and expose its key players–Moe, Larry, and Curly–to public (or at least corporate) scrutiny. Why Anonymous? Partly on account of the fact that Anonymous had rallied to Wikileaks in its many battles with The Forces of Evil, and a demonstrated ability to detail the lives and loves of Tom, Dick and Harry would send a clear message to potential clients–especially union-busting law firms such as Hunton & Williams–that HBGary Federal was the shizz. “Roll your sleeves up and get your hands dirty. In this field, you learn most by doing, even by tinkering.”
Stumbling along the footpath on the information superhighway searching for commentary in response to Australia’s leading climate change scientist’s remarkable criticisms of Some Kinda Monster Called Multiculturalism (what apparently escaped from a zoo in deepest, darkest, Soviet Russia some time in the 1970s), I came across An Onymous Lefty’s thoughts on a recent controversy @ Online Opinion, the apparently “now infamous On Line Opinion spat”. Lefty writes:
On the one hand, I do believe in free speech. But on the other… if you’re publishing something, either an article or a comment, you are doing more than just listening to it – you’re promoting it. Do you, as a website owner, have an obligation to publish any material, no matter how hateful, dishonest, misleading and downright damaging to honest debate?
I don’t think you do have such an obligation. I think publishing such material is making a choice – and a statement. You are saying “this view is not so extreme and destructive that it is beneath contempt; I think it is a legitimate part of the debate”.
Which is fair enough. Only I’d add that publishing stoopid also provides an opportunity to subject it to ridicule — something uptight bigots really dislike. Anyway, the ‘spat’ @ Online Opinion also drew me, like a child in search of candy, to “The Domain” and “The Blogs: Australia’s best political blogs”. They are, according to The Domain/Online Opinion (and in alphabetical order):
Curiously, in 2005, The Domain listed these sites–Ambit Gambit, Tim Blair, John Quiggin, The Road to Surfdom, Troppo Armadillo, Andrew Bartlett, Faris QC, Public Opinion, Jennifer Marohasy, shannonsays.com, Imagining Australia, Henry Thornton and Antony Loewenstein–as The Bestest (Dr Richard Phillipps, ‘News blogs as political agenda-setters’, Refereed paper presented to the Journalism Education Conference, Griffith University, November 29–December 2, 2005 [DOC]). Six years later, four–Ambit Gambit, Andrew Bartlett, Jennifer Marohasy and Henry Thornton–continue to rank among The Best. Tim Blair and The Road to Surfdom, on the other hand, went corporate, Troppo Armadillo done become Club Troppo, Faris QC is still Faris QC (presumably) and cantankerous, but does barristering not blogging, while Public Opinion is still keepin’ it real, as is Antony Lowenstein; Imagining Australia has been archived and its author, Andrew Leigh, done been bumped into Parliament as a member of the Australian Lawyers’ Labor Party.
I dunno.
What do youse reckon?
Is this the best Australia can do?
“Truth is not a matter of exposure which destroys the secret, but a revelation that does justice to it.” ~ Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Tragic Drama (1928)
In a rare excursion into the wilds of politics, Australia’s leading climate change scientist has examined the doctrine of multiculturalism and declared himself agin it: “Time we woke up. To spend public money to create a nation of tribes is the great experiment that has failed—because it’s succeeded only too well” (Professor Andrew Bolt, The Pond’s Institute Inter-corporate Panel on Climate Change, February 9, 2011).
Similar warnings about multiculturalism have been sounded by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France. But, if anything, Mr. Cameron went further. He called on European governments to practice “a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism,” and said Britain would no longer give official patronage to Muslim groups that had been “showered with public money despite doing little to combat terrorism.”
Perhaps most controversially, he called for an end to a double standard that he said had tolerated the propagation of radical views among nonwhite groups that would be suppressed if they involved radical groups among whites…
As for the general population, many doubtless were also enthusiastic about the opportunity to “kick a little ass” in Panama — to borrow some of the rhetoric designed by George Bush’s handlers in their comical effort to shape an effete New England aristocrat into a Texas redneck.
Unarmed Algerian Muslims demonstrating in central Paris against a discriminatory curfew were beaten, shot, garotted and even drowned by police and special troops. Thousands were rounded up and taken to detention centers around the city and the prefecture of police, where there were more beatings and killings.
How many died? No one seems to know for sure, even now. Probably around 200…
In the wake of September 11 and Samuel Huntington’s claim that the world is defined by a “clash of civilizations”, some pro-Western protagonists might argue that “multiculturalism” in the West is a case of “letting the side down”, and a more robust pro-Western assimilationist approach is more in order. If, in a democracy, an electoral majority of citizens are also of this opinion then a democratic polity has every right to shift from a model of nation premised on multiculturalist assumptions, to a constitutive conception of the nation which insists on assimilation to certain overarching goods, values and (even) lifestyles as a precondition for citizenship. But that polity needs to be told clearly that these are the choices open to it. The Citizenship Test introduced by the Howard government might have been consistent with a multicultural model of the nation if its purpose was to examine citizenship applicants on public sphere values alone, demanding allegiance and obedience as citizens to these. But we have seen that the Howard government’s Citizenship Test moved beyond this toward a definite “constitutive” assimilationist goal…
Two Greek anarchists are making molotov cocktails. One says to the other: "So who will we throw these at then?" The other replies: "What are you, some kind of fucking intellectual?"
