We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists

We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists

Thanks to online anonymity you can now let your friends know that they're fat sluts without having to lose their friendship.

However, fat shaming is far from the mandate of the faceless hackers in this documentary.

From its early inception on image-based message boards to its impact on the occupy movement, the polemic collective of online hackers known as Anonymous has always put freedom of speech first on their list of demands.

Claiming to have hacked numerous email accounts and websites belonging to governments, politicians and movie executives, the faceless rabble reinforce their rule when civil liberties are threatened.

Speaking in-depth with masked/unmasked members (Anon2World, Gregg Housh) as well as curators of online media outlets that tout its exploits, We Are Legion may be biased but it does divulged incredible insight into this unorganized organization.

Furthermore, it's nice to know that those masks they wear don't mean they're all Juggalos.

Green Light

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We Are Legion can draw us into the discussion, not by sympathizing with those who willfully (if somewhat ignorantly) break the law, but by showing both sides of the story that our daily news accounts often skew in one direction.Sure it's funny-and we might even think it's right-what Anonymous could do with a button click. But being on the flipside, we wouldn't want to be one of their victims, even as a casual observer, merely by showing an opposing point of view. In that regard, We Are Legion would effectively create a great double feature with God Bless America from Bobcat Goldthwait, where a couple of killers are debating those acceptable to take a bullet for a country's cause drowned in a absence of civility.Knappenberger's film is fast-moving and informative; it will likely never take a look at it with their one-track minds to ensure a subsection of our culture. Although they should just learn a little bit more about a group waiting out there to teach you a little lesson about liberty of expression.

Anonymous, the collective of skilled hackers, has put fear into the hearts of businesses and governments across the globe. Documentary filmmaker Brian Knappenberger delves into the history of other "hacktivists" and draws a line to the loose-knit community of folks fomenting civil disobedience through technological resources. The film includes interviews with current members of Anonymous, writers and academics.

Knappenberger's film chronicles the rise of Anonymous from a disparate group hanging out in the forums of notorious website 4chan to the day recently when members of the Polish parliament, in protest of a vote they said would restrict Web freedom, donned their own Guy Fawkes masks in solidarity with the group.

The film was written and directed by Brian Knappenberger and features the story of Anonymous assumed to stem from the imageboard 4chan. It also outlines major turning points and "operations" in their history. Angered by many diverse issues such as copyright abuse, police brutality, online censorship and would-be web controllers this loosely affiliated collective of hacktivists have organised both online and offline protests, cyber attacks on foreign governments during the Arab Spring movement and provided technical support to the Occupy movement.

Some two thousand years you could be left a pauper because of "god". Meaning a rich owner could switch social class just for refusing to become a Christian. Well, slaves would remain slaves to a Christian lord, but they will be free if the Lord would refuse conversion because somehow Jesus did not tolerate anyone above him. Same goes for the trials. As a Christian you could keep your old rights, no matter how abusive. But as anything else, the tribunals were not for you.

About a century ago Marxism has risen. Your whole factory could stop working because of syndicates. People who could not read or write, whose only merit was to get up when the siren sounded now were somehow entitled to a say in how the business was going. And they will kill and maim anyone who would want to take the working place. And these revolutionaries had nothing to do with the bills. Rent, storage, raw materials were all for the owner to bother, yet the profit was somehow their right.

Now there is Anonymous. Some moment your computer might stop responding. Or start attacking some site you don't even know it exists. You pay the computer, they are ready to make it work. The power and Internet bill are yours. The usage is somehow shared.

And all these happen because of activists. People whose only business is to decide for others. And they get angry too and throw tantrums if it does not get in their way.

What is worse, like the ISIS guys, these are rich kids who believe they work for a higher purpose. The Messiah has called them, each one, and they have to do this and that to the system. And of course, they are not rich. Usually all their assets are owned by their parents, so they can freely develop the delusion of being a hippie or a gypsy.

Nothing new. So they rape the words to make it look cool. Not activists. Hacktivists. And the laptop so expensive someone in India could by a house and a car? Cover it with cutesy stickers to show how anti consumerism you are.

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