Activists are working on how to advocate a cause without destroying its credibility. Online activists fret over extremism

Internet activism’s heroes are sometimes labeled its destroyers.

Supporters of online freedoms worry extreme acts may thwart the momentum gained last year with the crushing defeat of anti-piracy legislation. Those concerns underscore a central fear in activist circles: how to advocate a cause without destroying its credibility.


The latest example came this past weekend, when the online activist group Anonymous took hold of the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s website, replaced it with a YouTube video and threatened to release “warheads” containing sensitive information about the Justice Department. The group linked its actions to the department’s treatment of Aaron Swartz, a young tech pioneer who faced up to 35 years of prison time after hacking into a subscriber-only database of scholarly articles. He committed suicide earlier this month.

“We understand that due to the actions we take we exclude ourselves from the system within which solutions are found,” the group said in a statement. “There are others who serve that purpose, people far more respectable than us, people whose voices emerge from the light, and not the shadows. These voices are already making clear the reforms that have been necessary for some time, and are outright required now.”

Those people also reacted to Swartz’s death with cries to overhaul the computer fraud act. But the more radical measures could hinder that effort rather than propel it.

“There is a huge difference between documents made available online like Congressional Research reports and taking down websites,” First Amendment lawyer Marvin Ammori said. “But prosecutors will probably look at what Anonymous did and use it as an excuse to continue equating the two.”

That means more overall scrutiny.

“It basically puts the rest of us under a microscope,” said Jillian York, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s director for international freedom of expression. “We have to be much more careful about everything we say lest it looks like we support illegal behaviors.”

But legality itself doesn’t appear much of a dividing line. Swartz’s violations and potential punishment are used as an anthem for reforming existing laws. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has become as much an icon of online freedom as a hunted criminal. And Internet actions in Iran and Syria, while illegal, are helping alter a regime.

“It all depends on context,” said York, who sees a difference “between countries where you have the opportunity for change within the system and dictatorships.”

Even in America, activists have long fought against establishments they view as oppressive or unjust. Anonymous was, after all, protesting a Justice Department process it considers overly punitive.

“It’s a very difficult line, because some civil disobedience is definitely warranted; we’ve had it since the civil rights era,” said Gigi Sohn, the co-founder of Public Knowledge, an organization that promotes open Internet. “Is what they are doing good or bad hacking? Is it really hurting anybody? I don’t know. But they are certainly wasting taxpayer resources.”

And ultimately, she said, actions like commandeering a federal website do slow progress.

“The problem is that what they are doing is not accepted by the vast majority of people and the vast majority of policymakers,” she said. “And it tends to give credence to those who are fighting to keep the Internet closed.”

Lawmakers who have pushed for investigations and for updated laws in the wake of Swartz’s death, have kept mum on Anonymous’s actions.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the loudest voices against anti-piracy legislation known as SOPA and PIPA, focused instead on a year’s worth of momentum.

“What that established there is a clear ability to block legislation and block policies that would damage the cause of Internet freedom,” he told POLITICO. “Now the challenge is going to be to show you can build a coalition to actually pass legislation.”

In a world where technology outpaces the laws overseeing it, that proves an especially difficult task.

“If you compare it to [the Occupy Movement] for the most part, a great majority of people wanted to express unhappiness about the world and doing so helped bring attention,” said a longtime activist lawyer.

“But there are probably ways to draw attention to issues to review and revise and change without making it seem like an attack,” the lawyer said.

“Governments historically don’t react well to attacks.”

Alex Byers contributed to this report.