I have seen that within many police organizations — as within many fire and EMS services — “turds float.” Lt. Pike for example, pictured at right, still working years after complaints of harassment of co-workers and brutality against students. You won’t be surprised to learn that the co-worker who complained got gone, while Pike got promoted to supervising 1/3 of the force.
Many white shirts favor those who they know to be guilty of crimes ranging from theft to brutality to rape. It seems to me that by promoting ethically challenged officers, management and the corrupt politicians to whom they answer are assured of the upper hand.
I know most of you are busy fighting amongst yourselves, and may not fully understand recent social developments. I write this letter to introduce you to Anonymous. I’m not sure you understand that you are at war with them.
I am not “in” Anonymous, and can only tell you what I’ve observed. They are in many ways like you. My hope is that the ethical, community-serving police and their Anonymous corollaries can work together. Your cultures are in many ways similar, and your strengths complementary. Just as many of you will balk at this notion, so will many of them. At a minimum, I hope you can understand each other better.
As police officers you understand the media and their failures better than civilians. You have seen that they are exploitative, and are focused on self-service, just as corrupt cops are. Since they serve themselves and their corporate bosses, they don’t put much effort into the truth. Because you are not accurately portrayed in the media, and are not allowed to speak publicly, citizens have a false idea of who you are.
Similarly, the media has opted not to discuss many important things about Anonymous, instead portraying them as pimply, self-important nerds looming large in their mothers’ basements. Let me assure you this is a caricature.
Some Anons were discussing “Rate My Cop,” a website where anyone can go and put in whatever information they have on a police officer anywhere in America, and rate them either positively or negatively. I don’t believe this is an Anonymous-run website. It appears to be typical civilian exploitation with advertisements and memberships. There is no vetting of information, as we see with the sites I support. People post tripe like “makes great marinara sauce,” apparently taking the site at face value as I did.
I mentioned to the Anons that this site is nonsense, anyone can write anything and no one writes anything of importance. There are honest police desperate to draw attention to abusive co-workers all over the country, why not support them instead?
They advised me of something that underscores how little people in our world understand their world: they are interested in that site not for what people have said about different officers, but because they are compiling a database of all of the police officers in America. It’s all information that is public records requestable, i.e., names and agencies.
They’re compiling their own database of every police officer in the country. Just thought I’d say that again. If they succeed in this, they will have better information than any agency in the country, including the FBI.
Please understand how bright and dedicated these young people are. Note that they dance circles around you and me. When they say, “We are legion,” they mean it. Let me give you an example.
The video below was taken at Occupy Oakland. The injured person is Marine Scott Olsen. I sat and watched a Twitter feed that whole night, and observed the hive that is Anonymous working in high gear. Different groups rallied to meetings in different parts of the internet that I don’t know how to get to.
These people don’t wait until when/if CNN decides to cover it; they watch it live on the internet while it’s still ongoing. Protesters tweet tactical information like how many officers, where they’re located, when they move. Protestors who have never met each other and are miles away are instantly updated and organized. You would have to either take away every civilian cell phone in America or shut down the entire internet to stop them. And let me assure you, they make better use of the internet than you ever could.
They compared dozens of videos and still shots aside from the one linked below. They worked through the night to identify the officer who shot Olsen, and the one who directed the flashbang at the rescuers.
Though they were extremely angry, they were painstaking in their unpaid work. They were remarkably restrained and deliberate in their response. They hacked Oakland PD almost immediately and retrieved rosters with names, shift assignments, schedules, and contact information. That’s a given. The open nature of their organization, and the skillset they bring, makes that inevitable. The media hasn’t reported it, but Anonymous hacks law enforcement servers at will.
It took them about 24 hours, if I recall correctly, to review documentation and determine which officers did what. They settled on Deputy Sheriff Scott Bergstresser as the the perpetrator.
Once the dozens — possibly hundreds or even thousands — of people collaborating on this decided it was Bergstresser, he was “doxed” within two hours. Numerous people posted links to “pastebins” with everything you could possibly want to know about him, including his wife’s name and cell number, and how many bathrooms are in his house.
A google search for Scott Bergstresser shows a mainstream media blackout, with coverage mostly by bloggers. The official agency statements discredited Anonymous’ investigation, of course, claiming they were sloppy in assigning blame. The picture above, however, hints at just how seriously they took it, and just how certain they were before taking action. As an observer, I was impressed.
At 8:49 PM PT, someone put out a request for a picture of the driver:
Anyone in Oklahoma City with a camera want to get a photo of the driver?
Greyhound Driver will swap out in Oklahoma City at 11:40 pm local. Be nice to have a camera awaiting his arrival #occupyaustin
Cryptkeeper/Greyhound Driver Donald Ainsworth
BFE, Oklahoma
9:44 PM PT:
@YourAnonNews OK I’m impressed. You have people waiting with cameras in the middle of Oklahoma @ Greyhound.
In less than an hour they had a name and picture of the driver uploaded onto the internet, before he even made it to Oklahoma City. He probably didn’t see the person waiting to make him famous with their phone. He lives in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
Meanwhile, people around the country came up with the money to buy new tickets and get the protestors back on the next bus.
The moral of the story? You must learn what Twitter is. And make no mistake, the whole world is watching — in real time.
My hope is that those of us who want to change our broken system can find enough common ground, and work together enough, to create a better world.
Open Letter to the Police
I have seen that within many police organizations — as within many fire and EMS services — “turds float.” Lt. Pike for example, pictured at right, still working years after complaints of harassment of co-workers and brutality against students. You won’t be surprised to learn that the co-worker who complained got gone, while Pike got promoted to supervising 1/3 of the force.
Many white shirts favor those who they know to be guilty of crimes ranging from theft to brutality to rape. It seems to me that by promoting ethically challenged officers, management and the corrupt politicians to whom they answer are assured of the upper hand.
I know most of you are busy fighting amongst yourselves, and may not fully understand recent social developments. I write this letter to introduce you to Anonymous. I’m not sure you understand that you are at war with them.
I am not “in” Anonymous, and can only tell you what I’ve observed. They are in many ways like you. My hope is that the ethical, community-serving police and their Anonymous corollaries can work together. Your cultures are in many ways similar, and your strengths complementary. Just as many of you will balk at this notion, so will many of them. At a minimum, I hope you can understand each other better.
As police officers you understand the media and their failures better than civilians. You have seen that they are exploitative, and are focused on self-service, just as corrupt cops are. Since they serve themselves and their corporate bosses, they don’t put much effort into the truth. Because you are not accurately portrayed in the media, and are not allowed to speak publicly, citizens have a false idea of who you are.
Similarly, the media has opted not to discuss many important things about Anonymous, instead portraying them as pimply, self-important nerds looming large in their mothers’ basements. Let me assure you this is a caricature.
I support the anonymous police message boards, where servers are privately housed and IP addresses are not logged. Like Anonymous (and ethical police officers), I believe that technology should be used to create transparency in government and society. Sunlight is the best antiseptic. In blogging about the issues uncovered on those boards, I have on several occasions come in contact with Anonymous. You see, they’re very focused on police activism.
Some Anons were discussing “Rate My Cop,” a website where anyone can go and put in whatever information they have on a police officer anywhere in America, and rate them either positively or negatively. I don’t believe this is an Anonymous-run website. It appears to be typical civilian exploitation with advertisements and memberships. There is no vetting of information, as we see with the sites I support. People post tripe like “makes great marinara sauce,” apparently taking the site at face value as I did.
I mentioned to the Anons that this site is nonsense, anyone can write anything and no one writes anything of importance. There are honest police desperate to draw attention to abusive co-workers all over the country, why not support them instead?
They advised me of something that underscores how little people in our world understand their world: they are interested in that site not for what people have said about different officers, but because they are compiling a database of all of the police officers in America. It’s all information that is public records requestable, i.e., names and agencies.
They’re compiling their own database of every police officer in the country. Just thought I’d say that again. If they succeed in this, they will have better information than any agency in the country, including the FBI.
Please understand how bright and dedicated these young people are. Note that they dance circles around you and me. When they say, “We are legion,” they mean it. Let me give you an example.
The video below was taken at Occupy Oakland. The injured person is Marine Scott Olsen. I sat and watched a Twitter feed that whole night, and observed the hive that is Anonymous working in high gear. Different groups rallied to meetings in different parts of the internet that I don’t know how to get to.
These people don’t wait until when/if CNN decides to cover it; they watch it live on the internet while it’s still ongoing. Protesters tweet tactical information like how many officers, where they’re located, when they move. Protestors who have never met each other and are miles away are instantly updated and organized. You would have to either take away every civilian cell phone in America or shut down the entire internet to stop them. And let me assure you, they make better use of the internet than you ever could.
They compared dozens of videos and still shots aside from the one linked below. They worked through the night to identify the officer who shot Olsen, and the one who directed the flashbang at the rescuers.
Though they were extremely angry, they were painstaking in their unpaid work. They were remarkably restrained and deliberate in their response. They hacked Oakland PD almost immediately and retrieved rosters with names, shift assignments, schedules, and contact information. That’s a given. The open nature of their organization, and the skillset they bring, makes that inevitable. The media hasn’t reported it, but Anonymous hacks law enforcement servers at will.
It took them about 24 hours, if I recall correctly, to review documentation and determine which officers did what. They settled on Deputy Sheriff Scott Bergstresser as the the perpetrator.
Once the dozens — possibly hundreds or even thousands — of people collaborating on this decided it was Bergstresser, he was “doxed” within two hours. Numerous people posted links to “pastebins” with everything you could possibly want to know about him, including his wife’s name and cell number, and how many bathrooms are in his house.
A google search for Scott Bergstresser shows a mainstream media blackout, with coverage mostly by bloggers. The official agency statements discredited Anonymous’ investigation, of course, claiming they were sloppy in assigning blame. The picture above, however, hints at just how seriously they took it, and just how certain they were before taking action. As an observer, I was impressed.
They are also extremely versatile. The Greyhound driver who put a group of Occupy Wall Street protestors off his bus because he didn’t agree with their politics found this out.
At 8:49 PM PT, someone put out a request for a picture of the driver:
In less than an hour they had a name and picture of the driver uploaded onto the internet, before he even made it to Oklahoma City. He probably didn’t see the person waiting to make him famous with their phone. He lives in a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
Meanwhile, people around the country came up with the money to buy new tickets and get the protestors back on the next bus.
The moral of the story? You must learn what Twitter is. And make no mistake, the whole world is watching — in real time.
My hope is that those of us who want to change our broken system can find enough common ground, and work together enough, to create a better world.
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About Xavier Onassis, EMT-P