According to ABC Monday, a Mossad agent, known as “Prisoner X” was arrested in 2010 by the Mossad, Israel’s secret police, for leaking information regarding their operations. He was held under 24-hour surveillance. By the end of that same year, he was found dead in his cell, hanged.
Israeli officials have announced they will perform an inquiry into the case.
Today, independent groups of truth-seeking individuals make a stand against oppressive governments and private corporations (the line between which is ever narrowing). Big data, increased personal exposure on social networks, and “smart” advertising are putting privacy and security at odds.
But groups like Anonymous and outlets like Wikileaks are crying out when injustice occurs and casting light on nefarious relationships between government and private industry, hoping to eliminate the effectiveness of locking away a whistleblower or silencing a dissident.
By exposing faults in systems, whether those systems be regimes or lines of code, these groups expose weaknesses and errors and encourage correction. Today, the Department of Justice is more interested in investigating these groups than they are Wallstreet crooks and the systems that support their crimes.
And in our own way, we isolate our dissidents and we silence them. The tragic death of Aaron Swartz highlight the injustice and the efforts that our justice system and prosecutors will exhaust to rout out misperceived threats. Fortunately, anonymous responded to the heavy hand of the government and, though too late for Aaron, have brought light to this tragic loss.
Oppression is not justice and anonymous and wikileaks restore power to the people from their oppressors.
