Right, to make it terrorism in addition to proving you committed a violent crime they have to prove that the reasons you committed it included trying to effect government change by making the public at large "terrorized" essentially.

I'm sorry to be pedantic, I just hear a lot of things called terrorism today that really isn't (i.e. waving a gun in someone's face isn't by itself terrorism, though it's likely a crime). It has to be more than just doing something violent that makes a few people scared. This is even more important now that we seem to be ignoring due process for some people accused of terrorist activity.

Carry on.

:D
sorry about the condescending tone earlier, by the way. But it takes so much effort not to react to stuff you say >_> It ANNOYS ME SO MUCH! RAGE!
<smashes the table>
:(
ouch.

I would just suggest actually reading the thread first. There are many reasons I made those parallels, and they have to do with phrases like "ARGH! DDOS NOT TERRORISM! I SAY IT NOT" :p
And the government shortly thereafter found out (like a few hours after). It just took a week or two to actually verify enough to be worth telling the American people (this was clearly back when we had a much more rigorous verification process :p).

Nowhere in the definition does it say that the person committing the act needs to have a note safety pinned to their jacket. It is quite reasonable to assume that the source could be found VERY quickly by a government like the US.

yeah, don't do that. Assuming that I didn't.

Apologies. How rude of me. Condescendingly implying you are just a troll is probably rude and does nothing to advance the discussion...

I should have instead assumed that you DID read things, but chose to only focus on me because I annoy you with oh so much rage.

But I am going to take my own advice on one of those rare occasions and not respond to someone who is just trying to pick a fight.

(although, if I were going to go by the metric used by others in this thread: I must be correct if people are attacking me! :p)

Hey, I'm trying to help you here. Yeah, your post have the same effect on me as posts made by trolls. I assume that you want to have a productive discussion though, so I'd thought I'd point out what irks me (and seems to have been annoying others as well).
<shrugs> whatever.

No, you're actually wrong, just way to stubborn to admit it.
Not one definition of terrorism has gained universal acceptance. And I highly doubt that yours will.

- The US Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as "...the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives" (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85).
- The current US national security strategy defines terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents.
- The United States Department of Defense uses the Department of State definition. A footnote at the bottom of this definition qualifies and explains the Department of Defense's understanding of this legal definition:
For the purposes of this definition, the term "noncombatant" is interpreted to include,in addition to civilians, military personnel who at the time of the incident are unarmed and/or not on duty ... We also consider as acts of terrorism attacks on military installations or on armed personnel when a state of military hostilities does not exist at the site, such as bombings against US bases in Europe, the Philippines or elsewhere.
- The USA PATRIOT Act defines terrorism activities as "activities that (A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state, that (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping, and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S."
- The US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) described a terrorist act as: "...premeditated; perpetrated by a subnational or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a noncombatant target."
- Title 22, Chapter 38 of the United States Code (regarding the Department of State) contains a definition of terrorism in its requirement that annual country reports on terrorism be submitted by the Secretary of State to Congress every year. It reads:
"Definitions ... the term 'terrorism' means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;"[50]
Title 18 of the United States Code (regarding criminal acts and criminal procedure) defines international terrorism as:
"[T]he term 'international terrorism' means activities that . . . involve violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; [and] appear to be intended . . . to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; . . . to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or . . . to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and [which] occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or transcend national boundaries in terms of the means by which they are accomplished, the persons they appear intended to intimidate or coerce, or the locale in which their perpetrators operate or seek asylum."[51]

--------------------------
I'm inserting a break here after all those definitions your government alone has.
Mainly because here comes a rather interesting read:

Commenting on the genesis of this provision, Edward Peck, former U.S. Chief of Mission in Iraq (under Jimmy Carter) and former ambassador to Mauritania said:
In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism, [my working group was asked] to come up with a definition of terrorism that could be used throughout the government. We produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in some of those activities. […] After the task force concluded its work, Congress [passed] U.S. Code Title 18, Section 2331 ... the US definition of terrorism. […] one of the terms, "international terrorism," means "activities that," I quote, "appear to be intended to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping." […] Yes, well, certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. […] And so, the terrorist, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.

Let's go down your list, and apply them to Anonymous (yay, pedophelia! :p) attacking credit card companies:

"premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents": Probably not a crime of passion, DEFINITELY political, and violence (as per dictionary.com). Only question mark is if you are going to nitpick and say "They aren't innocents, they deserved it!"
PATRIOT act's "(...) intimidate or coerce a civilian population": Check
Using the NCTC's definition, again, doubt you can really call a credit card company a "combatant", and you definitely can't call the people who USE said company combatants.
Title 22: Already covered this ground, but if you would like, reply and I can repeat things (but playing mix and match is more fun :p)
Title 18: "would be a criminal violation if commited within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State" "intimidate or coerce a civilian population". The ONLY question mark there is "government", and it isn't much of a stretch to see this as a warning to any government that gets involved.


Thanks for looking those up though. And I suggest reading them, they all basically say the same thing, just different levels of specificity.

As for the last part: Yet again, "Do two wrongs make a right?". If not, then it is irrelevant how much crap the CIA and various other organizations have done. Now, if you want to argue that the credit card companies deserved to get attacked because the CIA deals drugs in South America (at least :p), feel free. Just don't be surprised when people look at you funny.

Why is this nicknamed "Cablegate" again? It's not that similar to Watergate.

For the last time: I never claimed that the hackers doing is right or even justified by any means. But keep pushing it.
Also keep falling back on dictionary.com's definition, while even just your government can't come up with one definition, left alone the international community or the UN. I mean, you even managed to dismiss your own supreme court's decree, considering it a grey area, so you must be right.
Yes, i did read them. Even why they couldn't come up with a final definition. Seriously, you should call them, seeing that you found it on dictionary.com - it would render a lot ot what your government did or still does also as terrorism, but you can just explain them that it's irrelevant.

So all in all you still insist to scream bloody murd.. excuse me, terrorist, at some guys that hampered your financial possibilities for a while, but dismissing the actions of the prosecutor which fit the same crime on a much higher degree, as not applicable.
Fine. Be my guest. I hereby call those hacking attacks as terrorism.
Feel better?

Just don't be surprised if people look at you in a funny way, when your prosecutors point with bloody hands at them in court.
I think we're done here.

More similar then "Monicagate" or "Lewinskygate". It's just the press looking for a headline, nothing more.

Oy...

Read the definitions: They all boil down to "An attack on noncombatants to push an agenda". If you would actually read the thing you quoted, you would see that the difficulty is more along the lines of "How do we call THEM terrorists without pissing off the CIA?"

And the only part of dictionary.com I "fell back on" was a definition of "violence", since some people felt it needed to involve physical force.

And yet again: You keep bringing up that you feel the US are terrorists (honestly, I agree in a lot of cases), That has absolutely nothing to do with Anon committing an act of terrorism in their quest to push their political agenda.

I apologize if you continually accusing the US of wrongdoing as a defense for Anon makes me think you are trying to say "it is okay, other people do it". If you would be willing to clarify why you keep bringing that up and what it has to do with Anon not committing an act of terrorism, please do so.

If your only point is the hypocrisy: Not sure where the hypocrisy factors in at this point (I am not the US, just like you are not Switzerland), but I actually agree. It IS kind of ridiculous at times. But so what? Just about every government and organization is hypocritical. It NEEDS to be. How can you expect someone to be tried for murder (in a federal case) if you allow the defense of "You guys killed people in a war, no matter how justified or unjustified!"?

What matters in the end is if the action pushed an agenda that is beneficial from your perspective, and if the benefits outweigh the costs. If the US wanted to, it could suddenly nuke the hell out of Kim Jon Il (and Un) right now. Everyone would jump down our throats for "committing an atrocity" and the like, but it also might save a crapton of lives by avoiding the need for a war. But, politically, the benefits wouldn't outweigh the costs, so it probably won't happen any time soon.

A new cable claims that Dyncorp out of houston has been providing boy sex slaves to the Afghan police. This is enough for me to say that the whole leak was valid. Furthermore, dont you want to know that we're enaged in a shadow war in yemen, that the chinese have attacked our networks over and over etc etc?

And there are still hundreds of thousands of cables left.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/528.250516-Wikileaks-Reveals-U-S-Tax-Dollars-Fund-Child-Sex-Slavery-in-Afghanistan

While I do agree on the human trafficking thing, there are valid reasons to cover up the shadow war and chinese thing.

Yemen: Lots of human rights violations there, and a lot of instabilities and potential links to Al-Qaeda. A "shadow war" minimizes our commitment and minimizes loss of human life. Isn't that what so many people are always asking for?

Not reporting Chinese cyber-attacks: Well, aren't cyber-attacks not important and heroic anyway? :p
But, in all seriousness, this is also something I would prefer to kept hidden. Going in the language of those who generally dislike the US, the American people are sheep. If the news stations started talking about China attacking us all the time, the American people would want to fight back. And NOBODY wants a war with China.

As for the last part: What people tend to forget is that we are NOT a Democracy, we are a Democratic Republic (well, not quite, but close enough). The big difference? The American people don't make decisions., We elect people to make decisions for us. So as long as we have competent leaders who have our best interests in mind (Look, it worked on paper, alright? :p), we don't need to know ALL the details, we just need to know the big picture.

I agree that most people probably don't want to know every detail, but certainly some want to know the truth. I think that its probably for a democracy (also with representatives in between) very hard to lead a shadow war, if this democracy wants to take itself seriously. How can you do anything as a representative and not tell your people about it? After all, you get elected for these things, but if nobody knows... . And how can you break the law and cover up instead of living to your own laws. They are basically worthless than?

I don't want to sound like I am the personification of morale. Certainly not and other democratic countries are probably not different from the US. Also it sounds as if China or other non-democratic countries have a distinct advantage here. But if I had to choose I would always prefer to live in a democratic, transparent, lawful surrounding - even if it makes some things harder.