"How Barrett Brown Shone Light on Security Contractors" (Remember the Plan to Discredit Greenwald?)

[struggle4progress]

19. No, it's not entirely ad hominem: it really goes to credibility and motive. What we have here is yet

another rich self-absorbed North Dallas kid, who has refused to grow into adulthood, spending his time taking drugs, figuring that money and connections would protect him while he styled himself the public face of a gang of cyber-vandals and poked the authorities in the eye, by making nyaa-nyaa-nyaa phone calls to the NSA, for example

Now that he's been charged with threatening a federal agent and seems to be suspected of involvement in a conspiracy by Anonymous, involving theft of credit card information and unauthorized use of the cards

He may indeed be a bright young man who's told us some interesting stories. But the acknowledged behavior here also has an adolescent side, and it reminds me of the fifteen and sixteen year old "rebels" I knew in my high school -- and the criminal charges, as well as the claims of persecution, are entirely consistent with that

People like this make a silly splash, but they don't really move us forward