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"If people such as members of the resist(dot)ca collective, Under the Volcano organizers and Megan Adam chose to maintain a friendship with Darren Thurston, that’s their own personal problem. Their inability to distinguish between the loyalty to their friend and loyalty to people whose lives have been damaged by their friend, should not stop the rest of us from preventing Thurston and his supporters from participating in activist or resistance activity, or jeopardizing wider resistance movements by allowing him continued access to activist social circles and organization, or to sensitive resources and infrastructure." Yep, couldn't have said it better. No cooperation!
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Hackbloc and Voice of the Voiceless offer extensive reports of Green Scare snitch Darren Thurston running his own computer security firm. His twitter feed hasn't updated since August 3rd. He goes by "rad_boy" and "hard_mac". Hackbloc says "Who needs good computer security when one of your friends will sell you down the river anyway?" and Voice of the Voiceless offers further analysis:
A warning to anyone who has received computer security services from someone going by hard_mac, or rad_boy: Your consultant was once working for the FBI, and may still be.
Thurston became an asset for the federal government in the Green Scare case after his arrest on arson charges for the 2001 torching by the Animal Liberation Front of a BLM wild horse holding barn in Susanville, California. In exchange for reduced charges, he implicated several others in serious arsons. Among them was Justin Solondz, who is serving a three year sentence in China on unrelated charges after being arrested there while a fugitive.
There is additional information about Thurston that may be of concern to activists. From Vancouver Anarchist Online Archive:
“Vancouver lawyer Peter Edelmann (who sometimes works for activists) confirmed in early 2010 that Darren Thurston has been working for him in his legal office since sometime not long after Thurston’s return to Vancouver in late 2008. This opens the possibility of breaches of lawyer-client confidentiality, given Thurston’s signed and sealed agreement to give information on other activists to the FBI.”
One point bears repeating: Thurston entered into a plea agreement which remains sealed, and which he himself has never made public. The terms of the plea agreement are unknown, and may include working for the FBI / Canadian authorities after his release.
Thurston’s computer security consulting site can be viewed here.
Perhaps not by coincidence, there is information another government informant, Justin Samuel, has also gone into the computer security field. Samuel provided 86 pages of testimony, and perhaps additional undocumented information, to prosecutors investigating mink releases in 1999.
It is possible the FBI has found the perfect niche for former activists who have switched sides: giving them “expert”-status and putting them in charge of sensitive data on others computers. Warrants may be unnecessary when the FBI has a “man on the inside”.
Wow, what a lot of conjecture upon which to base violence and division. Stopping a panel on indigenous rights frankly seems like you are agents provocateurs yourselves. Chalk one up for the State.
ReplyDeleteCheck your sources - I can assure you he is not working for the FBI. Paranoia is a disease and once you catch a taste of it - your whole world is coloured by it. Until you are in the shoes of a person like Thurston, I suggest you step back and continue fighting for what you believe in. I suspect you don't know what it is like to be in Maxiumum security prison in the USA nor would like to. It amazes me that people still get so enraged by decisions like Thurston's. In this day and age people do make decisions which you may not like. Time changes people. Events change perception. Living in fear and fighting for the rights of whatever the cause can grow soul destroying for some. Not to say this is the case with Thurston, but; reconsider the depth of his situation before you lash out, which to me seems contradictory to what most of you stand for.
ReplyDeleteI agree with anon above.
ReplyDeleteToo many people who know nothing of his case and have only heard inuendo and unsupported claims of him being a "security threat" (plus innate dislike of "snitches"), have turned this into a mob mentality cause celebre for the paranoid. It has to end. We don't have to worry about Thurston tearing activism apart; this kind of mob psychology and intimidation of anyone who disagrees with us will tear activism apart.
Useful information regarding the security of the computers.Great article. Computer training long island
ReplyDeleteAnd what about the opinions of the people he fucked over in his plea? His supposed comrades? Your opinions mean shit compared to those who do and are suffering in prison.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20071210130941710
p.s. the panel was stopped by a non-participant in the panel, who, was was very well informed about the green scare case and thurston's role in it. After reading a statement about thurston, she stood silently in front of meagan adams -between adams and her microphone. the disruptor was not blocking the panel from carrying on --only adams from participating in it. the other indigenous panel members, upon being informed of adam's identity and relationship to thurston, left the panel of their own accord.
ReplyDeleteas far as violence goes: if violence equals 'doing anything at all' including what can only be described as a pacifist intervention, in which no other human was touched or even verbally attacked ...then this was violence.
as far as 'divisiveness' goes, thurston parachuted into vancouver after at least a decade of absence, into a movement he had nothing to do with, yet he insisted on attempting to participate in movement activities while it was clear that his presence and his relationship with the FBI made many, many people uncomfortable.
anyone who points a finger of 'divisiveness' needs to turn that right around to thurston himself: after he self admittedly cooperated with the FBI in the primary investigation against anarchist activity in the latter half of the 20th century ... he suddenly wants back in the game?
if thurston himself gave one single shit about the movement that supported his court case and imprisonment, and even after he turned coat to work with FBI, he would have voluntarily retired, not attempted to insert himself into the centre of the (at the time) vibrant and successful anti-capitalist resistance he found on his return to vancouver. If he had a lick of sense about him, he would have realized that in addition to compromising his own internal values (giving him the benefit of the doubt that has any at all), he also sacrificed his ability to participate in any resistance activity for the rest of his life. instead, he continued to try to step into a role he lost his credibility to play. thurston should have stepped aside a long time ago, and there would never have been any problem. --oh, but that would assume that he actually cared about anything other than his egotistical self.
the man is a piece of human garbage.
I've witnessed Darren Thurston get finger-pointy at "snitches" who didn't even snitch on him. This is just hilarious to watch.
ReplyDeleteYour blog article is really very nice and well written. Security is important because it is the first step for controlling anything. Thanks for sharing such informative blog article with us.
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ReplyDelete