We get more people ‘activated’ – Anonymous activist

The Anonymous march will help get more people involved in politics and it can only be better for the people, American activist Gregg Housh, who's associated with the Anonymous hacktivist group, told RT.

RT:We’ve heard a bit about what this protest movement is concerned with but in in your opinion what are you protesting against?

Gregg Housh: You know personally I think right now the big focus is of course the NSA stuff, the present releases, you know, everything we’ve learned from Edward Snowden. But you have to go back and cover all of the stuff the journalists are talking about, you know, a lot of it comes back to the same problems of this police state that we are now living in. And we’ve been trying to talk about all of the problems out there and it’s really tough to get Middle America to pay attention to these problems, until we end up in this moments when these big releases of information like what Edward Snowden’s put out.  I think there is a lot of wide focuses, a lot of things coming together here which is bringing so many different protesters from all over the world. 

RT:Does it actually cause a problem now because people might accuse this protest as being unfocused simply because it’s so wide and varied?

GH: I think it’s a valid point but the thing that they have to remember is that a lot of these people that are protesting for the first time, or their first time was with the an anonymous protest over the last few years, and what of the big pushes with all of the real world stuff we’ve been doing not the online stuff? For me it has been to get more people activated, to get people out there just doing something. You know, I don’t even care what you believe, I want you on the streets telling people about it and getting things done. So I think this type of event is going to just help to get more people active in the system and I have a feeling that more people active in the system can only be better for the people. 

RT:Do you feel anonymous might actually alienate people because it hacks web sites and people could legitimately say – isn’t it a criminal offense to be part of this?

GH: You know, there is a distinction there, you call it criminal but, you know, what’s right and what’s wrong is not exactly in line with what’s legal and what’s illegal. And so it’s really up to each individual to decide just out how far they are willing to go with their protest. 

RT:And how big do you think this could go, what is the future for Anonymous do you think?

GH: Well, you know, depending on how you do the math, ten years in from when the initial idea kind of appeared and six years in from when the first protests were organized by a small group of us. I think it’s going to continue going, you know, every couple of years we hear about the down fall or all the things are slowing down, you think this is kind of the end and then within months something like this happens. So I don’t think the idea is going away it think it’s going to continue to grow. I mean this will be the biggest event. 

RT:And how many people do you think we will actually see in these cities? Do you think there might be dozens, do you think there might be hundreds or thousands?

GH: You know, I really wish I could tell you. When we did a very first protest in 2008 we were guessing that we’d see 50-60 people per city instead we averaged 250 to 300 per city. So at this point I just couldn’t estimate, I mean I figure we’re going to see ten thousand plus in DC at least, I appear in Boston, we are hoping there 100 to 150 and I think we’ll get close to that.

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