Alec Empire of Atari Teenage Riot interviews Anonymous @OpBlitzkrieg in Vice Magazine #nazileaks #nazihunt
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/alec-empire-interviews-anonymous-op-blitzkrieg-nazileaks?utm_source=vicetwitter
Vice published an edited version of the interview - please read the full un-edited version of the interview here as it gives more in depth view on what the OP Blitzkrieg activists are really about:
(make sure to follow their twitter account https://twitter.com/OpBlitzkrieg )
Alec Empire interviews Anonymous OP Blitzkrieg/ Nazileaks
1) Thanks for doing this interview! You are well known for taking down websites and online stores run by Neo Nazis groups.
Could you give us an idea of how many of these sites you managed to successfully attack and sabotage so far?
To be frankly we can’t say. There were so many sites besides the FuckNaziFriday-leaks we just were having some fun with without
making it public that we have never counted.
2) When I saw a lot of your actions posted on twitter I realized once again how many Neo Nazi websites are out there and the
groups behind them manage to get away with it, often even protected by the law.
Do you feel that you had to take action, especially in a time when Neo Nazis seem to be able to recruit more and more people? Do
you believe that the legal system in Germany fails to stop these groups from growing?
It is not only the duty of the legal system to stop these groups, it is much more the callenge for the society to deal with this
shit and to prevent these groups from becoming more influent. The activities and the crude and absurd thoughts of the neo nazis
must be exposed much more to show what bullshit is going on there. In our opinion it is a main goal to drag the nazi scene out of
their conspiracy into public attention. Part of this is to leak as many names as possible of supporters and sympathizers to show
them that the public takes note of their activities.
3) There had been some criticism from some people out there who feel that it’s wrong to ‘censor’ Neo Nazis and our society should
tolerate them. I heard this argument many times in my life - especially from those who are lethargic and never take any action.
My experience with Neo Nazis was always that you deal with extremely dangerous people who basically justify killings of whole
peoples and using words like ‘tolerance’ or ‘freedom of speech’ is completely absurd because there is no arguing when you are
confronted with Neo Nazis.
Why do you focus on these groups so much? Why do you think it is important to show in the ‘virtual’ world that there are people
like yourself out there who will fight them?
Well, may sound surprisingly, but at least we do not support censorship as we stand for freedom of speech, unless we are faced
with sick and dangerous ideologies. Once you start censoring, you will be censored soon, too.
The reason why we focus on these groups is that we see us politically just diametral to them. They stand for all we strictly
refuse, including oppression of minorities, censorship and all this damn shitty stuff. And of course it is important to show
others that and how they can fight groups like nazies. And that it is fun, too! When we startet playing around with the nazi
sites we were pretty amazed and amused about their stupid and completely incompetent setup.
4) Can you tell us about Nazileaks and why do you think it is so important to dismantle those people in the background who fund
these Neo Nazi organizations? Can you name some you were able to make public?
Nazileaks initially is meant as a general collection of leaks concerning nazis and nazi related sites, where our as well as third
party leaks can be found. Some are already older, some are really fresh. We want to point out that we do not intend to claim all
that leaks to us.
First of all nazileaks shall inform all whom are interested in and give a little view behind the structures. It is sometimes
quite funny to search names and see where else they could be found in the databases. Furthermore it is addressed to the nazis to
show that dumb asses that conspiracy is nothing but a wet dream as long as some are behind them. And we will keep on going after
them ;)
5) I have been talking a lot with Anonymous activists from all over the world. And whenever I speak to people who don’t know much
about the topic I always get this typical ‘Why are they anonymous? What do they have to hide?’ thing. I think your actions are
the perfect example why it is so important to allow people to protect their identity online. One big problem that Anti Fascist
groups had over the past decades was the constant threatening and bullying by Neo Nazis. When one speaks out against them in
certain areas in Germany for example, one becomes a victim of violence and worse.
What is your opinion on anonymity? Could you imagine to do the same activism without it?
Shurely not, that would be nothing else but kamikaze. Hiding our identity is essential for our activities, as well as it is for
others who do antifascistic work.
But aside that anonymity will become more and more important since the governments intend to observe their citizens with more and
more vicious tricks. Learning and experiencing anonymity makes people be prepared for some further approaches of observation and
may enable them to develop anonymisation techniques which hopefully are always a little bit ahead of the governmental effords.
From our point of view anonymity does not effect Anonymous in a negative way. Of course this means little more trolling and so,
but at least the people learn how to deal with it and how to prepare to prevent that. And why shouldn’t they be anonymous? Would
real names be more helpful? For what?
6) Do you see a danger that in our time Neo Nazi ideology could become so popular, that it will accepted by the political
mainstream? Do you find that often new ideas that have their roots in Nazi theories seem to gain popularity but not enough people
recognize them as such?
Why is it important to keep fighting those groups, political parties and organizations?
We think that its not the point to just fight those groups. Violence leads into violence, but doesn’t solve anything at the end.
More important is to prevent those people from becoming that stupid minded. The society and mainly the politicans are much in
demand not to always neglect these problems. But still they don’t want to see whats going on, refusing developing strategies and
campaigns to keep peolpe away from this nazi crap. *This* inactivity and unawareness should be fought.
7) It was awesome when you put the Atari Teenage Riot / Anonymous video for ‘the song Black Flags’ up on various Neo Nazi
websites. When we saw this on Twitter we posted it to our fan base and everybody was like “YES!” - We found that the positive
effect of such actions was understood and supported right away by everyone around us. Do you think music plays a role in the
fight against Nazis? What does music do for you and your activism? Do you think it can educate and mobilize people who would have
not thought about those topics before?
Hahaha, the pleasure was ours to have famous ATR playing on the fucking Nazi sites! Music is a good medium to reach many people
and to spread the message. But at least most people hear that kind of music what they already tend to, so it might be not easy to
reach and educate those who prefer different style.
8) For us it was extremely important to keep the song free for activists to use in their video clips or any other actions. To me
you guys using the song for this purpose was exactly why I explained my team a few months earlier why we have to be more open
about copyright for example.
Sometimes I imagine with the rest of the band if the various Anonymous activists would had to ask for ‘legal’ permission
beforehand - it would have been impossible. I often use this as an example when I speak to other artists how important it is that
artists control their own music and not give it away in the hands of music industry bosses who will control it to such extend
that the music can’t spread anymore. Most music industry channels are completely against music with a political message because
they fear it might offend their customers, listeners or viewers. Then there are the types who simply disagree of course. Do you
think the internet , a free internet, is vital also for musicians to spread music that does not go conform with what the music
industry requires? Isn’t it more important to keep those doors open instead of focussing too much on ‘music piracy’? This is such
a critical time and it looks like the authorities will really clamp down on internet freedoms now. Most musicians don’t seem to
understand why it is so important also for them to not let these new laws pass. What do you think?
9) Do you listen to music when you use your computer for activism? Or do you need absolute silence? Or do you become one with the
machine so that the outside world, even the room you’re in, doesn’t exist anymore?
For some hacking-activities we need silence. To get the victims databases isnt a one-click-procedure, its a work over days or
weeks. the release of the data eg on FuckNaziFridays with defaces on the victims servers mostly is an event with some beer and
loud music.
10) Will the battle ever be one? I always find it very strange that now that we seem to connect more and more with so many people
in the world through technology, Neo Nazis use pretty much the same technology but never seem to get a clue that the idea of
white supremacy has been proven wrong decades ago by science. In the information age…what is it these people don’t understand?
It’s a main part of the nature of humans that they only understand/see what they want. No technology is able to successfully
change this matter. And at least we are quite happy about it, because this results in opinions (which are subjective by nature),
even if not all meet our point of view. So what, we have to deal with it, it is the quintessence of plurarity and democracy. And
this is what we finally stand for.
