I was well into my second day of covering the Open Books, Ltd. debut at the 2008 Printer’s Row Book Fair in Chicago when I stumbled across five masked demonstrators within a hundred feet of the Open Books tent. I suppose I was first drawn to them because, back home, it’s illegal to go parading around in a mask if you’re not a child Trick-or-treating or an adult plagued with a serious facial disfigurement or something requiring breathing apparatus like advanced COPD. I wanted to know more than anything else what those characters were up to and how they were getting away with running around looking like bank robbers. Photographing them was almost a secondary concern.

Even after I’d shot them (twice) and conducted an extremely cursory interview, I’d no idea whatsoever how closely their existence had already grazed my own in the past, how massive was the scope of their effort, or how much cause they and I had to be wary of one another. They were out there to communicate their message as openly as possible while maintaining their anonymity as best they could out of real fear. In the midst of their effort, I show up with a ridiculously large DSLR in my right hand, a big, black bag of gear on one shoulder, and a blatantly obvious pro-level tripod in my left hand. They must have thought they were done for. In fact they took precautions for the second shoot.

“They” are Anonymous and Anonymous is a difficult thing to describe. The members of Anonymous with which I was acquainted (through a fascination with an online game) might be said to be atypical participants in that global, internet-based community. They each identified themselves as individuals – albeit through the use of avatars with fanciful, fabricated names thereby preserving their privacy. In general Anonymous is highly anonymous. It is an ever-changing collective of internet users that in many ways saw its beginnings in the automated assignation of the title “anonymous” to people who posted photographs, drawings, and graphics to imageboards without identifying themselves.

By some estimates the membership of Anonymous numbers in the tens of thousands. It is without a doubt a multi-national movement and has developed what may be called a unique amalgamation of philosophies that would not have arisen outside of the environment of the World Wide Web.

Three and a half years ago (well before I made the photograph at the top of the page) I interviewed a member of the community that went by the avatar name “furseiseki.” At one point I asked, “Are you describing a sort of collective intelligence when you talk about ‘Anonymous?’ Could you provide an example of how Anonymous expresses a thought?” She responded:

Idiocy and genius; acceptance and ridicule; epic win and massive fail. Anonymous doesn’t have any well defined ‘opinions,’ but rather certain ‘tendencies.’ For instance Anonymous will always choose win over fail. Anonymous doesn’t think in words, but rather in memes, nonsensical images and text which form a language. It is with this language that Anonymous talks to itself, basks in the insights gained by thinking through its multitude of minds.
I think it’s of utmost importance to note that I am in no way anonymous at this moment. In fact I’d say this interview is the antithesis of anonymity, lol. To just inject a meme into the conversation would be pointless. That being said, I can’t say for sure that Anonymous is a collective intelligence. That’s how it appears to me but I can’t speak for Anonymous. My guess is that Anonymous thinks of itself as a story. A story about how my life got flipped; turned upside down.

On January 21, 2008 Anonymous declared war on the Church of Scientology with the following video posted to YouTube.

English speaking Anonymous members formulated and planned the execution of what came to be known as Project Chanology on the websites 711chan.org, 4chan, and an array of Internet Relay Chat channels in response to the Church of Scientology’s issuance of a claim of copyright infringement against YouTube. The complaint cited specifically YouTube’s hosting of a video of actor Tom Cruise speaking on the subject of Scientology.

In a similar complaint to Gawker.com, which was also hosting the video, Ava Paquette of the firm Moxon & Kobrin wrote on behalf of the Church of Scientology International:

This is a video work that is exclusively for the use of our client to be shown in its Churches of Scientology throughout the world. This work has never been distributed or authorized to be shown, other than by CSI’s sub-licensees, in Churches of Scientology for religious purposes only.
We were recently notified by my client that this copyrighted work had been stolen from one of its Churches.

As can be seen from the more than 67,000 comments accompanying YouTube’s alleged infringement, a large amount of ridicule was generated for both the church and Tom Cruise. Despite the timbre of sentiment popular in those comments, Anonymous then and now maintains that Project Chanology was not instituted as an extension of those attacks but rather as a protest against the church’s attempts to remove the Tom Cruise video. The project grew into a refutation of the church as a whole and an effort to bring “into the public eye hundreds of illegal actions, fraudulent activities, and human rights violations perpetrated by the Church of Scientology.”

In a move that would seem to confirm Anonymous’ allegations that the Church of Scientology seeks to censor unfavorable remarks, American Rights Counsel, LLC issued on behalf of CSI more than 4000 DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) copyright infringement complaints to YouTube in a single 12 hour period between September 4^th and September 5^th of the same year. All of the videos cited contained material critical of Scientology.

Roughly two years prior to the inception of Project Chanology, the Church of Scientology International sought to restrict the use of the terms “Scientology,” “Scientologists,” “L. Ron Hubbard” (the founder of the Church of Scientology), and “Hubbard” among others including references to L. Ron Hubbard’s wife in an Australin copyright infringement complaint. In early March of 2002, one month prior, the firm Moxon & Kobrin, again representing the Church of Scientology International, requested that Google, Inc. remove www.xenu.net (a website devoted to criticizing Scientology) from its listings.

Anonymous has, by its own admission, launched illegal DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks against the Church of Scientology’s various websites depriving the church and its members use of their internet resources for extended periods. Anonymous has disrupted the operations of the church through the use of black faxes and “Google bombs.” Anonymous has no reservations about claiming the given title “Cyber Vigilante Group.” They have, however, toned down the destructive aspects of their efforts since the “Wise Beard Man” Mark Bunker, an Emmy Award-winning journalist and long-time Scientology critic, posted a video on YouTube urging caution and responsibility on January 27, 2008.

The photograph at the top of this page was shot on June 7, 2008. The group shot below was made two hours later once I’d returned to conduct an interview. If I may say so, Anonymous looks here quite a bit tamer than the ominous presence they present online (despite the reaction of onlookers). Still there’s the fellow in the Guy Fawkes mask. You might notice he’s shed a remarkable amount of weight in two hours.

The black fellow I wonder about. I wonder how conscious he was of the brilliance of his attire. I wonder if he was completely aware of how keenly he was playing on stereotypes with his black suit, sunglasses, and kerchief. I wonder if he – the only one that identified himself as a former Scientology adherent – fully understood how thoroughly he was exploiting and promoting the fear those-in-the-know have for Anonymous. If I had to bet, I’d say he knew full well.

We are your brothers and sisters, your parents and children, your superiors and your underlings. We are the concerned citizens standing next to you. Anonymous is everywhere, yet nowhere. Our strength lies in our numbers.

– Anonymous