Robbin’s good when the rich are corrupt

On Christmas Eve this year the website of security firm Stratfor was hacked into and a number of their clients’ credit card details were stolen. The stolen details were then used to run up bills of around $500,000. That the list of victims included Lockheed Martin – manufacturers of, among other things, fighter jets and ballistic missiles – and that all of the stolen money was donated to charity, doesn’t seem to matter. This was an act of theft and the perpetrators face prosecution and lengthy jail sentences if caught.

A group of self-proclaimed ‘hacktivists’ known as Anonymous quickly claimed responsibility. Their intention, they stated, was to highlight the fact that Stratfor and others like them are “holders of power in a world that has long been governed in accordance with the dictate that might makes right”. In the eyes of the law these ‘hacktivists’ are now criminals, and this raises some intriguing questions.

Firstly, how many people would object to seeing money being taken from profiteers of warfare, like Lockheed Martin, and given to organisations like Save the Children or the Red Cross? In principle, I would imagine, very few. But the rule of law exists to stop society from descending into anarchy or mob rule and everyone must be equal before the eyes of the law in order for it to maintain any kind of judicial integrity. Which leads to the second question.

If laws are in place for the protection of the society which they govern, then what does it say about our society that we allow the likes of Lockheed Martin to make billions from selling murder and misery whilst criminalising those who would oppose them? Perhaps Anonymous are on to something when they suggest that the world is governed by the dictate that might makes right.

The fact of the matter is that our laws are constructed by our governments and all too often it would seem that economic might makes legal right. Examples of this are numerous. Only last month the intrepid bunch of tent dwellers at St Paul’s were told that they will no longer be able to legally inhabit the public ground surrounding the cathedral.

The High Court deemed the members of the Occupy movement to be “obstructing public highway” and causing a “private nuisance” to visitors of the church. Ironic when you consider that thanks to the Highways Act 1980 the municipal government of the City of London has the power to close off any piece of public land in the borough for “development purposes” – i.e. it can sell public land to the rich. The economically disenfranchised will just have to find somewhere else to protest, somewhere where they won’t be making a “nuisance” of themselves. It would seem that there’s one law for the rich and another for the poor.

Compare this with September last year and the publication of the Vickers Report, the long awaited treatise on banking reform. The report, three years in the making, eventually recommended legislation to be enacted that would reduce the likelihood and impact of another bank failure. The deadline for this legislation is 2019. That’s 12 years after the malfeasant fraudsters at Lehman Brothers started the financial crisis rolling. More than enough time for the banking sector’s army of lobbyists to chip away at the proposals until they become ineffective and in stark contrast to the three months it’s taken to find a way to criminalise the St Paul’s protesters.

It’s not too difficult to see where the pugnacious attitude of groups like Anonymous comes from. With no effective institutions in place to address these kinds of abuses of power, it’s little wonder that vigilante groups occasionally spring up. It’s tricky to argue that credit card fraud is a legitimate way of meting out social justice, but the unchecked criminality at the top of society has blurred the correlation between legitimacy and legality so much that it’s little wonder some citizens feel the need to take the law into their own hands.

Protests from the lower rungs of society will surely continue to happen until politicians from both sides of the political spectrum accept the need to examine the underlying causes of such dissatisfaction. Until then the economic might of the corporate and political syndicates might make them right in the eyes of the law, but the moral high ground will remain disputed territory.