Of all those books, he found particular inspiration in the autobiography of Emma Goldman, the anarcho-communist agitator who served two prison terms in the 1890s and 1910s, and was eventually deported to Soviet Russia by J. Edgar Hoover’s Justice Department. Her life, he says, serves as a reminder that a mere single prison stint doesn’t give anyone an excuse to quit fighting. “It’s very easy to fade into nihilism, to say, fuck these people, they’ve made their own bed,” says Brown. “But everyone’s compelled to consider that she did this, that she felt the need to do so. You can decide whether to emulate that. Or you can just accept that people like her have sacrificed so much for us, and then proceed to have fun with your telephone.”
Wired, “Anonymous’ Barrett Brown Is Free—and Ready to Pick New Fights”
