146: Free Aubrey Cottle!
Hacktivism Is Civil Disobedience
We’re back! Thanks for your patience as we not only battled wild weather, but went on a mission to Tenerife and the World Egg Organization where we presented on the role of Artificial Intelligence in the Egg Industry, and Avian Influenza.
Over the next few days we’ll share more of what we learned on this trip, as well as catch up on some of the events of the recent week. We wanted to prioritize today’s issue due to the relative urgency of the story.
Finally a big thanks to Ken McC who upgraded to a paid subscription during our hiatus. While this publication will always remain free from a paywall, morale and militancy is significantly increased by your monetary contributions!
Defend Our Hackers!
Canada must defend its hackers, resist U.S. intimidation, and embrace cyber resistance as a form of political sovereignty.
Aubrey Cottle is not a criminal. He is a political prisoner. And if Canada has any sense of dignity, sovereignty, or technological ambition, it will release him immediately—and refuse to hand him over to the United States.
Cottle, known online as @Kirtaner, is a renowned hacktivist and early member of Anonymous. His so-called crimes? Exposing the Texas Republican Party’s vulnerabilities. Leaking donor data from GiveSendGo, the crowdfunding platform that bankrolled the far-right “Freedom Convoy.” Holding fascists accountable, not with violence, but with code.
Hacktivism Is Civil Disobedience
This isn’t about criminal activity. This is about political expression. Hacktivism is the digital equivalent of a sit-in, a street blockade, or a strategic leak. It’s a protest of last resort in an era where institutions insulate themselves from scrutiny and accountability.
We don’t criminalize hunger strikes. We don’t extradite whistleblowers to hostile regimes. Why should we treat hacktivists differently?
The answer is obvious: because their targets are powerful.
The United States has made clear that it sees itself as a global enforcer, entitled to detain, punish, and even execute those who challenge its power—regardless of nationality, borders, or democratic principle. The extradition request for Aubrey Cottle is part of that imperial logic.
Canada should reject it outright.
This is about more than one person. It’s about sovereignty. It’s about choosing whether we stand with digital dissenters or with the autocrats who fear them. If Canada wants to punch above its weight in global affairs, it must protect its cyber capacity—and the people who wield it in defense of democracy.
Aubrey Cottle is one of those people.
Hackers Are Not the Problem. Insecure Institutions Are.
Most hacks don’t steal. They don’t destroy. They expose. And that exposure often reveals shocking levels of incompetence, negligence, and corruption—especially from the very institutions demanding obedience.
We shouldn’t be asking whether Cottle broke the law. We should be asking why the Texas Republican Party’s website was so vulnerable in the first place. Why GiveSendGo—a crowdfunding platform built for right-wing extremism—was entrusted with sensitive donor data. Why these platforms weren’t regulated or secured before Cottle got there.
Hackers are a mirror. What we see when we look into it is up to us.
The Political Prisoners of the Digital Age
Cottle’s treatment mirrors that of other political prisoners like Julian Assange, and Chelsea Manning—fellow hacktivists persecuted for exposing sensitive political data. In each case, the state is not punishing violence or theft. It is punishing visibility.
Then there’s Luigi Mangione, who may be facing the death penalty, not so much for the crimes he is accused of, but their viral popularity on social media.
Political prisoners are punished not for what they did, but for what they revealed, how their actions resonate, and for who they threatened in the process.
What Canada Must Do
Free Aubrey Cottle immediately.
Reject the extradition request from the United States.
Recognize Cottle as a political prisoner.
Legalize and protect hacktivism as a form of civil disobedience.
Reform cybersecurity laws to prioritize accountability, not obedience.
Invest in public cyber capabilities and support Canadian hackers.
If we fail to act, we are complicit. If we allow the U.S. to imprison our digital dissenters, we are not acting as an ally—we are a colony. The US and Canada relationship is being renegotiated if not reinvented, this is a crucial area in which our national security and national infrastructure is at risk.
Canada must decide: does it want to be a nation that defends its citizens, or one that surrenders them?
Free Aubrey Cottle. Now.
Addendum: Time for Aggressive Network Self-Defense?
If Canada wants to survive the 21st century as a sovereign nation, it needs more than diplomacy—it needs hackers.
In 2005, security expert Neil Wyler—known in the hacker world as Grifter—helped introduce a paradigm shift: aggressive network self-defense. The idea was simple but revolutionary. Instead of waiting passively to be attacked, defenders should move proactively, identifying threats, misleading adversaries, and in some cases, taking the fight to them in cyberspace.
Today, that concept is no longer theoretical. The United States is threatening Canadian sovereignty, via a range of means, policy, culture, and potentially force.
What if Canada embraced aggressive digital self-defense—not just as a technical framework, but as a political one?
That would mean:
Supporting independent hacktivists like Aubrey Cottle as frontline defenders, not outlaws.
Building a civilian cyber militia of white-hat hackers, decentralized and disruptive by design.
Developing and deploying active defense operations to counter foreign disinformation, economic espionage, and coercive diplomacy.
Institutionalizing cyber resistance as a pillar of national security, grounded in transparency, accountability, and democratic control.
Hacktivism is not a threat—it’s a warning system. A force multiplier. A survival mechanism for democratic societies under siege.
Neil Wyler’s early warning was clear: the future of cybersecurity is proactive, not passive. Aubrey Cottle is living proof. Now the question is: will Canada choose to defend its networks, its people, and its future—or let Washington decide who gets locked up for seeking the truth?
It’s time to stop playing defense.
You'll notice over time I use the word "we" a lot and am often deliberately vague. Sometimes we is me, sometimes we is us, sometimes we is a future we aspire to. 😁
Just want to point out that the UK recently sentenced a group of climate activists to 10 years of prison for *having a Zoom meeting*, so we are definitely in an era where protest is rapidly being criminalized. Agree wholeheartedly that we need to be objecting loudly and not let people be quietly disappeared