Ask HN: What can we do to help Andrew Auernheimer?

It frustrates me that I did not lift a finger to help Aaron Swartz. Part of the problem is that I feel so damned impotent when it comes to actually doing anything. Petitions make our numbers known, but they are all bark and no bite.

I'd like to open a brainstorming discussion here about what we can do to add a systematic bite to our bark. And not just a bite, but a focused bite that we can all get behind to take a chunk out of injustice.

I'll be honest, I don't think I have any great ideas to address this. I have a couple off-the-wall ideas that I'll throw out there. You should do the same. If someone comes up with something brilliant that we can all get excited about, well, let's stop procrastinating and start our counterattack, shall we?

For my part, here's some brainstorming:

1. We are the new media; let's do what the media should: The SOPA blackout was an inspiring success. Can we be more systematic with this method? What if, once a month or so, we democratically chose some injustice being perpetrated by the justice department (the Andrew Auernheimer case, for example), and focused all our energy on a repeat of the success we had with the SOPA blackout? I'm imagining a simple voting site with a countdown and instructions for participating once the target had been selected. Each target could have a list of subscribers - people or companies willing to take a public position on the issue - giving us a better idea of which target might be successfully addressed.

2. Can we put our money where our mouths are? What if someone started a startup that allowed us to automatically funnel money to politicians that behaved the way we wanted them to behave? For example, with a few clicks, I might put twenty-five dollars towards the reelection campaign of a politician that started an investigation into the case of Andrew Auernheimer. If a politician did so, they would automatically receive my 25$ along with whatever other money was donated to the cause. If more than one politician did so, it would be split among them.

This is a serious problem that affects all of us. A lot of the public tolerates us as witches and wizards and have little compunction about turning on us for doing harmless things that seem scary to them. The first step in doing something about it is choosing something to do. Well, let's get started, damn it.