It's that time of year again -- to hit the streets and protest in the name of privacy and Internet neutrality. On February 23, the designated International Day for Privacy (#IDP13), local activists and advocates are planning to rally outside the Massachusetts Statehouse before hosting a CryptoParty at which they'll teach self-defense tactics for protecting one's self from the prying eyes of Big Brother.

When it comes to winter demonstrations in New England, it takes a just cause or pure outrage to turn people out in arctic weather. That goes for rabble-rousing protesters, as well as for media folk who often lean on web searches and phone calls when the climate dips. The case of internet impresario and political target Aaron Swartz, whose suicide two weeks ago sparked much outrage and sadness among his friends and admirers, meets both criteria – people are extremely pissed about his plight, and they're determined to channel his tragic passing into a teaching moment.

From today's Phoenix editorial:

This is the country we live in: not a single Wall Street executive has been indicted for crashing the world economy and gaming the financial system out of multi-billions in order to rip off an entire generation of hard-working Americans. Yet the United States Department of Justice, through the agency of its Boston US Attorney, saw fit — as a matter of routine practice — to legally pursue a young, idealistic Internet activist and internationally known computer scientist, Aaron Swartz, with a heavy-handed perseverance that can only be called sick and perverted.

I walked into “Misuse the Internet and Make People Love You” about 15 minutes late, but just in time for the panel's conversation about screwing with corporations on Twitter. Specifically, they were giving the example of a ruse that was aimed at Qdoba. A troll told the burrito chain that his local outpost was being frequented by a diaper-clad degenerate, to which Team Qdoba responded: “What location?”

If there's one thing I learned about the nation-trotting Occupy troll Paul Carnes (a/k/a Paul Fetch) in profiling him last month, it's that he's relentless. There's no limit to his schemes, and he seemingly has no shame (we'll get there in a second, but Carnes is now suing four individuals aligned with the movement for reasons you'd never believe).

There's not yet been enough time to process everything that happened at last night's Occupy Boston General Assembly. At least not in a journalistically responsible way. So for now, until the callbacks come in and I look into this further, I'll just report my own observations from the ground. In the least I might be able to clarify some rumors that are popping up online and outside of camp.

Depending on whom you ask, Massachusetts-based protest organizer Gregg Housh had a major victory – or a significant loss – in Boston Municipal Court this Wednesday. As reported in The Phoenix this past week in the feature “Battling Scientology,” Housh faced charges of harassment, disturbing the peace, and disturbing religious worship for his involvement with the picket group Anonymous and his actions against the Boston Church of Scientology