Billboard Liberation Front vs. ATT + NSA

Snip from a BLF missive:

The Billboard Liberation Front today announced a major new advertising improvement campaign executed on behalf of clients AT&T and the National Security Agency. Focusing on billboards in the San Francisco area, this improvement action is designed to promote and celebrate the innovative collaboration of these two global communications giants.

More, and larger, uncropped version of the pic above by Jacob Appelbaum is here. (thanks, Jacob Appelbaum)

• [BLCoakley]

  Just for the record, If you guys ever see a Subaru Billboard you want to mess with, Subaru spelled backwards is U R A Bus. (And compared to a Subaru, most cars are a bus.) :-)

• [the spacebase]

  Things were tense between my ex and I when she started working for AT&T, nevermind that she was selling cell phones. I took it out on her; I see now that I should have taken it out on billboards.

• [Sedgequill]

  How effective are drones when deployed over such hilly terrain (so I hear) for reconnaissance or strike missions?

• [CJ deSoda]

  James:

  We like beer. I’m particular to Porter and Stout. Milton likes Rye though.

  Topically: Not only do we make the posters such that they don’t permanently damage the sign, we always leave a bottle of scotch for the poor sods who have to dis-improve our work. There was a $60 bottle of Macallen 12 yo. up there right below the “NSA” portion

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Eiconoclast, thank goodness you posted. Someone has hacked your account! He was here just before you showed up.

• [eiconoclast]

  Um… so why did my post get altered? Did I say something unpopular? I guess dissenting viewpoints aren’t appreciated? Or was my sarcasm too difficult to understand?

• [RyanH]

  Oh, someone’s going to Gitmo for this one.

• [airship]

  I hear it’s nice there this time of year.

• [MrsBug]

  Okay, I know this might seem a stupid question and I fully accept any scorn and derision that comes as a result of it: Is this for real or just Photoshopped?

  If it’s real, God bless’em, everyone. That takes some cajones.

  If it’s Photoshopped, it’s still doggone funny!

• [Another Aaron]

  The scotch is a nice touch. :)

• [Antinous]

  Take heart, Eiconoclast. Someday there’ll be a cure for NPD.

• [David Carroll]

  If it was Photo$hopped the background of the new lettering would (should) match. Hmm.. I have access to a large format printer, a sense of humour, and a camera. I’m off to find the perfect sign.

• [arkizzle]

  #8 Ivan, I’ve never seen the tv ads, but I understand the message of BLFs re-work: that AT&T are complicit in spying on US citizens..

  What more do I need to know? Do you mean the original campaign was horrible or BLFs re-work?

• [ElTimbalino]

  RE: Disemvoulment.

  Teresa wrote:
  “However, Sedgequill is wrong about deliberate humiliation and befuddling. There is no such intent. Disemvowelling is intended to deprecate the text in question, keep passers-by from automatically reading it, be legible to those who are willing to put some work into it, and instruct onlookers about what is and isn’t valued in this forum.”

  Teresa, to stop the casual reader mistaking moderation for server error, maybe when a comment is disemvouled, it could also be tagged with:

  “Disemvouled by a moderator” at the beginning. You could even have ‘Disemvouled’ linked to wiki or some other explanation of Boing Boing policy

  Up until now, I thought it was either a server error or a paranoid technique used by the commenter to disrupt searches by NSA and such.

• [devnull]

  “If it’s real, God bless’em, everyone. That takes some cajones.”

  I bet it took some cajones to get up there, yeah. If they didn’t had a ladder and had to use a stack of boxes to get here, that took some cajones.

  It also took some cojones.

  ;)

• [zikzak]

  It’s modified in the real world. That’s the main point, to turn a high-visibility public advertisement into a high-visibility statement about the advertiser or product.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Liberation_Front

• [License Farm]

  Given that the BLF have been around for about 30 years now and have sabotaged countless billboards to date, all while remaining mostly incognito, I would say this is very, very real.

• [Sedgequill]

  Eiconoclast, you’ve been ambush disemvoweled.

• [James David]

  @BLF folks (CJDESODA, Milton)
  If I was in San Francisco, I’d happily oblige. Know of any goings on in the Boston area? Feel like dropping in for a few words on our blog about art and activism? I’d love to do an interview!

• [Milton Rand Kalman]

  @James Davis

  We are headed to Ghent for Vooruit’s The Game is Up conference next week…drop us a line on our contact page and we will work something out in late March

• [Sedgequill]

  I got jerked around into wondering what happened to Eiconoclast’s account and altered comment. I did not come to boingboing omniscient and hence I was unaware of the personal proclivities of boingboing editors and administrators.

  A visitor to boingboing should not find it necessary, as I did, to research the practice of removing vowels from words, learn that the practice is called disemvoweling, and find in search results a link to a Wikipedia entry or another source that happens to describe boingboing behavior—although disemvowelizing as practiced at boingboing censures more than it censors.

  Having fun using disemvowelizing to humiliate some commenters while befuddling and inconveniencing readers who don’t know what’s going on may feel like a wonderful thing to those doing it. I’ll no longer expect to find wonderful things, or administrative honesty and civility, at boingboing.

• [dculberson]

  I am ordinarily strongly anti-graffiti, but I just can’t work up any ire against the BLF.

• [ivan256]

  That’s such a horrible ad campaign.

  For starters, you don’t know what the hell the billboards are talking about unless you’ve seen the TV ads. Plus, the TV ads feature such non-believable characters that I can’t help but think the ad campaign is designed to convince people that “AT&T if for somebody else, not people like me!”

  These guys did AT&T a favor.

• [Santa’s Knee]

  “BLF, you are part of the rebel alliance and a traitor! Take them away!”

• [Antinous]

  A visitor to boingboing should not find it necessary, as I did, to research the practice of removing vowels from words, learn that the practice is called disemvoweling, and find in search results a link to a Wikipedia entry or another source that happens to describe boingboing behavior

  The other way to find out is by having it happen to you, so your method sounds much pleasanter to me.

• [Takuan]

  Dear Sedgequill

  Who is the kinder teacher? She who lets the student discover consequences – or the other, who misleads by coddling?

  BoingBoing is a perilous place. At any moment,without warning, your opinion can be DISAGREED WITH! Just like that! Even heathens and infidels lurk here. There is no spelling correction! Can you imagine that? As for civility… well, let me assure you, they are ALL savages here.

  For the strong,BB can be place of learning and sustenance though. But only the fittest survive.

• [Anonymous]

  I alway wondered why you couldn’t start a nonprofit fund to purchase billboard space to conduct such actions legally…..

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Eltimbalino, while I love the idea of disrupting NSA searches, they’d see right through disemvowelling.

  I just need to get that statement on moderation finished.

• [TYHTF]

  Tangible commentary, while naughty naughty, works great at cutting through the media/internet noise.

• [James David]

  I’d buy BLF a round of drinks for this one.

  Peter Fuss is another one to watch. He’s done some great billboard liberations.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Sedgequill’s right on one point: we should have a general statement on moderation. I’ve been trying to write one for some time now.

  However, Sedgequill is wrong about deliberate humiliation and befuddling. There is no such intent. Disemvowelling is intended to deprecate the text in question, keep passers-by from automatically reading it, be legible to those who are willing to put some work into it, and instruct onlookers about what is and isn’t valued in this forum.

• [Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator]

  Eiconoclast, did you really post two messages in a row with completely different tones?

• [Takuan]

  Hey! Joint venture! All BoingBoing commentators should throw their thoughts and bile into the hat!

  ahem: Moderation Rules: Don’t say anything you aren’t prepared to say to someone’s face.

  Is that good? Can you use it???

• [Antinous]

  I would rather denounce and rebut racist, homophobic, misogynist, etc. comments than gut them, unless they go on or multiply out of control. The ‘I’m bored’ comments are the ones that drive me nuts.

• [Milton Rand Kalman]

  Yes of course its real, we’ll be releasing a video of hit later this week, you picky bastards

  and no its not graffiti, the BLF have a strict policy of not damaging the board permanently, which reduces our liability if we ever get caught. The art is held in place with foam picture tape.

  covertly yours,
  Milton Rand Kalman
  BLF Chief Scientist

• [eiconoclast]

  It’s hard to learn what is acceptable when there is no general list and when my comment is “disemvoweled” without any explanation as to why.

  This is like the teacher who smacks kids who do something wrong without any explanation as to what they did wrong.

  As far as I can tell, my comment was gutted because of the opinions I expressed. If Boing Boing has ideological rules, it would be nice if they were posted somewhere.

  I don’t mind being disagreed with or even insulted. I don’t appreciate my posts being defaced by a moderator just because the moderator disagrees with them.

• [Anonymous]

  I’m normally a conservative guy.
  But I think the wiretapping laws with immunity are crossing the line.
  Great statement BLF.
  Important too…
  I wonder if the readers here realize how important.

• [eiconoclast]

  Thnk gd smn s stndng p fr th lttl gy. Th lst thng w wnt s fr cmpns t cprt wth th gvrnmnt n tryng t ctch trrrsts. Scrw tht. Lt’s mk sr tht w stgmtz ny cprtn wth th gvrnmnt r lw nfrcmnt.

  ftr ll, th nw FS bll s jst n ttmpt by Chmpy McBshHtlr t wrtp frdm-lvng mrcn ctzns s ny dssntrs cn b swpt p n nmrkd vns nd tkn strght t Gtm fr dly wtrbrdng.

  t’s gd thng tht th trrrsts hvn’t lrnd t s lwsts nd th mrcn jstc s wpn n thr fght r thy mght t p tlcmmnctn cmpns wth lwsts nd rs th cst f cprtng s tht t’s tht mch hrdr fr th fscst mrcn C t cptr th Jhdsts wh nly wnt s t lv thm ln t bld thr slmc tp n th Mddl st.

• [eiconoclast]

  Actually, I kind of like the BLF. The no-harm philosophy and the bottles of scotch are a nice touch.

• [Santa’s Knee]

  MRL – well played.