Jeremy Hammond of LulzSec Pleads Guilty To Stratfor Attack

eldavojohn writes "After facing 30 years to life imprisonment and pleading not guilty to charges last year, Jeremy Hammond has pleaded guilty to his alleged involvement in Anonymous' hacking of Stratfor. The self proclaimed hacktivist member of LulzSec, who has compared his situation to that of the late Aaron Swartz, explained his reasoning in his plea: 'Today I pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This was a very difficult decision. I hope this statement will explain my reasoning. I believe in the power of the truth. In keeping with that, I do not want to hide what I did or to shy away from my actions. This non-cooperating plea agreement frees me to tell the world what I did and why, without exposing any tactics or information to the government and without jeopardizing the lives and well-being of other activists on and offline. During the past 15 months I have been relatively quiet about the specifics of my case as I worked with my lawyers to review the discovery and figure out the best legal strategy. There were numerous problems with the government's case, including the credibility of FBI informant Hector Monsegur. However, because prosecutors stacked the charges with inflated damages figures, I was looking at a sentencing guideline range of over 30 years if I lost at trial. I have wonderful lawyers and an amazing community of people on the outside who support me. None of that changes the fact that I was likely to lose at trial. But, even if I was found not guilty at trial, the government claimed that there were eight other outstanding indictments against me from jurisdictions scattered throughout the country. If I had won this trial I would likely have been shipped across the country to face new but similar charges in a different district. The process might have repeated indefinitely. ... I did what I believe is right.'"

Comments

New strategy in criminal law?

[Jawnn]

Charge someone that you know is guilty of one thing with a ridiculous array of charges that you know he is not guilty of, on the chance that he'll take your plea "deal" and avoid the possibility of being convicted (wrongly) on the BS charges.
Sounds rather like patent trolling.

Re:New strategy in criminal law?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason it sounds like patent trolling is more because it sounds like extortion. They leveraged the law to force him to plea. If he hadn't he could have spent years going around the country until someone convicted him. I don't know much about him or if he deserves his conviction or not but that seems like a flaw in the justice system that should be fixed.

Re:New strategy in criminal law?

[g0bshiTe]

I know the guy, from his activity at HackThisSite from long ago, I doubt these are trumped charges or multiples intended to get him on one. He has been charged and has server 2 years already for hacking back then it was for stealing a database with over 5000 credit card accounts in it. I wouldn't doubt this as well.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/11/23/233208/stratfor-hacker-could-be-sentenced-to-life-says-judge
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/05/14/232217/lulzsec-member-pleads-not-guilty-in-stratfor-leak-case
Jeremy has a long history of run ins with the law, I doubt this will be his last. I distanced myself from both him and the site years ago due to his volatile political stance and open opinions on hacktivism.

For a site that was touted as a safe place to learn computer and internet security it was obviously a recruiting ground for hacktivism.

Re:New strategy in criminal law?

[Tom]

It's not new in the least.

It's a standard feature of the legal system. You can claim many things, they can even be mutually exclusive, and the court case is there to check which ones hold up.

It applies to both sides, as well. Defendants routinely claim that a) they didn't do it, b) they were intoxicated when doing it and c) it was an accident. The geek in you winces that these can not all be true, so how can you claim them all - but to a lawyer, that's not even worth mentioning.

Re:New strategy in criminal law?

[shentino]

It's only a flaw if you're a member of the public.

If you're part of the establishment it's a feature.

Re:New strategy in criminal law?

[similar_name]

A murderer being charged for multiple murders isn't a loophole.

It's not a loophole, it's a flaw. For several reasons. Among them;

If the suspect is truly guilty of the charges then they should serve their time. Why are we letting criminals get away with serving so much less than they should simply because they plead guilty?

Studies show that a great number of innocent people will plead guilty in the plea bargain process. Students were paired with actors to perform a task. They affirmed they would not cheat before the study. Since the other 'student' was an actor, it was fully known whether the person was guilty or not. Many innocent people plead guilty when they are told they can fight the charge of cheating and risk expulsion from school or plead guilty and write an essay.

The only benefit argued by proponents of the plea bargain is that it helps speed up the judicial process for backlogged courts. I don't agree that's even a benefit. If courts are backlogged perhaps we should reassess what we criminalize and prosecute rather than speeding up the conviction process.

Re: New strategy in criminal law?

[TapeCutter]

This reasoning has never sat well with me, it's common knowledge the mobsters were in bed with the newly formed FBI during prohibition and had many high ranking "friends" throughout the judicial system for decades. A more likely explanation for the failure to convict is that the non-stick mobsters had their hands up the arse of the court, Sicily has a long history of the same problem. Mobsters don't adhere to the principle of a fair trial and will only come unstuck when they are confronted with an authority they can not intimidate (eg: the IRS). If you want to see a more extreme example of mobsters usurping authority, look no further than the drug lords of Mexico.

At the end of the day, one of the fundamental principles of western law is that it is better to allow the guilty to keep their freedom than it is to deny freedom to the innocent. This of course assumes all trials are fair trials (to both sides).

Re:New strategy in criminal law?

[Dantoo]

Pleading "not guilty" is a "plea" to charges laid and read. It is not a statement of facts. It is a formal notification that you are going to make a case for consideration by the Court. On some charges, in a number of jurisdictions, you are not even allowed to plea other than "not guilty". Pleading is not and cannot be either a truth or lie.

So, when did he lie?

lulzsec is not the good guys

[D1G1T]

The more I read about what these guys were doing--and I mean the stuff they've admitted to, not just been accused of--the more I think they are getting what they deserve. Breaking into someone's network to get at information that the public should know is political. Breaking into someones network and racking up charges on personal credit card numbers is criminal. They're like the idiots that smash store windows during street protests.

Re:lulzsec is not the good guys

[i kan reed]

This was not a good company.

Re:lulzsec is not the good guys

[interkin3tic]

"Good guy" and "bad guy" status is not as mutually exclusive as you might think. The "idiots that smash store windows during street protests" sometimes organize to do something more productive, things you'd consider to be more "political."

The Boston Tea party: Some hooligans in the US in Boston dressed up as native Americans and dumped the tea cargo into the harbor. That was vandalism. It wasn't to protest just one thing either, there were multiple issues the protesters were upset about. I suspect that were something similar to happen today, Fox would give them the same treatment they gave the occupy wall street movement. "It's vandalism! And what are they even upset ABOUT? They can't even tell us that (at least not in few enough words to fit on a bumper sticker.)"

Anyway, they can be thieves and window smashers and still have valid political motivations. And what they've done is illegal no matter what their motivations.

Re:lulzsec is not the good guys

[Anonymous Coward]

Declaration of Independence?

I think you missed the point. The rules you follow in social life are based on morals as defined by your cultural background, evolved over centuries of social interaction. The rights you cite are valid in places that do not care about the Declaration of Independence. The laws we follow are codified morals.

Re:Lies?

[i kan reed]

Because Habeus Corpus is dead. Murdered in an attempt to "be tough on crime." I think these convictions will do very little to deter other anonymous splinter groups.

Reminder that what this guy leaked that he's being prosecuted for: The company stratfor was using their government sponsored spying program to also spy on companies in order to provide Goldman Sachs with insider information through a foreign owned subsidiary, in order to dodge US insider trading laws.

Then the government arrests him, and not them.

Re:One side of the story...

[tnk1]

Yes, there is certainly some self-serving element. I think he's probably guilty of something as well.

However, consider if you actually felt that you were innocent, and I don't mean "activist innocent", I mean you didn't actually do anything illegal. If the government decided that they wanted you in jail, they'd just have to start stacking charges on you and get you up to 30 years or so. Then you have to decide if you can win or not, charge by charge, AND you have to decide if you can pay for it.

The problem is, it is *way* too easy for the government to use this tactic, and tactic is what it is. It is tantamount to forcing a plea of guilty despite the fact that prosecutors are not sure that they could win the case. Instead of the search for truth, it becomes bullying of the worst form.

All I can say is: think twice about doing anything where you will end up on the wrong side of an Assistant US Attorney. Their job is to convict you, and they will not hesitate to use overkill to do it.

And for the rest of us.... think about how to make this go away. It is an understatement to say that it won't be easy to do, but in an age of increasing Federal presence, it is critical that these processes are firmly under control or there will be serious trouble going forward.