Prison Is For Dangerous Criminals, Not Hacktivists

In late 2011, defense contractor Stratfor suffered a cybersecurity breach that resulted in a leak of millions of internal emails. A few months later, the FBI arrested hacktivist Jeremy Hammond and several others for actions related to the breach. Hammond pleaded guilty to one count of violating the CFAA, and today his sentence was handed down: 10 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release. He said, [The prosecutors] have made it clear they are trying to send a message to others who come after me. A lot of it is because they got slapped around, they were embarrassed by Anonymous and they feel that they need to save face." Reader DavidGilbert99 adds, "Former LulzSec and Anonymous member Jake Davis argues that U.S. lawmakers need to take a leaf out of the U.K.'s legal system and not put Jeremy Hammond behind bars for his part in the hack of Stratfor. 'Jeremy Hammond has a lot to give society too. Prisons are for dangerous people that need to be segmented from the general population. Hackers are not dangerous, they are misunderstood, and while disciplinary action is of course necessary, there is nothing disciplined about locking the door on a young man's life for 10 years.'"

Comments

Jeremy Hammond is a repeat offender.

[Chas]

Okay, I happen to be VERY familiar with Jeremy Hammond (for someone who isn't part of his butt-kissing crew). I associated with him for a couple years in hacking circles in the mid-2000's. My opinion of him isn't very high. And I can't tell you what I think of his ethics, as he has none. He's someone who's constantly looking for an enemy to somehow oppress him and fight against.

This argument MIGHT hold water if this was Hammond's first offense. It isn't.

He was expelled from college for a hacking incident. Not for the hack itself, but for installing back doors into the systems and then failing to disclose them when he came forward to "teach the admins" about the methods he'd used to get into the systems in the first place.

He assaulted a Chicago city cop during a gay pride parade in 2004 while trying to confront a heckler.

He was fired from his job at a Mac consultancy in the Chicago area after teaching people how to hack into systems using the consultancy's servers as guinea pigs (machines that held LIVE CUSTOMER DATA).

He and a cohort looted the coffers of the Chicago Communist Party after a failed attempt to take control.

He's had multiple arrests as a public nuisance.

He and a group of his erstwhile friends hacked a site called Protest Warrior and stole credit cards. And he left such a bad taste in these friends' mouths that one of them rolled on him to the FBI. He was caught, prosecuted and sent to jail for 3 years (got out after 2 on good behavior).

After getting out he was busted for assaulting a holocaust denier in a public establishment.

He was busted for theft and destruction of property during the Chicago bid to host the Olympics.

And, what did he do? He hacked Stratfor and stole credit card numbers (with intent to use) AGAIN.

So what are we supposed to do? Impose a "no computers, no cell phones" sentence on him? In this day and age it's practically impossible to enforce.
There's also the fact that he's a repeat offender.

Is he really and truly PHYSICALLY dangerous? No. But prison isn't about simply physical protection of society. It's also about deterring those who abuse society on a constant basis.

And Jeremy Hammond is one such abusive element. He's a thug with a martyr complex. He wants to feel important, authoritative and in control. He wants to be seen as a "rebel". The fact is, he's a script kiddie, using the work of others and trying to make it appear as if he's some vastly knowledgeable authority. He has only a thin veneer of social skills to get by on, and basically defaults to "smash and grab" when he doesn't get his way.

In short, he's a boil on the butt of society. And prison is about the only place for him.

I personally know Jeremy...

[g0bshiTe]

How about posting the real reason he was given such a stiff penalty!

This isn't his first hacking charge nor his first run in with police.

His rap sheet is as long as my arm, with charges ranging from hacking and using stolen credit cards to assault. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hammond#Arrests_and_criminal_history

My guess is this harsh sentence stems from the Stratfor hack as well.

Re:Sorry, but not here

[Anonymous Coward]

Here we have prison to punish people. It doesn't exist as a means to control risk by controlling dangerous people. We've collectively decided that we should put people in cells(and let them be raped) like it's telling 5 year olds to stand in the corner.

Officially, there are five reasons for incarceration (the five theories of punishment)...

1. 
      
2. Incapacitation. For as long as you're locked up, you're generally unable to commit new offenses against society. (This is obviously not entirely true, as inmate-on-inmate violence, and less frequently inmate-on-corrections-staff violence, etc., can lead to "new charges," but even then, generally, the extent of the damage is almost always constrained to within the institution.) No Internet access. What electronics are available, are extremely limited. (Inmates now have, in several states, tablet computers, but they receive email, purchase MP3s, etc, through kiosks...) Incoming and outgoing non-legal mail is searched and read. Phone calls are monitored. Visitors go through metal detectors (and often backscatter X-ray machines, etc), and inmates are stripsearched coming back from visits. Etc. (It's not perfect -- cell phones are regularly smuggled in, for instance -- but incarceration severely curtails most inmates' ability to F with society.)

3.    

4. Specific deterrence. Prison is designed to convince you not to do that shit again.

5.    

6. General deterrence. Prison sentences are supposed to communicate to society, "this is what you risk if you do the same shit that guy did."

7.    

8. Rehabilitation. It's fashionable to be, like, "what rehabilitation?!" But programs are available for those who want to participate. Many in California are getting, e.g., GEDs, degrees from Chaffey College and other programs, etc. (that they -- or more likely their loved ones -- pay for; it's not at taxpayer expense, they eliminated that in the 80s). Hell, even Manson girl Leslie Van Houten got her masters in prison, in 2012... Recidivism numbers show that inmates who take advantage of the programs available tend to come back through the revolving door at a statistically significant lower rate...

9.    

10. Retribution. Yeah, punishment is actually one of the goals of imprisonment. Whodathunk.

Most, if not all, of those goals are met by incarcerating even 'hacktivists,' though I personally think a 10 year sentence is way overboard (especially if it's federal, where there's no "parole board" and the most "good time" credit that can be earned is 15% -- the same California allows "serious" or "violent" first strikers (non-serious, non-violent offenders can serve as little as 50% of their sentence with "good time," 1/3 of the sentence if they're accepted into a fire camp and bust their ass fighting wildfires for at least a year of their sentence...)