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Pirate Bay Founder Warg Being Held in Solitary Confinement
From Torrent Freak comes news that one of the Pirate Bay founders is now being held in solitary confinement after Sweden turned him over to Denmark. From the article: "In a recent letter sent to Amnesty and shared with TorrentFreak, Gottfrid’s mother Kristina explains her son’s plight. She says that Gottfrid is being kept in solitary and treated as if he were a 'dangerous, violent and aggressive criminal' even though his only crime — if any — is hacking. Gottfrid’s lawyer Luise Høi says the terms of his confinement are unacceptable and are being executed without the correct legal process. 'It is the case that Danish authorities are holding my client in solitary confinement without a warrant,' Høi explains, noting that if the authorities wish to exclude Gottfrid from access to anyone except his lawyer and prison staff, they need to apply for a special order."
He should have blown up the world's economy, using criminal fraud. No criminal prosecution, or even investigation, despite enormous harm to millions and likely criminal action. Evil hackers? Give 'em solitary for life.
In the real world, solitary confinement is often used as extrajudicial punishment by unaccountable authorities.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
+1 - Since I have no points :(
Social Engineering isn't hacking... Fortune Tellers and Used Car Salesmen have been doing it for years before networked computers were created...
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
It doesn't matter if what he did was impressive at all. The point remains: He did a few things, scared a few people, and was sentenced heavily as a public example, aided by prosecutors who were only too happy to outright lie about the threat he posed to add to the punishment. He may have been just douchebag who succeeded by persistence and luck rather than actual skill, but he was still sentenced and punished as if he were a super-hacker capable of bringing the world to its knees with a phone call.
The objective of prosecutors is to either reach a plea agreement that makes them look good, or to get the harshest sentence they possibly can. They will fight dirty to achieve that, and they can be very good at doing so. In their skillful manipulation of the narrative, a script kiddie who needs a good telling off can turn into a terrorist who caused millions of dollars in damages. Any hope of rehabilitation is thrown out the window.
Or suspected (but innocent) gangbanger. Or someone that the authorities don't like but conveniently label as a gangbanger in order to torture. I mean it's not as if authorities would ever be so petty as to apply such punishments to petty crimes like, oh I don't know, (alleged) copyright infringement is it?
But hey, if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear, right?
Fuck you, you jackbooted apologist.
Or insulting guard. Or protesting against other ill-treatment. Or being targeted by another prisoner looking to start a fight. There's no judicial oversight or accountability involved, as the prisoner is, well, a prisoner. A warden simply announces 'that guy is a troublemaker, throw him into the isolation cell.'
I really wish you kids would stop discovering Mitnick and worshiping him like a hero.
Lets get some facts about Mitnick straight.
You would do well to follow your own advice.
Nobody here is idolizing him, we are merely pointing out that he is perhaps the best example of a geek being punished out of all proportion to their actual criminality, and deliberately hounded by prosecutors and law officials who were behaving no better than the lowest sort of playground bully.
That's all; the fact we keep mentioning him is not because we think he was a uberhacker; quite the reverse. The people bullying him were the ones claiming that.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Of course he's dangerous, he embarrassed someone with power.
And as much as Manning's scenario is horrible, being a military case, comparing it to these civilian cases is like comparing apples to oranges.
How is not having books any form of... I'm at a loss for words... not being torture ? Not being a form of punishement ? I mean many people would be OK left alone with a book. But left alone with the only option being watching already dry paint get drier ? How does that improve them as human being in any way ? It would turn anybody into a raving lunatic. I swear, people who run US prisons should be the first ones locked up in them.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Solitary cells, and prison cells in general, are usually constructed to minimise any form of stimulation. Uniform grey walls, undecorated. Grey bedding on grey beds. Nothing that can be picked up or moved.
The root of the issue is that a large chunk of society really struggle with the idea of 'rehabilitation.' Instead they can only see the justice system as a deterrant - in their view, prisoners need to be made to suffer as much as possible, because the threat of this suffering is what stops other people from breaking the law. Modern decency stops them from openly advocating for torture, but they don't feel much like protesting against it either. Any attempt to improve education for prisoners or provide them with help back into the workforce or support after their release is just regarded as a 'weakness,' lessening the terror that prison is supposed to inspire in those contemplating crime.
So we end up with an industrial system for taking people who commit minor offenses, destroying them socially, destroying their education, ruining them financially, making them all but unemployable... and then we wonder why they turn to serious crime once they get out.
Waking a prisoner every hour to make certain that he is not dead is torture pure and simple. It makes no difference at all whether a prisoner has passed away and it will be obvious at the morning head count anyway. The body will not decompose in the few hours between meals. Keeping books, and radio and television away from inmates is also torture. It is obviously designed to induce mental illness and inmates should be able to sue over such barbaric actions. God forbid an inmate should read a book when he can not sleep thus improving himself. And i have to wonder at how stupid authorities can be, Do they expect that a convict will behave well after such treatment or upon release will the be putting a man full of abuse, rage and depression on the streets? I know if I were treated like that I would want to kill people and I might not even care which person I killed, harmed or whatever.
Same country. Same mentality. Whatever the fruit the harvest is the same.
For two reasons:
1) Why should you need a permission to give away your stuff? Requiring a permit for an action is pure authoritarianism. It might be a lesser evil in some cases - for example, hunting licenses to keep an animal population from collapsing - but it's an evil nonetheless, and should only be used if grave consequences force the hand. And no, "I feel uncomfortable seeing poor people" is not a grave consequence.
2) This particular permit is specifically aimed against poor people, and as such will cotribute the economic and moral decay caused by pretending poverty and prosperity are earned by vice and virtue respectively. It's our good old friend the Just World Fallacy doing its usual disgusting work, by both reassuring you that you are quite safe (since you're moral) and that the victims don't deserve a single cent of your help. Unfortunately, a fallacy is endangered by exposure to reality, thus the need ot keep the realities of poverty out of sight. So, this particular permit exists to help reinforce a particularly evil and self-destructive form of self-delusion.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.