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Weev's Attorney Says FBI Is Intercepting His Client's Mail

Posted by timothy on from the men-in-the-middle-attack dept.

Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "The FBI is intercepting the prison correspondence of infamous Internet troll Andrew "weev" Auernheimer, including letters from his defense team, according to his attorney. 'He's sent me between 10 and 20 letters in the last month or two. I've received one,' Tor Ekeland, who had just returned from visiting Auernheimer at the federal corrections institute in Allenwood, PA., told the Daily Dot in a video interview.

Last March, Auernheimer was convicted of accessing a computer without authorization and sentenced to 41 months in prison. As a member of the computer security team Goatse Security, Auernheimer discovered a major security flaw in AT&T's network, which allowed him to download the email addresses of some 114,000 iPad users. Goatse Security reported the flaw to Gawker and provided journalists with the information, who then published it in redacted form."

5 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How Does He Know it's the FBI? by zerostar · · Score: 5, Informative

    read the article? “He’s been interrogated by FBI agents who’ve asked him questions about the contents of an attorney letter that he sent to me,”

  2. All prison letters screened by cgfsd · · Score: 3, Informative

    In prison, all communication to the outside public is recorded and screened.
    Standard protocol.

    1. Re:All prison letters screened by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, mail between a prison inmate and his lawyer is privileged. Prison officials can only open mail coming from, or going to a prisoner's attorney in the presence of the inmate, and that's only to determine that the mail doesn't contain any contraband. The prison officials, or other law enforcement are not allowed to read legal correspondence between an inmate and their legal counsel. To do so is to violate the prisoner's civil rights.

    2. Re:All prison letters screened by D'Arque+Bishop · · Score: 5, Informative

      However, the main universal exception to this rule involves discussions between an inmate and his attorney (just as in this case). Courts have even held that while even legal mail can be searched, it has to be done in the prisoner's presence and they can only glance at the actual correspondence itself.

      Jail Mail from Attorney Must Be Opened in Inmate’s Presence, 7th Circuit Says

  3. Re:How Does He Know it's the FBI? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Doesn't matter. Would you prefer he randomly speculate as to which other phantom entities are involved? He knows one single fact, that the FBI has read his communications. From that, the only reasonable conclusion is that the FBI intercepted the comms. That is exactly the correct inference based on the given evidence. When some other evidence presents itself, he can modify his conclusion. Do you think if the roles were reversed the FBI wouldn't say that "Weev intercepted FBI communications."? Nope, that's exactly the conclusion they would draw until Weev provided evidence that he wasn't the one who intercepted the comms...