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Barrett Brown, Formerly of Anonymous, Sentenced To 63 Months
An anonymous reader writes with news that a journalist linked to Anonymous, Barret Brown, has been sentenced. "Barrett Brown, a journalist formerly linked to the hacking group Anonymous, was sentenced Thursday to over five years in prison, or a total of 63 months. Ahmed Ghappour, Brown's attorney, confirmed to Ars that Brown's 28 months already served will count toward the sentence. That leaves 34 months, or nearly three years, left for him to serve. In April 2014, Brown took a plea deal admitting guilt on three charges: "transmitting a threat in interstate commerce," for interfering with the execution of a search warrant, and to being "accessory after the fact in the unauthorized access to a protected computer." Brown originally was indicted in Texas federal court in December 2012 on several counts, including accusations that he posted a link from one Internet relay chat channel, called #Anonops, to another channel under his control, called #ProjectPM. The link led to private data that had been hijacked from intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Statfor."
I've been on the scene since the '70s, and as much as I hope that my real identity to not be revealed to the world, I understand that once I post something online I take a risk (calculated or otherwise) of having my real identity exposed
There is no anonymity online or offline
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
And now... 3... 2... 1...
(1) Find a journalist you don't like who has linked to a vulnerable site they don't control
(2) Replace the content at the link target with illegally obtained material about someone powerful
(3) Sit back and watch how well the new SWATting works!
Journalistic shield laws anyone? The new first amendment-resistant law enforcement looks like we need something to replace the old antibiotics...
I'm not a fan of anonymous, but you should be very afraid when you look at these charges. This rather random assortment of charges that make you go "huh?" shows that the thinking went like this: 1) Get this guy 2) Charge this guy for things you don't charge all other people who do the same things. 3) Profit!!!
IMO he had a good case and could have won but I understand him taking the plea.
He didn't know the information was there in the link that led to this whole thing and the "threats" were hyperbole at the best. He probably couldn't afford a good attorney and he was looking at decades in prison. Typical FBI strategy is charge them with everything in the book so they plea to lessor charge you actually want.
It's a travesty what they did to him.
He was accused of hacking. We learned from the recent NSA Snowden leaks, that NSA hacks computers, but sends the data to scapegoat targets and collects the data as it crosses the public network.
So when you see a high anti-US person conveniently on a hacking charge, you have to immediately ask if he's been fitted up for the crime, if he's one of these scapegoat targets.
http://boingboing.net/2015/01/18/ecstatic-nsa-spooks-delight-in.html
"But the loot isn't delivered directly to ROC's IP address. Rather, it is routed to a so-called Scapegoat Target. That means that stolen information could end up on someone else's servers, making it look as though they were the perpetrators."
There's quite a few of these that have raise eyebrows, Pirate Bay founder hacks Sweden, supposedly to look for extradition warrants, and yet leaves a trail of evidence back to himself?? Handy, who gains most from that? Not him, there is no extradition treaty between Laos and Sweden. North Korea hacks Sony, NSA justifies its surveillance program. Who gains most?
I have my doubts.
This guy should have hit and actually killed somebody with his car, he would have faired better in court. These laws need some serious relooking.
he's out in 18 months
Does anyone here happen to know who this guy is, what he did? TFS mentions what the prosecutor intended to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but they could prove that All Capone cheated on his taxes and OJ Simpson intimidated a guy in a hotel room. They were pursued and partially sentenced based on what they DID, apart from which bits the prosecution could prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
If asked "who was Al Capone?", you wouldn't answer "a guy who cheated on his taxes". Who is this person?
Rage away, little nerd. We're watching and laughing. Meanwhile the Real World shits all over you. Nobody will be prosecuted but your "heroes". Get used to it.
In addition to jailing whistle blowers as we have seen numerous times, Journalists who report what Whistle blowers tell them are now felons. The first amendment has officially been shredded, and now comes the icing on the cake.
CISPA is back on the fast track program, as well as other programs to jail anyone and everyone including White hats.
Since the TPP is being fast tracked too, and corporations have immunity from all prosecution, we may not know what happens since Chinese hackers will simply be handing names to US officials who will make people disappear. Who's gonna write an article when they are going to prison for doing so?
The thing is, I have not seen anyone screaming about CISPA like the last go around. Nobody seems to know anything at all about any of these other programs, and the news won't even mention TPP. If you are not nervous about the political happenings going on, you are a fool.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Exactly. Everyone seems to think he was a hacker. He's a __reporter__ .
Not hacker.
Writer.
It's his job to tell people the news. He's going to jail essentially (though not technically) for linking to data. That ain't hacking.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
people get less time for murder in some cases. not entirely sure the sentence fits the crime
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I don't know all the facts. Which makes me... like almost everyone else here.
It certainly smells like "shoot the messenger" to me. Somebody was upset that their data was leaked, they couldn't or didn't want to attack the leaker, so they went for a convenient scapegoat.
It's Stratfor, not Statfor!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Get off it -- that search warrant was based on a reporter posting a link to data. The underlying issue is that he is being punished for engaging in 1st Amendment activity, the ultimate basis for his punishment doesn't matter to the Feds.
Think of it this way: say you decided to install Chrome on your computer, so you download it from the official location and install it. Then a warrant is issued so the cops can examine your laptop to figure out if you installed Chrome. You're thinking "WTF?" that's not a crime and so you give them some lip. Now you're fucked. They hated you because of some random reason, but now they get to punish you -- that it is for some random reason doesn't matter. That's what happened here -- the Feds were out to get him and they got him.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Australia, Canada and the UK are hardly perfect. But this type of legal abuse is unheard of. Somehow the courts have remained independent of politics. There are no huge sentences handed down for trivial crimes. And plea bargaining is nothing like as bad.
Is it really true that the religious right are so law and order driven?
All the other AC trolls here aren't so thoughtful.
Seriously, this case reveals much more about the brain-dead US legal system, the overreach by Federal authorities and the abuse of legal powers than it does anything else. There is no way that any sane person can justify 5 years in jail for linking to a stolen source in a forum.
The pathetic bunch that ran Stratfor lost it and someone needed to take the fall for it. If it was a mom and pop shop that couldn't have known better that was "burgled", it would have been a different story, but these guys were supposedly the security experts and were asking to be hacked by their behaviour.
However, Brown didn't hack them, he just reported?? This is like a bulldog that can't get to the postman, so he bites the fence out of frustration. Really really stupid.