Feds Seize Barrett Brown’s Legal Defense Fund

Not to pay for his defense, but to pay for his assigned counsel.

Of course the dirty little secret is that assigned counsel is a completely broken race-to-the-bottom system and in a federal lawsuit pretty much the same as having no counsel at all. People donated so he could retain a proper lawyer.

Barrett Brown was the "Official Unofficial Spokesman for Anonymous". Meaning, he participated in many interviews giving insight into the mindset of the collective, was involved in their IRC chats and generally immersed himself into their world. Some have questioned his description of his role as either being larger or smaller than he has portended in the past. He created the Project PM wiki (http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page) to collect information in private intelligence contractors in the United States and abroad. Mr Brown is a known heroin/opiate addict, alternating between heroin and the opiate substitute Suboxone as he has battled his addiction. He has taken stances that private intelligence gathering corporations influence on government is a threat to our national security. He has been accused of sending threatening letters to law enforcement officials, which he posted--as he does many of his videos--on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI).

My personal opinion is that he was an intelligent young man with a troubled life led astray by drugs and emotional turbulence. I find very few of his topics interesting, and most of the rantings to be paranoid circumambulations regarding the evils of our current government, and his own actions to agitate authorities bring upon responses by the government that feed into his persecution complex. Just my personal opinion, buy frankly I think it's sad. If he does end up in prison, it might present itself to be the best opportunity for Barret to ween himself off his opiate addiction. The fact that he is on Suboxone and alternating between prescribed opiates and heroin is disheartening. Many doctors are afraid to try abstinence-based recovery as opiates are so hard to deal with, but perhaps prison will assist with that.

Aaron Swartz was an incredibly talented and idealistic developer and entrepreneur who made a slew of positive changes the world over.

Barrett Brown is a narcissistic heroin addicted hack journalist whose biggest claims to fame are ones he creates or inflates through media-whoring and being a mouthpiece for Anonymous.

The thing they share in common is the FBI enjoys fucking them both over as hard as they can. I can't say that Barrett deserved it, but in no universe is he in the same category as Aaron.