US stops jailed activist Barrett Brown from discussing hacking prosecution | Hacker News Reader

US stops jailed activist Barrett Brown from discussing hacking prosecution

theguardian.com

118 pointseulerphi22 comments

This type of prosecution is having the opposite effect as intended: it gives Barrett a larger platform and more credibility because the unusual unfairness is itself newsworthy. It shows just how abusive and insecure USG has become.

Moreover, for USG going after journalists is a naked abandonment of any sense of first amendment protections.

It is wrong and the leadership should be ashamed. Period.

If this trend continues, I will turn in my SAR membership and my citizenship.

Unfortunately, a larger platform and more credibility won't help Barrett in that kangaroo court. He's screwed.

I think a lot of people would love to cancel their citizenship with the USA, save for the small problem of not having citizenship anywhere else.

Obviously. [1] Any recommendations?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6305232

Funny you linked that. I was going to say that I was just looking into permanent residence in Australia.

Sydney or similar.

Surprised there isn't a pirate bureau "sealand" island hackerspace / OTG community / datacenter.

Residency in New Zealand or Hong Kong, or possibly Switzerland. Getting residency is a step with zero negatives; gaining an additional citizenship has some, while renouncing one's US citizenship has exceptionally bad consequences.

They should be but they won't. They just do it because they can, and because courts routinely defer to most outrageous claims and requests by government - like recent decision that TSA is free to lie in responses to FOIA requests. These guys have absolutely no shame and the only way they can be stopped is for US public to expose them and to vote out anybody who helps this happen. If they fail to do so, it will only get worse.

Somehow in many excessively publicized cases we've seen over the years it never was a problem for the government that everybody is talking about it. But when it comes to the surveillance case, suddenly there's an urgent need of protecting jury from being tainted. It smells as fishy as it gets. A complete and open abuse of power.

Manufacture consent of decision makers... get articles into CFR and the like to show the house of cards is crumbling down. Respect by fear does not endure and there is nowhere to hide with Twitter in every pocket.

> It is wrong and the leadership should be ashamed. Period.

They should... had they any feelings. They do not, though, and the only two languages they speak is money and violence. If you cannot speak neither then they will run you over and you will be forgotten about.

Let's face it, even with all of the NSA spying and drone attacks... how many US citizens are _really_ up in arms? A minority. The majority will continue to care more about their mortgages or where to get their next 420 high than they do about anything the government and the government's owners are want to do to the populace.

Idiocracy was a documentary.

Exactly! How is that a court order can abolish the free-speech amendment!?

Perfect! Make sure nobody knows you exist or that you're on trial, make sure you can't run a legal defense fund, etc - that way when the government railroads you, nobody will care and they'll get away with it.

The system works!

The implication that a 'fair trial' is only possible when the public is ignorant is kind of insane in this scenario, where the government is obviously trying to silence detractors.

Well it is true that a fair trial is only possible with an unbiased jury, and having a lot of media coverage can create a bias. But doesn't that only apply to bias for the prosecution? And anyway they manage to find juries for high-profile cases (like OJ even after the car chase).

But no, let's throw out the First Amendment instead.

This seems less like a reason to prevent free speech, and more like a reason to sequester juries in advance of a trial, so that they never see the news in the first place. Maybe even have pre-built juries sitting around sequestered and ready to go for whatever case happens to come up. But, you know, that'd cost money.

If it were me, I'd say if the prosecution really has enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did a crime, an initially positive bias isn't an actual problem. In fact that's how the justice system is supposed to operate (innocent until proven guilty).

"Well it is true that a fair trial is only possible with an unbiased jury"

I'm pretty sure that 99% of the U.S. population isn't following this story at all, so finding a dozen jurors who have never heard of the case shouldn't be too difficult, even if the media were allowed to write about it without any limitations.

And when it's time to select the jury, I'm sure the prosecution will summarily reject any potential jurors who know anything about the internet (like what a URL is), since such a person could never be convinced that linking to a publicly available document is a crime.

What did he do that is worthy of 100 years in jail?

"In 2012, Brown similarly pored over millions of emails hacked by Anonymous from the private intelligence company Stratfor. It was during his work on the Stratfor hack that Brown committed his most serious offence, according to US prosecutors – he posted a link in a chat room that connected users to Stratfor documents that had been released online.

The released documents included a list of email addresses and credit card numbers belonging to Stratfor subscribers. For posting that link, Brown is accused of disseminating stolen information – a charge with media commentators have warned criminalises the very act of linking."

In summary: "he posted a link in a chat room"

I think it's telling that the "most serious offfence" was not threatening an FBI agent but rather "disseminating stolen information."

>the government argued that the gag order was needed in order to protect Brown from prejudicing his right to a fair trial by making comments to reporters.

You know. For your safety.

Meanwhile, it appears Project PM is limping along. The domain project-pm.org seems to be the new site, though it is down at the moment. It's a shame that the account creation page is disabled right now. There's plenty of work to be done cross referencing the NSA files with other releases. I think the most frustrating aspect of this whole debacle is how one-sided the entire scenario is. If you or I decided to develop some zero days for popular software and sell it to interested entities for millions of dollars per year in subscription fees, we'd be thrown in prison for years for violating numerous computer crime and copyright laws. Stick an LLC on the end of the organization and voila! Now you can break laws with impunity and even blessings from the military industrial complex. No trials for DMCA or CFAA violations. No prison time. Just lots and lots of money.

It sounds like the hackers of the world are doing it wrong.

First, the 100 years of jail time and now this. It's like a parody inside a parody.

Except this is now US reality.

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