Barrett Brown Can't Talk About Why the Government Wants to Jail Him
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He linked to a cache of 5 million documents, some of which had CC information in them. Boom, identity theft. All of the other charges flow from that.
If the court is not careful we are setting ourselves up for a future where sensitive information is sprinkled in a trove of documents as a trap for unsuspecting journalists or other parties that want to make that information available for the public good.
It gets good on page 4-6.
All in all, he is not the most sympathetic of figures, but it doesn't mean the government gets a free pass.
If I say, "Jim is a dirtbag, I'm going to expose him and his whole dirty family," what have I done? It sounds like I'm just an investigative journalist with delusions of being good at my job and who probably has a personal grievance with Jim.
I happen to not be a fan of the individual in this case, but it's important to be realistic about the whole business of threats against reputation.
I don't get it. All the coverage I've been seeing about Brown suggests he's been indicted somehow for identity theft. There's nothing about identity theft in here. Is there a second indictment I'm not seeing?
http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/bb_indictment3.pdf
That one relates to concealment of evidence, and corruptly concealing evidence, in relation to the hiding of laptops at some point either before or during the execution of a search warrant.
The threats were stupid but most were of the vein "How would you like it if someone went after your family?" And none of the threats were really credible.
ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS AND TWELVE MONTHS IN PRISON.
And that's not even everything such a penalty would entail: http://www.scribd.com/doc/132408951/Karen-McCutchin-Plea-Agr...
* c. a mandatory term of supervised release of not more than 1 years, which must follow any term of imprisonment. If McCutchin violates the conditions of supervised release, she could be imprisoned for the entire term of supervised release;
* f. costs of incarceration and supervision; and
* g. forfeiture of property
But I'm sure this is all about the videotaped threats he made against agent Smith and his family after months of harassment by federal officials who engaged in similar behaviour. You know, the same agent who was responsible for making the case for the gag order to the judge. This has nothing to do with snuffing out someone who's not only been a major pain in the ass for the military industrial complex for years now, but has been quite ostentatious about it too. Literally nothing.
Don't get me wrong. It is criminal to threaten others like that and he should face punishment for doing so. Of course, he's already been imprisoned for longer than what a reasonable sentence for such a crime would be. But if you watch those three videos in their entirety, you'll see that there is an interesting question behind the haze of giddy panic that bubbles just below the surface of his outward frustrations and ramblings.
The video speaks for itself. Unless it doesn't (my memory is far from perfect）
Whether the charge is distribution of stolen information or threatening a federal authority, does the Defendant have the right to defend himself publicly in the media? For example George Zimmerman did Fox News interviews prior to trial (and did not have to testify as a result). Obviously this can be distinguished from the Martha Stewart case where she used media to maintain her innocence for the insider trading charges and she was subsequently charged with artificially maintaining the price of her own Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc.(MSLO) stock vis-a-vis here "innocence media campaign", although the commercial speech standard was applied in this instance. Thoughts?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalis...
> Last week, Mr. Brown and his lawyers agreed to an order that allows him to continue to work on articles, but not say anything about his case that is not in the public record.
I'm not sure what the alternative was, whether Mr. Brown had the option to say all he wants but only behind bars without access to a computer. But the point is that there was an agreement made and I'd be more interested in hearing the details and give-and-take behind that.
I live in Los Angeles, so a special hello to my favorite trigger-happy police department: the famed LAPD!
Oh, and +1 for correct use of "effect". Such a feat is rarely seen nowadays.
I actually complained to a friend, as I posted it, that it's becoming increasingly common for correct English to be misinterpreted as incorrect. +1 for noticing.
I'm adding the relevant quote from the article:
"Moreover, it's passing strange that a federal judge would gag a journalist, effectively declaring the court a First Amendment-free zone– particularly in a case where the nature and practice of journalism is the core issue."
Do we honestly believe that every judge in the country was honest in the 1820's? The 1890's? During industrialization, before any form of workers rights -- are we going to sit here and believe that the average man got a fair shake in front of a judge every time?
Do we honestly believe that every man got a fair trial in the 1960's? That every black man who has stood in front of a white judge has, up until these modern revelations, has gotten a Constitutionally just trial?
I think this is exactly like autism. People think autism is occuring more, when in reality the understanding and awareness is growing, so the cases are being diagnosed more accurately.
What we're seeing today, for the first time in our history, is an honest assessment of how government operates.
Technology, specifically computers and networking, are a Pandora's Box. Government HAD to adopt it because the benefits are too good and they must be competitive on some level. But by adopting it, they've given us the opportunity to walk away with all of their secrets.
Frankly, I bet our governments have been cleaning themselves up over the past few decades, full well knowing the implications of technology.
When I think about McCarthyism and the Cold War, and the measures our government was willing to take... how much of those records were never kept or were destroyed? How much of abuse of our rights as citizens occurred in ways that can never be tracked or recorded?
I'm sure they control digital as best they can, but between Manning and Snowden, I think we've seen that it's uncontrollable, and we get to see more than we've ever seen before.
I just find it funny.
That said, the difference between then and now is that the government has actively taken a position that severely curtails your fundamental rights with respect to electronic records. Your paper stuff, including mail, has 200 years of precedent protecting it. The electronic equivalents of these things have little protection, and the government has made that worse.
The other difference is the vast array of policing powers controlled by the Federal government. There's a massive web of laws, enforced by hundreds of police agencies. In 1890, most federal police were customs agents and deputized federal marshals.
We also invest a large amount of power in minimally accountable prosecutors. Contesting a federal prosecution is usually an exercise in futility.
Back before digital records, do you HONESLTY believe your mail was safe? Safe during the Cold War? Safe during Hoover's era in the 30's?
I truly believe that every form of communication, from mail to telegram to telephone to internet, has been repeatedly and intentionally violated throughout our history by our governments and by other parties.
Hell, there's no way to prove it. It was switch boards. It was men walking into rooms. There's no records of it. There's no proof.
But I think it's utterly silly to pretend that mail has been safe, or telephone, or anything.
I honestly believe it's all been watched, when it was convenient, for our entire history.
Mail is fairly tamper evident. When the government read your mail to Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union, they usually re-enveloped it and put a notice on it. Non-spy agencies had to have a warrant.
There was a Slate article today calling for the destruction of the remainder of the Snowden leaks since 'we already got the message'. No, this is evidence that will be taught in schools 100 years from now in history class of how terrible the surveillance state became.
Aside from the bogus headline (even if found guilty on all counts, he will not actually get "105 years" in prison), it's a good read and it mentions the gag order.
[...]
"I inherited these contacts. My father was court painter before me. It's a position that's always inherited. They can't use new people for it, the rules governing how the various grades of officials are painted are so many and varied, and, above all, so secret that no- one outside of certain families even knows them. In the drawer there, for instance, I've got my father's notes, which I don't show to anyone. But you're only able to paint judges if you know what they say. Although, even if I lost them no-one could ever dispute my position because of all the rules I just carry round in my head. All the judges want to be painted like the old, great judges were, and I'm the only one who can do that."
[...]
"We're talking about two different things here, there's what it says in the law and there's what I know from my own experience, you shouldn't get the two confused. I've never seen it in writing, but the law does, of course, say on the one hand that the innocent will be set free, but on the other hand it doesn't say that the judges can be influenced. But in my experience it's the other way round. I don't know of any absolute acquittals but I do know of many times when a judge has been influenced. It's possible, of course, that there was no innocence in any of the cases I know about. But is that likely? Not a single innocent defendant in so many cases? When I was a boy I used to listen closely to my father when he told us about court cases at home, and the judges that came to his studio talked about the court, in our circles nobody talks about anything else; I hardly ever got the chance to go to court myself but always made use of it when I could, I've listened to countless trials at important stages in their development, I've followed them closely as far as they could be followed, and I have to say that I've never seen a single acquittal." "So. Not a single acquittal," said K., as if talking to himself and his hopes. "That confirms the impression I already have of the court. So there's no point in it from this side either. They could replace the whole court with a single hangman." "You shouldn't generalise," said the painter, dissatisfied, "I've only been talking about my own experience." "Well that's enough," said K., "or have you heard of any acquittals that happened earlier?" "They say there have been some acquittals earlier," the painter answered, "but it's very hard to be sure about it. The courts don't make their final conclusions public, not even the judges are allowed to know about them, so that all we know about these earlier cases are just legends. But most of them did involve absolute acquittals, you can believe that, but they can't be proved. On the other hand, you shouldn't forget all about them either, I'm sure there is some truth to them, and they are very beautiful, I've painted a few pictures myself depicting these legends." "My assessment will not be altered by mere legends," said K. "I don't suppose it's possible to cite these legends in court, is it?" The painter laughed. "No, you can't cite them in court," he said. "Then there's no point in talking about them," said K., he wanted, for the time being, to accept anything the painter told him, even if he thought it unlikely or contradicted what he had been told by others. He did not now have the time to examine the truth of everything the painter said or even to disprove it, he would have achieved as much as he could if the painter would help him in any way even if his help would not be decisive. As a result, he said, "So let's pay no more attention to absolute acquittal, but you mentioned two other possibilities." "Apparent acquittal and deferment. They're the only possibilities," said the painter.
End quote
I'm sorry for pasting so much. I had just laid behind me these very pages in The Trial when I put the book down and visited HN. This story made me wonder if I was still reading. It's been said hundreds of times during the Summer of Surveillance, but I'll say it again: K. seems to be living a low tech version of today or the near future. Viewed from afar it is a truly frighteting ordeal that feels physically straining even when the person involved isn't even real, let alone a citizen of your country - far less yourself.
Even though it's akin to shouting "1984 isn't a manual" on Reddit, I wholeheartedly recommend that anybody who has not yet read The Trial should do so immediately [1]. Even if you don't end up feeling the relevance, it's such a short book that it's worth a read even if you don't like it.