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Barrett Brown, author of the linked article, is a journalist who spent 2010-2016 in Federal prisons and was fined $900,000 for digging into Austin intel operati

Barrett Brown, author of the linked article, is a journalist who spent 2010-2016 in Federal prisons and was fined $900,000 for digging into Austin intel operation Stratfor. (His mother got 6 months of probation for 'obstruction'.) Brown spent 6 months of his time in 'the hole'. Makes sense that he's interested in a Federal prisoner who is being held incommunicado. Makes sense that we'd be interested in knowing about stuff like that. Mess with the wrong people, and ... justice is in the eyes of the beholders. Another article on Gottesfeld, by a CIA whistleblower: https://www.mintpressnews.com/marty-gottesfeld-another-whistleblower-in-solitary-confinement/256331/ https://www.mintpressnews.com/marty-gottesfeld-another-whist...

tptacek 7y ago
As I recall (I'm not looking at the documents right now), Brown didn't "dig in" to Stratfor so much as function as an accessory to the hack of Stratfor by Jeremy Hammond and his crew, after which he actively obstructed the investigation, both by Stratfor and by the DOJ (including a sad attempt to hide an incriminating laptop during a search). It seems clear to me that Brown was certainly criminally culpable, but also that his sentence was outlandish and unjust. It's less clear to me that what happened to Gottesfeld was wrong. For one thing: Gottesfeld doesn't appear to be any sort of "whistleblower". His information about the Justina Pelletier case came from the right-wing media, where the case had gone viral. Moreover, his response to that information was to organize DDOS attacks that shut down the electronic pharmacy at Boston Children's Hospital; they literally had to go back to paper prescriptions and faxes during the attack. He had originally targeted a fundraising website BCH was running, but quickly realized that he was attacking the infrastructure of the hospital itself, which he then bragged about taking down. After being caught, he attempted to flee to Cuba, but stranded himself just off the Cuban coast and had to be rescued by a Disney Cruise ship, which took him back to the US. The final thing I want to point out is that Barrett Brown is a person who appears to have believed that Stratfor was a powerful mercenary intelligence outfit, and not a grifting zine for aspirational Tom Clancy types with desk jobs. Stratfor was a figure of fun in the real intelligence community, and had none of the malign influence Barrett attributed to them; if anything, by helping arrange their hack, he helped the real IC. Certainly nothing Stratfor did justified dumping the credit cards of people who had subscribed. But, more importantly: take whatever Brown says with an appropriate tonnage of salt.
- 8bitsrule 7y ago
  Thanks for the added details. (Yes, there's more than enough to try to remember these days.) Agreed on Brown's sentence. The DDOS attack was a dumb stunt. But that doesn't explain Gottesfeld's current (gagged) situation. Both remind me of Aaron Schwarz, another example of the punishment not fitting the crime. But he was not a journalist; that part is more concerning.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    Aaron Swartz did nothing resembling what Gottesfeld did; the comparison is outrageously unfair to him.
    - 8bitsrule 7y ago
      No such comparison was made. In case you didn't deliberately miss the outrageous point: when it comes to the Feds, often the persecution does not fit the crime, but rather some "make an example of them" agenda. It's nothing new, you're probably old enough to remember Operation Sundevil.

tptacek 7y ago

As I recall (I'm not looking at the documents right now), Brown didn't "dig in" to Stratfor so much as function as an accessory to the hack of Stratfor by Jeremy Hammond and his crew, after which he actively obstructed the investigation, both by Stratfor and by the DOJ (including a sad attempt to hide an incriminating laptop during a search). It seems clear to me that Brown was certainly criminally culpable, but also that his sentence was outlandish and unjust. It's less clear to me that what happened to Gottesfeld was wrong. For one thing: Gottesfeld doesn't appear to be any sort of "whistleblower". His information about the Justina Pelletier case came from the right-wing media, where the case had gone viral. Moreover, his response to that information was to organize DDOS attacks that shut down the electronic pharmacy at Boston Children's Hospital; they literally had to go back to paper prescriptions and faxes during the attack. He had originally targeted a fundraising website BCH was running, but quickly realized that he was attacking the infrastructure of the hospital itself, which he then bragged about taking down. After being caught, he attempted to flee to Cuba, but stranded himself just off the Cuban coast and had to be rescued by a Disney Cruise ship, which took him back to the US. The final thing I want to point out is that Barrett Brown is a person who appears to have believed that Stratfor was a powerful mercenary intelligence outfit, and not a grifting zine for aspirational Tom Clancy types with desk jobs. Stratfor was a figure of fun in the real intelligence community, and had none of the malign influence Barrett attributed to them; if anything, by helping arrange their hack, he helped the real IC. Certainly nothing Stratfor did justified dumping the credit cards of people who had subscribed. But, more importantly: take whatever Brown says with an appropriate tonnage of salt.

8bitsrule 7y ago
Thanks for the added details. (Yes, there's more than enough to try to remember these days.) Agreed on Brown's sentence. The DDOS attack was a dumb stunt. But that doesn't explain Gottesfeld's current (gagged) situation. Both remind me of Aaron Schwarz, another example of the punishment not fitting the crime. But he was not a journalist; that part is more concerning.
- tptacek 7y ago
  Aaron Swartz did nothing resembling what Gottesfeld did; the comparison is outrageously unfair to him.
  - 8bitsrule 7y ago
    No such comparison was made. In case you didn't deliberately miss the outrageous point: when it comes to the Feds, often the persecution does not fit the crime, but rather some "make an example of them" agenda. It's nothing new, you're probably old enough to remember Operation Sundevil.