10 ms·

Weev placed in solitary confinement for tweeting from prison

151 points by bifrost 13y ago

enraged_camel 13y ago
Auernheimer is a tremendous cretin. The fact that he has the gall to compare himself to Aaron Swartz makes me want to vomit. As for tweeting from prison, I have no idea what he was thinking. Then again it is hardly the first time he exercised extremely poor judgment.
- pcl 13y ago
  As for tweeting from prison, I have no idea what he was thinking. Is it illegal to do so? What forms of communication are and are not legal when incarcerated? (Of course, he certainly could have tweeted via an illegal manner. But it's not clear to me on the face of it whether tweeting while convicted is a crime.)
  - gknoy 13y ago
    According the the article, it appears that he tweeted by using the (legal to access) system for sending e-mails, and someone else tweets them for him. Unless he has a restriction on using computers / the internet as part of his sentence, I have a hard time imagining how that is illegal.
  - peterwwillis 13y ago
    According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, "Email correspondence may not jeopardize the public or the safety, security, or orderly operation of the correctional facility. Additionally, it may not exceed 13,000 characters (i.e., approximately two pages). Correspondence that is not consistent with these restrictions will be rejected." http://www.bop.gov/inmate_programs/trulincs_faq.jsp#10 http://www.bop.gov/inmate_programs/trulincs_faq.jsp#10
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      That length restriction seems really bizarre to me. Is the purpose of that just to prevent their mentally ill inmates from bombarding the public with massive manifestos? Does that limitation also exist for traditional non-electronic letter? Are inmates allowed to publish books from prison? I'm aware of the Son of Sam Law, which forbids profiting off the story of your crime. That seems to indicate that other stories are okay, but I am not sure.
      - whatshisface 13y ago
        I think they limit the length so that the emails can be examined. You wouldn't want someone DOSing the wardens and sneaking a message out via the whitespace characters.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        > That length restriction seems really bizarre to me. Is the purpose of that just to prevent their mentally ill inmates from bombarding the public with massive manifestos? The purpose is to keep organized crime leaders from continuing to run their networks while incarcerated.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        Is it effective at doing that? Wouldn't crime bosses just do that through their lawyers?
        enraged_camel 13y ago
        I'm not sure about that. The more likely reason is that someone has to read those emails and authorities did not want it to become a huge burden on the reviewers.
        fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
        Nope, it's because of the limited number of staff available to read the stuff.
    - joeyh 13y ago
- postfuturist 13y ago
  1. Does being a cretin or a jerk or whatever mean it is OK to be imprisoned for non-crimes? 2. He wasn't the one who started the comparisons with Aaron Swartz, from weev's tweet: "CNN is also sitting around calling me a meanie. I'm a bad troll, and no Aaron Swartz, the outraged masses cry!" Then he goes on to continue differentiate himself from Aaron, he never created or invited a positive comparison. 3. The article said he was sending messages to another person who was tweeting on his behalf. Why would he lose his right to free speech just because he has been convicted of a crime? Why wouldn't he be able to tweet (by proxy)? EDIT s/charged/convicted/
  - toki5 13y ago
    >Why would he lose his right to free speech just because he has been convicted of a crime? Inmates have restricted free speech. See here for some info om that: http://civilrights.findlaw.com/other-constitutional-rights/rights-of-inmates.html http://civilrights.findlaw.com/other-constitutional-rights/r...
    - white_devil 13y ago
      > Inmates have restricted free speech. In other words, they don't have free speech?
      - rhizome 13y ago
        We all have restricted free speech. Some more than others.
  - damoncali 13y ago
    Why would he lose his right to free speech just because he has been convicted of a crime? It's only one of many rights lost. Due process and all.
  - driverdan 13y ago
    In the USA the moment you're convicted of a federal crime your rights go right out the window, some of them permanently. In some states you lose the right to vote. You lose all 2nd amendment rights (the right to bare arms) for life unless pardoned by the president no matter what the crime was.
- wnight 13y ago
  Yeah, I'm with the other reply, you and too many other people here are saying "Weev was a jerk". Yeah? Well I think you're a low-life for making decent treatment conditional on your LIKING of someone, especially since I highly doubt you've met him or seriously interacted with him and like everyone else on here are just talking out your ass. Unless you have something to add - you're the noise, not the signal - mister "tremendous cretin".
dboat 13y ago
I can only wonder whether he is accomplishing anything with this. Not judging, I really have no idea. He seems a little immature and kind of obnoxious, even if his goals appear to be laudable. Maybe that's what it takes to get the attention the CFAA needs in order to be reformed.
- mpyne 13y ago
  I think any further attention he brings onto the CFAA can only serve to ensure it is maintained or even strengthened. I just don't see how a skilled computer hacker (in the original sense of the term) in jail for computer-related crimes, who goes on to get access to Twitter from prison, will put a positive light on CFAA reform efforts for the average American.
- kens 13y ago
  Based on reports¹², weev is super-malevolent, helping drive blogger Kathy Sierra off the internet, being president of a group I won't even name here, saying "I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money. I make people afraid for their lives", stealing people's social security numbers, and so forth. If you think his goals are laudable, please read a bit more about his goals. ¹ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_... ² http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/meet-one-of-the-hackers-who-exposed-the-ipad-security-leak/57969/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/meet-o...
rwc 13y ago
What on earth did he expect would happen, and why on earth would anybody be outraged or otherwise incensed by this? Does anyone go to prison with the expectation that they maintain their right to tweet?
- corin_ 13y ago
  If what is said in the article is correct, I don't see what was wrong with "him tweeting". He sent messages via a prison-approved method to someone outside who tweeted on his behalf. Do prisoners automatically retain the right to access online services? No. But why should they be denied the right to ask people in the outside world to use these services (which are completely legal - it's not like he was asking them to do anything dodgy) on his behalf? Just because the title makes it sound like he sneakily found a way around the system, this really isn't a big deal, he didn't break any rules, he didn't even find any loopholes, he just did what seems to be perfectly allowed. (Unless the article is neglecting to mention why it would not be allowed.) Weev is a massive tool, but (if his lawyer's speculation is correct) why do you feel that asking someone to post a tweet on your account warrants solitary confinement? What makes it worse than writing a letter to a newspaper, writing a book and having it published while in jail, or just speaking to someone and asking them to pass a message onto friends/family - all of which happen without outcry.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    If it's prison-approved then it's true that stuff ending up on Twitter (which is how I'd phrase it rather than 'weev posting to Twitter') should not land him in solitary. But that is weev's theory for why he landed in solitary; there may be alternative reasons (e.g. joking about killing himself, disruptive behavior with other inmates, etc.)
    - corin_ 13y ago
      Sure, it's possible he's in solitary for killing 20 prison guards, but this article and these comments are on the theory that it's for tweeting, and the person I replied to suggested that this alone warranted solitary confinement.
DanBC 13y ago
So far it's only Weev (and his lawyer) saying that tweeting is the reason for being put in solitary. Like the article says, > According to the National Institute of Justice, "administrative segregation" is a synonym for solitary, and is reserved: > for violent or disruptive behavior. AS typically involves single-cell confinement for 23 hours daily; inmates are allowed one hour out of the cell for exercise and showers. That disruptive sticks out. It fits Weev pretty well. I wouldn't be surprised if he's alone to protect himself.
- jbooth 13y ago
  Disruptive behavior includes pissing off the guards with wisecracks and a smug air of intellectual superiority. I'd bet $10 to 1 that's why he's in there.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    ...or any other arbitrary criteria.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Wisecracks can probably be defined, but what exactly is "smug air of intellectual superiority"? I have seen people accused of that for merely wearing glasses and using words not in the accusers vocabulary. It is arbitrary as hell. Let's say he was making fun of the guards for all having G.E.D.s though.... putting somebody in solitary for that is abhorrent.
    - barry-cotter 13y ago
      They're prison guards. It would be amazing if they didn't do stuff like that. I'm assuming Weev is in a federal prison so at least he's not likely yo be raped.
- sneak 13y ago
  I read this regularly and it brings me joy. From weev's Reddit AMA the night before he went into jail: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ahkgc/i_am_weev_i_may_be_going_to_prison_under_the/c8xi4z5?context=1 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ahkgc/i_am_weev_i_may...
maeon3 13y ago
The government wants to suppress hackers from distributing identity theft information out and about so that ATM harvesting (an exploding business) continues to be out-of-control. But the problem is, the government is doing it exactly backwards. We need to be punishing AT&T for the fact that Weev gained access. Not punishing the person who got in. It's cultiavating a culture of "It's OK to have no security". And as such, criminals are stealing your identity from everywhere all over the internet because the government wants to spy on the citizens. If we have tons of weev's going around illustrating (proving to the world) that AT&T can be hacked by teenagers, then AT&T would fix their problems. This whole situation is so disgusting. The people who are perpetuating the problems on the internet are the ones destroying the few capable hackers who are trying to point at the REAL problem. We need the government to pay Weev a million dollars every time he steals a batch of Identity information, and send the bill to AT&T. Eventually AT&T would be bulletproof. It makes me very sad, kind of like when you see a criminal stealing some booze shoot a mother and a baby because they were witnesses and in the way. You just cry and move on. The problem of identity theft will continue to explode because the criminal is still lose, and the only solution was incarcerated.
- damoncali 13y ago
  "If it wasn't for dickheads like you, there wouldn't be any thievery in this world, would there?" -GySgt Hartman
- gcb0 13y ago
  Gov does not want that to cease from happening. As it does not want violence from happening. What gov wants is the monopoly in it. It has the legal monopoly on violence, it want the monopoly on information gathering. It's simple as that. Don't get in the way.
- ajross 13y ago
  I don't know that "the government" really needs to have any particular agenda here. All that's required is that someone like Weev, with a well-known penchant for mischief and disrespect for authority, be placed in a situation like prison, where all of the existing structures are in place to prevent mischief and preserve authority. They have a tool (solitary) used to control inmates who cannot otherwise be controlled, and they used it. Now sure: this seems like (and is, I argue) an unjust abuse in the abstract. But the specific situation here is that the prison has an inmate they don't understand. So you have to expect the bureaucracy isn't going to handle it well. None of that requires a conspiracy, just a staff trying to do its job under strange circumstances.
joeyh 13y ago
Here's a blog via snail mail service for the incarcerated. http://betweenthebars.org/ http://betweenthebars.org/ It's been running for 3 years. Incidentially, one of the the people who runs it was a good friend of Aaron Swartz. http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/aaron-swartz http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/aaron-swartz
m0wfo 13y ago
The burglary analogies aren't relevant; there are codified rules about the arbitration of sensitive data (c.f PCI compliance).
altero 13y ago
Why US government has so much self-restraint? 1% of Americans are already in jail, it could be easily increased to 10% or even 20%.
ttrreeww 13y ago
The end of freedom.
Fuxy 13y ago
I understand the need to monitor communication in prisons I mean you never know how a drug dealer will give commands to his gang but seriously this guy is not a drug dealer. He should be allowed to communicate with the outside world unless the prison has something to hide. (See that logic works backwards as well) We are so used to the government telling us our communication should be monitored unless we have something to hide but how about we apply that to them.

151 points by bifrost 13y ago

Auernheimer is a tremendous cretin. The fact that he has the gall to compare himself to Aaron Swartz makes me want to vomit. As for tweeting from prison, I have no idea what he was thinking. Then again it is hardly the first time he exercised extremely poor judgment.

pcl 13y ago
As for tweeting from prison, I have no idea what he was thinking. Is it illegal to do so? What forms of communication are and are not legal when incarcerated? (Of course, he certainly could have tweeted via an illegal manner. But it's not clear to me on the face of it whether tweeting while convicted is a crime.)
- gknoy 13y ago
  According the the article, it appears that he tweeted by using the (legal to access) system for sending e-mails, and someone else tweets them for him. Unless he has a restriction on using computers / the internet as part of his sentence, I have a hard time imagining how that is illegal.
- peterwwillis 13y ago
  According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, "Email correspondence may not jeopardize the public or the safety, security, or orderly operation of the correctional facility. Additionally, it may not exceed 13,000 characters (i.e., approximately two pages). Correspondence that is not consistent with these restrictions will be rejected." http://www.bop.gov/inmate_programs/trulincs_faq.jsp#10 http://www.bop.gov/inmate_programs/trulincs_faq.jsp#10
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    That length restriction seems really bizarre to me. Is the purpose of that just to prevent their mentally ill inmates from bombarding the public with massive manifestos? Does that limitation also exist for traditional non-electronic letter? Are inmates allowed to publish books from prison? I'm aware of the Son of Sam Law, which forbids profiting off the story of your crime. That seems to indicate that other stories are okay, but I am not sure.
    - whatshisface 13y ago
      I think they limit the length so that the emails can be examined. You wouldn't want someone DOSing the wardens and sneaking a message out via the whitespace characters.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      > That length restriction seems really bizarre to me. Is the purpose of that just to prevent their mentally ill inmates from bombarding the public with massive manifestos? The purpose is to keep organized crime leaders from continuing to run their networks while incarcerated.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        Is it effective at doing that? Wouldn't crime bosses just do that through their lawyers?
      - enraged_camel 13y ago
        I'm not sure about that. The more likely reason is that someone has to read those emails and authorities did not want it to become a huge burden on the reviewers.
      - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
        Nope, it's because of the limited number of staff available to read the stuff.
  - joeyh 13y ago
postfuturist 13y ago
1. Does being a cretin or a jerk or whatever mean it is OK to be imprisoned for non-crimes? 2. He wasn't the one who started the comparisons with Aaron Swartz, from weev's tweet: "CNN is also sitting around calling me a meanie. I'm a bad troll, and no Aaron Swartz, the outraged masses cry!" Then he goes on to continue differentiate himself from Aaron, he never created or invited a positive comparison. 3. The article said he was sending messages to another person who was tweeting on his behalf. Why would he lose his right to free speech just because he has been convicted of a crime? Why wouldn't he be able to tweet (by proxy)? EDIT s/charged/convicted/
- toki5 13y ago
  >Why would he lose his right to free speech just because he has been convicted of a crime? Inmates have restricted free speech. See here for some info om that: http://civilrights.findlaw.com/other-constitutional-rights/rights-of-inmates.html http://civilrights.findlaw.com/other-constitutional-rights/r...
  - white_devil 13y ago
    > Inmates have restricted free speech. In other words, they don't have free speech?
    - rhizome 13y ago
      We all have restricted free speech. Some more than others.
- damoncali 13y ago
  Why would he lose his right to free speech just because he has been convicted of a crime? It's only one of many rights lost. Due process and all.
- driverdan 13y ago
  In the USA the moment you're convicted of a federal crime your rights go right out the window, some of them permanently. In some states you lose the right to vote. You lose all 2nd amendment rights (the right to bare arms) for life unless pardoned by the president no matter what the crime was.
wnight 13y ago
Yeah, I'm with the other reply, you and too many other people here are saying "Weev was a jerk". Yeah? Well I think you're a low-life for making decent treatment conditional on your LIKING of someone, especially since I highly doubt you've met him or seriously interacted with him and like everyone else on here are just talking out your ass. Unless you have something to add - you're the noise, not the signal - mister "tremendous cretin".

dboat 13y ago

I can only wonder whether he is accomplishing anything with this. Not judging, I really have no idea. He seems a little immature and kind of obnoxious, even if his goals appear to be laudable. Maybe that's what it takes to get the attention the CFAA needs in order to be reformed.

mpyne 13y ago
I think any further attention he brings onto the CFAA can only serve to ensure it is maintained or even strengthened. I just don't see how a skilled computer hacker (in the original sense of the term) in jail for computer-related crimes, who goes on to get access to Twitter from prison, will put a positive light on CFAA reform efforts for the average American.
kens 13y ago
Based on reports¹², weev is super-malevolent, helping drive blogger Kathy Sierra off the internet, being president of a group I won't even name here, saying "I hack, I ruin, I make piles of money. I make people afraid for their lives", stealing people's social security numbers, and so forth. If you think his goals are laudable, please read a bit more about his goals. ¹ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_... ² http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/meet-one-of-the-hackers-who-exposed-the-ipad-security-leak/57969/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/06/meet-o...

rwc 13y ago

What on earth did he expect would happen, and why on earth would anybody be outraged or otherwise incensed by this? Does anyone go to prison with the expectation that they maintain their right to tweet?

corin_ 13y ago
If what is said in the article is correct, I don't see what was wrong with "him tweeting". He sent messages via a prison-approved method to someone outside who tweeted on his behalf. Do prisoners automatically retain the right to access online services? No. But why should they be denied the right to ask people in the outside world to use these services (which are completely legal - it's not like he was asking them to do anything dodgy) on his behalf? Just because the title makes it sound like he sneakily found a way around the system, this really isn't a big deal, he didn't break any rules, he didn't even find any loopholes, he just did what seems to be perfectly allowed. (Unless the article is neglecting to mention why it would not be allowed.) Weev is a massive tool, but (if his lawyer's speculation is correct) why do you feel that asking someone to post a tweet on your account warrants solitary confinement? What makes it worse than writing a letter to a newspaper, writing a book and having it published while in jail, or just speaking to someone and asking them to pass a message onto friends/family - all of which happen without outcry.
- mpyne 13y ago
  If it's prison-approved then it's true that stuff ending up on Twitter (which is how I'd phrase it rather than 'weev posting to Twitter') should not land him in solitary. But that is weev's theory for why he landed in solitary; there may be alternative reasons (e.g. joking about killing himself, disruptive behavior with other inmates, etc.)
  - corin_ 13y ago
    Sure, it's possible he's in solitary for killing 20 prison guards, but this article and these comments are on the theory that it's for tweeting, and the person I replied to suggested that this alone warranted solitary confinement.

DanBC 13y ago

So far it's only Weev (and his lawyer) saying that tweeting is the reason for being put in solitary. Like the article says, > According to the National Institute of Justice, "administrative segregation" is a synonym for solitary, and is reserved: > for violent or disruptive behavior. AS typically involves single-cell confinement for 23 hours daily; inmates are allowed one hour out of the cell for exercise and showers. That disruptive sticks out. It fits Weev pretty well. I wouldn't be surprised if he's alone to protect himself.

jbooth 13y ago
Disruptive behavior includes pissing off the guards with wisecracks and a smug air of intellectual superiority. I'd bet $10 to 1 that's why he's in there.
- rhizome 13y ago
  ...or any other arbitrary criteria.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Wisecracks can probably be defined, but what exactly is "smug air of intellectual superiority"? I have seen people accused of that for merely wearing glasses and using words not in the accusers vocabulary. It is arbitrary as hell. Let's say he was making fun of the guards for all having G.E.D.s though.... putting somebody in solitary for that is abhorrent.
  - barry-cotter 13y ago
    They're prison guards. It would be amazing if they didn't do stuff like that. I'm assuming Weev is in a federal prison so at least he's not likely yo be raped.
sneak 13y ago
I read this regularly and it brings me joy. From weev's Reddit AMA the night before he went into jail: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ahkgc/i_am_weev_i_may_be_going_to_prison_under_the/c8xi4z5?context=1 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1ahkgc/i_am_weev_i_may...

maeon3 13y ago

The government wants to suppress hackers from distributing identity theft information out and about so that ATM harvesting (an exploding business) continues to be out-of-control. But the problem is, the government is doing it exactly backwards. We need to be punishing AT&T for the fact that Weev gained access. Not punishing the person who got in. It's cultiavating a culture of "It's OK to have no security". And as such, criminals are stealing your identity from everywhere all over the internet because the government wants to spy on the citizens. If we have tons of weev's going around illustrating (proving to the world) that AT&T can be hacked by teenagers, then AT&T would fix their problems. This whole situation is so disgusting. The people who are perpetuating the problems on the internet are the ones destroying the few capable hackers who are trying to point at the REAL problem. We need the government to pay Weev a million dollars every time he steals a batch of Identity information, and send the bill to AT&T. Eventually AT&T would be bulletproof. It makes me very sad, kind of like when you see a criminal stealing some booze shoot a mother and a baby because they were witnesses and in the way. You just cry and move on. The problem of identity theft will continue to explode because the criminal is still lose, and the only solution was incarcerated.

damoncali 13y ago
"If it wasn't for dickheads like you, there wouldn't be any thievery in this world, would there?" -GySgt Hartman
gcb0 13y ago
Gov does not want that to cease from happening. As it does not want violence from happening. What gov wants is the monopoly in it. It has the legal monopoly on violence, it want the monopoly on information gathering. It's simple as that. Don't get in the way.
ajross 13y ago
I don't know that "the government" really needs to have any particular agenda here. All that's required is that someone like Weev, with a well-known penchant for mischief and disrespect for authority, be placed in a situation like prison, where all of the existing structures are in place to prevent mischief and preserve authority. They have a tool (solitary) used to control inmates who cannot otherwise be controlled, and they used it. Now sure: this seems like (and is, I argue) an unjust abuse in the abstract. But the specific situation here is that the prison has an inmate they don't understand. So you have to expect the bureaucracy isn't going to handle it well. None of that requires a conspiracy, just a staff trying to do its job under strange circumstances.

joeyh 13y ago

Here's a blog via snail mail service for the incarcerated. http://betweenthebars.org/ http://betweenthebars.org/ It's been running for 3 years. Incidentially, one of the the people who runs it was a good friend of Aaron Swartz. http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/aaron-swartz http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/aaron-swartz

m0wfo 13y ago

The burglary analogies aren't relevant; there are codified rules about the arbitration of sensitive data (c.f PCI compliance).

altero 13y ago

Why US government has so much self-restraint? 1% of Americans are already in jail, it could be easily increased to 10% or even 20%.

ttrreeww 13y ago

The end of freedom.

Fuxy 13y ago

I understand the need to monitor communication in prisons I mean you never know how a drug dealer will give commands to his gang but seriously this guy is not a drug dealer. He should be allowed to communicate with the outside world unless the prison has something to hide. (See that logic works backwards as well) We are so used to the government telling us our communication should be monitored unless we have something to hide but how about we apply that to them.