6 ms·

A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link

98 points by Thereasione 13y ago

danso 13y ago
> But keep in mind that no one has accused Mr. Brown of playing a role in the actual stealing of the data, only of posting a link to the trove of documents...And the magnitude of the charges is confounding. Jeremy Hammond, a Chicago man who pleaded guilty to participating in the actual hacking of Stratfor in the first place, is facing a sentence of 10 years. I was surprised to see Aaron Swartz's name not mentioned once...the parallels between Brown's and Swartz's cases -- at least in the post-indictment phase and the seemingly disproportionate charges -- are hard to ignore.
ageisp0lis 13y ago
http://freebarrettbrown.org/donate/ http://freebarrettbrown.org/donate/
- aspensmonster 13y ago
  An anonymous donor was willing to match 20,000 dollars in donations, but only if 20,000 dollars were donated by others. The deadline for reaching the mark is September 22 2013. As of August 30 2013 they had 3,000 dollars toward the goal; though this was prior to the recent burst of news thanks to the gag order. http://freebarrettbrown.org/fundraising-drive/ http://freebarrettbrown.org/fundraising-drive/ I don't know how far they've gotten in the meantime, but I'm happy to see this issue getting more attention. Meanwhile, the new Project PM website --wiki.project-pm.org-- appears to be back up! I'm hoping to do some cross-referencing of the various releases of the past few years. See if anything has been missed or passed over.
ColinWright 13y ago
Single page: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalist-agitator-facing-prison-over-a-link.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalis...
tptacek 13y ago
Obligatory: http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/ http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence...
- jrockway 13y ago
  Yes. It's good to read "XXX faces YYY years in prison" as "There is no possible way XXX could go to prison for more than YYY years." Though that's more comforting when YYY is something like 5, rather than 100.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Still it is intimidating. If I show you a sledge hammer you won't risk to hit you on the head with it to find out whether it is made of steel or Styrofoam.
- jeltz 13y ago
  The problem is that max sentences are often abused as tool of intimidation to get plea bargains. So even if there is no way in he will get 100 years the possibility scares some people into plea bargains. Ridiculous max sentences which almost never happen do not work well together with plea bargains.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    > The problem is that max sentences are often abused as tool of intimidation to get plea bargains. I get why people are concerned with plea bargains, but I don't understand why people think that defense attorneys are not familiar with the concept of federal sentencing guidelines. Even a public defender (especially a public defender?) should be able to explain the basics of sentencing to their client when their client is considering a plea.
- bguthrie 13y ago
  The linked article makes the point that these sentences are used as a tool of intimidation but don't generally reflect actual sentences. I'm not convinced that's a reason to ignore them: it seems to me that the correct response of a less credulous observer would be to attack the system. Piling bullshit charges on to get extra years and extract a plea bargain is reprehensible. Are they trying to serve justice or collect scalps?
dnautics 13y ago
I sympathize with Barret Brown; the NY times article unfortunately is rife with the attitude that 'journalists' (as in 'the class of people that gets that special 1st Amendment protection 'of the press') have certain characteristics or accreditations - whereas, his actions should be protected by the 1st amendment regardless of whether or not he is a journalist.
- crb002 13y ago
  A constructionist view of the Constitution is that "press" is short for "printing press". Ben Franklin is probably rolling in his grave at this cheap attempt to limit expression to a few "legitimate" journalists.
mpyne 13y ago
These types of articles are depressing to me because they mask what could be a good moral and legal question behind claims which border on dishonest. Saying that the Feds are charging Barrett for the crime of "posting a URL" is like saying that the Norwegian police would be charging Breivik for "pulling a metal lever" hundreds of times. I mean sure, he did that, but that's not what the claimed "crime" is. Imagine a guy gets passed the key to a storage locker by his friends, and is told that the storage locker holds stolen trade secrets, credit cards, etc. This guy had nothing to do with the theft itself, but he knows about it. Let's say further that this guy duplicates the key and mails it to a gang to do with as they will. If providing that gang access to that locker is illegal then homeboy here has certainly "aided & abetted" in that behavior, even though he did nothing more himself than a) duplicating a key (normally legal) and b) using the mail (normally legal). The author brings up the point that newspapers have to deal with this issue, but it's not really as much of an "issue" for them at all, as being passed classified data is not inherently illegal, and newspapers still make an effort to avoid printing information which would be dangerous if publically-available. Even the NYT/Guardian's recent reporting about NSA capabilities with regard to crypto didn't spill all the beans, and what links were posted by the newspapers were to documents that the newspapers screened for safety instead of a link to "all the goods". But certainly the papers wouldn't publish credit card numbers of victims of an identity theft scheme, would they? Likewise our intrepid, noble and completely objective storywriter uses the maximum legally-possible sentence as a FUD factor without so much as a single reference to the sentencing guidelines which would be used to determine an actual eventual sentence. There is a question to be asked here: Should these types of forcibly-exfiltrated secrets have any special inherent legal protection? If no, then posting a link to that data should be fine (assuming no other legal protection category applies). If yes, then posting a link to protected data would certainly be a no-no. The answer isn't obviously "no" either, by the way, otherwise our current protections against identity theft could hardly apply, not to mention the Privacy Act of 1974, medical record protections, etc. But it deserves a better answer than what we have now, which seems to be "throw whatever vague law might fit at it".
- rosser 13y ago
  The relevance of your analogy of a storage locker filled with trade secrets hinges on a crucial question: Did Brown have specific knowledge that the file dump contained credit card numbers, and if so, was his intent in posting the link to the chatroom to disseminate those credit card numbers for the purpose of furthering identity theft? Because if not, then given the crimes he's been charged with (aside from those related to the threatening the FBI agent, of course), he doesn't have the mens rea to warrant a conviction, to my — IANAL — understanding. (There's, I think, a further question in terms of whether or not, and to what extent, posting the URL to a chatroom intended presumably for the internal communications and coordination of Project PM counts as publishing them, but that's irrelevant to his mens rea.)
davvid 13y ago
If someone posts that same link on HN, and we all comment on it, are we all guilty? This seems like a very slippery slope. Wake up America, please!
throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
"The article was based on, and linked to, documents that were stolen by Edward J. Snowden..." "...are suggesting that to share information online is the same as possessing it or even stealing it." I find the choice of the verb "steal" rather bizarre, particularly given the slant of this article. If leaking information is theft, then the New York Times is a frequent recipient and trafficker of stolen goods. I'm not necessarily criticizing their decision to steal the Pentagon Papers, but I think it would be cool if they returned them.
- talmand 13y ago
  Probably the difference being whether the information taken is considered newsworthy or not. There's a difference between publicly showing documents that suggest illegal activities by the government and credit card numbers. If the information can be considered newsworthy then there are several legal protections that kick in that make getting convictions difficult and the government isn't likely to bother. Especially if it would hurt the mutually beneficial relationship between government and the news media. Brown has done things that put him outside of mainstream news media, many of these actions were quite illegal. He's not in trouble for sharing leaked documents. He's in trouble for sharing credit card numbers and information that can be used for identity theft. I'm pretty sure that type of information is not newsworthy and not for sharing. If he had scrubbed that information then I would imagine there wouldn't be an issue. That and stop threatening FBI agents.
Fuxy 13y ago
Yes that was a mistake on his part you should never threaten you should only do. Back on topic... So the take away from this is security by obscurity is now officially protected by law and linking to leaked information is illegal according to the government. My America how far you have fallen.
smoyer 13y ago
Why does this feel like Aaron Swartz all over again? In this case, I'm not even sure I see the crime, but in both cases the government chose to jump on "people they didn't like".
eli 13y ago
The new Rolling Stone has a pretty decent (long) article about Barrett Brown: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces-105-years-in-jail-20130905 http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces...
segmondy 13y ago
I suggest representing "dangerous links" as numbers. use goo.gl or bitly, get the URL. turn it into a hex, turn it into one long integer. turn that integer into a series of simple mathematical equations involving additional and multiplication. one day the government is going to have to outlaw even simple numbers if they want to restrict information.
- mpyne 13y ago
  You could always do what Phil Z. did with PGP and write a book. :) I would point out that the charge itself doesn't have a problem with the link per se, as much as the data located at the link. If the link pointed to something completely innocuous (such as Wikipedia's front page) then even our overbearing prosecutor here would be laughed out of the courtroom if he tried filing charges.

98 points by Thereasione 13y ago

danso 13y ago

> But keep in mind that no one has accused Mr. Brown of playing a role in the actual stealing of the data, only of posting a link to the trove of documents...And the magnitude of the charges is confounding. Jeremy Hammond, a Chicago man who pleaded guilty to participating in the actual hacking of Stratfor in the first place, is facing a sentence of 10 years. I was surprised to see Aaron Swartz's name not mentioned once...the parallels between Brown's and Swartz's cases -- at least in the post-indictment phase and the seemingly disproportionate charges -- are hard to ignore.

ageisp0lis 13y ago

http://freebarrettbrown.org/donate/ http://freebarrettbrown.org/donate/

aspensmonster 13y ago
An anonymous donor was willing to match 20,000 dollars in donations, but only if 20,000 dollars were donated by others. The deadline for reaching the mark is September 22 2013. As of August 30 2013 they had 3,000 dollars toward the goal; though this was prior to the recent burst of news thanks to the gag order. http://freebarrettbrown.org/fundraising-drive/ http://freebarrettbrown.org/fundraising-drive/ I don't know how far they've gotten in the meantime, but I'm happy to see this issue getting more attention. Meanwhile, the new Project PM website --wiki.project-pm.org-- appears to be back up! I'm hoping to do some cross-referencing of the various releases of the past few years. See if anything has been missed or passed over.

ColinWright 13y ago

Single page: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalist-agitator-facing-prison-over-a-link.html?_r=0&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalis...

tptacek 13y ago

Obligatory: http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy-million-years/ http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence...

jrockway 13y ago
Yes. It's good to read "XXX faces YYY years in prison" as "There is no possible way XXX could go to prison for more than YYY years." Though that's more comforting when YYY is something like 5, rather than 100.
venomsnake 13y ago
Still it is intimidating. If I show you a sledge hammer you won't risk to hit you on the head with it to find out whether it is made of steel or Styrofoam.
jeltz 13y ago
The problem is that max sentences are often abused as tool of intimidation to get plea bargains. So even if there is no way in he will get 100 years the possibility scares some people into plea bargains. Ridiculous max sentences which almost never happen do not work well together with plea bargains.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > The problem is that max sentences are often abused as tool of intimidation to get plea bargains. I get why people are concerned with plea bargains, but I don't understand why people think that defense attorneys are not familiar with the concept of federal sentencing guidelines. Even a public defender (especially a public defender?) should be able to explain the basics of sentencing to their client when their client is considering a plea.
bguthrie 13y ago
The linked article makes the point that these sentences are used as a tool of intimidation but don't generally reflect actual sentences. I'm not convinced that's a reason to ignore them: it seems to me that the correct response of a less credulous observer would be to attack the system. Piling bullshit charges on to get extra years and extract a plea bargain is reprehensible. Are they trying to serve justice or collect scalps?

dnautics 13y ago

I sympathize with Barret Brown; the NY times article unfortunately is rife with the attitude that 'journalists' (as in 'the class of people that gets that special 1st Amendment protection 'of the press') have certain characteristics or accreditations - whereas, his actions should be protected by the 1st amendment regardless of whether or not he is a journalist.

crb002 13y ago
A constructionist view of the Constitution is that "press" is short for "printing press". Ben Franklin is probably rolling in his grave at this cheap attempt to limit expression to a few "legitimate" journalists.

mpyne 13y ago

These types of articles are depressing to me because they mask what could be a good moral and legal question behind claims which border on dishonest. Saying that the Feds are charging Barrett for the crime of "posting a URL" is like saying that the Norwegian police would be charging Breivik for "pulling a metal lever" hundreds of times. I mean sure, he did that, but that's not what the claimed "crime" is. Imagine a guy gets passed the key to a storage locker by his friends, and is told that the storage locker holds stolen trade secrets, credit cards, etc. This guy had nothing to do with the theft itself, but he knows about it. Let's say further that this guy duplicates the key and mails it to a gang to do with as they will. If providing that gang access to that locker is illegal then homeboy here has certainly "aided & abetted" in that behavior, even though he did nothing more himself than a) duplicating a key (normally legal) and b) using the mail (normally legal). The author brings up the point that newspapers have to deal with this issue, but it's not really as much of an "issue" for them at all, as being passed classified data is not inherently illegal, and newspapers still make an effort to avoid printing information which would be dangerous if publically-available. Even the NYT/Guardian's recent reporting about NSA capabilities with regard to crypto didn't spill all the beans, and what links were posted by the newspapers were to documents that the newspapers screened for safety instead of a link to "all the goods". But certainly the papers wouldn't publish credit card numbers of victims of an identity theft scheme, would they? Likewise our intrepid, noble and completely objective storywriter uses the maximum legally-possible sentence as a FUD factor without so much as a single reference to the sentencing guidelines which would be used to determine an actual eventual sentence. There is a question to be asked here: Should these types of forcibly-exfiltrated secrets have any special inherent legal protection? If no, then posting a link to that data should be fine (assuming no other legal protection category applies). If yes, then posting a link to protected data would certainly be a no-no. The answer isn't obviously "no" either, by the way, otherwise our current protections against identity theft could hardly apply, not to mention the Privacy Act of 1974, medical record protections, etc. But it deserves a better answer than what we have now, which seems to be "throw whatever vague law might fit at it".

rosser 13y ago
The relevance of your analogy of a storage locker filled with trade secrets hinges on a crucial question: Did Brown have specific knowledge that the file dump contained credit card numbers, and if so, was his intent in posting the link to the chatroom to disseminate those credit card numbers for the purpose of furthering identity theft? Because if not, then given the crimes he's been charged with (aside from those related to the threatening the FBI agent, of course), he doesn't have the mens rea to warrant a conviction, to my — IANAL — understanding. (There's, I think, a further question in terms of whether or not, and to what extent, posting the URL to a chatroom intended presumably for the internal communications and coordination of Project PM counts as publishing them, but that's irrelevant to his mens rea.)

davvid 13y ago

If someone posts that same link on HN, and we all comment on it, are we all guilty? This seems like a very slippery slope. Wake up America, please!

throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago

"The article was based on, and linked to, documents that were stolen by Edward J. Snowden..." "...are suggesting that to share information online is the same as possessing it or even stealing it." I find the choice of the verb "steal" rather bizarre, particularly given the slant of this article. If leaking information is theft, then the New York Times is a frequent recipient and trafficker of stolen goods. I'm not necessarily criticizing their decision to steal the Pentagon Papers, but I think it would be cool if they returned them.

talmand 13y ago
Probably the difference being whether the information taken is considered newsworthy or not. There's a difference between publicly showing documents that suggest illegal activities by the government and credit card numbers. If the information can be considered newsworthy then there are several legal protections that kick in that make getting convictions difficult and the government isn't likely to bother. Especially if it would hurt the mutually beneficial relationship between government and the news media. Brown has done things that put him outside of mainstream news media, many of these actions were quite illegal. He's not in trouble for sharing leaked documents. He's in trouble for sharing credit card numbers and information that can be used for identity theft. I'm pretty sure that type of information is not newsworthy and not for sharing. If he had scrubbed that information then I would imagine there wouldn't be an issue. That and stop threatening FBI agents.

Fuxy 13y ago

Yes that was a mistake on his part you should never threaten you should only do. Back on topic... So the take away from this is security by obscurity is now officially protected by law and linking to leaked information is illegal according to the government. My America how far you have fallen.

smoyer 13y ago

Why does this feel like Aaron Swartz all over again? In this case, I'm not even sure I see the crime, but in both cases the government chose to jump on "people they didn't like".

eli 13y ago

The new Rolling Stone has a pretty decent (long) article about Barrett Brown: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces-105-years-in-jail-20130905 http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces...

segmondy 13y ago

I suggest representing "dangerous links" as numbers. use goo.gl or bitly, get the URL. turn it into a hex, turn it into one long integer. turn that integer into a series of simple mathematical equations involving additional and multiplication. one day the government is going to have to outlaw even simple numbers if they want to restrict information.

mpyne 13y ago
You could always do what Phil Z. did with PGP and write a book. :) I would point out that the charge itself doesn't have a problem with the link per se, as much as the data located at the link. If the link pointed to something completely innocuous (such as Wikipedia's front page) then even our overbearing prosecutor here would be laughed out of the courtroom if he tried filing charges.