8 ms·

Barrett Brown Can't Talk About Why the Government Wants to Jail Him

182 points by ferdo 13y ago

chris_mahan 13y ago
Evidently, since people in government feel the US Constitution is no longer the law, we end up with this sort of thing. Get used to it: there's no going back now, as they've tasted the awesome guava-flavored Kool-aid and they like it.
- nsmartt 13y ago
  I refuse, and so should you.
  - chris_mahan 13y ago
    Yeah, I'm not all excited about that, but they have guns, lots of them, and they are not shy about using them. I live in Los Angeles, so a special hello to my favorite trigger-happy police department: the famed LAPD!
    - nsmartt 13y ago
      Change comes with perseverance and reason. Violence is far from the only way to effect political change.
      - chris_mahan 13y ago
        Agreed. I'm not promoting violence. Rather, through hard work, kindness toward others, and a unwavering faith in the general benevolence of mankind, I press on to make a better place for all. Oh, and +1 for correct use of "effect". Such a feat is rarely seen nowadays.
        nsmartt 13y ago
        Change within the government and legal system is necessary, so I'm more inclined to think being quietly vocal will help, rather than social changes outside those systems. 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.
- rayiner 13y ago
  What exactly is unconstitutional here? Gag orders, preventing people from trying to play a case out in the media instead of the courtroom have been commonplace forever. This is a public trial in a public court. He'll have his say and it'll all be published for public consumption.
  - chris_mahan 13y ago
    I'm not talking about the gag order. I'm talking about a journalist publishing. 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."
  - Nimi 13y ago
    Could you please provide the common guidelines for placing a gag order? Surely, not every lawyer talking to the media and claiming his client is innocent receives one, so what's different here?
- j_baker 13y ago
  I don't plan on getting used to it, nor should you. Protecting liberty is an ongoing battle that every generation has to fight.
- criley2 13y ago
  I am so shocked that people believe that before now, justice was just and the US Constitution was followed. 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.
  - saraid216 13y ago
    There's a libertarian religion that's got an upsurge from Paul's bid for presidency in 2008. It has a Hesiodic Ages of Man feel in how America has descended from the Golden Age of George Washington to the present suffering and misery of the Iron Age of the 21st century. Its creation myth is that the Constitution is a sacred and inviolable document of the ancient ages past and that its sole purpose was a magic spell that summoned and bound a Hobbesian demon called Government, and that the founding Wizard-Fathers of our past bid it do good, but our warding runes have been slowly failing over the last two centuries. I just find it funny.
    - stan_rogers 13y ago
j_baker 13y ago
The DOJ has gotten exceedingly good at blatantly trumping up charges against innocent people on the flimsiest of excuses. The saddest part of it all is that in many cases even if the defendant is found not guilty, their career may be over.
- willvarfar 13y ago
  Although, in this particular case, you can imagine being him beating the DOJ would actually boost his career?
- saraid216 13y ago
  We still have careers in the modern age?
  - moocowduckquack 13y ago
    as a verb, maybe
homeomorphic 13y ago
"You still don't seem to have much general idea of what the court's about", said the painter, who had stretched his legs wide apart and was tapping loudly on the floor with the tip of his foot. "But as you're innocent you won't need it anyway. I'll get you out of this by myself." "How do you intend to do that?" asked K. "You did say yourself not long ago that it's quite impossible to go to the court with reasons and proofs." "Only impossible for reasons and proofs you take to the court yourself" said the painter, raising his forefinger as if K. had failed to notice a fine distinction. "It goes differently if you try to do something behind the public court, that's to say in the consultation rooms, in the corridors or here, for instance, in my studio." [...] "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. [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7849 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7849
danso 13y ago
It's curious that the OP links to the David Carr/NYT article on Brown, but does not cite the reason why Barrett Brown is under a gag order: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalist-agitator-facing-prison-over-a-link.html?pagewanted=all 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.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
clavalle 13y ago
The Barrett Brown case scares the crud out of me. 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.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 13y ago
  No, that's not all the charges flow from. He was arrested for threatening an FBI agent and his family. That's what the initial indictment was about: http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/bb_indictment.pdf http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/bb_indictment.pdf. It gets good on page 4-6.
  - cobrausn 13y ago
    If some federal agent threatened to put my mother in jail, I'd probably say worse, whether she did anything or not.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      There's a line between saying things and posting multiple youtube videos threatening to ruin someone's life and "look in" to their kids. That's a threat.
      - cobrausn 13y ago
        Agreed on the kids part, he probably should face charges for posting threats, but I do have to laugh about him 'threatening to ruin someone's life', considering that people who end up under the microscope of the federal government for posting links rarely have their life improved. All in all, he is not the most sympathetic of figures, but it doesn't mean the government gets a free pass.
mpyne 13y ago
Isn't this the same exact type of gag order that is normally levied on both sides for trials? As far as I can tell this is the same type of gag order that causes defendants to say "No comment until after the trial" and the prosecution to declare to the media that "details will be laid out at the trial".
eli 13y ago
Rolling Stone published a long profile of Brown and the case against him: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces-105-years-in-jail-20130905 http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces... 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.
jrockway 13y ago
Isn't this the guy that posted a YouTube video threatening to kill some FBI agent? Perhaps that's why the government wants to jail him.

182 points by ferdo 13y ago

Evidently, since people in government feel the US Constitution is no longer the law, we end up with this sort of thing. Get used to it: there's no going back now, as they've tasted the awesome guava-flavored Kool-aid and they like it.

nsmartt 13y ago
I refuse, and so should you.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  Yeah, I'm not all excited about that, but they have guns, lots of them, and they are not shy about using them. I live in Los Angeles, so a special hello to my favorite trigger-happy police department: the famed LAPD!
  - nsmartt 13y ago
    Change comes with perseverance and reason. Violence is far from the only way to effect political change.
    - chris_mahan 13y ago
      Agreed. I'm not promoting violence. Rather, through hard work, kindness toward others, and a unwavering faith in the general benevolence of mankind, I press on to make a better place for all. Oh, and +1 for correct use of "effect". Such a feat is rarely seen nowadays.
      - nsmartt 13y ago
        Change within the government and legal system is necessary, so I'm more inclined to think being quietly vocal will help, rather than social changes outside those systems. 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.
rayiner 13y ago
What exactly is unconstitutional here? Gag orders, preventing people from trying to play a case out in the media instead of the courtroom have been commonplace forever. This is a public trial in a public court. He'll have his say and it'll all be published for public consumption.
- chris_mahan 13y ago
  I'm not talking about the gag order. I'm talking about a journalist publishing. 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."
- Nimi 13y ago
  Could you please provide the common guidelines for placing a gag order? Surely, not every lawyer talking to the media and claiming his client is innocent receives one, so what's different here?
j_baker 13y ago
I don't plan on getting used to it, nor should you. Protecting liberty is an ongoing battle that every generation has to fight.
criley2 13y ago
I am so shocked that people believe that before now, justice was just and the US Constitution was followed. 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.
- saraid216 13y ago
  There's a libertarian religion that's got an upsurge from Paul's bid for presidency in 2008. It has a Hesiodic Ages of Man feel in how America has descended from the Golden Age of George Washington to the present suffering and misery of the Iron Age of the 21st century. Its creation myth is that the Constitution is a sacred and inviolable document of the ancient ages past and that its sole purpose was a magic spell that summoned and bound a Hobbesian demon called Government, and that the founding Wizard-Fathers of our past bid it do good, but our warding runes have been slowly failing over the last two centuries. I just find it funny.
  - stan_rogers 13y ago

j_baker 13y ago

The DOJ has gotten exceedingly good at blatantly trumping up charges against innocent people on the flimsiest of excuses. The saddest part of it all is that in many cases even if the defendant is found not guilty, their career may be over.

willvarfar 13y ago
Although, in this particular case, you can imagine being him beating the DOJ would actually boost his career?
saraid216 13y ago
We still have careers in the modern age?
- moocowduckquack 13y ago
  as a verb, maybe

homeomorphic 13y ago

"You still don't seem to have much general idea of what the court's about", said the painter, who had stretched his legs wide apart and was tapping loudly on the floor with the tip of his foot. "But as you're innocent you won't need it anyway. I'll get you out of this by myself." "How do you intend to do that?" asked K. "You did say yourself not long ago that it's quite impossible to go to the court with reasons and proofs." "Only impossible for reasons and proofs you take to the court yourself" said the painter, raising his forefinger as if K. had failed to notice a fine distinction. "It goes differently if you try to do something behind the public court, that's to say in the consultation rooms, in the corridors or here, for instance, in my studio." [...] "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. [1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7849 http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7849

danso 13y ago

It's curious that the OP links to the David Carr/NYT article on Brown, but does not cite the reason why Barrett Brown is under a gag order: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalist-agitator-facing-prison-over-a-link.html?pagewanted=all 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.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

clavalle 13y ago

The Barrett Brown case scares the crud out of me. 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.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 13y ago
No, that's not all the charges flow from. He was arrested for threatening an FBI agent and his family. That's what the initial indictment was about: http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/bb_indictment.pdf http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/bb_indictment.pdf. It gets good on page 4-6.
- cobrausn 13y ago
  If some federal agent threatened to put my mother in jail, I'd probably say worse, whether she did anything or not.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    There's a line between saying things and posting multiple youtube videos threatening to ruin someone's life and "look in" to their kids. That's a threat.
    - cobrausn 13y ago
      Agreed on the kids part, he probably should face charges for posting threats, but I do have to laugh about him 'threatening to ruin someone's life', considering that people who end up under the microscope of the federal government for posting links rarely have their life improved. All in all, he is not the most sympathetic of figures, but it doesn't mean the government gets a free pass.

mpyne 13y ago

Isn't this the same exact type of gag order that is normally levied on both sides for trials? As far as I can tell this is the same type of gag order that causes defendants to say "No comment until after the trial" and the prosecution to declare to the media that "details will be laid out at the trial".

eli 13y ago

Rolling Stone published a long profile of Brown and the case against him: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces-105-years-in-jail-20130905 http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces... 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.

jrockway 13y ago

Isn't this the guy that posted a YouTube video threatening to kill some FBI agent? Perhaps that's why the government wants to jail him.