A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalist-agitator-facing-prison-over-a-link.html

by Thereasione • 13 years ago

98 49 13 years ago

danso• 13 years 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• 13 years ago

http://freebarrettbrown.org/donate/

aspensmonster3• 13 years 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/

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• 13 years ago

Single page:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/media/a-journalis...

tptacek4• 13 years ago

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

jrockway• 13 years 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• 13 years 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• 13 years 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.

mpyne11• 13 years 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• 13 years 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?

tptacek4• 13 years ago

The linked article makes the point that the "100 years" Brown faces has no relation to reality. What the NYT is reporting is literally a misreading of the sentencing guidelines.

pygy_3• 13 years ago

Obligatory

Really?

http://www.righto.com/2013/09/9-hacker-news-comments-im-tire...

tptacek4• 13 years ago

I don't follow.

dnautics• 13 years 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• 13 years 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.

mpyne11• 13 years 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• 13 years 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.)

mpyne11• 13 years ago

I forget the fancy legalese for it, but some crimes do not require mens rea (or have a lesser charge for an action without the required mens rea). I'm not sure if that applies to the data in question in this case though, but it's a great point to consider for the general question.

guelo• 13 years ago

Bullshit. Typing out http://some.website should never be a crime. Period. Look up the first amendment.

mpyne11• 13 years ago

So if I should find out someone is HIV positive and looking for employment, I should be able to type out the preceding sentence to the HR departments of all prospective employers due to my First Amendment rights?

How about inciting a lynch mob (you know, the kind that hang 'uppity' persons off of trees)? It's just speech, right?

rayiner• 13 years ago

Nobody is saying its a crime. But that doesn't mean it can't be a piece of a larger course of action that is itself a crime. Circumstances are not irrelevant.

aspensmonster3• 13 years ago

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.

I can imagine, but it's not what happened. LulzSec shotgunned the release out onto the web, where everyone picked it up, not just Brown.

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,...

It isn't illegal. LulzSec is responsible for the release. Specifically, Jeremy Hammond has been charged and convicted with the actual crime of hacking into Stratfor and releasing the material. He was facing a life sentence and received 10 years and 2.5 million dollars in restitution upon pleading guilty. The liklihood that he could ever get that restitution dropped, via bankruptcy or other means, is minimal. Financially, he has effectively been given a life sentence. Brown no more aided and abetted anyone than Cryptome or any of the other numerous actors that linked to and received the link or, heaven forbid, downloaded the material, and yet Brown is facing punishment of similar magnitude to the guy who actually committed the crime.

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.

What typically happens is irrelevant. It shouldn't be possible for someone like Hammond to face life in prison, or Manning to face the death penalty, or Brown to face 105 years at all. To make that possible is to make a "lighter" sentence of 10 years for Hammond (and 2.5 million dollars), or 35 years for Manning, or 5 years for Brown, seem graciously reasonable. The constant whiny poo-pooing that "they won't really get that much," and cheeky linking to blog posts intended to inform the uninformed masses about the federal sentencing guidelines, is nothing more than noise. It truly intends to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

There is a question to be asked here: Should these types of forcibly-exfiltrated secrets have any special inherent legal protection?
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.

It really is an obvious "no." Hacking into customer databases and pilfering the contents is a crime. A crime that has been tried in court with the accused convicted and serving time in prison. Once information is out in the clear, it makes absolutely zero sense to try and claim some sort of retroactive "special inherent legal protection." The protection already exists, with punishment for its violation. The crime is for putting documents into the clear, not propagating them, no matter their contents.

==========================================

http://cryptome.org/0005/stratfor-hack.htm

|->http://pastebin.com/f7jYf5Wd

   |

   |->http://ibhg35kgdvnb7jvw.onion/lulzxmas/stratfor_full.tar.gz

Do I get N decades in prison for that? Do I get N months for that? N days? If my sentence is anything other than "0 days" and "absolutely no harassment" then justice has not been upheld.

mpyne11• 13 years ago

Manning never faced the death penalty. Not for a single day.

This goes back to what I was saying about advocates being near to dishonesty, by the way. You probably read at some point Manning was facing the death penalty, and despite having years and years to correct your initial misperception, you continue to not only remember that incorrectly, but to parrot it as truth.

Once information is out in the clear, it makes absolutely zero sense to try and claim some sort of retroactive "special inherent legal protection."

When Barrett pasted that link, was that information already publically available? I don't mean "a URL one could theoretically have wardialed"... did all the others in that IRC chat room already have that data, or did they not?

If that data were already out in public and he was simply referencing it I'd probably agree with your interpretation in this case. But if that data were 'news' to the rest of the chat room then it seems that 'hacking and pilfering' would apply, except that no hacking was needed in this case.

But either way involvement in criminal enterprises has always been itself a crime, to avoid diversion of responsibility in the way you would allow.

E.g. a bank robbery, the guy driving the getaway car gets in trouble too even though driving a car isn't illegal, otherwise you could split up your criminal ring in a kind of 'process separation' scheme and have only a few take the risk of the actual crime while the rest aid as much as they can with normally-legal activity.

davvid• 13 years 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• 13 years 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• 13 years 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• 13 years 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• 13 years 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• 13 years ago

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

segmondy• 13 years 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.

mpyne11• 13 years 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.

A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link

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