Anonymous activist and journalist Barrett Brown sentenced to 5 years

Barrett Brown

“Let others be discouraged.” Probably, the American authorities want to bring such an idea to the Internet community, which has recently posed a real threat to the established order. Internet activism, hacking state secret services, political campaigns (as a result of such a campaign, with the participation of Aaron Schwartz, the practically adopted SOPA bill was canceled) - this is not like conservative politicians.

35 years in prison for Bradley Manning. The threat of a death sentence to Julian Assange. The threat of 35 years in prison for Aaron Schwartz (suicide as a result). All this is part of a large campaign to intimidate the online community, which is transparently hinted at: guys, stay away from politics!

Another victim of justice was journalist Barrett Brown, who wrote on information security topics in Vanity Fair, the Huffington Post Guardian, and others. He is also the founder of Project PM Project Crowdsourcing for Journalistic Investigations.

The journalist studied documents and mail correspondence received by Anonymous as a result of hacking a private company Stratfor, which was engaged in foreign intelligence in Russia and other countries of the world.

As it turned out later, Brown himself is involved in the Anonymous movement.

Barrett Brown is sentenced to 63 months in prison , minus 31 months that he has already served. In addition, he will have to pay $ 890,000 in the form of fines and compensation for damages and spend two years after his release under supervision.

Barrett Brown's statement

"Good news!

Today, the US government decided: since I did my job investigating the cyber-industrial complex so well, they will send me to study the prison-industrial complex. The next 35 months I will be provided with free food, clothing and housing, and I will search and report on the misconduct of the Bureau of Prison officials and staff, as well as report on the news and cultural events of the largest prison system in the world. I want to thank the US Department of Justice, which has spent so much time and effort to ensure my business trip. Thanks to them for not being evil because of my two-year work, the purpose of which was to draw public attention to the campaign of the Justice Ministry to prosecute and discredit journalists like Glenn Greenwald. Instead, the ministry worked tirelessly to guarantee me such a prestigious business trip.

Wish me good luck!"

In the final word before the sentence was announced, Barrett Brown admitted his mistakes, including drug use and threats to the FBI agent (this was the reason for his detention). But despite these mistakes, he believes that the government has gone beyond the law to prosecute it.

After the verdict was announced, an official statement was published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

EFF lawyers list all the articles on which Brown was accused, and single out one of them that is of particular concern. After hacking into Stratfor, the journalist talked to Anonymous activists on the IRC channel. At some point, he copied a link to files with information about stolen credit cards on one IRC channel - and published it on another IRC channel. That is, he performed the copy-paste operation. As a result, he was accused ofthe spread of stolen authentication functions (a three-digit code on the back of the card) and the theft of personal data with aggravating circumstances .

The EFF has long stated that hyperlink allegations “pose a serious threat to press freedom.” Fortunately, in March 2014 the government withdrew 11 controversial points, and a month later Brown signed an agreement under which there were only three points of charge, and the term was reduced to a modest 5 years.

Of the 63 months sentenced, only 15 months are related to the Stratfor hack, and the remaining 48 months is a punishment for threats to an FBI agent.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recognizes that threatening violence against a civil servant is an unacceptable act, but at the same time draws attention to the fact that Brown’s act was partially provoked by the pressure exerted on him by government agencies that began to prosecute the journalist.

In other words, as a result of pressure and the threat of imprisonment, he was forced to commit an offense, for which he received a real sentence. “This causes an unpleasant resemblance to the alarming story of Aaron Schwartz, who eventually committed suicide, faced with the threat of spending years in federal prison for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“ CFAA ”),” writes EFF.