FBI Added Lulzsec Hactivist Jeremy Hammond To The Terrorist Watchlist A Year Before He Was Arrested
from the terrorism-is-just-things-we-don't-fully-comprehend dept
Jeremy Hammond -- a member of various Anonymous offshoots -- had the misfortune of being prosecuted in the United States. While his UK accomplices in the Stratfor hack were sentenced to 1-3 years, Hammond received a 10-year sentence (along with three years of supervised release) for his participation. The length of Hammond's sentence was mainly due to the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) being a horribly-written law (and there's a possibility it will get much worse in the future), and the FBI's willingness to toss the hacktivist under the bus for the sins of Anonymous, while glossing over the fact that it was an FBI informant (Hector Monsegur, aka Sabu) who handed out hacking targets to Hammond.
Hammond's lengthy prison sentence may also have to do with other bad laws written by legislators who didn't have a full understanding of the issues they were attempting to address. A leaked document obtained by the Daily Dot [pdf link] shows the FBI put Hammond on the government's terrorist watchlist more than a year (Date/Time Entered: 1/19/2011) before he was arrested for the Stratfor hack.
A leaked document originating from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) reveals that Hammond was considered a "possible terrorist organization member," and indicates that he was placed on the multi-agency Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), alongside individuals suspected of ties to Al Qaeda, Somalia-based extremists al-Shabaab, and Colombia's leftist FARC guerilla movement.Here's the pertinent information is all of its teletyped glory:
The document also includes Hammond's rap sheet, which up to that point, only includes fraud and unauthorized computer access related to the theft of credit card information from a conservative website. What it doesn't include is anything that might justify his addition to the terrorist watchlist -- unless the FBI considers protests to be a terrorist activity.
Of course, the government agencies that have the power to place US citizens on terrorist watchlists don't seem interested in providing justification for their decisions. Just having a vague sense of unease seems to be all the "evidence" any agent/official needs to declare a person a threat to this country. Nearly 40% of those currently on the government's terrorist watchlist have "no known affiliation to recognized terrorist groups."
The government has long shown it doesn't understand hacking and is no fan of activism -- generally viewing both activities as some sort of threat. So, on the watchlist Hammond went, something that presumably played a part in the prosecution's push for a decade-long sentence for the hacktivist. His actions and motives were often far from pure, but his imprisonment appears to be a result of the FBI throwing an unwitting operative onto the judicial scrapheap before moving onto its next sting operation.
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Filed Under: anonymous, doj, fbi, jeremy hammond, lulzsec, terrorist watch list, tsdb
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aiding the terrorists! for the children! protect starving artists!
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It's hard to believe there's over a million terrorists in the world. It seems like the number of terrorists is increasing instead of decreasing. Which would imply the global war on terror is having the opposite effect of it's stated goals, and is creating more terrorists than it's eliminating.
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If your missing a finger
If you have over 7 days of food in your home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2N1z9zJ20k&feature=player_embedded
If you advocate privacy
if you pay with cash instead of a credit card
if you wear a hoodie
if you buy flashlights
if you own guns and or ammo
Everyone is a terrorist apparently, much easier to arrest people that commit no crimes if you make basic living illegal.
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It also doesn't list his felony mob action conviction from 2010 (the announcing that Chicago wasn't getting the 2016 olympics - when he got home after being released, he was proud of is arrest, and the violence/damage he caused and openly boasted of it.
and it also doesn't mention the 04 battery conviction, or the 2010 'storming' of a restaurant as part of a masked group of 5 because he didn't like one of the people eating there's views.
He's without question a thug and an incredibly intolerant one at that. He's hit out at his victims for speaking out ("Snitches get stitches" is a favorite phrase of his), so is it really such a stretch that he should be on a list of people to watch?
He's not some innocent caught up in an overzealous dragnet, but precisely the kind of person these lists are designed to help monitor. That is to say, those that just don't care and have no hesitation to lash out at any they deem to be worthy of attack, because they don't share their views, or just because they dared to speak out against him.
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declare them non-persons, then anything goes...
we're all non-persons, now...
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Saying 'you can't be a terrorist unless you belong to a terrorist organisation' is like saying 'you can't be a criminal unless you belong to a criminal organisation'. You don't suddenly become a terrorist when you need more than a minibus to get you around.
He has lots of convictions for violence, for attacking people based on their thoughts and beliefs, and prefaces them all with a justification based on his political ideology. That would fit him into the "terrorist" mold by pretty much any definition I've been able to find. Sure, he never blew anyone up, or shot them, but that's mostly because he's smart enough to know that never really works.
Is he a "terrorist" as most people would think of it? No. But then again, he's not really an 'activist' either. My experiences with him are more that he was a spoiled brat with minor aptitude in exploiting sql databases. However, instead of turning that to the hard, thankless work of actual activism, he acted like a spoiled brat, and now plays the Martyr card, because he isn't as smart as he thinks he is (the drug convictions alone should prove that!)
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You mean like law enforcement using physical violence, or threat of violence, in order to enforce the ideological position of bills passed by a political Congress?
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"Do not detain or arrest"
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The thing is that the document instructs the cops to try to obtain sufficient identification so that it can be confirmed whether or not he's the terrorist they're looking for, but don't detain or delay him in doing so.
This despite the fact that one of the legitimate reasons to hold someone without arresting them is when the cops think he might be someone they're looking for but aren't sure -- then they can hold the person until identification can be established (up to a maximum time -- I think it's 48 hours, but I'm not sure.) So they reason for the advice not to detain him isn't based on the lack of authority.
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Dissent is being criminalized.
Of course the term terrorism is a buzzword meant to get rid of anyone whoever is in charge doesn't like.
You can be a terrorist if you have over 7 days of food, so most Americans are therefore potential terrorists under that guideline
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