Journalist Barrett Brown Kickstarting Project To Engage In The Same Activities That Landed Him A Bullshit Conviction

from the good-for-him dept

It's not entirely clear what motivations lie behind Barrett Brown's Kickstarter project, but you have to imagine it has to partially be an extended middle finger to the DOJ.

Journalist Barrett Brown was tried and convicted on a handful of charges related to the act of journalism. He ended up with a 63-month sentence and a $890,000 restitution order -- some of which was tied to this activity.

[A] key part of the initial charges included the fact that Brown had organized an effort to comb through the documents that had been obtained from Stratfor via a hack. The key bit was that Brown had reposted a URL pointing to the documents to share via his "Project PM" -- a setup to crowdsource the analysis of the leaked documents. Some of those documents included credit card info, so he was charged with "trafficking" in that information.

Brown made his situation worse by threatening federal agents, but the prosecution originally stemmed from his sharing of Stratfor documents. The link-sharing charge was ultimately dropped, but the DOJ included it in the indictment, trying to turn sharing a URL into trafficking in stolen credit cards.

Compare that summation of the DOJ's prosecution with Brown's new "Pursuance Project."

Pursuance is open source software that provides a better way to organize online. It provides an integrated suite of digital tools, all designed to allow activists, researchers, journalists, artists, coders – anyone with talent and a little time – to collaborate on projects large and small, working within customized, evolvable entities called pursuances. (Think of a pursuance as a mission-oriented project/organization/group that people on the platform can join and contribute to.)

So… crowdsourcing knowledge/skillsets to engage in activism or journalism or whatever. This may include sharing access to leaked documents, much like those Brown was prosecuted for. But this won't all be out in the open. Steps will be taken to shield collaborators from those opposed to their efforts. Two-factor authentication will be baked in, along with "Tor by default." On top of that, pursuers[?] are given tools to keep The Man from surveilling their projects.

We're including a robust permissions system that allows you to invite people at various trust levels. At the minimum trust level, the person you've invited can only see and only work on the tasks you've assigned them; they can't see the rest of the task hierarchy, and they can't see who else is involved, thus limiting the possible damage done by malicious infiltrators.

This sounds very much like Brown wants to get back to the work he was doing before the federal government interrupted his life with trumped-up charges. More journalism, more collaborations, and a suite of tools to keep those who view investigative journalism as threatening locked out of the process.

Filed Under: barrett brown, crowdfunding, crowdsourcing, journalism, pursuance project

Barrett Brown Re-Arrested For Giving Media Interviews Without Permission

from the hey,-wait-a-second... dept

The weird, sickening persecution of Barrett Brown continues. Whether or not you like the guy (and every time we post about him, we hear from people who provide reasons why they dislike him), the way he's been treated by our justice system is despicable. If you don't recall, Brown is an award winning journalist, who certainly went deep with Anonymous and other online groups. Eventually that resulted in him being arrested and harassed by prosecutors for sharing a link. When the infamous Stratfor hacks were released, he shared a link to the files to get people to sift through them. Because some of the files included swiped credit card numbers, he was charged with "trafficking" in stolen credit cards. Oddly, right before trial -- realizing how insane it was to charge him over this -- the feds dropped the charges around linking, but pushed forward on other charges because he hid a laptop in a cabinet and (stupidly...) got angry at the FBI when they came to investigate. The odd part is that following a plea deal, the judge sentenced him to an astounding 63 months in jail -- and cited the sharing of the link (again, those charges were dropped, but it sometimes appeared the judge didn't realize that) to explain why.

But the odder part throughout all of this was just how vindictive and petty everyone in the system were towards Brown -- and specifically towards his interactions with the press. The feds sought to stop the media from reporting on Brown's case and got a judge to block Brown or his lawyers from talking to the media. And once he was in prison, the feds cut off his email.

All this weird petty shit, just to stop him from talking to the media.

Late last year, he was released from prison (earlier than expected) and has been complying with all the terms of his release... except, apparently, officials disagreed with that... because he was conducting interview with the media, according to D Magazine, where Brown has been working since his release. The Intercept, which employed Brown as a columnist while he was in prison, has more details, claiming that his check-in officer suddenly claimed that he needed permission before he could conduct media interviews -- something he had not been told at all.

According to his mother, who spoke with Brown by phone after his arrest, Brown believes the reason for his re-arrest was a failure to obtain “permission” to give interviews to media organizations. Several weeks ago, Brown was told by his check-in officer that he needed to fill out permission forms before giving interviews.

Since his release, Brown has given numerous interviews, on camera and by phone. But according to his mother, Brown said that the Bureau of Prisons never informed him about a paperwork requirement. When he followed up with his check-in officer, he was given a different form: a liability form for media entering prisons.

Just last week, Brown was interviewed for two days by VICE, and his PBS interview was set for Friday.

Leiderman said he had not been presented with a formal justification for the arrest but was told that it had “to do with failing to abide by BOP restrictions on interviews.”

That's both astounding and frightening at the same time, and seems like a fairly blatant kick in the face to the First Amendment. There appears to be no other reason for his arrest other than his speech in the form of conducting media interviews (often critical of criminal justice system). Nothing about this makes sense, other than out of pure vindictiveness. And, of course, if the idea was to shut him up about this, it seems quite likely to backfire massively. Not only will Brown continue to be able to talk about on this, but it's drawing much more attention to the issue from many others in the press, wondering what kind of world we live in when you can be arrested for agreeing to do media interviews.

Filed Under: arrested, barrett brown, first amendment, free speech, giving interviews, media, press

Barrett Brown's Donors Sue DOJ/FBI For Monitoring Their Donations

from the what-kind-of-world-do-you-want-to-live-in? dept

We've written numerous stories about Barrett Brown, the reporter who was sentenced to 63 months in jail after being pressured into signing a plea deal. If you don't recall, Brown's "crime" was trying to get a bunch of people together to crowdsource an investigation into the famous Stratfor email hack. The feds went after him for posting a link (yes, posting a link) to a group to investigate, and because some of the Stratfor info included credit card data, the feds argued that Brown was trafficking in stolen credit cards. Really. And while the feds eventually dismissed the specific charges related to the links, the judge justified the long sentence against him because he copy/pasted that link.

The whole thing was a travesty. Brown is thankfully out of jail now, but earlier this week, Kevin Gallagher, who helped organize a legal defense fund for Brown, sued the Justice Department over claims that the DOJ illegally tracked and monitored everyone who donated to support Brown. Gallagher is looking to make this a class action lawsuit. You can read the full complaint here. From the filing:

The government agents responsible for the arrest and prosecution of the journalist violated the First Amendment by seeking the identities of the donors to the crowd-funding campaign, as well as the amounts of each donation. This violation began when Assistant United States Attorney Candina Heath sent a subpoena (the “WePay Subpoena”) to WePay, Inc. (“WePay”), the host of the crowd-funded legal defense fund, directing WePay to send “any and all information” pertaining to the legal defense fund to Special Agent Robert Smith of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”). The subpoena claimed that the information it requested would be used at the trial of the jailed journalist. However, the identities of, and the amounts donated by, the journalist’s supporters are completely irrelevant to the charges levied against the journalist. On information and belief, the WePay Subpoena was part of a larger scheme by Ms. Heath and Mr. Smith to unlawfully surveil the donors in violation of the First Amendment. As the Ninth Circuit has recognized, “[t]he right of those expressing political, religious, social, or economic views to maintain their anonymity is historic, fundamental, and all too often necessary. The advocacy of unpopular causes may lead to reprisals – not only by government but by society in general. While many who express their views may be willing to accept these consequences, others not so brave or so free to do so will be discouraged from engaging in public advocacy.”

The lawsuit further argues that the subpoena violated the Stored Communications Act (part of ECPA), because it sought the content of electronic communications without a warrant. That's because, in using WePay, donors were able to also include messages of support for Barrett Brown -- and the feds requested that info without a warrant (and the content was less than 180 days old, which still does require a warrant). That's... a problem.

The details of the lawsuit also question whether or not the administrative subpoena that was used to request the info was issued under false pretenses (i.e., it was claimed that the info was necessary for the prosecution of Brown, but instead of being sent to the prosecution team, it was sent instead to the FBI):

The WePay Subpoena indicated that the information it requested would be used in the trial of Barrett Brown. Oddly enough, however, instead of asking WePay to send its response directly to Ms. Heath, the prosecutor, or to lodge its response with the court, the WePay Subpoena compelled WePay to produce information directly to Agent Smith of the FBI. This renders the WePay Subpoena improper under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 17(c). It also demonstrates that Defendants’ claimed purpose of using the information produced in response to the WePay Subpoena at Barrett Brown’s trial was purely pretextual. The true goal of the WePay Subpoena, rather, was to facilitate the unlawful surveillance of the anonymous donors to the crowd-funding campaign.

I have no idea if this case has any chance at all. My suspicion is that the courts will figure out a way to dump it pretty quickly, but at the very least, it should call attention to the question of why the FBI felt that it needed all of the info on everyone donating to Barrett Brown, a journalist they railroaded into jail.

Filed Under: barrett brown, class action, doj, donations, ecpa, fbi, first amendment, kevin gallagher, sca, stored communications act

Barrett Brown Loses Email Access For A Year After Using Email To Complain About Prison

from the that's-ridiculous dept

Last week, whistleblower Chelsea Manning was able to start tweeting from prison, while at nearly the same time reporter Barrett Brown lost his email access for an entire year for daring to email a journalist about bad prison conditions. If you don't recall, Barrett Brown is the reporter who was recently sentenced to more than five years in jail for reporting on the hacking actions of Anonymous. Bizarrely, the length of the sentence hinged on Brown's sharing a link in a chat room, even though the Justice Department dropped that particular charge. We also found it ridiculous that during the course of his trial, Brown was ordered by the court not to talk to journalists.

It appears that, once again, that was a part of the problem here. The judicial and correctional systems apparently really don't like it when you talk to journalists:

An hour or so after having used the system to contact a journalist about potential BOP [Bureau of Prisons] wrongdoing, Barrett Brown’s access to the TRULINCS prisoner e-mail system was restricted, for a full year until April 2016, without explanation.

This is contrary to the BOP’s own policy on several points, as noted in their 2009 documentation — the administration is only allowed to remove access to TRULINCS for thirty days pending an investigation of any potential misuse, and the inmate is supposed to be informed in writing of the reason for that.

But despite all of that, prison officials don't seem to care. They made it clear they just wanted to shut up Brown:

Barrett spoke to a supervisor this morning who told him that he lost his e-mail access because he was “using it for the wrong thing”. This refers to his contacts with the press. A review of his e-mail activity had been made, Barrett was also told by this person that he “wasn’t supposed to have” e-mail, when there’s been no such order or determination that we’re aware of.

Apparently, Brown had been talking to Glenn Greenwald about writing some articles for The Intercept, and that's what set off the Bureau of Prisons into a full-fledged lockdown on Brown's email account. Brown himself was later able to provide more details, suggesting a completely arbitrary process by a prison official:

Failing to find Mr. Coleman, I met that afternoon with Unit Manger Ivory, who checked my files but could find no reason why my access should have suddenly been suspended and also advised me to meet with Mr. Coleman. At some point that day, my attempts to log in started to prompt a different message stating: “This account is on suspension until 4/1/2016 11:59:59 pm (from portal 16)”. At the next lunch period on Thursday, April 2nd, I was unable to locate Mr. Coleman, but laid out my problem to the associate warden who told me to return in five minutes, when Mr. Coleman would be present.

I did so, and when I asked another group of prison officials if they knew where I could find Mr. Coleman, another individual came up to me and said that he was the person I was looking for. He pulled me aside and told me that he was the one who had cut off my email, as I wasn’t supposed to have access to it in the first place due to my charges. I noted that I had three charges and asked which one precluded me from using the email service. He told me to list my charges and I did so. He then added that he had done a review of my email correspondence and found that I had “been using it for the wrong thing.” I replied that I had simply been using it to communicate with the press. He confirmed that “that was the wrong thing.” I asked him his name, which he gave as “Moore”.

Yes, when you go to prison, you have given up a lot of your rights and freedoms. But this seems like a purely arbitrary decision to punish Brown for criticizing the prison system. And, it appears to be backfiring, only driving that much more attention to the issue.

Filed Under: barrett brown, bureau of prisons, email, glenn greenwald, journalism, prison, vindictive

Barrett Brown Sentenced To 63 Months In Jail For Daring To Do Journalism On Hacked Info

from the bad-and-dangerous-precedent dept

We've written a few times about the ridiculous case against Barrett Brown, a journalist who took a deep interest in Anonymous and various hacking efforts. As we noted, a key part of the initial charges included the fact that Brown had organized an effort to comb through the documents that had been obtained from Stratfor via a hack. The key bit was that Brown had reposted a URL pointing to the documents to share via his "Project PM" -- a setup to crowdsource the analysis of the leaked documents. Some of those documents included credit card info, so he was charged with "trafficking" in that information. Brown didn't help his own cause early on with some immensely foolish actions, like threatening federal agents in a video posted to YouTube, but there were serious concerns about how the government had twisted what Brown had actually done in a way that could be used against all kinds of journalists.

While the feds eventually dismissed the key "linking" claim (equating linking to trafficking), they still got Brown to agree to a plea deal on other charges. After many months, he was finally sentenced today to 63 months in prison, more than double the 30 months that his lawyers asked for (30 months being the time he's already served in prison). He also has to pay $890,000 in restitution. For linking to some files he didn't have anything to do with leaking.

Before the sentencing, Brown made a statement to the judge that is well worth reading. He admits that the threatening videos were "idiotic" and apologizes for it, but delves more deeply into what's really at stake in his case. Here's just a tiny bit:

Every journalist in the United States is put at risk by the novel, and sometimes even radical, claims that the government has introduced in the course of the sentencing process. The government asserts that I am not a journalist and thus unable to claim the First Amendment protections guaranteed to those engaged in information-gathering activities. Your Honor, I’ve been employed as a journalist for much of my adult life, I’ve written for dozens of magazines and newspapers, and I’m the author of two published and critically-acclaimed books of expository non-fiction. Your Honor has received letters from editors who have published my journalistic work, as well as from award-winning journalists such as Glenn Greenwald, who note that they have used that work in their own articles. If I am not a journalist, then there are many, many people out there who are also not journalists, without being aware of it, and who are thus as much at risk as I am.

Your Honor, it would be one thing if the government were putting forth some sort of standard by which journalists could be defined. They have not put forth such a standard. Their assertion rests on the fact that despite having referred to myself as a journalist hundreds of times, I at one point rejected that term, much in the same way that someone running for office might reject the term “politician”. Now, if the government is introducing a new standard whereby anyone who once denies being a particular thing is no longer that thing in any legal sense, then that would be at least a firm and knowable criteria. But that’s not what the government is doing in this case. Consider, for instance, that I have denied being a spokesperson for Anonymous hundreds of times, both in public and private, ever since the press began calling me that in the beginning of 2011. So on a couple of occasions when I contacted executives of contracting firms like Booz Allen Hamilton in the wake of revelations that they’d been spying on my associates and me for reasons that we were naturally rather anxious to determine, I did indeed pretend to be such an actual official spokesman for Anonymous, because I wanted to encourage these people to talk to me. Which they did.

Of course, I have explained this many, many times, and the government itself knows this, even if they’ve since claimed otherwise. In the September 13th criminal complaint filed against me, the FBI itself acknowledges that I do not claim any official role within Anonymous. Likewise, in last month’s hearing, the prosecutor accidentally slipped and referred to me as a journalist, even after having previously found it necessary to deny me that title. But, there you have it. Deny being a spokesperson for Anonymous hundreds of times, and you’re still a spokesperson for Anonymous. Deny being a journalist once or twice, and you’re not a journalist. What conclusion can one draw from this sort of reasoning other than that you are whatever the FBI finds it convenient for you to be at any given moment. This is not the “rule of law”, Your Honor, it is the “rule of law enforcement”, and it is very dangerous.

The judge didn't seem to care, however. Judge Sam Lindsay claimed that Brown was "more involved than he wants the court to believe" despite no such evidence being presented. Furthermore, it appears that even though the charges related to the link sharing were dropped and the plea was over other charges, sharing that link is part of why his sentence was so high.

This is a very dangerous ruling for those who believe in freedom of the press. Rulings like this put anyone reporting on any hacked or leaked info at risk. While some don't like it, reporters need to be free to report on things, from the Stratfor documents to the Sony Hack documents to the Snowden revelations. A sentence like this puts a massive chill over journalism and the First Amendment in general.

Filed Under: anonymous, barrett brown, free speech, hacks, journalism, linking, sam lindsay

Barrett Brown Signs Plea Deal

from the of-course dept

Late yesterday, a superseding indictment was filed in Barrett Brown's case, knocking the charges down to just two, with the main one being that he somehow offered assistance to Jeremy Hammond, who had taken an earlier plea deal for the Stratfor hack. As many people suggested, this new indictment was almost certainly because of a plea deal, which has now been confirmed, as the court also granted a motion to seal the plea deal.

The case against Brown has been something of a travesty from the beginning, as Brown was clearly never involved in the hack, but was involved in reporting on the hack and then involved in some rather misguided public ranting in which he threatened the feds if they came after him. As it became clear that the key part of the government's case hinged on the idea that copying and pasting a link found elsewhere was tantamount to hackking, the DOJ was forced to back down and dismiss most of the charges. Brown has been in jail for many months already, and it's likely that the plea deal will keep him in for a short while longer. Accepting a plea deal is pretty standard in these situations. If you're not familiar with how these things go down, when the DOJ is embarrassed -- as they clearly were in this case -- they almost always pressure defendants into agreeing to some minor plea deal, to save face for themselves. It takes the "risk" away from the defendant, and generally speeds up the process. It's the same sort of thing that happened to Thomas Drake. As we've said before, if you think plea deals like this are an actual admission of guilt, we suggest you watch the documentary Better This World, which shows you how the DOJ deals with cases like this, where they will do basically anything to get people to plead guilty.

Filed Under: barrett brown, doj, jeremy hammond, journalism, linking, plea deal, stratfor hack

Feds Dismiss Charges Against Barrett Brown For Linking After Realizing They Had No Case

from the and-it-shouldn't-be dept

Well, well, well. We were about to put up the post below, describing the arguments that Barrett Brown's lawyers filed about why the criminal charges against him for sharing a link (which they claimed was trafficking in stolen credit card details) were completely bogus... and it appears that the DOJ itself was convinced. Just hours after Brown's lawyers filed their comprehensive argument, the DOJ has filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charges that stem from the cutting and pasting of the link. The other charges, concerning threatening acts (described below) and "obstruction of justice" (for hiding his laptop in a cabinet) remain, meaning that he is still facing significant jail time. But the core charge, concerning cutting and pasting a link, is now being dismissed. Of course, it's still a travesty that the DOJ ever included that in the indictment in the first place.

Our original post, about Brown's now obsolete filing is below:

---

We've covered the deeply troubling case of Barrett Brown before. The DOJ has been working overtime to lock up Brown, whose main "crime" appears to have been taking a link that was publicly available that pointed to documents taken by members of Anonymous from the consulting/media company Stratfor, and pasting that link into an online chat. Brown did not hack Stratfor. Instead, he was working on his ongoing project to dig into the various documents leaked via Anonymous for journalistic purposes. While Brown's case was initially messy due to some ill-advised public statements by Brown (in which he ranted publicly about law enforcement, to the point of threatening to shoot those who came after him), when you dig into the fundamentals of the case, there's not much there other than taking that publicly available link and pasting it into a chat room. The government is claiming that since the documents from Stratfor included credit card info, Brown's copy/paste was the equivalent of trafficking in stolen credit cards. Think about that for a second.

Brown's legal team has now filed a motion asking the court to dismiss the key claims concerning the copy pasting of the link, which underpin pretty much the entire case. This is an issue that is important to anyone who believes both in the freedom of the press as well as the idea that merely sharing a link shouldn't make one liable (especially criminally liable) for what's in the content that's being linked to. The filing makes three basic arguments.

First, it notes that merely sharing a link clearly does not meet the standard of a criminal act under the law that Brown is being charged under, with the key question being whether merely pasting a link is "transferring" ... "authentication features."

As a matter of pleading, the Indictment is fatally flawed because (1) it fails to allege an essential element—“the transfer of authentication features”—altogether, and (2) it fails to allege that Mr. Brown “transferred” anything other than a hyperlink. Instead, the government claims that Mr. Brown violated the statute by republishing a (publicly available) hyperlink which caused a (publicly available) file to be made “available to others online.” However, as shown in POINT I, the government’s theory of the case fails to satisfy any valid construction of the charging statutes.

Second, the filing notes that even if the court actually believes that merely copying and pasting a publicly available link is "the transfer of authentication features" under the law, then that law clearly violates the First Amendment:

First, Mr. Brown is alleged to have engaged in pure speech, not merely conduct with expressive elements. The act of republishing a hyperlink is unquestionably an act of pure communication and expression. Thus, applying Section 1028 to Mr. Brown’s republication of a hyperlink is a substantial burden on his right to free speech. Pure speech also warrants the highest protection, and laws burdening pure speech must face heightened scrutiny. Only a “‘need... of the highest order’” can justify “a regulation of pure speech.”....

Second, Mr. Brown’s speech (by republishing the hyperlink) addressed political issues—namely the uncovering of improprieties within the private intelligence contracting industry. As such, it is entitled to the First Amendment’s highest protection. “[L]awful political speech [is] at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect.” ....

Third, Mr. Brown’s speech (by republishing the hyperlink) was part of his routine press activity: gathering, disseminating and publishing information about the Stratfor hack and, more generally, private intelligence contractors.

If the court still isn't convinced, Brown's lawyers offer up a third argument, noting that even if copying and pasting the link is covered by the specific law and if pasting a link isn't protected by the First Amendment (as it clearly should be), then Brown's lawyers point out that the law in question, 18 USC 1028 is "unconstitutionally vague on their face" and "unconstitutionally overbroad and chills speech in violation of the First Amendment."

This is going to be an important case to follow. In the past whenever we've covered Brown, we've heard from some people who had personal run-ins with Brown and didn't like him, as if that means that his legal case isn't important and the legal issues should be overlooked. We disagree. No matter what people think of Brown, the key legal issues in this case are vitally important in an era when federal prosecutors are piling on excessive charges against people they don't like and, even worse, when there has been a ratcheting up of rhetoric against journalists reporting on leaked information. Some of the most important cases you will see involve people that you probably wouldn't like very much in person -- but that matters little when it comes to the importance of the underlying legal points and the wider impact they may have. In fact, it makes the issues more important, because once the precedent is set, they can be used against people you do like in the future.

Filed Under: anonymous, barrett brown, doj, free speech, linking
Companies: stratfor

Court Tells Journalist Barrett Brown He And His Lawyers Can't Talk To The Press Any More

from the that's-insane dept

We just wrote about the ridiculousness of Barrett Brown's case, in which he's been in jail and facing a very long sentence mainly for copying a URL from one place to another, but also because the feds have been seeking a media gag. Tragically, the court has now granted that gag order. Neither Brown nor his legal team is allowed to speak to the media:

No person covered by this order shall make any statement to members of any television, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet (including, but not limited to, bloggers), or other media organization about this case, other than matters of public record, that could interfere with a fair trial or otherwise prejudice Defendant, the Government, or the administration of justice....

This gag order seems somewhat ridiculous. The idea that having Brown or his legal team talking to the press would somehow unfairly bias the jury in his case is ridiculous. It's perfectly reasonable to expect Brown and his legal team to try to draw attention to the ridiculousness of the case, and the only purpose of this sort of gag order is to silence the press and keep the story from getting the kind of attention it deserves, as yet another example of prosecutorial overreach by the DOJ.

Filed Under: barrett brown, bias, free speech, gag order, journalism

Feds Seeking To Silence The Media Over Barrett Brown, After They Locked Him Up For Posting A Link

from the prosecutorial-overreach dept

We've covered the immensely troubling case against Barrett Brown a few times here. Brown is the journalist and activist who was arrested on a series of highly questionable charges, mostly focused on taking the astounding step of copying a URL pointing to a bunch of Stratfor emails that people in Anonymous had hacked, and placing it in a chat room that Brown managed, to try to crowdsource information about intelligence community contractors, known as Project PM. No one has accused Brown of being responsible for the hack -- but rather just posting the link to the hacked contents, which the feds are claiming is a federal crime, in part because the data it pointed to contained credit card info. There are two other charges, including concealing evidence (he put his laptop in his mother's dish cabinet) and "threatening a federal agent" based on a rambling video he had posted to YouTube, which was probably inappropriate, but was in response to being constantly harassed and threatened himself for merely reporting on the various information that had been leaked. Glenn Greenwald's summary from earlier this year is well worth reading.

The incredible thing is that the linking to leaked materials, including those that reveal hacked documents and things like passwords is fairly common. As the EFF pointed out a few weeks back, if what Brown did with the link to Stratfor emails was a crime then plenty of other publications are guilty of the same thing, including The Daily Beast and Buzzfeed, who both posted links to what some claimed were passwords for email accounts of Congressional staffers.

Even more ridiculous, however, is that the government is seeking to silence the media from reporting on the case, claiming, ridiculously that press coverage related to the case is something it can blame on Brown himself because various publications are reporting on the ridiculous details of his arrest and the charges against him.

Today, there is the latest hearing in his case, in which the US government is asking the court to issue a gag order barring both Brown and his lawyer from "making any statement to members of any television, radio, newspaper, magazine, Internet (including, but not limited to, bloggers), or other media organization about this case, other than matters of public record."

Think about this for a second. Not only is the main charge against him for the "crime" of copying a URL from one place on the internet to another, but now the government is actively seeking to silence the media coverage about this case.

Filed Under: barrett brown, free speech, journalism, links

NSA Leaks Bring New Attention To DOJ Piling On Charges Against Barrett Brown

from the it-all-comes-around dept

A few months back we wrote about the DOJ's overprosecution of Barrett Brown, who helped publicize some of Anonymous/Antisec's hacks that revealed just some of the dirty underbelly of the intelligence-industrial complex, whereby private contractors working with the government would resort to various dirty tricks to try to "expose" Anonymous and destroy the careers of journalists like Glenn Greenwald. The charges against Brown seemed fairly ridiculous. He was charged with "concealing evidence" because he hid a laptop in his mother's dish cabinet. He was charged with threatening law enforcement agents for an admittedly ill-conceived video he posted online, in which he ranted angrily about law enforcement persecution, where he did say that he would shoot those who came after him (as I said, extremely ill-conceived). However, his main "crime," it seems, was to have been closely associated with those involved with the HBGary, Booz Allen and Stratfor hacks that helped to expose some of the tricks pulled by private contractors. And, for that, the feds just kept piling on charge after charge.

With the focus on Ed Snowden suddenly drawing a lot more attention to the role that Booz Allen and other contractors play within and around our intelligence community, some are once again remembering Barrett Brown, and how he was associated with a bunch of hacks that helped expose some of that way before all of this broke -- but mainly because all Brown really seems to have done was help draw the attention of the world to the results of those hacks. And now people are wondering why he's been sitting in prison all this time.

Ahmed Ghappour, attorney for Brown, calls the charges "prosecutorial overreach", and maintains most are related to legitimate journalistic practices, such as cutting-and-pasting a link and refusing to give the FBI access to his sources on a laptop, "a modern-day notebook". In contrast to the FBI's aggressive pursuit of Brown, no probe of the Team Themis project was launched – despite a call from 17 US House representatives to investigate a possible conspiracy to violate federal laws, including forgery, mail and wire fraud, and fraud and related activity in connection with computers. Ghappour asks:

"What length will the government go to prosecute journalists reporting on intelligence contractors? Brown was one of the first to report on the plan to take down Glenn Greenwald.

"It was clear Booz Allen Hamilton [whistleblower Edward Snowden's former employer] was consulting with the NSA, at least supporting their mass-surveillance program, and this was one of the leads Barrett was chasing at the time of the arrest."

Obviously, there are many who will argue that Brown was not a "journalist" and that he must have been much more involved, but it's not clear if that's the case at all. What is clear is that he did help draw attention to a problem that is just now getting a bit more sunlight, and the response of the feds was to throw every possible book they could find at him.

Filed Under: anonymous, antisec, barrett brown, doj, intelligence industrial complex
Companies: booz allen, hbgary federal, stratfor