For those that are interested, here is the court document outlining the charges against Barrett Brown:
Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
21–30 of 105 posts
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is he plead guilty under advisement his case was hopeless. There's a significant likelihood evidence necessary to aide his case is locked away deep inside the FBI. A very a la NSA illegal wiretaps putting people in prison under guise of "confidential informant".
Do you have any cases where NSA illegal wiretaps were used as evidence in court in a standard trial like this against a U.S. citizen? If the FBI said well our evidence is a confidential informant that would not be valid as the defense has a right to cross examine witnesses and evidence. This guy pled guilty. Maybe it was due to fear of courts handling tech cases, or maybe it was due to the fact that there was a large…
Do you have any cases where NSA illegal wiretaps were used as evidence in court in a standard trial like this against a U.S. citizen?
Under the doctrine of parallel construction, as revealed in the Snowden disclosures, there is no way for the court to know if illegal NSA wiretaps or other surveillance activities were involved. The fruit of the poison tree is now on sale at your local justice supermarket.
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#23This is scary. And what law is this "trying to hide a laptop computer during a raid" as one of his charges?
"Interference with the execution of a search warrant" (18 USC 1501)
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#24This is scary. And what law is this "trying to hide a laptop computer during a raid" as one of his charges?
It is called obstruction of justice.
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, he plead guilty to these charges, that's why he's being sentenced for them. He chose not to take his chances and make those arguments.
He pled guilty to avoid getting reamed even worse. There's no justice here. It's just an exercise in power in order to send a message.
So you are aware of all the evidence then?
I mean, otherwise this is just complete supposition.
Plus, you know, he conceded a lot of the facts in the indictment at the point he tried to have the indictment dismissed, so ...
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#26The US government's system of justice seems increasingly opaque, arbitrary, and solely for the purpose of maintaining the status quo and those already in power. Meanwhile, much worse crimes by those in power such as torture go unpunished.
Institutionalized and organized torture programs are a monstrous offense, so by implication you're saying it's immoral to enforce laws against all lesser offenses, not just the ones that have a lot of HN valence. For instance, you would also believe it's immoral to enforce laws against car theft, or counterfeiting.
I'm as frustrated as everyone else that the CIA and its horrible contractors, some of whom enriched themselves to the tune of millions of dollars by designing an abhorrent and utterly ineffective scheme to torture random people from West Asia, are apparently going to be shielded from liability. It's a miscarriage of justice. But history is full of miscarriages of justice; we don't give up on civilization when they happen.
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
My guess is he plead guilty under advisement his case was hopeless. There's a significant likelihood evidence necessary to aide his case is locked away deep inside the FBI. A very a la NSA illegal wiretaps putting people in prison under guise of "confidential informant".
Do you have any cases where NSA illegal wiretaps were used as evidence in court in a standard trial like this against a U.S. citizen? If the FBI said well our evidence is a confidential informant that would not be valid as the defense has a right to cross examine witnesses and evidence. This guy pled guilty. Maybe it was due to fear of courts handling tech cases, or maybe it was due to the fact that there was a large…
He didn't just plead guilty; he conceded several of the facts in the case as early as his effort to have the initial indictments dismissed.
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, he plead guilty to these charges, that's why he's being sentenced for them. He chose not to take his chances and make those arguments.
My guess is he plead guilty under advisement his case was hopeless. There's a significant likelihood evidence necessary to aide his case is locked away deep inside the FBI. A very a la NSA illegal wiretaps putting people in prison under guise of "confidential informant".
Why would NSA need to provide wiretap information in a case where the ringleader of the criminal conspiracy Brown is charged for being involved with directly ratted him out?
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#29This is scary. And what law is this "trying to hide a laptop computer during a raid" as one of his charges?
It's the same law that makes it illegal for giant companies to delete all their emails and file server contents when they're charged with fraud, and the reason they all maintain expensive and convoluted document retention policies. You can't deliberately hide evidence; that's a crime.
Re: Barrett Brown sentenced to 63 months in prison
#30I really appreciate that prosecutor Candina Heath used secret evidence to convict, played on FUD, and in particular made it illegal to merely link to certain publicly-available information. I will definitely sleep easier at night knowing that I better always agree with the government, no matter how corrupt it gets.
Why don't you read the court documents of the facts that he pled guilty to. He hid his laptops and put out a decoy device when he knew the feds were coming. He threatened to kill the feds on Youtube and Twitter. Those 2 things are not exactly secret evidence.
Then he was working with FBI infiltrated Lulzsec/Anonymous while they were actively breaking into Stratfor before it was known and being a spokesperson for Anonymous afterwards. This to me seems to be kinda crossing the line when it comes to reporting on something. Should we have reporters that know of a crime that will happen and then become the intermediary between the criminals and the victim when it becomes public? That is not linking publicly available information it is a bit more than that. He was not charged for linking.