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Sugerido por Ivan de Union
Jornalista americano enfrenta possivel sentenca de 105 anos de cadeia por postar um link:
Do New York Times
By DAVID CARR
Barrett Brown makes for a pretty complicated victim. A Dallas-based journalist obsessed with the government’s ties to private security firms, Mr. Brown has been in jail for a year, facing charges that carry a combined penalty of more than 100 years in prison.
Professionally, his career embodies many of the conflicts and contradictions of journalism in the digital era. He has written for The Guardian, Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post, but as with so many of his peers, the line between his journalism and his activism is nonexistent. He has served in the past as a spokesman of sorts for Anonymous, the hacker collective, although some members of the group did not always appreciate his work on its behalf.
In 2007, he co-wrote a well-received book, “Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny,” and over time, he has developed an expertise in the growing alliance between large security firms and the government, arguing that the relationship came at a high cost to privacy.
From all accounts, including his own, Mr. Brown, now 32, is a real piece of work. He was known to call some of his subjects on the phone and harass them. He has been public about his struggles with heroin and tends to see conspiracies everywhere he turns. Oh, and he also threatened an F.B.I. agent and his family by name, on a video, and put it on YouTube, so there’s that.
But that’s not the primary reason Mr. Brown is facing the rest of his life in prison. In 2010, he formed an online collective named Project PM with a mission of investigating documents unearthed by Anonymous and others. If Anonymous and groups like it were the wrecking crew, Mr. Brown and his allies were the people who assembled the pieces of the rubble into meaningful insights.
Project PM first looked at the documents spilled by the hack of HBGary Federal, a security firm, in February 2011 and uncovered a remarkable campaign of coordinated disinformation against advocacy groups, which Mr. Brown wrote about in The Guardian, among other places.
Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at Northwestern and a fan of Mr. Brown’s work, wrote in The Huffington Post that, “Project PM under Brown’s leadership began to slowly untangle the web of connections between the U.S. government, corporations, lobbyists and a shadowy group of private military and infosecurity consultants.”
In December 2011, approximately five million e-mails from Stratfor Global Intelligence, an intelligence contractor, were hacked by Anonymous and posted on WikiLeaks. The files contained revelations about close and perhaps inappropriate ties between government security agencies and private contractors. In a chat room for Project PM, Mr. Brown posted a link to it.
Among the millions of Stratfor files were data containing credit cards and security codes, part of the vast trove of internal company documents. The credit card data was of no interest or use to Mr. Brown, but it was of great interest to the government. In December 2012 he was charged with 12 counts related to identity theft. Over all he faces 17 charges — including three related to the purported threat of the F.B.I. officer and two obstruction of justice counts — that carry a possible sentence of 105 years, and he awaits trial in a jail in Mansfield, Tex.
According to one of the indictments, by linking to the files, Mr. Brown “provided access to data stolen from company Stratfor Global Intelligence to include in excess of 5,000 credit card account numbers, the card holders’ identification information, and the authentication features for the credit cards.”
Because Mr. Brown has been closely aligned with Anonymous and various other online groups, some of whom view sowing mayhem as very much a part of their work, his version of journalism is tougher to pin down and, sometimes, tougher to defend.
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.
Journalists from other news organizations link to stolen information frequently. Just last week, The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica collaborated on a significant article about the National Security Agency’s effort to defeat encryption technologies. The article was based on, and linked to, documents that were stolen by Edward J. Snowden, a private contractor working for the government who this summer leaked millions of pages of documents to the reporter Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian along with Barton Gellman of The Washington Post.
By trying to criminalize linking, the federal authorities in the Northern District of Texas — Mr. Brown lives in Dallas — are suggesting that to share information online is the same as possessing it or even stealing it. In the news release announcing the indictment, the United States attorney’s office explained, “By transferring and posting the hyperlink, Brown caused the data to be made available to other persons online, without the knowledge and authorization of Stratfor and the card holders.”
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.
Last week, Mr. Brown and his lawyers agreed to an order that allows him to continue to work on articles, but not say anything about his case that is not in the public record.
Speaking by phone on Thursday, Charles Swift, one of his lawyers, spoke carefully.
“Mr. Brown is presumed innocent of the charges against him and in support of the presumption, the defense anticipates challenging both the legal assumptions and the facts that underlie the charges against him,” he said.
Others who are not subject to the order say the aggressive set of charges suggests the government is trying to send a message beyond the specifics of the case.
“The big reason this matters is that he transferred a link, something all of us do every single day, and ended up being charged for it,” said Jennifer Lynch, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group that presses for Internet freedom and privacy. “I think that this administration is trying to prosecute the release of information in any way it can.”
There are other wrinkles in the case. When the F.B.I. tried to serve a warrant on Mr. Brown in March 2012, he was at his mother’s house. The F.B.I. said that his mother tried to conceal his laptop and it charged her with obstruction of justice. (She pleaded guilty in March of this year and is awaiting sentencing.)
The action against his mother enraged Mr. Brown and in September 2012 he made a rambling series of posts to YouTube in which he said he was in withdrawal from heroin addiction. He proceeded to threaten an F.B.I. agent involved in the arrest, saying, “I don’t say I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his (expletive) kids … How do you like them apples?”
The feds did not like them apples. After he was arrested, a judge ruled he was “a danger to the safety of the community and a risk of flight.” In the video, Mr. Brown looks more like a strung-out heroin addict than a threat to anyone, but threats are threats, especially when made against the F.B.I.
“The YouTube video was a mistake, a big one,” said Gregg Housh, a friend of Mr. Brown’s who first introduced him to the activities of Anonymous. “But it is important to remember that the majority of the 105 years he faces are the result of linking to a file. He did not and has not hacked anything, and the link he posted has been posted by many, many other news organizations.”
At a time of high government secrecy with increasing amounts of information deemed classified, other routes to the truth have emerged, many of them digital. News organizations in receipt of leaked documents are increasingly confronting tough decisions about what to publish, and are defending their practices in court and in the court of public opinion, not to mention before an administration determined to aggressively prosecute leakers.
In public statements since his arrest, Mr. Brown has acknowledged that he made some bad choices. But punishment needs to fit the crime and in this instance, much of what has Mr. Brown staring at a century behind bars seems on the right side of the law, beginning with the First Amendment of the Constitution.
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(perdao, nao sabia que ia
(perdao, nao sabia que ia virar post. Note o absurdo: ate a mae dele esta sendo judicialmente gigolada.
Jornalista americano enfrenta possivel sentenca de 105 anos de cadeia por postar um link: Do New York Times A Journalist-Agitator Facing Prison Over a Link Um Jornalista-Agitador Enfrenta Prisao por Causa de um Link Barrett Brown eh uma vitima muito complicada. Baseado em Dallas e obsecado com lacos do governo a companias de seguranca privadas (nota minha: isso eh eufemismo para espionagem terceirizada), Brown esta na prisao por um ano enfrentando acusacoes que levam penas combinadas de mais de 100 anos na cadeia. Profissionalmente sua carreira emgloba muitos dos conflitos e contradicoes do jornalismo da era digital. Ja escreveu para The Guardian, Vanity Fair, e Huffington Post, mas, como muitos de seus colegas, a linha entre seu jornalismo e ativismo eh nao existente. Ja serviu tambem como spokesman informal para o Anonymous, a coletiva hacker, embora alguns deles nem sempre apreciem seu trabalho a favor deles. Em 2007 ele coescreveu um livro bem recebido, “Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creacionism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny”, e desenvolveu se em seu trabalho como expert sobre a crescente alianca entre entre “grandes companias de seguranca” (idem) e o governo, argumentando que o relacionamento aconteceu com alto prejuizo para a privacidade. Sob quaisquer relatos, inclusive os proprios, Brown, 32, eh dificil de tolerar. Sabe se que ele chama alguns de seus assuntos no telefone e os bully (como verbo). Ele eh publico a respeito de seus problemas com heroina e tende a ver conspiracias em toda esquina. Ah, e ele tambem ameacou um agente do FBI e sua familia por nome, em video, e postou no youtube, entao tem mais isso. Mas nao eh a razao primaria que Brown esta enfrentando o resto da vida em prisao. Em 2010 ele formou um coletivo online chamado Projeto PM com a missao de investigad documentos escavados por Anonymous e outros. Se Anonymous e grupos afins fossem foram o martelo, Brown e seus aliados foram as pessoas que colocaram os pedacos de ruinas em significantes descobertas. Projeto PM primeiro olhou os documentos vazados pela invasao da firma de seguranca, HBGary Federal em fevereiro de 2011, e descobriu uma notavel campanha de desinformacao coordenada contra militantes, sobre a qual Brown escreveu no The Guardian, entre outros. Peter Ludlow, professor de filosofia da Northwestern e fan do trabalho de Brown, escreveu no Huffington Post que “o Projeto PM sob a lideranca de Brown comecou a lentamente revelar a rede de conexoes entre o governo dos US, corporacoes, lobistas, e um grupo sombra, privado, de “consultantes” de infoseguranca e dos militares.. Em dezembro de 2011 aproximadamente 5 milhoes de emails da Stratfor Global Intelligence (embarassantemente histericos, alias,: TUDO que apareceu deles era fofoca, intriga, e lunaticidades mil) foram hakeados pelo Anonymous e publicados no WikiLeaks. Eles continam revelacoes sobre intimos e talvez inapropriados lacos entre agencias de seguranca do governo e companias privadas. Em um chat doProjeto PM, Brown postou um link pra eles. Entre os milhoes de arquivos estavam dados contendo cartoes de creditos e codigos de seguranca, parte de um vasto tesouro interno da documentacao da compania. Os dados de cartoes eram de zero interesse de Brown, mas de grande interesse ao governo. Em dezembro de 2012 ele foi acusado em 12 processos relacionados a roubo de identidade. Um total de 17 acusacoes eh o que ele esta sofrendo -incluindo 3 relacionadas aa ameaca ao agente do FBI e duas de obstrucao de justica- que tem uma possivel sentenca de 105 anos, e ele esta esperando o julgamento numa cadeia de Mansfield, Texas. De acordo com um dos processos, colocar link eh igual a “fornecer acesso a dados roubados da compania Stratfor que incluem mais de 5 mil cartoes de creditos com informacao de identificacao e codigos de autenticacao”. (…) Na semana passada Brown e seus advogados concordaram com uma ordem que o permite trabalhar em artigos mas nao dizer nada sobre o caso que ja nao eh publico (gigolagem em publico nao funciona. Quanto mais secreta, mais efetiva ela eh, mais a vitima esta isolada). (…) Tem outras rugas no caso (nao pode falar vitima, claro). Quando o FBI tentou servir o processo a Brown em marco de 2012 ele estava na casa da mae. O FBI disse que sua mae tentou esconder seu laptop e a processou por obstrucao de justica. (Ela se declarou culpada em marco desse ano e esta esperando a sentenca.) A acao contra sua mae lhe enfureceu e em setembro de 2012 ele fez uma serie meio incoherente de videos no youtube nos quais ele diz que estava com sintomas de falta de heroina (cold turkey?). E continuou com uma ameaca ao agente de FBI que o prendeu, dizendo “Eu nao digo que o vou matar, mas que eu vou arruinar sua vida e “olhar” seus (palavrao) filhos… Gostou desse prato?” O FBI nao gostou desse prato. Depois de preso o juiz decidiu que ele era “perigo aa seguranca da populacao e risco de fuga”. No video, Brown tem mais cara de viciado em heroina do que ameaca a qualquer um, mas ameacas sao ameacas especialmente quando feitas contra o FBI. (…)
uui
Fio,
Vai improvar seu portugues, que a google translate não dá conta de tudo. Nóis é mais esperto quiso e mais, nóis sabe mermo que oces ficaram muitos puto com o que ele fez. O peligroso é meismo oces..não ele.
Se você se deparar…
Se você se deparar com uma carteira com documentos nos EUA é melhor não contar pra ninguém onde está.
Vai que alguém vai até lá e descobre que a carteira tem documentos de alguma autoridade, um agente do FBI, por exemplo que passa a ser conhecido dessa pessoa?
Se você contar pode ser processado por tornar acessível a outros documentos e informações que podem ter interesse para alguém no governo ou para a “segurança nacional”.
Eles são loucos? Não! Eles são canalhas!
105 anos na cadeia.
Ivan, que exagero de condenação. Os americanos estão conhecendo, também, o seu Batman (Barbosa).
105 anos?
As autoridades estão julgando que compartilhar informações on-line é o mesmo que roubá-las.
Como diz no texto, jornalistas de outros jornais e até mesmo de outros países vinculam notícias roubadas e sequer são intimados a dar satisfação às autoridades locais.
Espero que os colegas internautas norte-americanos consigam derrubar mais esse absurdo.