It's unfortunate that a possibly productive member of society has to go to jail for this.
At the same time, I wonder at what seems like a tone of surprise about the outcome. What he did is not materially different from breaking into secure offices and stealing copies of private documents. Apparently he or others working with him also made donations in the order of millions of dollars using stolen credit card numbers from this hack. His punishment should be of the same order as someone who did those things. Political motivation is not a get out of jail free card.
Presumably he knows this and the emphasis in this direction is the work of the article's author. Or maybe I'm picking up on something that's not there.
Let me stop you right there. Hammond was not a productive member of society. He stole water and power and food, even though he could pay for it (his web design side-job paid for the trinkets he didn't deem capitalist waste). He attacked old people in restaurants. He tried to insight people in public settings to go out and vandalize and attack public infrastructure. He threatened many, many people with bodily harm. He's been in and out of prison and probation for years.
This fuck had it coming.
And let me quote the last part of the article:
He says he plans to use his time in prison “reading,
writing, working out and playing sports – training myself
to become more disciplined so I can be more effective on
my release”.
Does this sound like a stable, productive member of society to you?
20:55 <+tylerknowsthis> what are the advantages of a kindle or other similar devices as compared to an ipod touch or droid or something
20:56 <+tylerknowsthis> r0d3nt: I'm on top of that shit too... but i'm talkin actual books.... autobiographies, history books, technical guides, political ideology
20:56 <+tylerknowsthis> and of course the underground network of zines
20:56 <+tylerknowsthis> i'm reading "Courtroom 302: right now.... a history of cook county jail kinda academic tho
20:57 <+tylerknowsthis> r0d3nt now you just pullin shit out your ass
20:57 <+tylerknowsthis> I did a fuckload of reading in prison... 2-3 books a week
20:57 <+tylerknowsthis> a habit I didn't lose when I got out
20:58 <+tylerknowsthis> oh I wasn't doing nothing. I was training myself physically and mentally to be a more effective fighter
20:58 <+tylerknowsthis> for the service of the revolution. prison is a good organizing opportunity
21:00 <+tylerknowsthis> I also fine tuned my chess game.... picked up tricks from the killers
21:01 <+tylerknowsthis> wonder why people are so fascinated with prison rape
21:01 <+tylerknowsthis> it's true people get punked out all the time
21:02 <+tylerknowsthis> it's a sink or swim situation you can't let anyone get an inch
While this guy may be an obnoxious asshole/blowhard, I haven't seen you present anything to convince me this guy is a menace worthy of 10 years jail time. Making threats is one thing, carrying them out is another.
You don't get to assault old people in restaurants because they're "fascists". These weren't fascists; they were Nazi apologists and Holocaust deniers. The worst. You still don't get to storm restaurants and assault them.
The Nazi restaurant incident is an interesting microcosm of the whole Hammond case.
Weirdly enough, the near-north suburbs of Chicago do have a problem with old, holocaust-denying Nazis.
Another ironic dimension to the restaurant assault and its parallels to the whole Hammond case: the one guy that got injured in that incident was injured by a protester, and had nothing to do with the Nazis; he was just an innocent bystander.
Really glad this was brought up because I just realized an old acquaintance of mine was also arrested at the same event along with Hammond O_O. Add that to the fact that my credit card was leaked as a part of the Stratfor hack, and the fact that I happened to live 2 blocks away from where Sabu did, and I have an unsettling number of weird connections to this case.
Not categorically. I've had the displeasure of meeting a holocaust denier that was pretty into Occupy shit, anti-corporatism, and communal living (I think the common thread there was the "Bankers are Jewish" stereotype. We're talking about people with critical thinking deficiencies, consistency is not a given...)
Well, he was definitely anti-Semitic. I'd say that at least in the strictest sense he was a Nazi apologist, as he was also a holocaust denier (standard "it's all exaggerated" rhetoric). I don't think he bought into the politics of the Nazis, but I would be a little surprised if he was actually aware of that sort of thing in the first place...
Fascism is a term that is bandied about without much thought these days. Its well worth reading the overview on the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
Many Nazi beliefs aren't strictly fascist, comparing with the Italian Fascist Party may provide some insight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Fascist_Party It's easy to conflate the two, and while fascism and Nazism are cleary undesirable they are not the same.
Nazi apologists may for example concentrate on Holocaust denial, while having little time for an authoritarian nationalised state.
I agree the term is far too broadly applied, but Fascism is not synonymous with Mussolini. The Wikipedia page you link to also categorizes Nazism is one kind of fascism.
I'm not sure what you mean? The Nazi party was a fascist organisation...among other things. Mussolini's party was fascist as well. I dont think it was possible to be a Nazi supporter and not a proponent of a Fascist agenda in the 1930's/40's but todays Nazi apologists are often primarily interested in the Nazi's racist and antisematic agenda. For many people Nazi apologism is strongly and perhaps primarily linked with Holocaust denial.
The word Fascism may today primarily conjure images of Hitler and the Third Reich, but in the thirties it was strongly tied with Italy as well.
Your parent comment sounded like you said that Nazis are not fascist. Fascism is a broad historical tradition, and of course contains Italy, Nazis, and a whole host of other terrible stuff. I should know: fascists are my enemies, as they're directly ideologically opposed, and there's a long history there, as well as personal, real-world political work.
Anyway, I think the fine line of disagreement here is that I personally see "Nazi apologist" as someone who is an apologist for _all_ of National Socialism, not just certain policies. You may be correct that today, people could consider anyone who's denying the holocaust to be a "Nazi apologist."
Discovered this tidbit on a placard in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. One of the least "fascist" art museums I ever visited.
Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism
Dr. Lawrence Britt studied the fascist regimes of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. He found fourteen defining characteristics common to each.
Powerful and Continuing Expressions of Nationalism — Fascism makes constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Military pride and unity are encouraged. Flags are everywhere, as are flag symbols in public displays, or pinned to clothing.
Disdain for Human Rights — These are viewed as a hinderance to achieving their goals. Through propaganda, the population is made to accept this abuse by marginalizing and demonizing those being targeted. Tactics include secrect, denial, and disinformation. The people ignore or approve of torture, assassination, incarceration without formal charges, etc.
Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause — The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic, sexual or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
Supremacy of the Military — Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of funding, while domestic needs are neglected. The military is glamorized, and used to assert national goals and intimidate other nations.
Rampant Sexism — The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion, and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
Controlled Mass Media — Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by subtler government regulation: the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. Censorship is very common.
Obsession with National Security — Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses, and questioning its activities is portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.
Religion and Government are Intertwined — Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
Corporate Power is Protected — The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are those who put the government leaders in power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite, especially in the repression of the poor.
Labor Power is Suppressed — Because the organizing power of labor is a threat to fascism, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. The working poor form an underclass, and are viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor is considered a vice.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts — Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. Professors and other academics espousing unorthodox ideas are censored, harassed, or arrested. Free expression is the arts and letters is openly attacked. Art and literature serve the national interest, or they don’t exist.
Obsession with Crime and Punishment — Fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption — Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in facist regimes for national resources to be appropriated or even stolen by government leaders.
Fraudulent Elections — Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Others times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, disenfranchising oppositions voters, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascism uses the judiciary to manipulate or control elections.
Source: Adapted from Fascism Anyone? in Free Inquiry, Spring 2003
This makes good reading, but is obviously a back-rationalized definition meant to make a modern political point. Fascism is defined principally by the primacy of the state. "Fraudulent elections"? What elections? A fascist state is a one-party state. "Labor power is suppressed"? What labor power? Fascist industry is nationalized.
I won't deny that there may be back rationalization present. But I am not sure what the point is. To pretend anybody has a "pure" view of history seems somewhat beyond a possibility. Everyone wears the rose colored glasses of their present historical and political moment and condition. It simply is not possible to see history outside of that, I would contend. Some arguments are perhaps more intellectually honest than others. And we all operate under varying degrees of self-delusion. But I digress.
Address a couple of your points:
Fraudulent elections: not all forms of government are duly elected by a people, but there is generally some process of a decision making body coming together that can be called "elections". And this process is always ripe for manipulation. I think one could resonably point to the Reichstag Fire and its political fallout as suppressing the German Communist vote and was a form of fraudulent electioneering.
Labor power is suppressed: There is a well documented history of forced labor within Nazi Germany during WWII. It is one of the reasons the German War Machine held on as long as it did despite heavy allied bombing and sabotage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour_under_German_rule...
I think it is reasonable to say the individuals in these camps didn't have access to the benefits of free association and what in general terms a strong union and workers rights oriented economy would provide. If we can't call that a form of "suppressing labor power" then what would you suggest we use to describe the phenomenon?
I wasn't writing in a strictly logical sense. "These people are worse than your run-of-the-mill fascists" or "these are the worst fascists" is something that's formulated in a way that sounds less contradictory.
Most or all of my friends on the IRC channels we all used to frequent, for one. IIRC I was on his shit-list too; I seem to recall some threats about going to the HOPE conference I was going to just to find me.
Most of his defenders never really knew him, or saw the shit that would fall out when somebody disagreed with him. Those of us who talked to him on a daily basis know he's a dangerous asshat.
As someone who talked to him on a daily basis, I truly have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. This sort of libel is really poor taste at a time like this.
edit: I can probably get the full logs for context if somebody really really wants them. This was a public channel, so probably a hundred people have these logs.
Person says overly angry thing on the betweentubes
Yeah, stop the presses. If commenting online and especially on places like 4chan has taught me anything, it's that anonymity lets people vent their emotions in ways they never would face-to-face. I'm sure you can find a similar list of shit I've said online and acted like a psychotic asshole. I can probably compose part of that list right now off the top of my head. Sometimes you need to say the angry words and let people tell you you're wrong to learn things once your head cools down.
I've said more than my fair share of retarded things on IRC. But I don't commit violence, nor do I go out and recruit people to commit violence on my behalf.
Hammond was dangerous because he would manipulate people into following his anarchist leanings toward more "direct action", as he liked to put it. He wasn't just some troll on IRC. He committed crimes, over and over, and incited others to do the same. The stratfor and other hacks were just his bravado getting away from him, and people are safer now that he's in jail.
The only thing that bothers me now is what kind of shit he's going to concoct to lash out at everyone and everything he hates once he's released.
This is interesting. Thank you for sharing. Still not sure I see your point (you will have to forgive me for not reading through this in it's entirety).
"[n]ot materially different from breaking into secure offices and stealing copies of private documents"
Jeremy Hammond caused the release of information collected by a private security firm, which Barron's referred to "The Shadow CIA" JS's purpose, by all accounts i have read, was to (i) call attention to the volume, and scope of data collected by a private company whose customers include foreign governments; and (ii) call attention to the additional risks arising from Stratfor's insecure storage of this data.
it's difficult to effectively "blow the whistle" without revealing this information. Sure he had no authorization to do so, but the moral claim that seems to have motivated his effort--whether you agree with it or not--was that a private company has no business collecting this type of data and selling it to foreign governments and worse they storing it while not adequately protecting it against unauthorized access.
The term "shadow CIA" seems to imply that they're a worse, shadier version of the CIA. In fact IMHO they're doing what the CIA should be doing (actually collecting intelligence rather than trying to actively influence foreign politics), they're doing a much better job of it than the CIA, and the information, rather than being a state secret, is available to anyone who's willing to pay their (fairly pricey but not unreasonable for the information you get) annual membership fee. I know these things because I was a subscriber, and my credit card was leaked as a part of this hack (hmm I guess I must be part of the shadowy cabal). Have any of the people who claim it's a shady organization actually read any of their reports? They read like I wish CNN articles would - 1 paragraph of "what happened" followed by dozens of paragraphs of historical context.
The fact that they had government clients is completely irrelevant. You know who else has government clients? The Starbucks next to the Capitol building. Unless they were exclusively providing information to governments (which they weren't), I don't see why it's an issue that governments found their intelligence valuable enough to pay for it.
Of course it is a problem that their data was stored insecurely, but like other commenters I don't think releasing/charging the credit card numbers was a particularly productive way to call attention to this fact.
The mob mentality that surfaces here whenever a so-called "hacktivist" actually has to do jail time for something they knew full well was a crime when they did it, is just astounding.
Just wanted to say that as a fellow subscriber who also had the royal inconvenience of having my email/password/CC leaked, you're spot-on. Spend enough time reading their analysis and even The Economist starts to feel like People Magazine.
And the format of: Summary / What Happened / Historical Background / Restated Summary should be made standard journalistic procedure.
I don't really buy that. If you think that the collection and insecure storage of confidential information is a problem, you don't "fix" the problem by releasing all of that confidential information to WikiLeaks. And you certainly don't make over a million dollars in fraudulent credit card transactions.
The moral justification is really just: (1) Stratfor does work for the powers that be; (2) the powers that be are bad; therefore (3) hacking Stratfor hurts bad people.
I know you're just clarifying it and not necessarily advocating it, but just want to state that it's a pretty lousy justification. For example:
(1) Mike Smith pays taxes to the powers that be, and therefore works 3-4 months out of the year for the powers that be; (2) The powers that be are bad; Therefore (3) murdering Mike hurts bad people.
This guy was an off-the-grid thief and conman who justified his hacking by "sticking it to the man" which, unfortunately, a lot of HN readers apparently agree relieves him of any moral or personal responsibility for his actions.
Justice is complicated. Usually it's very difficult to quantify damages, specially when those damages depends on a POV. What I think we all can agree is that sentences times are disproportionated: committing a crime to a corporation is one of the most dangerous things you can do, even more than killing or raping someone.
For example: "Causing or encouraging prostitution of, intercourse with or indecent assault on girl under 16" gets you a max sentence of 2 years.
So, a guy use his computer to show us some nasty things the government is doing with our money: 10 years
A pimp manipulates a 13-years-old girl to have sex with pedophiles: 2 years
EDIT: Another example is Chelsea Manning, who now have a criminal sentence of 35 years, and on the other side the guys of Collateral Murder video from the Air Force who killed innocents persons have no charges and are free...
You __hope__ to get one. If there's no plea bargain on the table, you're likely screwed.
I'd say it's probably accurate to say that you're almost-completely screwed if you are even in a scenario where you have to consider a plea bargain, of course.
But it said he got the maximum sentence? It doesn't say in the article, but maybe there were other charges dropped in exchange for him pleading guilty to the one?
So if someone does nasty things, but getting access to evidence for these nasty things is impossible without breaking a law, how do you suggest that one should go about proving that the aforementioned nasty things were committed?
Pedophiles do nasty things on the Internet. Uncovering pedophiles on the Internet is impossible without mass surveillance of the Internet. How do you suggest that one should go about proving that someone is a pedophile?
In both the case of pedophiles and state actors who are breaking the law, the answer is the same. Wait for them to slip up. It's hard to keep something secret forever.
That's sort of the point. When someone justifies an action because it's "impossible" to stop bad thing X without doing morally questionable thing Y, be skeptical.
Not sure. You might have to take one for the team like with other acts of civil disobedience.
That said, in this case, were nasty things uncovered? I can't find anything about that. Also, mixing investigative journalism with theft and use of other people's credit card numbers is probably not the best way to maintain an appearance of innocence.
"Arrested in 2007, Butler was accused of operating Carders Market, a forum where cyber criminals bought and sold sensitive data such as credit card numbers. After pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud from stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers and spending $86 million in fraudulent purchases, Butler was sentenced to 13 years in prison, which is the longest sentence ever given for hacking charges. After prison, he will also face 5 years of supervised release and is ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution to his victims.[5][22]"
Also Albert Gonzales the leader of Shadowcrew actually plea bargained DOWN to a 20 year sentence:
"On March 25, 2010, U.S. District Judge Patti Saris sentenced Gonzalez to 20 years in prison for hacking into and stealing information from TJX, Office Max, the Dave & Busters restaurant chain, Barnes & Noble and a string of other companies.[27] The next day, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock sentenced him to 20 years in connection with the Heartland Payment Systems case. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently, meaning that Gonzalez will serve a total of 20 years for both cases.[28] Gonzalez was also ordered to forfeit more than $1.65 million, a condominium in Miami, a blue 2006 BMW 330i automobile, IBM and Toshiba laptop computers, a Glock 27 firearm, a Nokia cell phone, a Tiffany diamond ring and three Rolex watches.[29]"
Hector “Sabu” Monsegur is facing 124 years if he's convicted on all charges, but with the current string of 10+ year sentences, chances are, his will be in that range as well I would assume. His sentencing was delayed for a third time until January 2014.
Previous to those, I think the longest sentence was to Mitnick who got 5 years. Even Kevin Poulsen got a 3 year sentence. Even the Lulsec hackers all got sentences under 3 years. Clearly, the feds are uping the ante on computer crime and using long sentences as deterrents for future hackers who think they will get light sentences.
>>> Is unreasonable sentencing a good "deterrent"?
Your statement is debatable, but since Federal Sentencing Guidelines are set by the United States Sentencing Commission, we don't have much say either way.
It's debatable because most states don't prosecute computer crimes and simply pass the cases to the Feds for a number of reasons. Had Hammond been tried in a state court, there is a high probability his sentence would be a lot less.
Also you have to take into effect how the feds should combat the increasing issue of hacktivism without steep jail times. I seriously don't have any answers, but I'd be interested to find out how you think you can stop this sort of stuff from happening again.
To me, it's not surprising that stealing a bunch of credit cards and secret documents gets you ten years (maximum, of which he'll probably serve three to five if this is anything like other crimes that are eligible for parole). But I'd welcome evidence that I'm miscalibrated.
Ah, I misread. I thought it said, "He was sentenced to serve a maximum of ...", but actually it says, "He was sentenced to the maximum of ...". Ten years, then. Still not terribly surprising to me given what he did.
> I wonder at what seems like a tone of surprise about the outcome
Where are you seeing a tone of surprise? The caption on the main image is his quote: 'I knew when I started out with Anonymous that being put in jail and having a lengthy sentence was a possibility,' and the article goes on to make it quite clear that he was aware of the likely consequences of his actions. He's disgusted, not surprised.
but in the past revealing crimes in those secret documents often lead to trials. now, watergate would have not have ended with 43 incarcerations from nixon admin and his resignation, but probably with journalists from the post being sent to Guantanamo for reporting on national security matters.
I dunno, ask Tesla about cars and flames, to hear Elon Musk describe gas-powered vehicles it's a wonder they don't spontaneously combust more often. :)
Hastings is a wonderful teaching case though, but more along the lines of being the example of you don't recklessly speed down city streets while intoxicated.
At the same time, I wonder at what seems like a tone of surprise about the outcome. What he did is not materially different from breaking into secure offices and stealing copies of private documents. Apparently he or others working with him also made donations in the order of millions of dollars using stolen credit card numbers from this hack. His punishment should be of the same order as someone who did those things. Political motivation is not a get out of jail free card.
Presumably he knows this and the emphasis in this direction is the work of the article's author. Or maybe I'm picking up on something that's not there.