(apology for the slop writing, im just exhausted and no strength to edit it properly)
Hacking is not a crime. invasion of privacy is a crime. harassment is a crime. intentional infliction of emotional distress is a crime. the journalists of the News of the World were not hackers - they were invaders of privacy, and tresspassers upon the dignity of others, harassers, and thieves. they may have used hacking tools. but they were not hackers.
the subconscious public fear of the 'hacker archetype' is the same meme that is hurting the causes of the wikileaks people and bradley manning.
in fact, quite a number of the counts against Manning are for violating an 'anti-hacker law' - a law passed with the aid of public fear and ignorance about what hacking actually is. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act - the same law that Thomas Drake (NSA Whistleblower) plead guilty to, is one of the laws Manning is charged with for disclosing the 2007 July Baghdad video - which is allegedly became the Collateral Murder video. Nevermind that you can go find hundreds of equivalent videos all over youtube, or even on a website dedicated to them: Apache Clips.com. Because of 'anti hacker' laws, somehow Manning winds up in trouble over allegedly giving it out to someone 'not entitled' to receive it.
But there is a much more questionable charge against Manning under the CFAA. It is the Reykjavic 13 cable. This cable has nothing whatsoever to do with the troops, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the military, national defense, intelligence activities, or anything else covered by the ordinary espionage laws. But since the "anti hacker law", specifically CFAA 18 USC 1030 (a)(1), includes the word "foreign relations" , they can charge him with a major crime for allegedly releasing this state department cable. What was actually in the cable? Information about the scandal surrounding the corrupt and fraudulent privatized Icelandic banks, and what happened when they went bust. When people scream about the evils of hacking, this is the sort of 'anti-hacking' law they are helping to support - laws that make it a serious crime to release government documents about fraud and abuse of power.
The "anti hacker law" CFAA is also probably what the US government will use against any 'hacking journalists' that committed acts in the US - however that doesnt mean that this law is a good idea. There are other laws that can be used - invasion of privacy laws. Harassement laws. Laws that attack what the journalists did, not the means by which they did it.
"hacking" doesn't even have a definition. its sort of like that word 'leaking'. everyone thinks they know what it means, but they dont. everyone thinks its illegal, but its not, nor should it be.
the vague terms thrown around when people try to discuss this actually hurt people. 'hacking' can be applied to everything from taking your own video game console apart, to making your own robots, to opening your own car door when you lose your key.... but then they try to lump in this stuff with it, like making someone think their dead kid is still alive. thats not hacking, thats evil.
one of the first 'hacker' cases was the E911 document. the phone companies and the police tried to portray the actions of a few hackers who took this document as evil criminals bent on destroying the 911 emergency system. they said it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to the phone system. it turned out, in fact, that anyone could order the E911 document from a catalog for something like 10 dollars. it was not super secret and although the hackers tresspassed a computer system to get it, tresspassing is not worthy of decades in prison or hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.
Another case was that of Steve Jackson games. They didn't even make electronic products, they just made a role-playing-game about hackers. That didn't stop the police from raiding them, taking their equipment, and nearly destroying their company though. Incidents like these were behind the foundation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation - a foundation which would later help expose AT&Ts complicit cooperation with the NSA's illegal wiretapping of American citizens. The EFF, the "pro hacker group" in the language of a lazy journalism, has produced copious amounts of information about the questionable electronic activities of the government, from Fusion Centers to the No Fly list.
Another interesting early 'hacking' incident involved two guys named Steven Jobs and Steven Wozniak, who, before they got rich building and selling Apple Computers, actually engaged in selling something called 'blue boxes'. A Blue Box is nothing more than phone-system hacking tool - but one made for the purpose of making free telephone calls (i.e. stealing), not for spying on people. And yet, the same 'anti-hacking laws' and 'hackers are evil meme' continues, even as Job's announcements about the Apple iPhone and iPad have become as newsworthy as presidential proclamations.
Hacking is also called 'tinkering'. Its also the foundation of practically every invention and the basis of modern technology. The realization of the idea that mere individuals should be able to have computers, like the one you are using right now, began in the 1970s with hobbyists and experimenters - you know, hackers. The world wide web, which broke computer communications out of the old company-owned boxes like Prodigy and Compuserve, was created by hackers. The software that this DailyKos website runs on was created by hackers.
'Hacking' should not be a crime in any civilized soceity, because civilized societies need to have very specific legal codes in order to have a fair and just legal system. Vague laws are frequently unjust laws, because they give the executive the power to place itself above the law. The subconscious public fear of certain symbols and archetypes (hacker, leaker) do nothing to promote the cause of justice or the rule of law.
Lastly, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has become almost a backdoor expansion of the Espionage act. Not only does part of it (subparagraph a 1) borrow much of the same language as the Espionage Act, and broaden it to apply to more people and more types of information, but various parts of the act have also been used in several of the Obama administration's Espionage cases - including the Wikileaks case, the Manning case, and the Drake case. Essentially it outlaws the transfer of information - with little regard for what sort of information it is, or the circumstances surrounding the disclosure. This is the de-facto result of the law in an age where almost all communication happens over computers. This is something anathema to a democratic society.
It is no coincidence that when they couldn't get Thomas Drake on any other charge, they got him with 'exceeding access to a computer to take information from the United States'. Think about that charge - would they have ever been able to pass a law about "exceeding the authorized use of a pencil and paper to take information from the united states"? Or "opening a file cabinet improperly to take information from the united states"? The only reason these laws can make it through Congress is because of the negative cultural stereotype of the 'hacker' - something that is fading with time, where ordinary people now routinely try to illegally download movies and music off the internet, but something that is not fading fast enough.
Did I mention that, thanks to the Patriot Act, parts of the CFAA now lump in 'hacker' defendants with terrorists and mafia bosses? It is like a perfect storm of irrational fear - a new McCarthy era. Hackers, leakers, new versions of 'red' and 'fellow traveler', applied in our new age liberally to whistleblowers and legitimate criticisms of the government.
What did Manning allegedly do? He allegedly released hundreds of thousands of secret government documents. Now personally I think it was reckless and dangerous. But the case is bigger than that. The case is about the laws he is actually charged with breaking, and what it will mean for the future. He is charged with 34 different counts of violating various laws, many of them 'anti-hacking' laws. What would be the precedent if he was convicted on all those counts? First it would be the Wikileaks conspiracy counts against the people in Cambridge would be strengthened. If they get convicted too, then it would mean that anyone who downloaded videos or documents about possible government malfeasance or fraud may now be considered 'hackers' - and thrown in with the 'terrorists' and 'leakers' and 'criminals'. That is the real threat of our misuse of language and imprecise vocabulary.
References
EFF- Hepting v AT&T
Manning's charge sheets
Cybercrime: An Overview of the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Statute and Related Federal Criminal Laws, Charles Doyle, CRS from Federation of American Scientists' website
Wozniak, S. G.; Smith, G. (2006), iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN 0393061434. page 115 (via google books)
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act Title 18 USC 1030 , from Cornell Law
Espionage Act Title 18 USC 793, from Cornell Law
Inside Job (film), Charles Ferguson et al. Contains info about the Icelandic banking scandal and it's relationship to corrupt academics and government officials.
Charges for Soldier Accused of Leak, By STEVEN LEE MYERS, New York Times: July 6, 2010 (links to Manning & Reykjavic 13 cable content)
Reykjavic 13 cable text (easy to use link, no torrent)
FBI serves Grand Jury subpoena likely relating to WikiLeaks BY GLENN GREENWALD WEDNESDAY, APR 27, 2011 13:28 ET (includes copy of subpoena, referncing the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act)
US v. Thomas Drake: Selected Case Files, Federation of American Scientists website. Steven Aftergood et al.