Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond is set to be sentenced today after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). From Huffington Post:
Supporters are rallying around convicted hacker and activist Jeremy Hammond as his sentencing date looms, calling him a whistleblower and arguing that his case is part of a larger crackdown on the free flow of information.
While we put hacktivists like Jeremy Hammond,
Barrett Brown and
Aaron Swartz in a different category than those charged under the Espionage Act like National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower
Thomas Drake and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower
John Kiriakou, the government's attacks on all of them represent a
war on information in which the government's goal is to deter whistleblowing and silence dissent. While whistleblowers Drake and Kiriakou were prosecuted under the heavy-handed Espionage Act, the laws used against Hammond, Brown and Swartz - such as the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), are just as dubious and draconian. The government uses the law not to stop criminals but to deter whistleblowers, hacktivists and journalists and control information.
As I explained to the European Parliament last month:
We are in the throes of an asymmetrical war on whistleblowers in the United States. And yet the war on whistleblowers has metastasized into a war on journalists. The Reporters who seek to publicize whistleblower disclosures are not only the subject of surveillance, but also now the subject of criminal subpoenas, search warrants, and threats of prosecution for simply doing their jobs. What is emerging from the war on whistleblowers, journalists, hacktivists, and dissidents is a larger, more insidious, war on information. Why? Because we live in an information age, and information is the currency of power. What we are witnessing is a global power grab on a scale the world has never seen.
From Huffington Post:
Michael Ratner, [Julian] Assange's U.S. attorney, said Hammond's revelations are especially powerful given the current public focus on the National Security Agency.
"I think it's just gone so far in the wrong direction in terms of secrecy as well as hiding government private crimes that I support very heavily right now some people who are willing to take the risk and expose and speak for all of us about what our governments are doing. And I look at Jeremy's case in that light," Ratner said.
When faced with decades in prison away from their families, many criminal defendants agree to plea bargains - like my client John Kiriakou did. Hopefully the judge will remember the disadvantaged position anyone is in when the governemnt criminally prosecutes them at Hammond's sentencing today.