barrett brown bak

819  bak<div>
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</div><div>=</div><div>=capt 517see ggl doc cyber chapter<a href="https://medium.com/@barrettbrown/we-exposed-hbgary-hbgary-came-after-us-the-intercepts-sam-biddle-helped-85d8060b92c8">https://medium.com/@barrettbrown/we-exposed-hbgary-hbgary-came-after-us-the-intercepts-sam-biddle-helped-85d8060b92c8</a>...<p id="547e" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.004em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A week ago I released <a class="bc co no np nq nr" target="blank" href="https://medium.com/@barrettbrown/why-the-intercept-really-closed-the-snowden-archive-e99f46bbfbbc" style="box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; background-repeat: repeat-x; background-image: url(" data:image="data:image" svg="svg" xml="xml" utf8="utf8" xmlns:data="data">a set of documents</a> pertaining to The Intercept’s recent closure of the Snowden archive and firing of the research team that oversaw it, including internal emails and testimony from Laura Poitras about the outlet’s failure to even inform Snowden in advance. I also included an email I’d just sent to dozens of staffers and execs at The Intercept and First Look regarding this whole sordid affair, as well as some examples showing that Glenn Greenwald and Betsy Reed, who were instrumental in making the decision and justifying it to the public, have a history of failing to understand the significance of such materials even when presented to them in easy-to-understand summaries with supporting documents provided — including secret surveillance and propaganda programs that ended up being used against the American public in the 2016 election.<p id="a904" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.004em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I removed a portion of that email before I sent it off and made it public, partially due to space constraints and partially because the matters I was discussing were already complex enough. That portion is restored below, in bold, and explains how Intercept contributor Sam Biddle was used by HBGary — the same firm that targeted Greenwald and other journalists along with Palantir and others in late 2010 before its proposed black ops campaign was uncovered in a raid by hackers I worked with in Anonymous — in its years-long campaign to have me arrested, charged, imprisoned, and silenced.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.004em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As shown in the screenshot above, I gave Biddle a chance to address this when I made him aware of the extent of the harm he’d done in a series of messages on March 20. Like Greenwald, John Cook, and others involved in this whole affair, he has chosen to hide. Two weeks later, I’ve yet to hear from him; two weeks from now, The Intercept will be holding a five-year anniversary event in Brooklyn to celebrate its “fearless, adversarial journalism”.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.004em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[rest txt below no lnx)<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.004em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">---<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; letter-spacing: -0.004em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">all no lnx<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We exposed HBGary. HBGary came after us. The Intercept’s Sam Biddle helped.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Biddle fearlessly fails to replyA week ago I released a set of documents pertaining to The Intercept’s recent closure of the Snowden archive and firing of the research team that oversaw it, including internal emails and testimony from Laura Poitras about the outlet’s failure to even inform Snowden in advance. I also included an email I’d just sent to dozens of staffers and execs at The Intercept and First Look regarding this whole sordid affair, as well as some examples showing that Glenn Greenwald and Betsy Reed, who were instrumental in making the decision and justifying it to the public, have a history of failing to understand the significance of such materials even when presented to them in easy-to-understand summaries with supporting documents provided — including secret surveillance and propaganda programs that ended up being used against the American public in the 2016 election.I removed a portion of that email before I sent it off and made it public, partially due to space constraints and partially because the matters I was discussing were already complex enough. That portion is restored below, in bold, and explains how Intercept contributor Sam Biddle was used by HBGary — the same firm that targeted Greenwald and other journalists along with Palantir and others in late 2010 before its proposed black ops campaign was uncovered in a raid by hackers I worked with in Anonymous — in its years-long campaign to have me arrested, charged, imprisoned, and silenced.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As shown in the screenshot above, I gave Biddle a chance to address this when I made him aware of the extent of the harm he’d done in a series of messages on March 20. Like Greenwald, John Cook,[ed] and others involved in this whole affair, he has chosen to hide. Two weeks later, I’ve yet to hear from him; two weeks from now, The Intercept will be holding a five-year anniversary event in Brooklyn to celebrate its “fearless, adversarial journalism”.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Yes, this is real<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Due to DOJ travel restrictions, I will not be in attendance. But the National Magazine Award I won for The Intercept will be right outside, having been shipped up to Brooklyn for the purpose, and burned, live.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I hate parties<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For now, let’s celebrate with the following retrospective.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Team-<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Michael Bloom here! Excelsior!<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I’m writing to let you know about some exciting and dynamic but also perhaps sad-in-a-way restructuring measures that we’ve settled on after a great deal of thought and paint huffing. Due to various mysterious circumstances that may or may not bear any degree of scrutiny, we’ll be:<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- laying off 75 percent of our staff, or “family”, as I like to think of some of you<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- closing down the Snowden archive in a manner so irregular that even the Daily Beast will notice<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- putting Greenwald in charge of explaining this to the public, preferably over Twitter<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">- bringing John Cook back on as editor so that we can win a bet with Satan<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Just kidding! It’s only me, Barrett Brown; I used to write that column for Intercept about comical prison stuff, and then later I got mad and quit, as is my custom.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I’ve been told about some of the things that have gone down up there in recent days, and it just so happens that I have a great deal invested in both the underlying and specific issues involved. Here’s a fun example:1. I explicitly warned about the contracting firm Archimedes in 2011, in an article on the Romas/COIN capability for The Guardian and a more extensive report on Echelon2.org, the website on which my org Project PM compiled our research. The longer report can be found at http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Romas/COIN and the HBGary emails from which this largely derives may be found at Emma Best’s site, or Wikileaks if you’re feeling nostalgic, but at any rate key portions are quoted or summarized there. Romas was a data mining, surveillance, and propaganda apparatus of rather impressive complexity, operated for an unknown U.S. government client by Northrop.2. Between February of 2011, when a hack by some of my old acquaintances revealed Glenn had been among those targeted by the rather baroque Team Themis consortium (Palantir, HBGary, Endgame Systems, Berico), and June 2012, I occasionally discussed with Glenn other firms and technologies that had been discovered in the HBGary emails stolen by Anonymous and supplemented by tax filings, patents, recorded phone calls I made to execs at TASC, Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, etc. In April of 2012, I sent him a Guardian piece I’d written that provided an update of relevance to him (the Palantir employee the firm blamed as solely responsible for the firm’s role in targeting Glenn and others, Matthew Steckman, and thereafter put “on leave” or “suspension” pending an “investigation”, had been rehired; later, in prison, I would learn that he had since been promoted; a few weeks ago I learned he was now at another firm, Anduril, made up largely of ex-Palantir employees and involved mostly in building AI for drones that catch immigrants). The article also made one more pass at trying to get people interested in “persona management”, which had been discovered by a Daily Kos user on Feb 16, picked up via our various Anonymous IRC networks and Twitter accounts immediately thereafter, fleshed out a bit by Raw Story on Feb 17 (which made clear that this was a crowd-sourced discovery, along with much of what had been determined about the program thus far, and then, uh, discovered again by The Guardian on March 17 (“Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media”). The two reporters at Guardian made no mention of the Daily Kos fellow, or Raw Story, or any of the individuals who had been putting out material on this since, in public, with the intent of bringing it to widespread attention, and who were indeed already under investigation by FBI and various European agencies (me, Jake Davis/Topiary, and a Norwegian 16-year-old called Whitekidney). They did discover (I think) that the firm that won this contract for CENTCOM — which involves deploying fake online people with highly developed backgrounds, software that allows a single person to easily control ten such avatars (usually called personas back then) — was Ntrepid, but the two writers couldn’t figure out They couldn’t figure it out because they were two writers, and somewhat shabby ones. They weren’t a crowd-sourced research network, as Project PM now was; no single journalist is. Two journalists aren’t, either, even with an editor thrown in. I know that many in the press believe this is adequate. This would not even be true were the press a meritocracy.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I ended my last email reply to Greenwald thus:<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Glad to hear it. If you have any questions about any of these things, which<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I’ve been looking into with some journalists and other assorted contacts via<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">my little group Project PM since last year, don’t hesitate to ask. You can<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">also see the wiki we’ve set up to disseminate some of what’s been learned…<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Please look into persona management in particular. It’s something that needs<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to be brought to general attention at some point, and I’m going to have a difficult time haranguing people about the issue from prison.”A month prior, I’d been raided by the FBI. The search warrant was published by Michael Hastings on Buzzfeed around that time, noting what was listed as subjects of interest: the Themis firms HBGary and Endgame Systems; Project PM, the Echelon2.org website; Anonymous.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Glenn never replied.Thereafter I discovered through yet another public email leak that HBGary had hired a woman named Jennifer Emick to find something to “get [me] picked up on” due to my role in at a time when she was also serving as a compensated informant for the FBI, and that the HBGary exec she was dealing with, Jim Butterworth, had had his ex-military buddy post pictures of my house, and my address, to the attention of the Zeta cartel at a time when outlets across North America were speculating as to whether they might successfully kill me over an Anonymous Iberoamerica operation that John Cook and Adrian Chen would routinely accuse me of somehow making up, despite knowing full well where the story was coming from (and despite Chen admitting, in the days after my raid, that he didn’t actually believe it, which I recorded and made public, apparently to no purpose:<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDwzlQ_EySc)Sam Biddle, you probably remember Emick. You wrote a long, sympathetic piece about her in June 2012, listing all the horrible things that had been done to her by her various internet enemies, confirming her status as an FBI informant, and even verifying that she was a paid contractor for Anonymous’ various enemies, which by that point would include the King of Bahrain, the deposed regime of Tunisia’s former dictator Ben-Ali, HBGary, Palantir, the Church of Scientology, and all the other powerful, corrupt institutions that would later be mentioned in federal court filings when I was prosecuted (“Her most notable colleague, she says, is the FBI, but she caters to other undisclosed enemies of Anon as well. These clients remain secret”). Not really, Sam; it was outed as HBGary at some time prior. Among her duties was digging into the background of the adolescent daughter of a woman I’d been involved with (as noted in my case discovery, via chat transcripts in which I demanded she stop; I’ll send those along later); making social media posts claiming I “wanted to SWAT” her, a theme that would later be brought up in my bond order hearing to ensure I was unable to get out before trial; and finding naive or ideologically motivated journalists willing to help go after people like myself, such as the white nationalist Robert Stacy McCain and Sam — anyone willing to take her version of events as fact without talking to anyone else. Here’s one of her documents, Sam, in which she characterizes the HBGary/Palantir/Endgame proposals as intended to “protect” Bank of America and U.S. Chamber of Commerce from “attacks”:<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.scribd.com/document/104103462/Emick-BK<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She forgets to note that she’s a very well-paid employee of those firms, or that no one was attacking Bank of America or Chamber of Commerce, or that Stop the Chamber was an entirely mainstream, vanilla advocacy group that had simply opposed the Chamber’s policies via means that were so clean that Themis could only think to oppose it via disinformation, planting fake documents and then accusing the groups of fraud for publishing them and having Aaron Barr dig up information on the children of labor leaders, something he’d been so excited to do that he actually started doing it before they’d gotten the contract. Anyway, Emick’s role wasn’t hard to figure out by June 2012, especially since much of it had been made public long ago, and which I would have been happy to direct you to had you been functioning as a journalist and not an unknowing cog in a paid HBGary operation. Here’s a great sample exchange between myself, Emick, and the people she worked with that had been available for well over a year at that point:<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> you were looking into her</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> zud harassed hert</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><asherah> because you were tweeting it, telling everyone, and coming in here screaminbg every ten minutes?</asherah><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> with your participation</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><asherah> zud never spoke to her</asherah><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> [19:17] <+BarrettBrown> [17:04] <asherah> But she was not sixteen, not doxed</asherah></barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> I know, he tweeted at her mom</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><asherah> and I am not zud’s boss, or his mommy</asherah><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> you work with him</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><asherah> wow, barrett, i give</asherah><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> and you worked with him on this</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> Tell me</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><asherah> saying she was not sixteen means I TOTALLY harassed her</asherah><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> how did you know anything about this girl’s age?</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> Honestly</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> Explain that</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><asherah> because I asked, you dipshit</asherah><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> who did you ask?</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><awinee> Stop talking a bout a little girl</awinee><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><awinee> If it concerns you so much</awinee><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><awinee> stop bringing her up</awinee><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> awinee, shut the fuck up</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><awinee> None gives a shit</awinee><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">* chatterbox is ferociously eating his buttered popcorn.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><barrettbrown> actually, fuck this, none of you care</barrettbrown><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><awinee> Go shoot some more shit in ur arm nigger</awinee><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I remember reading your article and realizing that, between you, Adrian Chen, and John Cook, there wasn’t much hope in saving myself and my mother — for my mother was being threatened with prosecution too, Sam, and would later plea to probation. Emick helped make that happen.3. I was charged in late 2011 with “Aggravated Identify Theft”, and thus faced a 22 year minimum mandatory sentence for linking to documents that had been hacked from Stratfor — hacked with the full knowledge and encouragement of FBI, who had turned Anonymous hacker Hector “Sabu” Monsegur a few months prior and gave him a monitored laptop. There was a widespread outcry, given the implications for other journalists, and indeed anyone else who deals with data. Among those who stayed silent was John Cook. Two years later, when the linking charges were dropped, and the DOJ had me plea instead to accessory after the fact for calling Stratfor’s CEO and offering to redact any sensitive info in the emails stolen by Anonymous and its silent partner the FBI, John remained silent. Wired’s Quinn Norton actually testified at my defense that she had linked to the same document I had without being prosecuted for any of it — and was threatened with prosecution right then and there at the bench conference. Still John kept quiet about that time Gawker offered Sabu money and a Gawkernet filesharing account in exchange for hacked emails stolen from another news outlet.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The incident was documented by the FBI itself through Sabu’s bureau-issued laptop and included in Jeremy Hammond’s case discovery, and made public in late 2014 via this article:<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/adrian-chen-gawker-fbi-sabu-news-of-the-world-nato-emails/<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I know nothing of this,” Cook replied upon being asked about the transcripts, which show Adrian Chen making the offer and confirming he had approval from editors. It’s certainly possible that Cook really wasn’t aware that the guy he routinely worked with on stories about Anonymous, Sabu, and the other celebrity hackers involved in this affair had been negotiating with those same people to buy emails stolen from Rupert Murdoch and News of the World, a cache that would have obviously yielded extraordinary stories had it actually existed, rather than being a ploy by which to fuck with Chen. Even if we pretend he didn’t know back then, he certainly knew after the reporters sent him the transcripts and asked him for a comment in late 2014, two months before the sentencing hearing where a judge handed down to me additional prison time and $800,000 in restitution, and which was of course covered by The Intercept, a publication Cook now edited. This was not even the worst of Cook’s sins of which I am aware; that would be allowing Chen to run the 2013 article in which he mocks a legal fundraiser for myself and Jeremy Hammond, repeats the claim that I concocted some sort of false flag drug war in Mexico to promote a book I supposedly had coming out, and attacks Project PM’s research as “inscrutable”.Three years remained before the 2016 election, decided by small majorities in a few states, and undermined in Trump’s favor by Cambridge Analytica, Palantir, and Archimedes using the same data mining/output methods Archimedes employed in Romas/COIN, which one could read about solely on Project PM’s website, the chief subject of the March 2012 FBI raid. I’d mentioned some of these same firms in another Guardian article I’d written from prison shortly after the Snowden revelations; the DOJ sought and obtained a gag order on the grounds that the article had been “critical of the government”, and also because I’d been speaking by phone to various journalists, all of whom they listed in the gag order hearing. Among them was my old friend Michael Hastings, who died not long afterwards.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">4. I’ll get to the incident in which Rodger Hodge and Betsy Reed decided that Romas/COIN couldn’t be discussed in the last column I wrote for The Intercept before my release from prison in another, more public venue, where it will make more sense to publish the entirety of the astonishing correspondence in which they explain to me that we can’t risk being sued by Booz Allen Hamilton, Apple, or Google “based on the unsubstantiated claims in the emails”. They hadn’t yet seen the emails, but then they were editors, and made all things their province: “These guys are obviously bragging and trying to hustle business.” This was less obvious to me, since the emails in question did not consist of the contractors claiming to potential business partners that they were meeting with Apple and Google and were thus fine, up-and-coming fellows who ought to be hired; rather they consisted of correspondence with Apple’s Andy Kemp and Google’s Mike Geldner, as well as meeting schedules with both. In a more perfect world, it would have been adequate for me to point this out, as I did, and to arrange for the emails in question to be sent to Hodge, as I also did. In an even more perfect world, this shit would have been addressed by Glenn in 2011, when I sent him all of this information. In this world, it makes more sense to just publish those emails in another, more public venue, attach the entirety of the contents to this message, and CC a couple of the contractors who attended those meetings, as nothing else seems to have worked.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In conclusion, neither Greenwald nor Reed are competent to decide anything at all about how these documents should be handled, or how The Intercept should be allocating its increasingly publicly-funded resources. This would have been harder to write down and send to 50 of their colleagues previously, before I learned about the specific impulses that lead to this decision, or had I not won the outlet their first National Magazine Award from a fucking segregation cell during a prison term that stemmed from my attempts to stop firms like Palantir from going after people like Glenn, or had Glenn not waited until public perception had turned back in my favor before writing a single word about what I was doing in prison to begin with, or did I not have obligations to the other activists who are still dealing with the consequences of our efforts back then, or had Aaron Swartz not spent a portion of his last months alive helping us to research and publicize the persona management capability that I would meanwhile ask Glenn to bring to wider attention lest it be forgotten in my inevitable prison term — which of course it was, to such an extent that it has now been discovered again by NYT and New Yorker in the form of Psy-Group, now reported to have used its “avatars” to influence the 2016 election for Trump, even after the campaign declined to pay for the service. It will be discovered again by some other name in four or five years. Or perhaps not.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The worst part is that I haven’t even gotten to the worst part, and won’t for a while. Perhaps this will suffice for now.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Anyone else who is inclined to talk about the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Snowden archive may send me an email at this address, or on Wire at @BarrettBrown33. If you just want to send something anonymously via means of your choice, to be relayed to someone I believe many of you have reason to trust and respect, that can also be arranged.<p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p id="12e7" class="hu hv dg bt hw b hx ng hz nh ni nj nk nl nm nn ih" data-selectable-paragraph="" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 2em 0px -0.46em; line-height: 1.58; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Good luck to the majority of you who are trying to do the correct thing in ambiguous circumstances.docu<a href="https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2017/11/new-documentary-on-barrett-brown-accidental-warrior/">https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2017/11/new-documentary-on-barrett-brown-accidental-warrior/</a>interview<a href="https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/ep-87-barret-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project/">https://parallaxviews.podbean.com/e/ep-87-barret-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project/</a>palintir bk in hbg days, said fired rogue employee but promoted // 2016 election.stratfor not competent, except at promotion PR; bhopal; PETA for coke; w/ FBI (BO admin concierge service ~ US cit not accused of crime)---<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/15/did-dallas-police-and-local-media-collude-to-cover-up-terrorist-threats-against-journalist-barrett-brown/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/15/did-dallas-police-and-local-media-collude-to-cover-up-terrorist-threats-against-journalist-barrett-brown/</a>On April 11, 2019 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested by British authorities after almost 7 years of asylum in London's Ecuadorian embassy. Reviled by many and revered by others, Assange and Wikileaks became a magnet of controversy for over a decade thanks to their publishing leaked media like the Collateral Damage video and the Podesta emails. Wikileaks, however, was part of a broader movement called "hacktivism" that became increasingly popular in the early 2000's through work of the informal, online collective Anonymous. This movement raised increasingly relevant questions about whistleblowing, journalism, and transparency that have only became more pressing as the highly technological 21st century rolls forward with concerning revelations made public by whistleblowers like NSA contractor Edward Snowden and former Cambridge Analytica data consultant Christopher Wylie. Joining us on this edition of Parallax Views to unpack these issues is journalist, whistleblower, and former Anonymous associate Barret Brown of the Pursuance Project.
Like Julian Assange, Barrett Brown ran afoul of government authorities due to his involvement with Anonymous eventually culminating in his arrest and a 63 month prison sentence in relation to the Stratfor email leaks case. Brown has written for such publications as The Daily Beast, Vanity Fair, True/Slant, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, and D Magazine as well as winning a National Magazine Award for his work at The Intercept. During the course of our discussion Brown tells his story and gives his takes on the arrest of Julian Assange and the media's coverage of it, the state of journalism, Wikileaks, Anonymous, The Intercept's shutdown of the Edward Snowden archive, and much. In addition, Brown fills us in on his latest endeavor the Pursuance Project and his hopes that it will continue the fight for transparency where others have failed. On the whole it's a candid conversation with Barret Brown that's sure to go down as one of Parallax Views' most explosive and controversial episodes to date.
<a href="https://www.pursuanceproject.org/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">CHECK OUT THE PURSUANCE PROJECT</a><a href="https://www.pursuanceproject.org/">https://www.pursuanceproject.org/</a>
Look Out for Barrett Brown's Upcoming Book My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A MemoirShow Notes:<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous(group)" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Anonymous (Wikipedia Entry)</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_Stratfor_email_leak" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2012–13 Stratfor Email Leak (Wikipedia Entry)</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGary" style="text-decoration-line: none;">HBGary (Wikipedia Entry)</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZsKY51dlUQ" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Video Footage of FBI Raid on Barrett Brown During an Online Video Chat</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt3aidwogck" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Accidental Warrior: The Life and Time of Barrett Brown (Documentary)</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh19A0elV6E&t=83s" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Relatively Free (Alex Winter's Short Documentary on Barrett Brown and His Release from Prison)</a><a href="https://theintercept.com/staff/freebarrett/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Barrett Brown Archive @ The Intercept</a><a href="https://www.dmagazine.com/author/barrettbrown/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Barret Brown Archive @ D Magazine</a><a href="https://medium.com/@barrettbrown" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Barrett Brown Archive @ Medium</a><a href="https://medium.com/@barrettbrown">https://medium.com/@barrettbrown</a><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/11/uk/julian-assange-arrested-gbr-intl/index.html" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal;">Police arrest Julian Assange at Ecuadorian Embassy in London (CNN)</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stTMt1tLT4g" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EXCLUSIVE: Assange arrested & escorted out of Ecuadorian Embassy (Ruptly/RT)</a><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/04/11/wikileaks-julian-assange-nsa-extradition-hacking-chelsea-manning-nobel-column/3434034002/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be punished for embarrassing the DC establishment by Jonathan Turley (USA Today)</a><a href="https://progressive.org/dispatches/daniel-ellsberg-on-arrest-of-julian-assange-bernstein-190423/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Pentagon Papers Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg Speaks Out on the Arrest of Julian Assange (The Progressive)</a><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/julian-assange-went-after-a-former-ally-it-backfired-epically?ref=home" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal;">Julian Assange Went After a Former Ally. It Backfired Epically. by Spencer Ackerman (Barrett Brown Vs Julian Assange; The Daily Beast)</a><a href="https://www.facebook.com/barrett.brown.902/videos/377266779544665/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Barrett Brown's Statement on Julian Assange (April 4th 2019, Prior to and Predicting Assange's Arrest)</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUcAiU0EWGs" style="text-decoration-line: none;">WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange: Expelled, Extradited, Undaunted. Is Journalism on Trial? (RT's The Big Picture)</a><a href="https://www.justice-integrity.org/1639-snowden-archives-at-great-risk-as-alarming-as-assange-s-arrest" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Snowden archives at great risk — As alarming as Assange's arrest (Justice Integrity Project)</a><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-intercept-shuts-down-access-to-snowden-trove?ref=author" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept Shuts Down Access to Snowden Trove by Maxwell Tani (The Daily Beast)</a><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-poitras-co-founder-of-the-intercept-barred-from-company-meeting-after-snowden-archive-shutdown" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept Bars Co-Founder From Meeting After Snowden Archive Shutdown by Maxwell Tani (The Daily Beast)</a><a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-poitras-sickened-by-layoffs-at-the-intercept" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Laura Poitras ‘Sickened’ By Layoffs at The Intercept (The Daily Beast)</a><a href="https://medium.com/@barrettbrown/why-the-intercept-really-closed-the-snowden-archive-e99f46bbfbbc" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Why The Intercept Really Closed the Snowden Archive by Barrett Brown (Medium)</a><a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1106195880393297920" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald Responding to Criticism of the Snowden Archive's Shutdown</a><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAAQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFSgAMAB6BAgAEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Glorious-Defeats-Hacktivist-Narcissist/dp/0374217017" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/My-Glorious-Defeats-Hacktivist-Narcissist/dp/0374217017&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjAAegQIABAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Glorious-Defeats-Hacktivist-Narcissist/dp/0374217017" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/My-Glorious-Defeats-Hacktivist-Narcissist/dp/0374217017&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjAAegQIABAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><div class="ellip" style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Glorious-Defeats-Hacktivist-Narcissist/dp/0374217017" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/My-Glorious-Defeats-Hacktivist-Narcissist/dp/0374217017&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjAAegQIABAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir ...</a></div></h3>
<div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 1px;"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; padding-top: 1px; line-height: 1.5;">https://www.amazon.com › My-Glorious-Defeats-Hacktivist-Narcissist</cite></div></div><div class="s" style="max-width: 48em; line-height: 1.57;">My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir [Barrett Brown] ... Barrett Brown―journalist, hacktivist, troublemaker, face of Anonymous, legend ... Browse our editors' picks for the best books of the month in fiction, nonfiction, ...<div class="TXwUJf">Missing: <s>defeat</s> ‎| Must include: <a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=barrett+brown+glorious+%22defeat%22+book&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQ5t4CMAB6BAgAEAU" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">defeat</a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAIQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFSgAMAF6BAgCEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="ellip" style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjABegQIAhAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Barrett Brown (Author of Flock of Dodos) - Goodreads</a></div></h3>
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Keep Rootin' For Putin by Barrett Brown... My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir.</a><div class="TXwUJf"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:4avpL5vJ6oQJ:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:4avpL5vJ6oQJ:https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/335874.Barrett_Brown%2B%26cd%3D2%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDABegQIAhAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Missing: <s>defeat</s> ‎| Must include: </a><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=barrett+brown+glorious+%22defeat%22+book&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQ5t4CMAF6BAgCEAg" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer;">defeat</a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 27px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAMQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFSgAMAJ6BAgDEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><div class="ellip" style="overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjACegQIAxAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Books | Courage Brown - Barrett Brown</a></div></h3>
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padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">A hilarious, brilliantly crafted, full-on verbal assault on America's pundit class. Brown shows us just how lazy, stupid, and corrupt almost all of our nation's most ...</a><div class="TXwUJf"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=related:https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/+barrett+brown+glorious+defeat+book&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQHzACegQIAxAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Missing: <s>glorious</s> ‎<s>defeat</s></a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="g" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 28px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div data-hveid="CAUQAA" data-ved="2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFSgAMAN6BAgFEAA"><div class="rc" style="position: relative;"><div class="r" style="margin: 0px; line-height: 1.57;"><a class="fl" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=related:https://freebarrettbrown.org/books/+barrett+brown+glorious+defeat+book&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQHzACegQIAxAG" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"></a><a href="https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjADegQIBRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;" /><h3 class="LC20lb" style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%; line-height: 1.3;"><a href="https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjADegQIBRAB" style="cursor: pointer; 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text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjADegQIBRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjADegQIBRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjADegQIBRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;"></a><a href="https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQFjADegQIBRAB" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none;">Barrett Brown on Anonymous, Whistleblowing, Wikileaks, Journalism ...</a></div></h3>
<div class="TbwUpd" style="display: inline-block; line-height: 1.57; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 1px;"><cite class="iUh30 bc" style="font-style: normal; padding-top: 1px; line-height: 1.5;">https://wallstreetwindow.com › 2019/06 › barrett-brown-on-anonymous-w...</cite></div><div class="action-menu ab_ctl" style="display: inline; position: relative; margin: 1px 3px 0px; user-select: none; vertical-align: middle;"><a class="GHDvEf ab_button" href="https://www.google.com/search?q=barret+brown+glorious+defeat+book&oq=barret+brown+glorious+defeat+book&aqs=chrome..69i57.11959j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#" id="am-b3" aria-label="Result Options" aria-expanded="false" aria-haspopup="true" role="button" jsaction="m.tdd;keydown:m.hbke;keypress:m.mskpe" data-ved="2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQ7B0wA3oECAUQAw" style="border-radius: 0px; cursor: default; font-weight: bold; height: 12px; line-height: 27px; margin: 1px 0px 2px; min-width: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; transition: none 0s ease 0s; 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line-height: 1.57;"><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"></a><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"></a><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">Jun 18, 2019 - Like Julian Assange, Barrett Brown ran afoul of government authorities ... Look Out for Barrett Brown's Upcoming Book My Glorious Defeats: ...</a></div></div></div></div><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"></a><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">He was originally charged with forwarding a link to the information exposed about Stratfor that also included information about Stratfor employees, including their credit card details. But this formed only a tiny part of the vast amount of data. Nor, it should be added, did Brown use this data for financial gain. In the end the US government agreed to drop the more serious charges after lawyers filed a legal memorandum: they correctly argued these charges were effectively a violation of the First Amendment, pointing out that “publishing a hyperlink does not itself move, convey, select, place or otherwise transfer, a file or document from one location to another”. Ahmed Ghappour (who directs the Liberty, Security and Technology Clinic, at the University of California Hastings College of Law) stated: “Looking at that [the sharing of an online link] as criminal conduct would probably bring an end to all digital journalism, period. There would be no reporting on leaks.”</a><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"></a><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;">may 2017</a><a class="fl" href="https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/+&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us" ping="/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search%3Fq%3Dcache:HVi7VLFRYmwJ:https://wallstreetwindow.com/2019/06/barrett-brown-on-anonymous-whistleblowing-wikileaks-journalism-the-pursuance-project-source-parralax-views-06-18-2019/%2B%26cd%3D4%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26gl%3Dus&ved=2ahUKEwiE9sil2JzkAhUPMawKHfNcDUkQIDADegQIBRAF" style="text-decoration-line: none; cursor: pointer; display: block; padding: 7px 18px; outline: 0px;"></a><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/12/jailed_reporter_barrett_brown_on_press">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/12/jailed_reporter_barrett_brown_on_press</a>... investigative reporter Barrett Brown, who recently completed a four-year prison sentence related to the hacking of the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which exposed how the firm spied on activists on behalf of corporations. He was released from prison earlier this year but was unexpectedly rearrested late last month, one day ahead of a scheduled interview for an upcoming PBS documentary. Brown was detained for four days and then released without receiving any formal written explanation for the arrest. For more, we speak with Barrett Brown, along with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald.Prior to his arrest, Brown appeared in the documentary We are Legion and talked about the importance of information obtained by hackers.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BARRETT BROWN: Some of the most important things that have been—have had the most far-reaching influence and have been the most important in terms of what’s been discovered, not just by Anonymous, but by the media in the aftermath, is the result of hacking. That information can’t be obtained by institutional journalistic process, or it can’t be obtained or won’t be obtained by a congressional committee or a federal oversight committee. For the most part, that information has to be, you know, obtained by hackers.</blockquote>AMY GOODMAN: In 2009, Barrett Brown created Project PM which was, quote, "dedicated to investigating private government contractors working in the secretive fields of cybersecurity, intelligence and surveillance." He was particularly interested in the documents leaked by WikiLeaks and Anonymous. In 2011, the group Anonymous hacked into the computer system of the private security firm HBGary Federal and disclosed thousands of internal emails. Barrett Brown was not accused of being involved in the hack itself, but he did read and analyze the documents, eventually crowdsourcing the effort through the Project PM. One of the first things he discovered was a plan to tarnish the reputations of WikiLeaks and the journalist Glenn Greenwald, who would later win a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on NSAwhistleblower Edward Snowden.While serving in prison, Barrett Brown won the 2016 National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary for columns he wrote for The Intercept. He was released from prison earlier this year but was unexpectedly rearrested late last month, one day ahead of a scheduled interview for an upcoming PBS documentary. Barrett Brown was detained for four days and then released without receiving any formal written explanation for the arrest. Despite pressure from authorities not to speak to the media while under house arrest, Barrett Brown has opted not to keep silent. Democracy Now!’s Nermeen Shaikh and I spoke to him earlier this week, along with Glenn Greenwald, who was in our New York studio. I began by asking Barrett Brown why he was imprisoned for four years.<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243);">BARRETT BROWN: The FBI’s original search warrants came out after we had began—begun documenting the DOJ and FBI’s illegal involvement with intelligence contractors against journalists and activists. The search warrants stated that they were looking for information on HBGary, one of the firms, as you mentioned, that had been involved in these crimes; Endgame Systems, another firm we were looking at; and our Echelon2.org wiki on which we compiled this research. Later on, they charged me with entirely different crimes involving the Stratfor hack, which had already occurred and—you know, before these particular search warrants. They were just looking for something to get me on, that wouldn’t involve going into some of these more nefarious projects that they were indirectly involved in. So, I eventually pled to—after they dropped a number of very bizarre charges involving linking to information, after a public outcry, I pled guilty to interference with a search warrant, threatening a federal agent and accessory after the fact, for having called the executive from Stratfor and offering to redact sensitive information. So, that was the—that was what they got me on, eventually.So I did four years, first in low security, then in medium-security federal prison, documented further abuses by the BOP, you know, spent about six months altogether in the hole, or the SHU, of that 4-year period, and, you know, did what I could to try to show people how the prisons operate, the extent to which due process violations are very common and hard to defend against. But none of that really came to anything, obviously. You can only document so much in a culture like this and expect anything to happen from it. And it’s sort of a difficult culture to actually really get journalism to work in.NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Barrett, could you tell us what reason you were given, if any, for your rearrest?BARRETT BROWN: Before I was arrested, the BOP had been claiming that I was not allowed to do interviews without their permission, which I happen to know is false. It’s actually documented very clearly in the Bureau of Prisons program statement on media contacts, which I’ve linked to in a recent <em times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">D Magazine piece, that there is no such stipulation. Even inmates in the prisons can talk to journalists by the phone or mail without permission. The only aspect of that that requires permission is if a journalist was to come into an actual prison on a certain day and interview an inmate at that prison. The <span class="caps" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BOP was trying to get me to force <span class="caps" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PBS and Vice television to fill out these forms, which were completely inappropriate. I told them I wouldn’t do it, until they showed me a program statement saying otherwise. And then I recorded conversations with the local <span class="caps" times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">BOP regional representative, Luz Lujan, in which they threatened me with an abusing-an-order charge if I refused to sign these illegally ascertained documents. So, the next day I was arrested by the federal marshals, held for four days. A law firm, [Haynes and Boone], hired by one of my other publishers, Wick Allison for D Magazine, threatened the BOP, said they would go to a court and challenge the terms of my confinement. And I was immediately released after that.NERMEEN SHAIKH: Had you been informed, Barrett, at all that you were not permitted to speak to the media?BARRETT BROWN: Well, they were telling me that, and I recorded the conversations in which she—which these BOP officials and halfway house staff tried to tell me that. And as I said in the recordings, "There is no such dictate in the program statements, and unless, you know, I’m shown a program statement saying I don’t have a right, I’m going to exercise that right." And I’m certainly not going to help them force media outlets to seek prior restraint authorization from a random BOP official before doing their job. That’s contrary to a number of principles not just journalists have, but, you know, that go straight to the heart of the First Amendment. And again, just it’s not legal. It’s not a power they have. And, you know, but they knew they could get away with holding me for a few days without any long-term consequences, and they’re probably right. This is a prison issue in one way, but it’s a larger issue of the rule of law and whether or not it actually exists, which I tend to claim that it doesn’t.AMY GOODMAN: Barrett Brown, you have said that you’re considering taking asylum overseas after being reimprisoned?BARRETT BROWN: Yes. You know, the—I’ve been covered quite a bit in the press, especially when I was involved in Anonymous back in 2011, sometimes over really silly things, inconsequential things, but, you know, things that were kind of lurid and exciting and perhaps seemingly romantic. In this case, even after I made very clear and did my best to document that a extraordinary crime against the First Amendment and against journalists, not just me, but other journalists, had been committed, there was really no press coverage, other than from outlets like The Intercept and D Magazine, that I write for, a few independent outlets, as well. It just—the BOP and the DOJ and the FBI can operate beyond the law to a pretty high extent, especially when dealing with activists.And I’m going to continue to do my activism work. I’m going to continue to try to organize citizens against state criminality. But I can’t do that from here, you know, without being arrested, you know, by any official who chooses to do so. You know, in another—I have no problem doing prison time or being oppressed, you know, in the public eye, if it helps. But it just doesn’t help that often. It just doesn’t lead to anything. This is not the kind of society in which people say, "Oh, no, that’s—you know, something terrible has happened. Let’s act on it." They just don’t. In Germany, you know, a few years ago, it really impressed me when a state prosecutor was found to have been investigating a news website that had been publishing leaked documents. And after that came to light, there were several days of marches. And three days after that, the prosecutor was out. That would never happen in the U.S. And that’s the kind of country I want to live in, with people who I share some, you know, degree of decency with.AMY GOODMAN: Can you just freely leave?BARRETT BROWN: After my probation is finished, which will be, at the maximum, two years from now, but more likely one year, I guess I’ll be able to leave the country, at which point I’ll be giving up my citizenship and applying for citizenship elsewhere.NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Barrett Brown, by analyzing the information from the HBGary hack, you discovered the security firm’s plan to undermine our guest journalist Glenn Greenwald’s defense of WikiLeaks. One slide read, quote, "Without the support of people like Glenn wikileaks would fold." HBGary intended to spread disinformation to discredit both Glenn Greenwald and WikiLeaks. In the documentary We are Legion, the director spoke to former HBGary CEO Aaron Barr about these plans.BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER: It seems like you’re trying to attack a journalist here.<strong times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AARON BARR: Yeah, and I—you know, I don’t want to talk too much more about Glenn Greenwald, but other than, you know, what I previously said. You know, there was never an intent to attack journalists, not on my part. You know, I guess I should say—I should generalize that and to say that, you know, I would never just outwardly attack a journalist, other than if I felt that there was a journalist, in my mind, that was acting unethically, that, you know, that is a—that’s a fair game for having a public discussion about.NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was the HBGary CEO Aaron Barr speaking in the documentary We are Legion. Barrett Brown, can you explain what HBGary is and the significance of what happened?BARRETT BROWN: Yeah, it was—what they were doing was significant, because we saw a number of contractors aligned with the DOJ going after private citizens in this very nefarious combination of state and corporate actors. You know, the—Bank of America, which is concerned with WikiLeaks, and the Chamber of Commerce, which is concerned with several left-wing activist groups, can go to the DOJ—and did—and ask them, you know, "Hey, can you help us go after our enemies?They’re also citizens, but we don’t like them, and you probably don’t like them, either." And the DOJ will say, "OK, let’s put you in touch with the Hunton & Williams law firm, and they’ll arrange Palantir and HBGary and Endgame Systems, and they’ll set up a covert disinformation campaign, and they’ll hack servers, and they’ll try to set up activists on charges of fraud, and it’ll be great." That’s an extraordinary symptom of what’s wrong with this country.I should note, what’s really important about all of this is that the Team Themis thing was actually stumbled upon by several different people at once. This was a great example, one of several great examples, of crowdsourced journalism. Later on, we went on to document, you know, further abuses both by HBGary and by Palantir,showed that Palantir was lying when they claimed they—you know, this was a low-level person only that was involved in this, and they didn’t—you know, they didn’t approve of it, when in fact their chief counsel and a number of other employees were in on those emails. There were other projects, as well, that are also, I think, very indicative not just in what it says about how the state operates with these interests, but also what they can do now. Persona Management was one particularly frightening technology, that involves fake online personas, that the military—CENTCOM, in this case—can operate. These are provided by private companies, which can turn around and sell them to whoever else, including foreign despots, immoral corporate actors across the world. We’ve seen this over and over again with additional hacks that have shown, you know, how Tunisia, for instance, was being assisted by the French government in repressing its citizens. We see a company called Qorvis in D.C. that assists Bahrain in smearing dissidents.So, crowdsourced journalism did in this case what mainstream journalists couldn’t do, which was stay on the—stay on this subject, go through all of these emails, even after the headlines were over, after the month of musings or media aftermath from the actual hack was over. We, you know, kept on it. We created an array of sort of relationships that other journalists could come and look at and use as a starting point, if they wanted to go after this larger story.AMY GOODMAN: So, Glenn Greenwald, if you could comment on this, because you were a subject of this, explain more who HBGary is and their attempts to discredit you and what it meant for you.GLENN GREENWALD: Well, let me just say that the Barrett Brown case is probably one of the most significant threats to press freedom that has happened in the United States in the last, I would say, two decades at least. And it’s received remarkably little attention in the mainstream press, because they only pay attention when they themselves are attacked. So, Donald Trump attacks some—posts some childish insult about the media or calls them the enemy of the people, and it’s wall-to-wall coverage in The New York Times and CNN. And yet, here was Barrett, doing some of the most intrepid and important journalism in the United States, digging into this incredibly opaque and powerful faction, and because of his journalism into those areas, that is what directly triggered this FBI investigation and attempt to imprison him. And the reason he got so little support from media organizations defending his press freedom was because they only care about press freedom when it comes to large corporate media outlets that aren’t actually threatening to the government.And this was a case where Barrett discovered extreme levels of wrongdoing and corruption, including this slide that said it wanted to destroy my reputation to prevent me from continuing to defend WikiLeaks, talking about defending—destroying the reputation of people who are activists against the Chamber of Commerce. He was doing incredibly important work. He’s obviously a very talented journalist. The scribblings he did for us in prison on paper with pencil won the National Magazine Award for the columns that we published. And yet, now he’s saying, just like Laura Poitras felt when she had to edit her film Citizenfour, that he can’t safely do journalism in the United States. So we love to talk about Russia and press freedoms there, even though we have no impact on it when we do. We spend very little time talking about the real threats to press freedom in this country, because they happen to people like Barrett Brown rather than to MSNBC and The New York Times.AMY GOODMAN: But explain why it mattered what HBGary was saying, this information coming out, for example, on you.GLENN GREENWALD: Well, these contractors, that very few people have heard about, including HBGary—I had never heard of them until this happened—orPalantir, the organization funded by the billionaire Peter Thiel, exert extreme levels of power inside of this murky world of intelligence and defense contractors. And what they were planning to do was they were putting a pitch together to Bank of America, using the firm Hunton & Williams, which is this powerhouse in D.C., to try and tell the Bank of America, which at the time thought it was going to be the target of a WikiLeaks disclosure, "Let us use our dark arts and dirty little tactics to destroy the people who will be your critics." And that was the plan they were putting together, that Anonymous discovered and Barrett reported on. And the only reason why it was discovered is because Anonymous randomly hacked into it. And what was amazing about it was, there were dozens of people talking about these plans, that were illegal, or certainly unethical, and not one person ever said, "Wait a minute. Isn’t this going a little bit too far to destroy journalists for reporting on these events?" That’s how common this mentality is in that world and how much impunity there is for it. And that was what Barrett was on the verge of really uncovering at the time the FBI began trying to put him in prison.NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, in an interview on Tuesday with the ACLU, you talked about, elaborated on the point you made now, about how the media itself persecutes its own sources and that journalists take the lead in advocating for policies that would restrict their own press freedom. So, could you explain why you think that is? Because, of course, it’s completely counterintuitive.GLENN GREENWALD: Right. You would think, in just a normal, healthy democracy, you would have the government over here being adversarial to press freedoms, and then you would have journalists vehemently defending the power of the freedom of the press. That’s how it’s supposed to work. And yet, in so many cases, especially when the government targets journalists who aren’t popular among or working within these mainstream outlets, not only do the journalists ignore it or acquiesce to these efforts to punish and criminalize and attack independent journalists, they become the leading cheerleaders. When I first started doing the Snowden reporting, it wasn’t, you know, James Clapper or Keith Alexander going on TV calling for my imprisonment; it was David Gregory or Andrew Ross Sorkin or other journalists who work at The New York Times, someone with an institution with a history of defending press freedom. And so, that is a huge problem, is, because so many mainstream journalists in the United States identify not with journalism, but with serving the interest of the U.S. government and the national security state, they become the leading spokespeople, the leading advocates, for the right to criminalize journalism. The U.S. government doesn’t have to defend trying to put Julian Assange in prison for publishing documents. Journalists are happy to take the lead in arguing that that should happen, even though that will directly threaten them.AMY GOODMAN: Has that changed at all under Trump? Now that Trump has called the media the enemy of the people, the enemy of the American people, the media has found its backbone in some cases.GLENN GREENWALD: Definitely.AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that will extend to what you’re describing?GLENN GREENWALD: No, unfortunately, I don’t. And if you notice, there are certain lines that the, quote-unquote, "resistance," including the media, won’t cross. So, for example, when Trump bombed Syria with no congressional authorization and no plan, the media largely cheered. When he dropped the so-called Mother of All Bombs in Afghanistan, the largest bomb short of a nuclear weapon in Afghanistan, the media cheered. And now that the CIA and Jeff Sessions are threatening to prosecute WikiLeaks and Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for publishing documents, you have major media figures, simply because they hate WikiLeaks and are incredibly shortsighted, supporting Jeff Sessions, supporting Mike Pompeo, in the idea that WikiLeaks’s publication of documents should be criminalized, even though that can then be turned around and used against them. So, no, they place off-limits certain policies that are really dangerous, even if Trump is the one advocating them.AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering, Barrett Brown, if you would do anything differently, given that you ended up in jail for four years?BARRETT BROWN: No.AMY GOODMAN: And I’m wondering your thoughts on Donald Trump firing James Comey, the FBI director? To say the least, you had a lot of dealings with the FBI.BARRETT BROWN: Yeah. There was a great deal of disingenuousness in the argument over the last year over the Clinton investigation on both sides. You know, I watched Comey testify before Congress regarding the Clinton decision from the federal prison. The federal inmates, all of us, had been pursued at some point, sometimes multiple times, by the FBI and other federal agencies. And when he said that we treat everyone the same, there was, you know, audible laughter in the audience there.The FBI—first of all, no one can really say one way or the other what the FBIdoes. There is no broad set of procedures. Individual FBI agents and individual prosecutors across the country largely act as they feel is appropriate in a particular situation. FBI agents lie on the stand pretty routinely. In my case, you can see them trying to present something that Bob Beckel on Fox News said about killing Assange as something that I had said, which is obviously [inaudible], for several reasons. You can just see over and over again that there’s no negative feedback to this system. There’s no reason why a prosecutor shouldn’t lie or withhold evidence, as they did in my case. There’s no reason why the FBI shouldn’t pick and choose who they prosecute or who they go after, you know, just based on ideological, personal or haphazard factors. That’s quite extensive. Obviously, my—you know, my mother was indicted for obstruction of justice, for hiding my laptops in her kitchen cabinet, when they did not get a warrant for her house.So, Clinton, Hillary Clinton, had she been someone else, you know, probably would have been indicted. Having said that, George Bush, George W. Bush, and many of his administration, had they been other people, had there not been a political element there or a sort of an establishment sort of back-scratching ethos, whereby we really don’t go after powerful people, you know, they would have been indicted, as well, had they just been regular people. So, the fact is, none of these people know. None of these people in the Senate and Congress really know what’s normal for the FBI. There is no normal, other than a degree of disingenuousness that kind of changes from case to case. DOJ, same thing. None of these people who were so upset about the DOJ, about Loretta Lynch meeting with Clinton, which, of course, was an extraordinarily egregious act, you know, none of them were really upset about when the DOJ, again, was conspiring to go after journalists and activists in a way that just not only goes against their charter, but goes against the entire reason for being.There’s a great deal—there’s a great dance of disingenuousness that goes on in our national dialogue. And part of it’s wrapped up in the establishment’s regard for other establishment figures, whether they be in journalism or law enforcement or politics. And part of it just has to deal with the deterioration of how we think as a society, what kind of people make it to the top, what kind of people lead our national conversation. And it’s a huge, all-encompassing, fundamental problem. And it’s all the more dangerous because this is such a powerful nation with such an extensive machinery that goes all across the world.AMY GOODMAN: Barrett Brown, are you able to step foot outside? You’re under house arrest.BARRETT BROWN: I’m able to—I can go to my front yard, I imagine. I’m supposed to be here unless I’m going to work or some other wholesome appointments. I really don’t mind, though. I’m kind of a homebody anyway. I’ll be off home confinement in a few weeks. Then I’ll be under the DOJ’s probation department. Another good example of how haphazard this all is, the local probation department here in the Northern District of Texas is actually very kind, very—you know, they’re run by sort of social worker types, who wanted to get into this kind of business to help people. So, it just goes to show how these institutions are—they’re not monolithic. There’s nothing you can really say about them, that they’ll do this, they want to do this. It all just comes down to, you know, when the rule of law doesn’t really apply, when procedures can be violated at whim, both for good or ill, it’s—you’re dealing with a big, amorphous mass, rather than some, you know, really pristine rule-of-law procedures that you can point to and say, "This is a—this is a wholesome system of governance. This is something we can definitely practice free speech under. We can definitely expect that our rights will be maintained." It’s more complicated than that.AMY GOODMAN: Are you allowed to use a computer?BARRETT BROWN: I am—that’s debatable. The BOP representative, just like—just like with their interview stipulation, that they’ve now backed off of, originally claimed that under my terms of home confinement, that I’m not allowed to use a computer. And they’re basing that off of my terms of supervised release, which doesn’t even start yet. That’s my probation.AMY GOODMAN: That’s investigative journalist Barrett Brown, speaking while under house arrest in Dallas, Texas. He recently served a 4-year prison sentence. And then, when he was released a few weeks ago, he was rearrested and then inexplicably released. Also we were speaking to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald.more? <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/12/glenn_greenwald_on_barrett_brown_press">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/12/glenn_greenwald_on_barrett_brown_press</a>2/14</blockquote><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding-left: 30px; border-left: 3px solid rgb(241, 242, 243); letter-spacing: -0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 30px !important;"></blockquote><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/wd4n7y/barrett-browns-new-book-keep-rootin-for-putin-skewers-mainstream-media-pundits">https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/wd4n7y/barrett-browns-new-book-keep-rootin-for-putin-skewers-mainstream-media-pundits</a>...But the kind of inanity he blasts in Keep Rootin' for Putin is now aimed at him by the government. He faces more than a century in prison chiefly for sharing a hyperlink, allegedly, to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItreEs03A2k" target="blank" tazugane="Tazugane" gothic="Gothic" tazuganegothic="TazuganeGothic" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" color="color" rgb="rgb">cancelled</a> credit card data from the Stratfor hack, which <a href="http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html" target="blank" tazugane="Tazugane" gothic="Gothic" tazuganegothic="TazuganeGothic" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" color="color" rgb="rgb">landed</a> five million of the Austin-based intelligence firm's emails on WikiLeaks. The credit card data didn't come from him; he just pointed fellow researchers to it during the media buzz generated by the hack. His prosecutors shared the same link by putting it in his indictment, right there on <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_indictment2.pdf" target="blank" tazugane="Tazugane" gothic="Gothic" tazuganegothic="TazuganeGothic" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" box-sizing="box-sizing" inherit="inherit" color="color" rgb="rgb">Page 1</a>. So it's okay, ethically, for the Department of Justice to share the link, but not for him to do it?The government's stupidity extends to <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_indictment.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit;">charging</a> him for allegedly making threats against the FBI agent who raided his and his mother's homes. In addition to Brown's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klvP1Xx6OH4" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit;">now-infamous</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm3ytZEgBfc" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit;">YouTube</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit;">rants</a> against Special Agent Robert Smith, the prosecution cited his disapproving tweet quoting Fox News analyst Bob Beckel saying of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: “A dead man can't leak stuff...illegally shoot the son of a bitch.” They argue Brown's quoting of Beckel represents a threat against the FBI agent. But Assange is “not the alleged victim” Smith, Brown's lawyers say dryly in their January <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_motiontodismiss1.pdf" target="blank" style="box-sizing: inherit;">motion</a> to dismiss the threat charges. “Mr. Beckel, to wit, remains unindicted.”In that motion, the defense points out Brown's much-cited video quote that he was “going to ruin [Smith's] life and look into his fucking kids” was immediately preceded by the words “I don't say I'm going to kill him.” They point out the First Amendment requires such statements to rise to the level of a “true threat” of “physical harm” to become offenses. The motion lists the prosecution's selections from Brown's videos and Twitter timeline and shows which statements don't threaten bodily harm, which are conditional, and so on. Further, the context in the videos and on Twitter suggested he meant the sort of journalistic investigation/character assassination widely practiced by Anonymous....<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown</a>Barrett Lancaster Brown (born August 14, 1981) is an American journalist, essayist and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satirist" class="mw-redirect" title="Satirist" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">satirist</a>. He founded Project PM, a research collaboration and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki" title="Wiki" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">wiki</a>, to facilitate analysis of the troves of hacked emails and other <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_leak" title="Internet leak" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">leaked information</a> concerning the inner workings of the cyber-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex" class="mw-redirect" title="Military-industrial complex" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">military-industrial complex</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[1]</a>In January 2015, Brown was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison for the crimes of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_after_the_fact" class="mw-redirect" title="Accessory after the fact" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">accessory after the fact</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obstruction_of_justice" title="Obstruction of justice" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">obstruction of justice</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_government_officials_of_the_United_States#Other_civil_servants" class="mw-redirect" title="Threatening the government officials of the United States" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">threatening a federal officer</a>stemming from the FBI's investigation into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Stratfor_email_leak" class="mw-redirect" title="2012 Stratfor email leak" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">2012 Stratfor email leak</a>. Prosecutors had previously brought other charges associated with his sharing of an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#Legal_issues" title="Hyperlink" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">HTTP link</a> to the leaked Stratfor data, but those charges were dropped in 2014.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-carr-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[2]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-nation-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[3]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[4]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a> As part of his sentence, Brown was also required to pay almost $900,000 to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor" title="Stratfor" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Stratfor</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-brown-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a>Prior to 2011, Brown had ties with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivist" class="mw-redirect" title="Hacktivist" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">hacktivist</a> collective <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous(group)" title="Anonymous (group)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Anonymous</a>.
<div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table; zoom: 1;"><div class="toctitle" style="direction: ltr;"> </div><ul style="list-style-type: none; margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#Early_life_and_education" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">1Early life and education</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#Journalism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">2Journalism</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#Association_with_Anonymous" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">3Association with Anonymous</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#Arrest_and_trial" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">4Arrest and trial</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#Surveillance_of_contacts_and_sympathizers" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">5Surveillance of contacts and sympathizers</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#In_the_press_and_the_arts" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">6In the press and the arts</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">7See also</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#References" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">8References</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#Further_reading" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">9Further reading</a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#External_links" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">10External links</a></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Early life and education[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barrett_Brown&action=edit&section=1&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Early life and education" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>Brown was born in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas,Texas" class="mw-redirect" title="Dallas, Texas" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Dallas, Texas</a>, to Robert Brown and Karen Lancaster, who later divorced.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-rollingstone-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a> He grew up in Dallas and exhibited an early interest in writing and journalism, creating his own newspapers on his family's computer while attending <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Hollow_Elementary_School" title="Preston Hollow Elementary School" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Preston Hollow Elementary School</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-rollingstone-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a> He went on to contribute to his school newspapers, and interned at several weekly newspapers during his teenage years.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-rollingstone-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-dmag-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> He attended the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_School_of_Dallas" title="Episcopal School of Dallas" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Episcopal School of Dallas</a> through his sophomore year of high school, then spent his would-be junior year in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanzania" title="Tanzania" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Tanzania</a> with his father who was residing there on business. While in Africa Brown completed high school online through a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Tech_University" title="Texas Tech University" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Texas Tech University</a>program, earning college credits as well as his high school diploma.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-dmag-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> In 2000 he enrolled at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_at_Austin" title="University of Texas at Austin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">University of Texas at Austin</a> and spent two semesters taking writing courses before leaving school to pursue a full-time career as a freelance writer.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-rollingstone-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-dmag-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-discomfit-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Journalism[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barrett_Brown&action=edit&section=2&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Journalism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>He has written for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Beast" title="The Daily Beast" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Daily Beast</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity_Fair(magazine)" title="Vanity Fair (magazine)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Vanity Fair</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True/Slant" title="True/Slant" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">True/Slant</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-13" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[13]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huffington_Post" class="mw-redirect" title="Huffington Post" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Huffington Post</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-14" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[14]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian" title="The Guardian" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Guardian</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-15" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[15]</a> and other publications.Brown served as the Director of Communications for Enlighten the Vote, an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism" title="Atheism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">atheist</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee" title="Political action committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">PAC</a> that provides financial and strategic assistance to political candidates that advocate strict enforcement of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishment_Clause" title="Establishment Clause" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Establishment Clause</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-ryan-16" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[16]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-17" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[17]</a>In 2010, Brown began work on his crowdsourced investigation wiki, Project PM. Brown has written that the main goals of Project PM are to increase the positive influence of what he calls "the more capable segments of the blogosphere", while reducing the negative influence of well-regarded mainstream pundits, who may have political agendas not compatible with public interest. It was his aim that the wiki Project PM be established by way of the deliberate generation of critical mass of work and following among dependable bloggers in such a manner as that segments of the traditional media will be prompted or even forced to address critical issues in their own methods and means of reportage. A further and experimental aim of Project PM is also to develop a communicational schematic which could provide bloggers, reporters and any other concerned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_journalist" class="mw-redirect" title="Citizen journalist" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Citizen journalist</a> with the best possible feed of raw information by which to produce content.On the aim of Project PM, Brown has stated:<blockquote style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The institutions and structures that have developed over the past two decades of accelerating public internet use have had what we reasonably describe as a wholesome effect on information flow. But the information age is a work in progress, and thus there are potential improvements to be made. More importantly, there are improvements that can be made by an initially small number of influential participants working in coordination. The purpose of Project PM is to implement these solutions to the extent that participants are collectively able to do so, as well as to demonstrate the beneficial effects of these solutions to others that they might be spurred to recreate or even build upon them independently of our own efforts."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-18" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[18]</a></blockquote>In June 2011, he and Project PM released an exclusive report about a surveillance contract called "Romas/COIN" which was discovered in e-mails hacked from HBGary by Anonymous. It consisted of sophisticated data-mining techniques leveraging mobile software and aimed at Arab countries.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-19" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[19]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[20]</a>In November 2011, Brown said that 75 names of members of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zetas(Mexico)" class="mw-redirect" title="Zetas (Mexico)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Zetas</a> drug cartel would be released if a member of the Anonymous group who had been kidnapped was not set free.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-zetas-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a> Brown says the member was then released and that there was a truce between him and the drug cartel for the moment. Others have said the kidnapping was fake.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-22" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[22]</a>On January 18, 2012, Brown interviewed with the cable news network <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_Today" class="mw-redirect" title="Russia Today" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">RT</a> about the cyber attacks by Anonymous and the temporary blackout of the US government websites WhiteHouse.Gov, DoJ.gov and FBI.gov.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-23" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[23]</a>On March 6, 2012, he confirmed on  that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation" title="Federal Bureau of Investigation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">FBI</a> raided his residence after receiving information from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Xavier_Monsegur" class="mw-redirect" title="Hector Xavier Monsegur" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Hector Xavier Monsegur</a> (also known by the online pseudonym Sabu), the founder of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LulzSec" title="LulzSec" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">LulzSec</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-24" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[24]</a>In early January 2014, it was announced that his second book, started in 2006, will be published. According to his legal defense website:<blockquote style="overflow: hidden; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px 40px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The book was originally titled Hot, Fat, and Clouded: The Amazing and Amusing Failures of America’s Chattering Class and consisted of his attack on the ubiquitous newspaper columnists and media pundits whom he argues are undeservedly influential and able to form public opinion. … We are excited to announce that we have rescued the book from its fate and that it will soon see the light of day. Newly titled as Keep Rootin’ for Putin: Establishment Pundits and the Twilight of American Competence, the text become available as an eBook in the spring of 2014 for donors to his legal defense fund.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-25" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[25]</a></blockquote>Beginning in September 2012, during his incarceration, Brown wrote a series of columns for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Magazine" title="D Magazine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">D Magazine</a> titled "The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[26]</a> In 2015 he transitioned from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_Magazine" title="D Magazine" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">D</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Intercept" title="The Intercept" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Intercept</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-28" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[28]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-29" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[29]</a> In 2016 The Intercept won a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Magazine_Award" class="mw-redirect" title="National Magazine Award" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Magazine Award</a> for three of Barrett's columns.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[30]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Association with Anonymous[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Barrett_Brown&action=edit&section=3&editintro=Template:BLP_editintro" title="Edit section: Association with Anonymous" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a>]</h2>Some media outlets have presented Brown as a spokesperson for Anonymous,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-dmag-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a> a label he disputes.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-31" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[31]</a> He has appeared in the documentaries <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Legion" title="We Are Legion" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">We Are Legion</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terms_and_Conditions_May_Apply" title="Terms and Conditions May Apply" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Terms and Conditions May Apply</a>, and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker_Wars" title="The Hacker Wars" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Hacker Wars</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-32" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[32]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[33]</a> Brown has said he renounced his links with the group in 2011.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-zetas-21" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[21]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-arstechnica-34" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[34]</a> It was also reported in 2011 that Brown and Anon alum Gregg Housh had landed a six-figure deal with Amazon for a book tentatively titled Anonymous: Tales From Inside The Accidental Cyberwar.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-35" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[35]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Arrest and trial</h2>On March 6, 2012, the FBI executed search warrants at Brown's apartment and his mother's house seeking evidence of alleged crimes. The items to be seized included "Records relating to HBGary, Infragard, Endgame Systems, Anonymous, LulzSec, IRC Chats, Twitter, wiki.echelon2.org, and pastebin.com." Agents took possession of his laptop computers. "I suspect that the FBI is working off of incorrect information," Brown told a reporter.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-36" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[36]</a>On September 12, 2012, Brown was arrested in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_County,Texas" title="Dallas County, Texas" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Dallas County, Texas</a> for threatening an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation" title="Federal Bureau of Investigation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">FBI</a> agent in a  video. His arrest occurred as he left a computer linked to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinychat" title="Tinychat" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Tinychat</a> in which the raid could be heard in the background.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-37" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[37]</a> Brown has been public about his history of using heroin<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-arstechnica-34" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[34]</a> and he was going through withdrawal<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-nation1-38" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[38]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-39" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[39]</a> on the day of his arrest.A magistrate denied <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bail" title="Bail" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">bail</a>, and therefore he was kept in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remand(detention)" title="Remand (detention)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">pre-trial detention</a>, because he was "a danger to the safety of the community and a risk of flight."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-40" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[40]</a>On September 24, 2012, a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastebin" title="Pastebin" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Pastebin</a> post appeared titled "Barrett Brown – Communiqué from Prison 9/20/12", in which Brown thanked supporters, described the insufficient medical treatment he received after having his ribs injured during his arrest, and acknowledged some past mistakes. The missive concludes, "I will personally thank everyone on the outside who has helped me and this movement particularly at this critical time, when I have regained the freedom that I did nothing to lose. For now, and until that time, it is war, on paper as always, but war."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-41" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[41]</a>On October 3, 2012, a federal <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_jury" title="Grand jury" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">grand jury</a> indictment was returned against Brown on charges of threats, conspiracy and retaliation against a federal law enforcement officer. Various tweets, YouTube uploads and comments made by Brown before his arrest were cited as support within the indictment.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-42" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[42]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-43" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[43]</a> He later entered a plea of not guilty to all three counts.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]On December 4, 2012, Brown was indicted on an additional 12 federal charges related to the December 25, 2011 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker(computer_security)" class="mw-redirect" title="Hacker (computer security)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">hack</a> of Austin-based <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_intelligence_agency" title="Private intelligence agency" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">private intelligence company</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratfor" title="Stratfor" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Stratfor</a> carried out by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Hammond" title="Jeremy Hammond" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Jeremy Hammond</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-44" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[44]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-45" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[45]</a> A trove of millions of Stratfor emails from the hack, including authentication information for thousands of credit card accounts, was shared by the hacker collective <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LulzSec" title="LulzSec" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">LulzSec</a> with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whistleblower" title="Whistleblower" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">whistleblower</a> site <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks" class="mw-redirect" title="Wikileaks" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Wikileaks</a> (main article: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Stratfor_email_leak" class="mw-redirect" title="2012 Stratfor email leak" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">2012 Stratfor email leak</a>). While Hammond pleaded guilty and received the maximum sentence of ten years in federal prison for the hack itself,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-46" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[46]</a> Brown faced up to 45 years in federal prison for allegedly sharing a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink#Legal_issues" title="Hyperlink" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">link</a> to the data as part of Project PM, after a presumed FBI entrapment maneuver.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-47" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[47]</a> Attorney <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesselyn_Radack" title="Jesselyn Radack" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Jesselyn Radack</a> has raised connections between Brown's case, and that of her client <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Van_Buren" class="mw-redirect" title="Peter Van Buren" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Peter Van Buren</a>, whom the State Department sought to prosecute over a link on his personal blog to a Wikileaks document. Two online commentators on internet security issues criticized the charges against Brown.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-48" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[48]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-49" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[49]</a> He entered a plea of not guilty to all twelve counts.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]  [SHAC 7?]On January 23, 2013, a third indictment was filed against Brown on two counts of obstruction for concealing evidence during the March 6, 2012 FBI raid of his and his mother's homes.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-50" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[50]</a> During a brief court hearing a week later, a judge found him <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competence(law)" title="Competence (law)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">mentally competent to stand trial</a>, while Brown again pleaded not guilty to the additional charges.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-51" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[51]</a>On May 1, 2013, it was announced that Brown had retained two attorneys, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Swift" title="Charles Swift" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Charles Swift</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Ghappour" title="Ahmed Ghappour" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ahmed Ghappour</a>, to represent him in his legal cases.[HAMDI GITMOAs of September 4, 2013, Brown was under a federal court-issued <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order" title="Gag order" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">gag order</a>; he and his lawyers were not allowed to discuss his case with the media, lest it taint a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury" title="Jury" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">jury</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-By_Fruzsina_E.C3.B6rd.C3.B6gh-52" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[52]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-53" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[53]</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assistant_United_States_Attorney" class="mw-redirect" title="Assistant United States Attorney" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Assistant United States Attorney</a> Candina S. Heath (the lead prosecutor) said that Brown tried to manipulate the media from behind bars for his benefit, that Brown's attorney "coordinates and/or approves of his use of the media," and that most of the publicity about Brown has contained false information and "gross fabrications".<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-54" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[54]</a> Defense counsel maintained the gag order was an unfounded and unwarranted breach of Brown's First Amendment rights. Though forbidden to write or speak out about his case, Brown continued to pen articles from his prison cell on unrelated topics.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-55" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[55]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-56" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[56]</a> The gag order was lifted on April 23, 2014, and key documents were unsealed.[<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed" title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">citation needed</a>]Brown has been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention(imprisonment)" title="Detention (imprisonment)" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">in custody</a> since September 12, 2012.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-57" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[57]</a> His mother was sentenced on November 8, 2013 to six months of probation and a $1,000 fine for a misdemeanor charge of obstructing the execution of a search warrant. "My better judgment was clouded by my maternal instinct," she stated in court. The judge said to her, "I feel for you, as a parent. I know you did the best you could."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-58" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[58]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-59" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[59]</a>In March 2014, most charges against Brown were dropped.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-60" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[60]</a> In April 2014, it was reported that Brown had agreed to a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plea_bargaining_in_the_United_States" title="Plea bargaining in the United States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">plea bargain</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-61" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[61]</a>In January 2015, Brown was sentenced to 63 months in prison. He was also ordered to pay $890,250 in fines and restitution.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-62" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[62]</a> Journalist Joshua Kopstein said he believed the government considered Brown to be a threat and suggested that prosecutors made false allegations that were used to increase the length of his sentence.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-63" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[63]</a> Supporting this theory, much of Brown's December sentencing hearing was spent in drawn-out arguments over the definitions of Project PM and Brown himself.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-intercept-64" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[64]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-Dmag2-65" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[65]</a>Brown was released from prison on November 29, 2016 and moved into a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfway_house" title="Halfway house" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">halfway house</a> with five drug dealers close to downtown Dallas, Texas.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-66" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[66]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-67" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[67]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-68" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[68]</a>On April 27, 2017, Brown was arrested and held on unknown charges for four days.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-69" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[69]</a> After he was released, he gave an interview to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Now!" title="Democracy Now!" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Democracy Now!</a> while under <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_arrest" title="House arrest" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">house arrest</a>, despite pressure from the government not to speak to the media.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-democracynowjailedreporterbarrettbrown-70" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[70]</a>Brown has expressed a desire to move to Iceland or Germany when possible, telling <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthout" title="Truthout" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Truthout</a> in an interview, " I can't stay in the US because I can't get work done if I'm always subject to these little gusts of bureaucracy, which I am. It won't be for another year or so. I'm on probation for another two years. That generally goes down to one year if you don't act up. So in a year from now I'll be in a position to leave."<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown#cite_note-Bernd-71" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">[71]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Surveillance of contacts and sympathizers</h2>
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iven the National Security Agency’s surveillance revelations of the last few months, we need to pay even more attention to the private companies who are working hand-in-hand with the state to carry this mass surveillance out. In fact, someone’s already done a lot of that work for us—an American journalist who has been in jail for over a year: Barrett Brown.
In a statement released on Monday, WikiLeaks states that Brown is “being persecuted for critical reporting on the growing surveillance state” and that his prosecution “chills investigative reporting of national security issues and provides cover for the unholy alliance between government agencies and the security industry.” The Dallas, Texas-based writer—who contributed to The Guardian, Huffington Post, and Vanity Fair, among other outlets—now faces up to 105 years in prison on charges that are crucially related to his reporting.
VIDEOUFC 211 Open Workouts: Junior dos SantosBrown’s status as a journalist will most likely affect how his actions are perceived in a court of law. His investigative journalism, memorialized at the crowdsourced research outfit with an associated wiki, Project PM, brought to light extremely important findings on the issue of private firms and public surveillance. While Brown isn’t due sole credit for all of the information below, he followed these matters very closely. Now, more than ever, it is important for other journalists and researchers to revisit and recognize the importance of his work and if possible, pick up threads where he left off. As such, it’s worth going over a summary review of some critical subjects Brown reported on, and the private firms he investigated allegedly involved in gathering intelligence and surveilling public citizens.

Report Advertisement1) Team Themis
Team Themis is a consortium of firms, made up of HBGary, Palantir, Berico, and Endgame Systems, that was apparently set up to provide offensive intelligence capabilities against certain enemies on behalf of the law firm Hunton & Williams, who was working at the behest of Bank of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The plans—discovered in emails pilfered by Anonymous from HBGary, which were drawn up but never acted upon—consisted of disinformation efforts against WikiLeaks and its supporters (including Glenn Greenwald) and other activists involved in criticizing the Chamber of Commerce.
Some of the methods proposed, which could feasibly be described as a dirty-tricks campaign using false documents to sow distrust, border upon the criminal. The affair made the news and resulted in calls for an investigation that never materialized, which is not surprising considering that the Department of Justice (DOJ) set the affair in motion by recommending Hunton & Williams to Bank of America, who were then concerned that WikiLeaks possessed information belonging to them. In the end a single Palantir employee was placed on leave pending a review of his actions, and later allowed to return.
2) Romas/COIN
Romas/COIN was a sophisticated campaign of mass surveillance and data mining targeted at Arab countries, which was unveiled in an exclusive Project PM report during 2011. The report was picked up by Raw Story and one other outlet, and it resulted in an article by Brown in the Guardian and a segment on Russia Today featuring confirmatory comments from Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer. But otherwise it didn’t get much traction.

Report AdvertisementMost striking was the revelation that companies like Apple and Google were team partners in this effort. While its exact nature and scope is unknown, mobile phone applications were believed to constitute a major component of the program. The contract for Romas/COIN was set to be replaced by a successor, codenamed Odyssey, which is quite possibly being used today to monitor, deceive, and manipulate whole populations.
3) “Persona Management”
The capability of persona management entails “the use of software by which to facilitate the use of multiple fake online personas, or ‘sockpuppets,’ generally for the use of propaganda, disinformation, or as a surveillance method by which to discover details of a human target via social interactions.” The United States Air Force (USAF) was revealed on the General Services Administration’s Federal Business Opportunities website to have requested bids from contractors for the opportunity to work on this class of software. It’s a high priority for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) has admitted to using similar capabilities—including psychological operations on U.S. senators—abroad, under Operation Earnest Voice, to increase support for wars.
There are two very concerning aspects to this. One: the possibility that fake social media profiles, replete with supporting biographical details, could be deployed against Americans, which is against the law. Second: the possibility of a future in which you never know whether you’re communicating with a live person or a software abstraction, and a world where governments control narratives and wield an intense grip upon trends and topics via whole armies of these things. Let’s just say it’s scary.

Report Advertisement4) TrapWire
Brown played a central role in the media coverage of TrapWire, a mass video surveillance system developed by Abraxas Corporation that was revealed last year. TrapWire’s marketing material boasts the ability to predict terrorist attacks. The emails, which came out of Stratfor and were published by WikiLeaks, showed that a network of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras had been installed in most major American cities, the feeds of which were fed into a system designed to detect patterns of suspicious behavior.
Brown demonstrated how the New York Times got TrapWire wrong by arguing its fears were overstated (based on the word of an unnamed and unquoted DHS official) and underplayed its significance by dismissing its own marketing claims. He also detailed how articles about TrapWire were scrubbed from Australian newspapers at the behest of Cubic Corporation, who argued they were not connected to TrapWire, even though they had purchased the company that created it, Abraxas, two years earlier.
5) Cubic Corporation
And what about Cubic, a large company primarily serving the defense sector and its other wholly owned subsidiary, Ntrepid? In 2011, Ntrepid won a $2.76 million contract for persona management from CENTCOM mentioned earlier. Ntrepid also has an interesting product called Tartan, an investigation software with the ability to find hidden relationships within groups, analyze and identify ranks of influence, and locate key voices. Tartan’s own brochures suggest its potential for deployment against anarchist and protest groups; Occupy Wall Street is mentioned specifically.

Report AdvertisementCubic also sells a product of dubious trustworthiness called Anonymizer, a proxy tool intended to make Internet activity untraceable, while developing other solutions to investigate, track, and analyze groups of people who are communicating over social media websites. In summary, Ntrepid’s software is intended to help one pick apart organizations, allowing you to discover who is most influential within them, and even uncover the identities of people trying to remain anonymous. Its potential value to law enforcement investigations can’t be understated.
6) Endgame Systems
Another focus of Brown’s research was Endgame Systems—a company named on his search warrant. Endgame conducts vulnerability research that gets used in cyber-warfare. Their premiere product, Bonesaw, is an offensive cyber-targeting application with a map displaying the locations and addresses of most Internet-connected computers and devices around the world, providing situational awareness and a platform from which to launch operations against adversaries and threats.
Endgame is also involved in the sale of zero-day exploits—e.g., weaknesses that can be used to attack and infiltrate systems. They were particularly secretive about the company’s involvement in Team Themis and purposely kept a low profile during the discussions. As one employee told another in an internal email according to this WIRED article, “We don’t ever want to see our name in a press release.” Like other companies, such as VUPEN, that sell exploits to governments, Endgame’s vulnerability research and experience with cyber-weapons has secured them a prominent role in the U.S. cyber-security arena.
7) Qorvis Communications
The public relations firm Qorvis has had certain interactions with the Kingdom of Bahrain that begat a few scandals. Qorvis was reportedly hired by the Bahraini regime to engage in “reputation management”—essentially monitoring the media and manipulating the press to promote a specific perception of the Kingdom while silencing critical voices. This is particularly troubling in view of the human rights situation in Bahrain: There have been violent crackdowns by security forces against demonstrators, and activists are frequently targeted with attacks or censorship by the regime. Actions by Qorvis are suspected to include a coordinated barrage of vicious social media attacks against Maryam al-Khawaja, a Bahraini human rights activist, when she gave a speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2011.
8) Booz Allen Hamilton
Let’s not forget Booz Allen Hamilton, another entity Brown was looking into. A major U.S. intelligence contractor with offices in Virginia, Booz Allen Hamilton was found by Project PM to have an unspecified ‘project’ potentially related to disrupting Anonymous and WikiLeaks. No more details about that have been forthcoming, no doubt due to the firm’s intense culture of secrecy.
Booz Allen is best known as the company that whistle-blower Edward Snowden was briefly employed by as a systems administrator, under contract to the NSA, during which he used his broad access to obtain documents revealing secret surveillance programs. The current Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, who lied to Congress, was a former executive at Booz. It’s been reported that Booz Allen has experienced conflicts of interest and has a history of overbilling, while 99 percent of the company’s revenue comes from the federal government. As the author of that report notes, the firm merits closer scrutiny.
9) Palantir Technologies
Palantir Technologies is a major player in this field who is of great interest to Brown and Project PM. Palantir, known as a “darling of the intelligence and law enforcement communities”, was founded with a boatload of money from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm, and PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel. It’s led by the eccentric Alex Karp. Palantir was also involved in Team Themis, and even apologized to Greenwald for it—but what we know of its work speaks to the company’s expertise in dealing with large datasets.
Palantir’s self-titled flagship product is able to sift through extremely large amounts of data while providing advanced search and discovery capabilities: think things like telephone calls, bank transaction records, emails, text messages, etc. Of course, it’s wildly profitable and boast many customers, chief among them our nation’s counterterrorism and cyber analysts. Palantir claims to have built-in privacy controls, but that isn’t necessarily very reassuring since abuses and violations do happen.
10) Berico Technologies and HBGary---<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Palantir’s self-titled flagship product is able to sift through extremely large amounts of data while providing <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/us/revelations-give-look-at-spy-agencys-wider-reach.html" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(136, 136, 136); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">advanced search and discovery capabilities</a>: think things like telephone calls, bank transaction records, emails, text messages, etc. Of course, it’s wildly profitable and boast many customers, chief among them our nation’s counterterrorism and cyber analysts. Palantir claims to have built-in privacy controls, but that isn’t necessarily very reassuring since abuses and violations do happen.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">10) Berico Technologies and HBGary</big><p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Berico" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Berico Technologies</a>, another firm implicated in Team Themis, develops fancy tools and infrastructure that are used in data visualization and analysis to assist signals intelligence (SIGINT) missions. After the Themis scandal broke, the company issued a statement that it does “<a href="http://www.salon.com/2011/02/11/threats_against_glenn_greenwald_wikileaks/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">not condone or support any effort that proactively targets American firms, organizations or individuals</a>” and broke off ties with HBGary. For its part, <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/HBGary" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">HBGary</a> does a lot of malware detection and also claims to have offensive cyber capabilities (more zero-day exploits).<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">HBGary Federal, however, is mostly perceived as a joke today—in no small part due to the foolish efforts of one executive, Aaron Barr, to <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/87dc140e-3099-11e0-9de3-00144feabdc0.html" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">identify the leadership structure of Anonymous</a>. This attempt backfired in spectacular fashion, with the company’s servers being hacked and email spools leaked. Barr had no choice but to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/02/28/hbgary-federals-aaron-barr-resigns-after-anonymous-hack-scandal/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">resign</a>, and several firms attempted to distance themselves from him and HBGary after they were compromised.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">11) Strategic Forecasting, Inc.</big><p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Stratfor" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Strategic Forecasting, Inc.</a> was hacked by <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/tags/antisec/" class=" dd-link-internal" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">AntiSec</a> in association with Anonymous at the end of 2011 and had thousands of emails stolen. The emails are now continually being published by WikiLeaks as the <a href="http://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Global Intelligence Files</a>. Stratfor’s wide-ranging spying activities were later exposed, “<a href="http://freejeremy.net/press-release/internet-activist-jeremy-hammond-pleads-guilty-to-stratfor-leak-faces-harsh-sentence-for-online-protest/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">including surveillance of Bhopal activists at the behest of Dow Chemical, of PETA on behalf of Coca-Cola, and of Occupy Wall Street under contract to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security</a>.” Those facts are less surprising and perplexing than the fact that notorious hacker <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/tags/sabu/" class=" dd-link-internal" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Sabu</a> was <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2012/03/06/exclusive-inside-lulzsec-mastermind-turns-on-his-minions/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">working for the FBI</a> when Stratfor was hacked, and indeed provided the <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/inside-the-hacking-of-stratfor-the-fbis-case-against-antisec-member-anarchaos/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">servers used to dump the data</a> by <a href="https://www.dailydot.com/tags/jeremy-hammond/" class=" dd-link-internal" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: dashed; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Jeremy Hammond</a>; add to that the fact that Sabu tried to sell the data to Julian Assange as part of a failed sting in which the FBI thought an American company was apparently expendable in its effort to nab the founder of WikiLeaks. Don’t even mention that Brown was indicted for identity theft and fraud for <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/barrett-brown-link-sharing-illegal/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">pasting a link</a> in a chat room to an archive that contained unencrypted credit card numbers which, by Stratfor CEO George Friedman’s <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/hack-stratfor" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">own account</a>, had already been canceled—the FBI, banks and cardholders having been notified weeks beforehand.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">12) Leonie Industries</big><p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Then there’s <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Leonie_Industries" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Leonie Industries</a>, a federal contracting firm specializing in information operations which it offers to the Department of Defense. In 2012, it was <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-05-24/Leonie-usa-today-propaganda-pentagon/55190450/1" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">caught in an online smear campaign</a> against a journalist and an editor from USA Today, who were reporting about tax violations and waste at that same company, Leonie Industries. The <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-02-29/afghanistan-iraq-military-information-operations-usa-today-investigation/53295472/1" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">article basically made the case</a> that the contract between Leonie and the DoD was expensive and ineffective; the Pentagon then <a href="http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-06-11/Leonie-propaganda-Pentagon-contractor-taxes/55531102/1" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">launched an investigation</a> into back taxes owed. A <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/apr/20/cyber-misinformation-campaign-against-usa-today" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">calculated disinformation campaign</a> in response to protected press activity is an ominous signal and reminder that journalists and activists are frequently targeted by these contractors. The person responsible <a href="http://rt.com/usa/smear-campaign-journalists-leonie-244/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">apologized and divested themselves</a> of ownership in the company. That shadowy, unseen forces have the ability to launch allegations to discredit perceived enemies at the behest of their clients is no less than absolutely terrifying.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">13) Gamma International</big><p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some who are well-versed in this area might recall <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Gamma_International" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Gamma International</a>, the proprietor of the <a href="http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002601.html" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">FinSpy/FinFisher</a> spyware that is able to remotely take control of a computer, log keystrokes, copy stored information, and intercept communications. The New York Times reported that this software <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/technology/finspy-software-is-tracking-political-dissidents.html" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">had been deployed against activists</a> in Bahrain and Egypt. The FinFisher case illustrates the problem very well: here U.K./U.S. firms are actively engaged in selling capabilities to oppressive dictatorships with poor human rights records; tools which can be used to surveil, detain, arrest, torture, or do worse to fellow humans.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">14) Raytheon</big><p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Last but far from least, Raytheon was shown earlier this year to have secretly developed a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/10/software-tracks-social-media-defence" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">program called Riot that is</a>, according to the Guardian, “capable of tracking people’s movements and predicting future behaviour by mining data from social networking websites.” Here we have a military defense contractor—the fifth largest in the world—working on a product that combines social networking, big data, and analytics in ways that could be extremely invasive to the privacy of average, law-abiding citizens. Like TrapWire, Riot boasts predictive powers that might be dangerously misused or just plain wrong. It recalls the concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Minority_Report#Precrime" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">pre-crime</a> from the short story/film <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report(film)" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">The Minority Report</a>. Clients of Raytheon are buying into the promise of predictive analytics: techniques from statistics, modeling, machine learning and data mining are being applied to complex human behavior.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Forecasting unknown events based on current facts, especially when it involves the motives and emotions of individuals, comes with a huge margin of error. That innocent people may one day arrested and convicted based on these predictions suggests a future that is truly Orwellian—straight out of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">1984</a>.<p align="center" style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><big style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">…</big><p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We are now witnessing the militarization of the Internet. These businesses are all part of a<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/01/cyber-intelligence-complex-useful-idiots" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"> continuous intelligence and law enforcement community</a> with an incestuous, revolving-door relationship between the government and private industry. Those involved allegedly get rich off of contracts that are paid to spy on people, conduct shady cyber-warfare, and disrupt activist movements. There tends to be no moral consideration at stake as part of this market exchange. The ability to investigate and target people is for sale to those who will pay for it.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">What Brown’s work teaches us is that technological capabilities such as these—which improve at a rate far greater than populations are able to keep up with or learn about —are inevitably subject to abuse.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Stories about privacy violations like these have a shelf life, and the U.S. media is ill-equipped to cover them. They’re hot for awhile, such as when hackers first leak information; then their appeal fades. The issues at stake are sometimes too complex for the average person with an average attention span to attempt to understand. Brown <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jul/11/cybersecurity-intelligence-community-nefarious-purposes" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">frequently complained</a> about this.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">We do, however, now have the ability to change it—all we need to do is accept that Snowden has opened the door, and to walk through it. There are no doubt numerous revelations of journalistic import in those thousands of emails, just waiting to be found. We need to watch these matters a lot more closely if we hope to preserve basic fundamentals of democracy, privacy, and liberty in the years to come.<p style="margin: 20px auto; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; letter-spacing: 0.1px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Kevin Gallagher is a writer, systems administrator and activist based in western Massachusetts. He’s also the director of <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Free Barrett Brown</a>. Follow him @<a href="https://twitter.com/ageis" class=" dd-link-external" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">ageis</a>.guard uk no link
US national securityOpinionThe cyber-intelligence complex and its useful idiotsBarrett BrownThose who tell us to trust the US's secret, privatised surveillance schemes should recall the criminality of J Edgar Hoover's FBI
 Monday 1 July 2013 11.21 EDTIt's a fine thing to see mainstream American media outlets finally sparing some of their attention toward the cyber-industrial complex – that unprecedented conglomeration of state, military and corporate interests that together exercise growing power over the flow of information. It would be even more heartening if so many of the nation's most influential voices, from senator to pundits, were not clearly intent on killing off even this belated scrutiny into the invisible empire that so thoroughly scrutinizes us – at our own expense and to unknown ends.Summing up the position of those who worry less over secret government powers than they do over the whistleblowers who reveal such things, we have New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who argues that we can trust small cadres of unaccountable spies with broad powers over our communications. We must all wish Friedman luck with this prediction. Other proclamations of his – including that Vladimir Putin would bring transparency and liberal democracy to Russia, and that the Chinese regime would not seek to limit its citizens' free access to the internet – have not aged especially well.An unkind person might dismiss Friedman as the incompetent harbinger of a dying republic. Being polite, I will merely suggest that Friedman's faith in government is as misplaced as faith in the just and benevolent God that we know not to exist – Friedman having been the winner of several of the world's most-coveted Pulitzer Prizes.If Friedman is, indeed, too quick to trust the powerful, it's a trait he shares with the just over half of Americans, who tell pollsters they're fine with the NSA programs that were until recently hidden from their view. Why, our countrymen wonder, ought we to be disturbed by our state's desire to know everything that everyone does? Given the possibility that this surveillance could perhaps prevent deaths in the form of terrorist attacks, most Americans are willing to forgo some abstract notion of privacy in favor of the more concrete benefits of security.Besides, the government to which we're ceding these broad new powers is a democracy, overseen by real, live Americans. And it's hard to imagine American government officials abusing their powers – or at least, it would be, had such officials not already abused similar but more limited powers through repeated campaigns of disinformation, intimidation and airtight crimes directed at the American public over the last five decades. Cointelpro, Operation Mockingbird, Ultra and Chaos are among the now-acknowledged CIA, FBI and NSA programs by which those agencies managed to subvert American democracy with impunity. Supporters of mass surveillance conducted under the very same agencies have yet to address how such abuses can be insured against in the context of powers far greater than anything J Edgar Hoover could command.Many have never heard of these programs; the sort of people who trust states with secret authority tend not to know what such things have led to in the recent past. Those who do know of such things may perhaps contend that these practices would never be repeated today. But it was just two years ago that the late Michael Hastings revealed that US army officials in Afghanistan were conducting psy-ops against visiting US senators in order to sway them towards continued funding for that unsuccessful war. If military and intelligence officials have so little respect for the civilian leadership, one can guess how they feel about mere civilians.Not that anyone need merely guess. Discussing the desirability of such "information operations" in his 2001 book, retired USAF Lt Col George Crawford noted that voters tend to view these sorts of programs with suspicion. "Consequently," he concludes, "these efforts must take place away from public eyes."And so they do. If we want to learn a thing or two about the latest round of such programs – that is, if we are willing to disregard the Thomas Friedmans of this world – we must look not just towards the three letter agencies that have routinely betrayed us in the past, but also to the untold number of private intelligence contracting firms that have sprung up lately in order to betray us in a more efficient and market-oriented manner. Our lieutenant colonel, scourge of "public eyes", is among the many ex-military and intelligence officials who have left public service, or public obfuscation – or whatever we're calling it now – to work in the expanding sphere of private spookery, to which is outsourced information operations by the Pentagon, spy agencies, and even other corporations who need an edge over some enemy (in Crawford's case, the mysterious Archimedes Global).
So, how trustworthy is this privatized segment of the invisible empire? We would know almost nothing of their operations were it not for a chance turn of events that prompted Anonymous-affiliated hackers to seize 70,000 emails from one typical firm back in early 2011. From this more-or-less random sampling of contractor activity, we find a consortium of these firms plotting to intimidate, attack and discredit WikiLeaks and those identified as its key supporters, including the (then Salon, now Guardian) journalist Glenn Greenwald – a potentially illegal conspiracy concocted on behalf of corporate giant Bank of America, which feared exposure by WikiLeaks, and organized under the auspices of the Department of Justice itself.
We find several of the same firms – which collectively referred to themselves as Team Themis – involved in another scheme to deploy sophisticated software-based fake people across social networks in order to infiltrate and mislead. For instance, Themis proposes sending two of these "personas" to pose online as members of an organization opposed to the US Chamber of Commerce, another prospective Themis client, in order to discredit the group from within. Yet another revelation involves a massive cross-platform military program of disinformation and surveillance directed at the Arab world; still another relates how one NSA-inked firm can monitor and attack online infrastructure throughout the world, including western Europe, and will rent these capabilities out to those with a few million dollars to spend on such things.
And Booz Allen Hamilton, which has received some belated scrutiny as the eminently powerful employer of NSA leaker Edward Snowden, was apparently in talks with Themis participant HBGary Federal regarding its own still-secret "project" involving, again, WikiLeaks. These are simply a few of the revelations stemming from a portion of the email correspondence among a handful of major contracting firms – a tiny, serendipitous sampling of what such firms are doing for their government and corporate clients as they compete for contracts.
Hundred of these sorts of companies have come about in the last few years, operating in close partnerships with the state, yet existing beyond the view of Congress, the media and "public eyes". Even in the unlikely instance when their activities come to light, potentially illegal behavior goes unpunished; even calls by congressmen to investigate the sordid Themis conspiracy were ignored by the Department of Justice, which, of course, set the whole thing in motion to begin with through its recommendation.
This, then, is the environment in which public officials and Beltway insiders like Friedman are asking us to trust the intelligence community and its private partner firms with increasing power over information. It's an age in which even the limited rules in place can be broken with impunity by the powerful – even as journalists and activists who cross them are targeted for destruction by state-corporate alliances armed with increasingly sophisticated cyber weapons, propaganda techniques and surveillance authority.
This is the world we accept if we continue to avert our eyes. And it promises to get much worse.=<div><a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223">http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223</a></div><div>
</div><div>The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-runaway-general-20100622" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">The Runaway General: The Rolling Stone Profile of Stanley McChrystal That Changed History</a>The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation."My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line."<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/psy-ops-and-the-general-20110225" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Photos: Psy-Ops and the General</a>The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.The incident offers an indication of just how desperate the U.S. command in Afghanistan is to spin American civilian leaders into supporting an increasingly unpopular war. According to the Defense Department’s own definition, psy-ops – the use of propaganda and psychological tactics to influence emotions and behaviors – are supposed to be used exclusively on "hostile foreign groups." Federal law forbids the military from practicing psy-ops on Americans, and each defense authorization bill comes with a "propaganda rider" that also prohibits such manipulation. "Everyone in the psy-ops, intel, and IO community knows you’re not supposed to target Americans," says a veteran member of another psy-ops team who has run operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "It’s what you learn on day one."<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">The Kill Team: How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: an exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon</a>When Holmes and his four-man team arrived in Afghanistan in November 2009, their mission was to assess the effects of U.S. propaganda on the Taliban and the local Afghan population. But the following month, Holmes began receiving orders from Caldwell’s staff to direct his expertise on a new target: visiting Americans. At first, the orders were administered verbally. According to Holmes, who attended at least a dozen meetings with Caldwell to discuss the operation, the general wanted the IO unit to do the kind of seemingly innocuous work usually delegated to the two dozen members of his public affairs staff: compiling detailed profiles of the VIPs, including their voting records, their likes and dislikes, and their "hot-button issues." In one email to Holmes, Caldwell’s staff also wanted to know how to shape the general’s presentations to the visiting dignitaries, and how best to "refine our messaging."<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/king-davids-war-20110202" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">King David's War: How Gen. Petraeus Is Doubling Down on a Failed Strategy</a>Congressional delegations – known in military jargon as CODELs – are no strangers to spin. U.S. lawmakers routinely take trips to the frontlines in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they receive carefully orchestrated briefings and visit local markets before posing for souvenir photos in helmets and flak jackets. Informally, the trips are a way for generals to lobby congressmen and provide first-hand updates on the war. But what Caldwell was looking for was more than the usual background briefings on senators. According to Holmes, the general wanted the IO team to provide a "deeper analysis of pressure points we could use to leverage the delegation for more funds." The general’s chief of staff also asked Holmes how Caldwell could secretly manipulate the U.S. lawmakers without their knowledge. "How do we get these guys to give us more people?" he demanded. "What do I have to plant inside their heads?"According to experts on intelligence policy, asking a psy-ops team to direct its expertise against visiting dignitaries would be like the president asking the CIA to put together background dossiers on congressional opponents. Holmes was even expected to sit in on Caldwell’s meetings with the senators and take notes, without divulging his background. "Putting your propaganda people in a room with senators doesn’t look good," says John Pike, a leading military analyst. "It doesn’t pass the smell test. Any decent propaganda operator would tell you that."At a minimum, the use of the IO team against U.S. senators was a misuse of vital resources designed to combat the enemy; it cost American taxpayers roughly $6 million to deploy Holmes and his team in Afghanistan for a year. But Caldwell seemed more eager to advance his own career than to defeat the Taliban. "We called it Operation Fourth Star," says Holmes. "Caldwell seemed far more focused on the Americans and the funding stream than he was on the Afghans. We were there to teach and train the Afghans. But for the first four months it was all about the U.S. Later he even started talking about targeting the NATO populations." At one point, according to Holmes, Caldwell wanted to break up the IO team and give each general on his staff their own personal spokesperson with psy-ops training.<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-insurgents-tale-rolling-stones-2005-profile-of-a-soldier-reconsidering-jihad-20110131" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">The Insurgent's Tale: A Soldier Reconsiders Jihad</a>It wasn’t the first time that Caldwell had tried to tear down the wall that has historically separated public affairs and psy-ops – the distinction the military is supposed to maintain between "informing" and "influencing." After a stint as the top U.S. spokesperson in Iraq, the general pushed aggressively to expand the military’s use of information operations. During his time as a commander at Ft. Leavenworth, Caldwell argued for exploiting new technologies like blogging and Wikipedia – a move that would widen the military’s ability to influence the public, both foreign and domestic. According to sources close to the general, he also tried to rewrite the official doctrine on information operations, though that effort ultimately failed. (In recent months, the Pentagon has quietly dropped the nefarious-sounding moniker "psy-ops" in favor of the more neutral "MISO" – short for Military Information Support Operations.)Under duress, Holmes and his team provided Caldwell with background assessments on the visiting senators, and helped prep the general for his high-profile encounters. But according to members of his unit, Holmes did his best to resist the orders. Holmes believed that using his team to target American civilians violated the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which was passed by Congress to prevent the State Department from using Soviet-style propaganda techniques on U.S. citizens. But when Holmes brought his concerns to Col. Gregory Breazile, the spokesperson for the Afghan training mission run by Caldwell, the discussion ended in a screaming match. "It’s not illegal if I say it isn’t!" Holmes recalls Breazile shouting.In March 2010, Breazile issued a written order that "directly tasked" Holmes to conduct an IO campaign against "all DV visits" – short for "distinguished visitor." The team was also instructed to "prepare the context and develop the prep package for each visit." In case the order wasn’t clear enough, Breazile added that the new instructions were to "take priority over all other duties." Instead of fighting the Taliban, Holmes and his team were now responsible for using their training to win the hearts and minds of John McCain and Al Franken.On March 23rd, Holmes emailed the JAG lawyer who handled information operations, saying that the order made him "nervous." The lawyer, Capt. John Scott, agreed with Holmes. "The short answer is that IO doesn’t do that," Scott replied in an email. "[Public affairs] works on the hearts and minds of our own citizens and IO works on the hearts and minds of the citizens of other nations. While the twain do occasionally intersect, such intersections, like violent contact during a soccer game, should be unintentional."In another email, Scott advised Holmes to seek his own defense counsel. "Using IO to influence our own folks is a bad idea," the lawyer wrote, "and contrary to IO policy."In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesman for Caldwell "categorically denies the assertion that the command used an Information Operations Cell to influence Distinguished Visitors." But after Scott offered his legal opinion, the order was rewritten to stipulate that the IO unit should only use publicly available records to create profiles of U.S. visitors. Based on the narrower definition of the order, Holmes and his team believed the incident was behind them.Three weeks after the exchange, however, Holmes learned that he was the subject of an investigation, called an AR 15-6. The investigation had been ordered by Col. Joe Buche, Caldwell’s chief of staff. The 22-page report, obtained by Rolling Stone, reads like something put together by Kenneth Starr. The investigator accuses Holmes of going off base in civilian clothes without permission, improperly using his position to start a private business, consuming alcohol, using Facebook too much, and having an "inappropriate" relationship with one of his subordinates, Maj. Laural Levine. The investigator also noted a joking comment that Holmes made on his Facebook wall, in response to a jibe about Afghan men wanting to hold his hand. "Hey! I’ve been here almost five months now!" Holmes wrote. "Gimmee a break a man has needs you know.""LTC Holmes’ comments about his sexual needs," the report concluded, "are even more distasteful in light of his status as a married man."Both Holmes and Levine maintain that there was nothing inappropriate about their relationship, and said they were waiting until after they left Afghanistan to start their own business. They and other members of the team also say that they had been given permission to go off post in civilian clothes. As for Facebook, Caldwell’s command had aggressively encouraged its officers to the use the site as part of a social-networking initiative – and Holmes ranked only 15th among the biggest users.Nor was Holmes the only one who wrote silly things online. Col. Breazile’s Facebook page, for example, is spotted with similar kinds of nonsense, including multiple references to drinking alcohol, and a photo of a warning inside a Port-o-John mocking Afghans – "In case any of you forgot that you are supposed to sit on the toilet and not stand on it and squat. It’s a safety issue. We don’t want you to fall in or miss your target." Breazile now serves at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he works in the office dedicated to waging a global information war for the Pentagon.Following the investigation, both Holmes and Levine were formally reprimanded. Holmes, believing that he was being targeted for questioning the legality of waging an IO campaign against U.S. visitors, complained to the Defense Department’s inspector general. Three months later, he was informed that he was not entitled to protection as a whistleblower, because the JAG lawyer he consulted was not "designated to receive such communications."...</div><a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/12/jailed_reporter_barrett_brown_on_press">https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/12/jailed_reporter_barrett_brown_on_press</a>e investigative reporter Barrett Brown, who recently completed a four-year prison sentence related to the hacking of the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which exposed how the firm spied on activists on behalf of corporations. He was released from prison earlier this year but was unexpectedly rearrested late last month, one day ahead of a scheduled interview for an upcoming <span class="caps" helvetica="Helvetica" neue="Neue" arial="Arial" sans-serif="sans-serif" font-size="font-size" px="px" letter-spacing="letter-spacing" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="box-sizing: border-box;">PBS documentary. Brown was detained for four days and then released without receiving any formal written explanation for the arrest. For more, we speak with Barrett Brown, along with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald.no transcipt [posted yetextended dvd for $?
4 yr sentenece, vs 100 years, pled; cyberattack obstruction of justice 
we are legion: needed b/c info can't be got by reg press or even say senate investigation...
hbgary fed; not accused of hack, but crowdsourced invest PM Pjt
won nat mg awward for Intercept; rearrested dy bfore PBS doc; 4 days arrested thn release no charge? or explan
search warr for info HGB, endgame, then charged for stratfor hack; fds driopped odd charges after public outrage...redact...low then med security, doc abuses, SHU hole; 
rearrest BOP sez not allowed to do interview w/o permission (not true, even inmates can talk on phone; but f2f there are rules; tried to make him fill out forms, recored threats from BOP; arrent fed marhalls Wick allison Z? mag hired lawyers;
no dictate in BOP program statements;
prior restraint permission from random BOP official; 1st amendment;
OK WITH DOING PRISON IF IT HELPS
CoC, bofa
themis found by seral ppl indep
palantir
persona mgmt
corbis  centcom, can be sold tunisa french gov't bahrain smear dissidents
H&Wms
doz of ppl in emails on jrnl attacks, no ~
aclu interview: press itself ~ press freedom (GG)
andrew ross sorkin and 
missle and MOAB press cheers; wikileake assange Jeff sessions pompeo...
US AG not helpful ([go after leakers?]
...=<a href="https://theintercept.com/staff/freebarrett/">https://theintercept.com/staff/freebarrett/</a>Barrett Brown, whose column received the 2016 National Magazine Award for columns and commentary, is the founder of Project PM, a crowd-sourced investigation into the cyber-industrial complex. In 2012, the FBI raided his house, and later that year Brown was indicted on 12 federal charges relating to the 2011 Stratfor hack. The most controversial charge, linking to the hacked data, was dropped, but in 2015 Brown was sentenced to 63 months in prison. He was released to a half-way house on Nov. 29, 2016. For more information about Brown's case, and to contribute to his legal defense fund, please visit the <a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(250, 250, 250); outline: none; text-decoration-line: none;">Free Barrett</a> website.
<a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/writings/">https://freebarrettbrown.org/writings/</a> http://www.alternet.org/glenn-greenwald-meet-journalist-rotting-prison-crossing-fbiGlenn Greenwald: Meet the Journalist Rotting in Prison for Crossing the FBIProsecutorial abuse is becoming the preeminent weapon used by the US government to destroy online activism and journalism.By Glenn Greenwald / The Guardian March 22, 2013<div>aron's Swartz's suicide in January triggered waves of indignation, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/12/aaron-swartz-heroism-suicide1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">and rightly so</a>. He faced multiple felony counts and years in prison for what were, at worst, trivial transgressions of law. But his prosecution revealed the <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025393/congresswoman-proposes-amendment-to-computer-fraud-law-honoring-aaron-swartz.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">excess of both anti-hacking criminal statutes</a>, particularly <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1030" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act</a> (CFAA), and the fixation of federal prosecutors on severely punishing all forms of activism that challenge the power of the government and related entities to control the flow of information on the internet. Part of what drove the intense reaction to Swartz's death was how sympathetic of a figure he was, but as <a href="http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/16/the-criminal-charges-against-aaron-swartz-part-2-prosecutorial-discretion/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">noted by Orin Kerr</a>, a former federal prosecutor in the DOJ's computer crimes unit and now a law professor at GWU, what was done to Swartz is anything but unusual, and the reaction to his death will be meaningful only if channeled to protest other similar cases of prosecutorial abuse:<blockquote style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"I think it's important to realize that what happened in the Swartz case happens in lots and lots of federal criminal cases. . . . What's unusual about the Swartz case is that it involved a highly charismatic defendant with very powerful friends in a position to object to these common practices. That's not to excuse what happened, but rather to direct the energy that is angry about what happened. If you want to end these tactics, don't just complain about the Swartz case. Don't just complain when the defendant happens to be a brilliant guy who went to Stanford and hangs out with Larry Lessig. Instead, complain that this is business as usual in federal criminal cases around the country - mostly with defendants who no one has ever heard of and who get locked up for years without anyone else much caring."</blockquote>Prosecutorial abuse is a drastically under-discussed problem in general, but it poses unique political dangers when used to punish and deter online activism. But it's becoming the preeminent weapon used by the US government to destroy such activism.Just this week alone, a US federal judge sentenced hactivist Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer to 3 1/2 years in prison for exploiting a flaw in AT&T's security system that allowed him entrance without any <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/hacking" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Hacking" style="text-decoration-line: none;">hacking</a>, an act about which Slate's Justin Peters <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/03/18/andrew_auernheimer_hacker_prison_weev_might_be_a_jerk_but_that_doesn_t_make.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a>: "it's not clear that Auernheimer committed any actual crime", while Jeff Blagdon at the Verge <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/20/3673754/att-ipad-hack-email-auernheimer-iccid-goatse" style="text-decoration-line: none;">added</a>: "he cracked no codes, stole no passwords, or in any way 'broke into' AT&T's customer database - something company representatives confirmed during testimony." But he had a long record of disruptive and sometimes even quite ugly (though legal) online antagonism, so he had to be severely punished with years in prison. Also this week, the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/14/matthew-keys-charged-anonymous_n_2878408.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">DOJ indicted</a> the deputy social media editor at Reuters, Matthew Keys, on three felony counts which carry a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison for allegedly providing some user names and passwords that allowed <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/anonymous" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Anonymous" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Anonymous</a> unauthorized access into the computer system of the Los Angeles Times, where they altered a few stories and caused very minimal damage. As <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/03/15/matthew_keys_and_anonymous_has_the_doj_learned_from_the_aaron_swartz_case.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Peters wrote about that case</a>, "the charges under the CFAA seem outrageously severe" and, about Keys' federal prosecutors, observed: "apparently, they didn't take away any lessons from the Aaron Swartz case."But the <a href="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/01/now_barrett_brown_is_being_cha.php" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pending federal prosecution of 31-year-old Barrett Brown</a> poses all new troubling risks. That's because Brown - who has been imprisoned since September on a 17-count indictment that could result in many years in prison - is a serious journalist who has spent the last several years doggedly investigating the shadowy and highly secretive underworld of private intelligence and defense contractors, who work hand-in-hand with the agencies of the Surveillance and National Security State in all sorts of ways that remain completely unknown to the public. It is virtually impossible to conclude that the obscenely excessive prosecution he now faces is unrelated to that journalism and his related activism.A brief understanding of Brown's intrepid journalism is vital to understanding the travesty of his prosecution. I first heard of Brown when he wrote <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/06/why-the-hacks-hate-michael-hastings" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a great 2010 essay in Vanity Fair</a> defending the journalist Michael Hastings from attacks from fellow journalists over Hastings' profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone, which ended the general's career. Brown argued that establishment journalists hate Hastings because he has spent years challenging, rather than serving, political and military officials and the false conventional wisdom they spout.In <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/20/barrett-brown-anonymous-pr-federal-target" style="text-decoration-line: none;">an excellent profile of Brown</a> in the Guardian on Wednesday, Ryan Gallagher describes that "before he crossed paths with the FBI, Brown was a prolific writer who had contributed to publications including Vanity Fair, the Guardian, the Huffington Post and satirical news site the Onion." He also "had a short stint in politics as the director of communications for an atheist group called Enlighten the Vote, and he co-authored a well-received book mocking creationism, Flock of Dodos."But the work central to his prosecution began in 2009, when Brown created Project PM, "dedicated to investigating private government contractors working in the secretive fields of cybersecurity, intelligence and surveillance." Brown was then moved by the 2010 disclosures by WikiLeaks and the oppressive treatment of Bradley Manning to devote himself to online activism and transparency projects, including working with the hacktivist collective Anonymous. He has no hacking skills, but used his media savvy to help promote and defend the group, and was often referred to (incorrectly, he insists) as the Anonymous spokesman. He was particularly interested in using what Anonymous leaked for his journalism. As Brown told me several days ago in a telephone interview from the Texan prison where he is being held pending trial, he devoted almost all of his waking hours over the last several years to using these documents to dig into the secret relationships and projects between these intelligence firms and federal agencies.The real problems for Brown began in 2011. In February, Anonymous hacked into the computer system of the private security firm HB Gary Federal and then posted thousands of emails containing incriminating and nefarious acts. Among them was a joint proposal by that firm - along with the very well-connected firms of Palantir and Berico - to try to persuade Bank of America and its law firm, Hunton & Williams, to hire them to destroy the reputations and careers of WikiLeaks supporters and, separately, critics of the Chamber of Commerce (as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/politics/12hackers.html?r=0" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">this New York Times article on that episode details</a>, I was named as one of the people whose career they would seek to destroy). HB Gary Federal's CEO Aaron Barr, who advocated the scheme, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/20/aaron-barr-cybersecurity-anonymous-occupy-wall-street_n_1219328.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">was fired as a result of the disclosures</a>, but continues to this day to play a significant role in this public-private axis of computer security and intelligence.Brown became obsessed with journalistically investigating every strand exposed by these HB Gary Federal emails and devoted himself to relentlessly exposing this world. He did the same with the <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/46555168/ns/us_news-security/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2012 leak of millions of emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor</a>, obtained by Anonymous and published by WikiLeaks. As Gallagher describes about Brown's fixation on these documents:<blockquote style="line-height: 25px;">
"Hackers would sometimes obtain data and then pass it on to him. He would spend days and nights hunkered down in his small uptown Dallas apartment pouring through troves of hacked documents, writing <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/22/hacking-anonymous" style="text-decoration-line: none;">blog posts about US government intelligence contractors and their 'misplaced power' while working to garner wider media coverage</a>. . . ."Brown was frustrated that mainstream media outlets were not covering stories he felt deserved attention. He would complain that reporters would often approach him and ask about the personalities of some of the more prominent hackers . . . but ignore the deeper issues about governments and private contractors contained in documents that had been hacked."The issues Brown was investigating are complex and serious, and I won't detail all of that here. In addition to Gallagher's article, two superb and detailed accounts of Brown's journalism in these areas have been published by <a href="http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/02/21/the-saga-of-barrett-brown/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Christian Stork of WhoWhatWhy</a> and <a href="http://www.vice.com/read/why-is-barrett-brown-facing-100-years-in-jail" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Vice's Patrick McGuire</a>; read those to see how threatening Brown's work had become to lots of well-connected people. Suffice to say, Brown, using the documents obtained by Anonymous, was digging around - with increasing efficacy - in places which National Security and Surveillance State agencies devote considerable energy to concealing.</blockquote>All of this is the crucial background to the charges he currently faces. In March of last year, Brown's home was raided by the FBI, armed with a search warrant relating to both the HB Gary Federal and the Stratfor leaks. Brown told me they were intent on finding out what he had learned about those firms, particularly HB Gary Federal. Having apparently learned that the FBI agents were coming, Brown went to his mother's home, so the FBI broke down his door and entered his apartment. They seized various documents but could find nothing linking him to either hack, so he was not arrested.After that, FBI agents went to his mother's home. They found Brown there and asked for his laptop, which he denied having. Over the next several months, FBI agents continued to harass not only Brown but also his mother, repeatedly threatening to arrest her and indict her for obstruction of justice for harboring Brown and helping him conceal documents by letting him into her home.Those months of FBI pursuit, but particularly the threats against his mother, finally caused Brown to explode with rage. Brown has been open in discussing his past battles with substance abuse, and at the time, he had stopped taking various medications which he uses to control his addiction problems. In September, he posted <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a YouTube video</a> detailing that the FBI and HB Gary Federal had threatened to ruin his life, and was particularly incensed about the threats against his mother. Obviously distraught, he said he intended to do the same to the FBI agent making the threats against his mother, FBI agent Robert Smith. While expressly disavowing any intent to physically harm Smith, Brown issued rambling threats to "destroy" Smith.That was more than enough pretext to allow the FBI to do what they long wanted: arrest Brown. The same day he posted the video on YouTube, the FBI arrested him on charges of threatening a federal agent, and then kept him imprisoned with no indictment for weeks on the ground that he posed an immediate threat to Smith. Finally in October, the DOJ unveiled <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/bb_indictment.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">an indictment</a> charging him with three counts of, essentially, harassing a federal officer online.In December, the DOJ filed <a href="http://pt.scribd.com/doc/115935232/Barrett-Brown-Indictment-No-2" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a second indictment</a>, which is now the heart of the government's case against him. It alleged that he "trafficked" in stolen goods, namely the Stratfor documents leaked by Anonymous and published by WikiLeaks. The indictment focuses on one small part of the leak: a list of Straftor clients and their credit card numbers. Critically, the indictment does not allege that Brown participated in the hack or in obtaining any of those documents.Instead, it simply alleges that he helped "disseminate" the stolen information. He did that, claims the DOJ, when he was in a chat room and posted a link to those documents that were online. As the harsh Anonymous critic Adrian Chen of Gawker <a href="http://gawker.com/5966757/former-anonymous-spokesman-barrett-brown-indicted-for-sharing-a-link-to-stolen-credit-card-information" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">wrote</a>:<blockquote style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Is it a crime for someone simply to share a link to stolen information? That seems to be the message conveyed by today's indictment of former Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown, over a massive hack of the private security firm Stratfor. Brown's in legal trouble for copying and pasting a link from one chat room to another. This is scary to anyone who ever links to anything . . . ."This charge does not allege Brown actually had the credit card numbers on his computer or even created the link: He just allegedly copied a link to a publicly-accessible file with the numbers from one chat room and pasted it into another. . . . As a journalist who covers hackers and has 'transferred and posted' many links to data stolen by hackers - in order to put them in stories about the hacks - this indictment is frightening because it seems to criminalize linking."</blockquote>What makes all of this even worse is that there is zero suggestion that Brown made use of these credit card numbers. To the contrary, when Anonymous advocated that people use the numbers to donate money to charity, Brown vocally condemned that suggestion as a distraction from Anonymous' mission. He told me in our telephone interview that he did the same privately. As McGuire wrote: "It's obvious by looking at the most recent posts on <a href="http://barrettbrown.blogspot.ca/" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Barrett Brown's blog</a> that while he is highly interested in Stratfor, it wasn't the credit card information that motivated him."The documents to which he linked contained all sorts of other information that he wanted to investigate and write about, including Straftor's client list. There are countless legitimate reasons to link to those documents, particularly for a journalist. That this extremely dubious allegation now forms the crux of the DOJ's case against him reveals what a persecution this actually is.In January, the DOJ filed <a href="http://pt.scribd.com/doc/121967213/Barrett-Brown-1-23-13-Indictment" style="text-decoration-line: none;">yet another indictment against Brown</a>, its third. This one added charges of "obstruction of justice" for allegedly failing to tell them about his laptop when they came to his mother's house (it also alleged that his mother "aided and abetted" him in these acts, thus maintaining the implicit threat to indict her for having let her son into her home). Those charges, by themselves, carry a possible prison sentence of 20 years.So here we have the US government targeting someone they clearly loathe because of the work he is doing against their actions. Then - using the most dubious legal theories, exploiting vague and broad criminal statutes, and driving him to ill-advised behavior with deliberately vindictive harassment (including aimed at his mother) - they transform what is at worst very trivial offenses into a multi-count felony indictment that has already resulted in his imprisonment for six months and threatens to imprison him for many years more. In his great analysis of the case, Christian Stork compares Brown's treatment to Swartz's (about which Stork <a href="http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/01/17/carmen-ortizs-sordid-rap-sheet/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">wrote previously</a>) and captures perfectly what is going on here and what is at stake:<blockquote style="line-height: 25px;">"Swartz's treatment wasn't anomalous, but 'a symptom of the entire disease' that underlies America's singular status as the world's jailer - of those who anger formidable interests, and those without friends in the right places."Brown's case is even more egregious:As even the government itself concedes, ProjectPM comes under the definition of the legitimate practice of journalism. Brown simply harnessed information gathered from someone else's 'criminal' hack. Then he used it to expose the foul and potentially illegal activities of some of the world's leading corporations - in partnership with secretive sectors of the government."Brown punctured a wall of secrecy, constructed over the past decade, that shields the state from accountability to its citizens. For that, he is threatened with a century behind bars."His tale deserves to be told, not just because of the injustice involved. It also shows the awesome power of the Internet in adjusting the balance sheet between the big guys and the small ones. And the lengths the insiders will go to keep their advantage."</blockquote>Brown may not be as cuddly as Swartz, and certainly does not have the same roster of influential friends. Nor can it be categorically argued that Brown did nothing wrong (just as many of Swartz's most ardent defenders acknowledged about him): that YouTube video, made when he was admittedly struggling with impaired judgment, was certainly ill-advised.But none of that should matter. The claim with prosecutorial abuse is never that the person targeted is a perfect being or even that he never did anything wrong. The issue with prosecutorial abuse is that the punishments being meted out are wildly disproportionate to the alleged acts when the trivial harms of the acts are considered and/or that the prosecution is being pursued for improper purposes. That's particularly true when viewed next to the far more egregious criminality the US government shields,Both prongs of prosecutorial abuse are clearly present in Brown's case. There is no evidence that the link he posted to already published documents resulted in any unauthorized use of credit cards, and certainly never redounded in any way to his benefit. More important, this prosecution is driven by the same plainly improper purpose that drove the one directed at Aaron Swartz and so many others: the desire to exploit the power of criminal law to deter and severely punish anyone who meaningfully challenges the government's power to control the flow of information on the internet and conceal its vital actions. Brown's acts, like Swartz's, were political in nature, and the excessive prosecution is equally political.What the US government counts on above all else is that the person it targets is unable to defend themselves against the government's unlimited resources. It takes an enormous amount of money to mount an effective defense. That's what often drives even the most innocent people to plead guilty and agree to long prison terms: they simply have no choice, because their reliance on committed and able but time-strapped public defenders makes conviction at trial highly likely, which - under an outrageous system that punishes people for exercising their right to a fair trial - means a much harsher punishment than if they plead guilty.If the US government is going to attempt to imprison activists and journalists like this, it should at the very least be a fair fight. That means that Brown, who is nowrepresented by a public defender, should have a vigorous defense able to devote the time and energy to his case that it deserves. He told me in the telephone interview we had that he believes this is the key to enabling him to avoid pleading guilty and agreeing to a prison term: something he has thus far refused to do in part because he insists he did nothing criminal, and in part because he refuses to become a government informant.A legal defense fund has been created by several young, smart and committed internet freedom activists, two of whom I had the chance to meet and speak with in the Boston area several weeks ago. I really hope everyone who is able to do so will donate what they can to his defense fund. You can do that at <a href="https://www.wepay.com/donations/free-barrett-brown" style="text-decoration-line: none;">this link here</a>, or via paypal to <a href="mailto:freebbfund@gmail.com" style="text-decoration-line: none;">freebbfund@gmail.com</a>. All donations will be used exclusively to hire private criminal defense counsel and to fund his defense.The US government's serial prosecutorial excesses aimed at internet freedom activists, journalists, whistleblowers and the like are designed to crush meaningful efforts to challenge their power and conduct. It is, I believe, incumbent on everyone who believes in those values to do what they can to support those who are taking real risks in defense of those freedoms and in pursuit of real transparency. Barrett Brown is definitely such a person, and enabling him to resist these attacks is of vital importance.<div style="line-height: 25px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </div><div class="bio-new body_story" style="width: 630px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio">Glenn Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and a Guardian columnist until October 2013, has earned numerous awards for his commentary and investigative journalism, including most recently the 2013 George Polk Award for national security reporting. In early 2014, he cofounded a new global media outlet, <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">The Intercept</a>. This essay is adapted from his new book,<a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/162779073X/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Security State</a>(Metropolitan Books), published today.</div></div></div>extensive <a href="https://undercoverinfo.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/a-forensic-analysis-as-to-why-legal-judgements-against-barrett-brown-jeremy-hammond-should-be-overturned/">https://undercoverinfo.wordpress.com/2015/01/18/a-forensic-analysis-as-to-why-legal-judgements-against-barrett-brown-jeremy-hammond-should-be-overturned/</a> forensic analysis 1/15 <p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 24px; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">On January 22nd <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">US journalist Barrett Brown will <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">know<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"> whether he will receive up to 8.5 years imprisonment for what are basically minor offences he <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">allegedly <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">committed in response to FBI provocation – all because <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">of <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">h<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">is investigations in the murky dealings of private security companies and their secret links with the US Government. One such company <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">he was looking into <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">was Stratfor – information about which was made available <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">allegedly by J<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">eremy Hammond, <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">now serving 10 years imprisonment<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">. <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">However, m<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">ore than <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">twenty <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">of the world’s <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">mass <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">media outlets were party to publishing this information, but were not prosecuted. <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Why? Because in doing so the patent absurdity of <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">the <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">prosecution <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">cases against <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Brown and Hammond <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">would be laid bare. Below, we <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">publish<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"> a forensic analysis of <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">what was published and by which outlet <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">and <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">in doing so <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">provide a cogent if not legal argument why <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Brown’s case should be thrown out and the judgement against <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Hammond <b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">overturned<b style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">.Firstly, it’s important to understand how and why the US justice system in general has little to do with justice. The US gulag has the <a href="http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18613" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">largest prisoner population in the world</a> and (with the exception of the Seychelles)<a href="http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison_population_rate?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;"> more prisoners per population</a> than any other country in the world, including China, Russia and Iran. The USA has less than 5% of the world’s population and 23.4% of the world’s prison and jail population (adult inmates). One in eleven of the US prison population are black, one in twenty-seven are Latinos and one in forty-five Caucasian. 92% are male. Moreover, most do not even get a jury trial: instead it is normal for those arrested to be told that if they plead guilty a more serious charge will then be dropped. Few of those arrested are able to afford the disproportionately high legal fees and so a quick deal is their only option. Thus the notion that alleged offenders are assumed innocent until proven guilty and are subject to the consideration of twelve of their peers is pure myth.These considerations apply to both Brown and Hammond, both of whom, separately and in their different ways, were merely guilty of deploying 21st century methodologies to help shed light on crimes and corporate and intelligence scandals that took place around the world. Many newspapers and magazines published the information they helped reveal. But instead of awarding accolades for what Brown and Hammond did, the corporate-state apparatus closed ranks and decided to prosecute them. That prosecution is entirely political – an act of revenge so as to discourage further examples of digital investigative research, particularly when that research is aimed at the corporate state establishment. Consequently, until Brown and Hammond are released they can only be regarded as political prisoners.Below, in Part A we examine in detail the case against Brown; in Part B the case against Hammond; in Parts C and D we provide a list of those media outlets that collaborated in publishing the information/data that Brown analysed and Hammond exposed as well as a few examples of actual articles. Finally, courtesy of Wikileaks, we provide an Appendix that gives examples of USG and Stratfor co-operation as well as other dirty deals.Note: to get an update on Julian Assange, click <a href="http://t.co/7ttvR618OC" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">here</a>.A. Barrett Brown1. Background to his caseBarrett Brown is a US journalist whose work has appeared in the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/barrett-brown" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Guardian</a>, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/contributors/barrett-brown" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Vanity Fair</a>, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Huffington Post</a>, <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/panelists/51376-barrett-brown" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Businessweek</a>, <a href="http://trueslant.com/barrettbrown/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">True/Slant</a>, <a href="http://www.csicop.org/author/barrettbrown" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Skeptical Inquirer</a> and many other outlets.He was originally charged with forwarding a link to the information exposed about <a href="http://www.stratfor.com/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Stratfor</a> that also included information about Stratfor employees, including their credit card details. But this formed only a tiny part of the vast amount of data. Nor, it should be added, did Brown use this data for financial gain. In the end the US government agreed to drop the more serious charges after lawyers filed <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_motiontodismiss2.pdf" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">a legal memorandum</a>: they correctly <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/mar/04/attorneys-barrett-brown-hyperlink-hacked-material-want-case-dismissed" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">argued</a> these charges were effectively a violation of the First Amendment, pointing out that “publishing a hyperlink does not itself move, convey, select, place or otherwise transfer, a file or document from one location to another”. Ahmed Ghappour (who directs the Liberty, Security and Technology Clinic, at the University of California Hastings College of Law) stated: “Looking at that [the sharing of an online link] as criminal conduct would probably bring an end to all digital journalism, period. There would be no reporting on leaks.”<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 24px; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The remaining charges included transmitting a threat in interstate commerce, being an accessory after the fact to an unauthorized access to a protected computer (i.e. the exposure by Hammond of the Stratfor data) and obstructing the execution of a search warrant (by allegedly hiding his laptops). These laptops contained journalistic sources and work product, including a book-in-progress. The First Amendment protects reporters from revealing confidential information or sources. The New York Court of Appeals recently held that “There is no principle more fundamental or well-established than the right of a reporter to refuse to divulge a confidential source.”<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 24px; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">With Brown (and Hammond – see below) the fundamentals of a <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/files/BB_memorandum.pdf" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">reporter’s</a> rights were completely ignored. The intention of the US Government here was simple: to <span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">imprison and silence those intent on using the advances of the information age to expose <span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">unpalatable truths, including the extensive connections between private security companies to government, the military, the defense world and think-tanks.Tellingly. the original <a href="http://pastebin.com/vZEteA3C" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">search warrant</a> served to Brown also listed HBGary and Endgame Systems, two firms which were written about at ProjectPM, which Brown contributed to. <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Project PM</a> is a crowd-sourced investigation that focuses on private contractors and their dealings with governments and uses a combination of open source intelligence, e-mails leaked by hackers, and conventional research. Brown also contributed to the investigations into <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Cubic_Corporation" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Cubic Corporation</a> and their alleged links to the <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Trapwire" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Trapwire</a> mass surveillance system. The US Department of Justice was implicated in schemes to go after critical journalists and activists – see: <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Team_Themis" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Team Themis</a>.Brown was also issued with a gagging order and subpoenaed to reveal the names of his contacts and fellow investigators.2. The December 2014 Sentencing hearingIn December Brown was due to be sentenced but the day long hearing turned into a farce and another hearing for sentencing was deferred until January. Here is what happened…Firstly, the prosecution took the opportunity to bring up matters relating to the charge that had been dropped. Brown’s attorney took the opportunity to make it clear that the prosecution’s claim about the link “has serious repercussions to journalists, researchers, people who link to public information… The government’s argument should chill the bones of every journalist and every researcher.” Of course, the prosecution should not have been allowed to refer to this earlier charge and that they were was an error by the judge (and so may be subject to an appeal). This should have been challenged..<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Secondly <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">and b<span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">izarrely o<span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">ne of the items of <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">‘<span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">evidence<span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">‘<span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"> raised by the prosecution was a quote from a tweet by Brown. The quote was “kill Assange”. <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">An <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">explanation was quickly furnished by Julian Assange via a <a href="https://wikileaks.org/Assange-statement-on-the.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">statement</a> on the Wikileaks website. <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">I<span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">t read as follows…”The most serious claim against Barrett Brown is that six months after the March 6, 2012 FBI raid on his mother’s address he tweeted “illegally shoot the son of a bitch”. It sounds bad. It is a clear incitement to murder. The FBI claim that the “son of a bitch” Barrett was referring to was one of their agents. That is false. The “son of a bitch” is me[JA? yes:<a href="https://wikileaks.org/Assange-statement-on-the.html"> </a><a href="https://wikileaks.org/Assange-statement-on-the.html">https://wikileaks.org/Assange-statement-on-the.html</a> <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">]—and the person who called for my assassination was not Barrett Brown. Barrett’s full retweet was “dead men can’t leak stuff… illegally shoot the son of a bitch”. The quote is from Fox news host Bob Beckel, who called for my assassination—an injustice that Barrett was trying to draw attention to. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Here is the video </a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">proof.</a> The FBI took no action against Bob Beckel or the numerous other senior figures calling for my assassination. A bill was put before Congress to declare WikiLeaks staff “enemy combatants” in order to make our assassination legal. It did not pass, but the FBI still refused to act. Two days after Barrett retweeted the Bob Beckel statement, the FBI arrested not Bob Beckel, but Barrett Brown. He has been in jail ever since.” <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">By raising this matter in court, <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">it can only be assumed that the prosecution was attempting to <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">further prejudice the judge <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">(but instead merely <span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">succeeded in demonstrating gross incompetence<span style="line-height: 24px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">).So how is this process different in any way from that of a newspaper sorting through and analysing data and information, leaked or otherwise, prior to being written up into an article for publication? Well, if you are stuck for an example, two immediately spring to mind: the Guardian newspaper forensically analysed the masses of data leaked by Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, or Rolling Stone magazine using the same treatment in relation to information leaked about Stratfor.Of course, there is no difference. Barrett Brown was merely doing his job. But in doing so, FBI officers decided to provoke him. The subsequent prosecution, as already argued <a href="https://undercoverinfo.wordpress.com/2014/12/13/barrett-browns-prosecution-is-revenge-for-exposing-secret-workings-of-us-private-intelligence/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">here</a>, was never about a crime but was political and an act of revenge in order to discourage further examples of digital investigative research, particularly when that research is aimed at the corporate state establishment.3. Brown’s research via ProjectPMBelow, is a reprise of Brown’s work via ProjectPM (summarised and adapted from the ProjectPM website):1. Abraxas<a href="http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb06?ABRAXAS_COMPANY" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Abraxas</a> is an intelligence contractor that was revealed as a significant player in <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Persona_Management" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Persona Management</a> (i.e fake IDs to snoop on political activists or create propaganda). Abraxas also acquired <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Anonymizer" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Anonymizer</a> (which includes encrypted email services) in May 2008. Two years later Abraxas was purchased by Cubic (see below) for $124 million in cash.2. TrapwireAbraxas Corporation also created <a href="https://trapwire.net/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">TrapWire</a> under its subsidiary Abraxas Applications. TrapWire is/was linked to the <a href="http://nsi.ncirc.gov/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">National Suspicious Activity Reporting (NSI) Initiative</a>, a program designed to help aggregate reports of suspicious activity around the country. It was claimed that TrapWire could eventually extend to fusion centers around the USA as <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg71298/html/CHRG-112hhrg71298.htm" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">congressional testimony from June 2011</a> indicated that the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department was part of a trial project of the Department of Homeland Security to test the use of TrapWire.  The Texas Department of Public Safety, which operates the Texas Fusion Center, also <a href="http://wl.wikileaks-press.org/gifiles/docs/380450_re-close-hold-.html" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">purchased TrapWire software in 2010</a>. For more on Trapwire, click <a href="https://storify.com/bendoernberg/test-post" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">here</a>.3. Ntrepid<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 24px; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><a href="http://www.ntrepidcorp.com/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Ntrepid</a> also provides Persona Management services to US and unspecified “multinational forces” in conjunction with the <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/CENTCOM" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">CENTCOM</a> information operations program <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Operation_Earnest_Voice" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Operation Earnest Voice</a>. The technology is supposedly for use with non-US forums and social media outlets, thus circumventing US laws against impersonation. Ntrepid’s corporate registry lists Abraxas’ previous CEO and founder, Richard Helms, as the director and officer, along with Wesley Husted, the former CFO, who is also an Ntrepid officer. The shifting company names and management led to speculation that Ntrepid is a front company for Abraxas.4. Cubic Corporation<a href="http://www.cubic.com/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Cubic</a> is a global leader in defense, and transportation systems and services and an emerging supplier of smart card and RFID solutions. <a href="http://i.imgur.com/yuOt5.jpg" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">This picture</a> provides an idea of the relationships between Cubic Corp, other companies, and individuals. There was also controversy about a global surveillance system called<a href="http://www.trapwire.com/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;"> Trapwire</a>. Despite <a href="http://echelon2.org/wiki/Cubic" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Cubic</a>‘s denial of affiliation with Trapwire, <a href="http://echelon2.org/wiki/Abraxas" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Abraxas</a> Corporation subsidiary Abraxas Dauntless shares an interlocking directorate, including <a href="http://echelon2.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Hollis_Helms&action=edit&redlink=1" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Richard</a> <a href="http://echelon2.org/w/index.php?title=Richard_Hollis_Helms&action=edit&redlink=1" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Hollis Helms,</a> with both TrapWire and <a href="http://echelon2.org/wiki/Ntrepid" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Ntrepid</a> at least as recently as 2012 and appears to have done so continuously since its merger with <a href="http://echelon2.org/wiki/Cubic" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Cubic</a>. For more on Trapwire, click <a href="http://publicintelligence.net/unravelling-trapwire/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">here</a>.5. HBGary<p style="border: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 24px; widows: 1; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><span style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">HBGary Federal was set up with Aaron Barr as CEO to provide services and tools to the US Government that might require security clearance. In February of 2011, <a href="https://www.hbgary.com/" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">HBGary</a> and HBGary Federal were raided by several Anons, who released over 70,000 e-mails acquired from their shared server. A subsequent review of those materials by journalists and activists revealed that the firm partnered with <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Palantir" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Palantir</a> and <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Berico" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Berico</a> to provide information operation services to prospective clients under a partnership known as <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Team_Themis" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Team Themis</a>. Evidence of persona management and its use by CENTCOM was discovered via these e-mails, as also a complex US military surveillance and propaganda apparatus – referred to as <a href="http://wiki.project-pm.org/wiki/Romas/COIN" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Romas/COIN</a>. See also <a href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/the-ridiculous-plan-to-attack-wikileaks.ars" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Spy games: Inside the convoluted plot to bring down WikiLeaks.</a>4. Summary of Brown’s case<a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/barrett-brown-faces-105-years-in-jail-20130905" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">Rolling Stone </a>magazine posited that “Brown’s case is a bell weather for press freedoms in the new century, where hacks and leaks provide some of our only glimpses into the technologies and policies of an increasingly privatized national security-and-surveillance state”.Noam Chomsky <a href="http://freebarrettbrown.org/supporters/#chomsky" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">states</a> that Barrett Brown is being “punished for the crime of taking citizenship seriously.”So how is the process that Brown decided on different from that of, say, a newspaper sorting through and analysing data and information, leaked or otherwise, prior to being written up into an article for publication? If you are stuck for an example, two immediately spring to mind: a) the Guardian newspaper forensically analysed the masses of data leaked by Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, or b) Rolling Stone magazine used the same treatment in relation to the information leaked about Stratfor (see below). Of course, there is no real difference. FBI officers decided to provoke Brown because he was merely doing his job.The December hearing also demonstrated how the case against Brown is seriously flawed, if not vexatious. As such his prosecution should be deemed legally unsafe. Brown’s <a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">supporters</a> hope that the judge will order his release as an act of clemency, given he has already served two years in prison.To see documents relating to his prosecution – click <a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/documents-and-transcripts/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">here</a>; to see a site supporting Brown, click<a href="https://freebarrettbrown.org/" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">here</a>; to see a website associated with Brown’s work, click <a href="http://echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">here.</a> For an excellent (2013) on the persecution of Brown, see: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/21/barrett-brown-persecution-anonymous" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/21/barrett-brown-persecution-anonymous</a>B. Jeremy Hammond...=https://wikileaks.org/Assange-statement-on-the.html
<h1 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 10px; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Assange: "The son of a bitch is me" - statement on the sentencing hearing of US journalist Barrett Brown</h1><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 10px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Wednesday December 17, 15:00 GMT</h2><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 10px 20px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; border-left: 5px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“How corrupt can we be? Let us take Barrett Brown campaigning against Fox’s calls to assassinate Julian Assange, and flip that to say he’s campaigning for the assassination of FBI agents and use that to put him away for a decade. And then, if he tries to talk about this abuse in order to re-establish the true context, we’ll gag him!”</blockquote>Nothing so well describes the surreal universe that has enveloped the United States as yesterday’s sentencing hearing of Barrett Brown.Barrett has been jailed without trial for over two years now. He faces eight and a half more years. His next sentencing hearing is due in January 2015. The situation also involves me personally and the work of WikiLeaks.Barrett Brown’s Hunter S Thompson style, his public lampooning of the US security state and his defence of WikiLeaks and Anonymous did not win him friends in the US administration and soon enough the FBI was looking for any excuse to take him down.The case against Barrett Brown can be broken down into two parts. Two charges against him occur as a direct result of his journalistic work on our Stratfor materials (anonymizing his sources and discussing, with others, the material they provided to him). These charges are at odds with national and international protections for the press and freedom of expression. The third charge concerns his speech acts after the FBI threatened to charge his mother unless he handed over his source material. There are no other charges.The FBI showed up at his mother’s home on March 6, 2012. His mother hid Barrett’s journalistic notebooks among her pots and pans; an action any son could be proud of. Barrett didn’t co-operate and so the FBI made good on its threat. His mother was charged, convicted and eventually placed on six months probation—for obstructing the course of justice.“My better judgement was clouded by my maternal instinct” she wryly told the judge.Barrett reacted to this injustice inflicted on his mother like any son would. He became ill-tempered. But, being an American from generation Y, his anger was expressed on social media.Barrett, a journalist as well as a son, said he was going to “ruin” the FBI officer concerned by investigating his connections—including those of his adult children. Not a complete fool, he stated, in the same sentence, that this was not a threat of violence, but rather the equalisation of a double standard: doing what the Bank of America did against WikiLeaks when it asked US intelligence contractor Aaron Barr to map out WikiLeaks’ relationships, including, specifically, with the journalist Glenn Greenwald.Barrett’s angry comments to his friends was at odds with the times. Twitter is a police interview that never ends. Facebook has all your friends wearing a wire. Youtube has you in the dock talking to the judge. Every social media user creates a vast library of statements that may be taken out of context by vengeful or ambitious officials. Users should be displayed their Miranda rights each time they log on.The most serious claim against Barrett Brown is that six months after the March 6, 2012 FBI raid on his mother’s address he tweeted “illegally shoot the son of a bitch”. It sounds bad. It is a clear incitement to murder. The FBI claim that the “son of a bitch” Barrett was referring to was one of their agents. That is false. The “son of a bitch” is me—and the person who called for my assassination was not Barrett Brown.Barrett’s full retweet was “dead men can’t leak stuff… illegally shoot the son of a bitch”. The quote is from Fox news host Bob Beckel, who called for my assassination—an injustice that Barrett was trying to draw attention to. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw" class="spip_out" rel="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; background: transparent;">Here is the video proof.</a>The FBI took no action against Bob Beckel or the numerous other senior figures calling for my assassination. A bill was put before Congress to declare WikiLeaks staff “enemy combatants” in order to make our assassination legal. It did not pass, but the FBI still refused to act.Two days after Barrett retweeted the Bob Beckel statement, the FBI arrested not Bob Beckel, but Barrett Brown. He has been in jail ever since.The Barrett Brown case is such an obvious injustice that a public campaign by his lawyers to place the Beckel statement back into its proper context would be an obvious step for his defence team.Indeed, after being publicly monstered by the FBI’s decontextualisation effort, Barrett Brown and his lawyers fought to place the quote back into its proper context. As a result he and his legal team were gagged.“Brown has shown his intent to continue to manipulate the public through press and social media comments,” the government claimed to the court on August 8, 2013. Public commentary “made by or condoned by the defense will ‘undermine a fair trial.’” As a result, the court ruled it was necessary“to restrain Counsel and Defendant from making prejudicial statements to the press and media.”How fine, how noble, how egalitarian. Fair trial rights for the government as well as the defence! Neither the defence nor the government can state their case to the public while Barrett Brown rots in jail awaiting his sentence—except to repeat the formal charges made by the government. Neither the greatest King nor the most destitute beggar may sleep in a box on the street. Fair’s fair!

=wages of r: hedges:
ch vii 7 the rebel defiant
australian diplom cables reveals big unprecedented assault on Julian A; at least a dozen US agencies
collateral damage in sweep:aaron schwartz CFAAct
Barrett sic Brown journalist (?) specializes in mil and intel contractors; arrest 9/12
Jeremy Hammond gave WL 5.5 stratfor emails w/ clients
Sabu trapped both hammond and BB (tried for assange and WL JA says); manning trapped by another fbi informant 175.
govt says sabi helped in 20 pvy and public entity hacks est at 50M$ damage, but Preska let him walk after giving JH ten years 175.b/c of his "extraordinary cooperation" 175 ie rolled om 8, convicted; worked for fbi 3 yrs, max sent 26 yrs; 176
Anon understood problem before the rest of us, stopped at airports and induced to 180. eg lawyer Jennifer Robinson.
icelander thordarson emailed fbi, next day pvt plane; gov't tossed them, but guy went to US; got 5K$ fort stolen WK files 176
JA says laptop and luggage stolen,account shut down?, ISP pressed for info;  US denounced WL, and australia and US banks pulled; DoS against WL;
contortions of 4th amend to go after JA? 177...manning....
HAMMOND  189scary b/c 5 mill emails showed corp/nat sec state blend? and anti-terror laws use to quash dissent 190;
Hedges used stratfor leaked docs in his lawsuit v VO over section 1021(b)2 of nat def authorization act; co-plaintiff alexa o'brien, fdr Day of Rage to reform elections, Stratfor tried to assoc her with jihadist, so could be detained under new law 190; US district judge katherine Forrest sic said they have credible fear, nullied the law, but overturned in appellate.
JGH 10 year one of largest for hacking, and was max 8under plea deal 190.  Preska fedsoc, hubby email and pzwrd; partner at Cahill (she used to work there too), and their client Merrill L 191; National Lawyer's Guild filed a motion for recusal, she refused;
judge quoted from Anon chat on bankruptcy and max mayhem; pvt phone # retired Az cop who claims he got threatening calls 191;
10 years PLUS 3 years supervised control?; had to submit to random warrantless searches; no contact with electronic disobedience websites or orgs" 191.
hedges said in order to so rule, judge had to ignore lots, including intel agencies (pvt?) work to attack dissidents, and that JH made no $ from hack 192;
jh called himself an anarchist communist" and know the history; hacks and leaks as ways of exposing wrong-doing but to disrupt corps too; 192
organized HS protests ~ gulf 2 but saw protesters ignored and beaten, arrested, called traitors 193;
univ of illinois frosh hacked comp sci dept, bounced ; did a talk at defcon in Las vegas; fbi's #1 wanted cybercriminal;inspired by ballsy manning, cd not just work on Food Not Bombs website;
hacked rw Protest Warrior (2 yrs fed prison)goal is to build leaderless collectives, mutual aid, self suff, green. 195
thot occupy too vague, so included ron paul ppl and TP and reformist dems, just going for a nicer form of capitalism;thinks civil disobedience dumb; better to NOT get caught 195;peace patrols to stop black bloc are just "2ndary police force" 195
knew anon hack cd put him back in jail but felt obligated to use his skills
tried trad protest/methods, ignored; power struct does not respect it own checks and bal, never mind rights of cits or the int'l community" 198
targeted cops b/c racist and inequality; also mil and pol gear mfg who help suppress in US and int'l. went after pvt intel b/c the protect corps and govy and attack indiv rights, activists, journalists and other truthseekers [whistleblowers?] 196
puzzled about why fbi would intru us to sabu (did they?] who found the initial vuln and allow the hack 197??went after turkey, iran, brazil [climate talks?]
in jail H appalled that 80% never went to trial, pled b/c scared; smoked pot and lost social visits 2 yrs and in the box
sarah harrison: we must // // courage is contagious 199http://www.democracynow.org/2015/1/23/barrett_brown_sentenced_to_five_years
 BB: journalist and activist accused of working with Anonymous has been given a five-year prison term and ordered to pay nearly $900,000 in restitution and fines. Barrett Brown was sentenced on Thursday after pleading guilty last year to charges of transmitting threats, accessory to a cyber-attack, and obstruction of justice. Supporters say Brown has been unfairly targeted for investigating the highly secretive world of private intelligence and military contractors. After his sentencing on Thursday, Brown released a satirical statement that read in part: "Good news! — The U.S. government decided today that because I did such a good job investigating the cyber-industrial complex, they’re now going to send me to investigate the prison-industrial complex." We discuss Brown’s case with Kevin Gallagher, a writer, activist and systems administrator who heads the Free Barrett Brown support network. He says that the public should not believe what the government says about Brown.dn The activist and journalist Barrett Brown has reportedly reached a plea deal with prosecutors after 19 months behind bars. Supporters say Brown has been unfairly targeted for investigating the highly secretive world of private intelligence and military contractors. Last month, prosecutors dropped a number of charges against him related to the hacking of the private intelligence firm Stratfor, which exposed how the firm monitors activists and spies for corporate clients. Brown was still facing up to 70 years in prison. The plea deal remains sealed, but Wired reports Brown is now being charged with assisting the Stratfor hacker after the fact and obstructing the execution of a search warrant. Those two charges would dramatically reduce his possible prison time. A hearing is scheduled for April 29= from old press supp Writer/journalist Barrett Brown Talented writer, he was working on a book on pundits when Anonymous caught his attention, as he beleived it was going to be transformational and had been seroisly under-reported. He started a small collective to analyze the document dumps. What he found was amazing: DOJ giving tips on how to hire private intel to go after legitimate protest. Engame software selling relatime computer vulnerabilities; FBI caught on and gota subpoena, clearly they wanted his sources (odd, sincethey knew what files he was looking at? What they had a tougher time finding out was wo was working with him?]. Because he was inconsiderately not at home when they came for him, they tracked him down at his mom's house, but then had to get aother warrqant to search her house? In the meantime, they are both charged with obstruction of justice. He claims his mom did not know his laptop was in her house, thus she's innocent [and wo could blame her if she did mislead or stall the feds?] he's looking at 105 years in jail, lost it when they threatened his mom. cf Aaron Schwartz same 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse rap. .   =<div class="print-content"><div id="node-174851" class="node"><div class="content"><h1 class="print-title" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Strange Case of Barrett Brown</h1><div class="print-created" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Peter Ludlow | June 18, 2013</div>
Read more: <a href="http://www.thenation.com/print/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#ixzz2Y7cW5HE2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Strange Case of Barrett Brown</a> <a href="http://www.thenation.com/print/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#ixzz2Y7cW5HE2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.thenation.com/print/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#ixzz2Y7cW5HE2</a> 

 <a href="http://ec.tynt.com/b/rf?id=caN4nSSpSr4RB7acwqm_6l&u=TheNationMagazine" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">TheNationMagazine </a>
In early 2010, journalist and satirist Barrett Brown was working on a book on political pundits, when the hacktivist collective Anonymous caught his attention. He soon began writing about its activities and potential. In a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown/anonymous-australia-and-t_b_457776.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">defense</a> [2] of the group’s anti-censorship operations in Australia published on February 10, Brown declared, “I am now certain that this phenomenon is among the most important and under-reported social developments to have occurred in decades, and that the development in question promises to threaten the institution of the nation-state and perhaps even someday replace it as the world’s most fundamental and relevant method of human organization.”By then, Brown was already considered by his fans to be the Hunter S. Thompson of his generation. In point of fact he wasn’t like Hunter S. Thompson, but was more of a throwback—a sharp-witted, irreverent journalist and satirist in the mold of Ambrose Bierce or Dorothy Parker. His acid tongue was on display in his co-authored 2007 book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design and the Easter Bunny, in which he declared: “This will not be a polite book. Politeness is wasted on the dishonest, who will always take advantage of any well-intended concession.”But it wasn’t Brown’s acid tongue so much as his love of minutiae (and ability to organize and explain minutiae) that would ultimately land him in trouble. Abandoning his book on pundits in favor of a book on Anonymous, he could not have known that delving into the territory of hackers and leaks would ultimately lead to his facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison. In light of the bombshell revelations published by Glenn Greenwald and Barton Gellman about government and corporate spying, Brown’s case is a good—and underreported—reminder of the considerable risk faced by reporters who report on leaks.In February 2011, a year after Brown penned his defense of Anonymous, and against the background of its actions during the Arab Spring, Aaron Barr, CEO of the private intelligence company HBGary, claimed to have identified the leadership of the hacktivist collective. (In fact, he only had screen names of a few members). Barr’s boasting provoked a brutal hack of HBGary by a related group called Internet Feds (it would soon change its name to “LulzSec”). Splashy enough to attract the attention of <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/426198/may-09-2013/colbert-s-book-club%E2%80%94-learning%E2%80%94the-great-gatsby-" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Colbert Report</a> [3], the hack defaced and destroyed servers and websites belonging to HBGary. Some 70,000 company e-mails were downloaded and posted online. As a final insult to injury, even the contents of Aaron Barr’s iPad were remotely wiped.The HBGary hack may have been designed to humiliate the company, but it had the collateral effect of dropping a gold mine of information into Brown’s lap. One of the first things he discovered was a plan to neutralize Glenn Greenwald’s defense of Wikileaks by undermining them both.(“Without the support of people like Glenn, wikileaks would fold,” read one slide.) The plan called for “disinformation,” exploiting strife within the organization and fomenting external rivalries—“creating messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization,” as well as a plan to submit fake documents and then call out the error.” Greenwald, it was argued, “if pushed,” would “choose professional preservation over cause.”Other plans targeted social organizations and advocacy groups. Separate from the plan to target Greenwald and WikiLeaks, HBGary was part of a consortia that submitted a proposal to develop a “<a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/02/18/hbgarys-high-volume.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">persona management</a> [4]” system for the United States Air Force, that would allow one user to control multiple online identities for commenting in social media spaces, thus giving the appearance of grassroots support or opposition to certain policies.The data dump from the HBGary hack was so vast that no one person could sort through it alone. So Brown decided to crowdsource the effort. He created a wiki page, called it <a href="http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">ProjectPM</a> [5], and invited other investigative journalists to join in. Under Brown’s leadership, the initiative began to slowly untangle a web of connections between the US government, corporations, lobbyists and a shadowy group of private military and information security consultants.One connection was between Bank of America and the Chamber of Commerce. WikiLeaks had claimed to possess a large cache of documents belonging to Bank of America. Concerned about this, Bank of America approached the United States Department of Justice. The DOJ directed it to the law and lobbying firm <a href="http://www.hunton.com/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Hunton and Williams</a> [6], which does legal work for Wells Fargo and General Dynamics and also lobbies for Koch Industries, Americans for Affordable Climate Policy, Gas Processors Association, Entergy among many other firms. The DoJ recommended that Bank of America hire Hunton and Williams, explicitly suggesting <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/chamber-of-commerce-still_n_768076.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Richard Wyatt</a>[7] as the person to work with. Wyatt, famously, was the lead attorney in the Chamber of Commerce’s lawsuit against the Yes Men.In November 2010, Hunton and Williams organized a number of private intelligence, technology development and security contractors—HBGary, plus Palantir Technologies, Berico Technologies and, according to Brown, a secretive corporation with the ominous name Endgame Systems—to form “Team Themis”—‘themis’ being a Greek word meaning “divine law.” Its main objective was to discredit critics of the Chamber of Commerce, <a href="http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/ProposalForTheChamber.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">like Chamber Watch</a> [8], using such tactics as creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” giving it to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then subsequently exposing the document as a fake to “prove that US Chamber Watch cannot be trusted with information and/or tell the truth.” In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insiderpersona” to infiltrate Chamber Watch. They would “create two fake insider personas, using one as leverage to discredit the other while confirming the legitimacy of the second.” The leaked e-mails showed that similar disinformation campaigns were being planned against WikiLeaks and Glenn Greenwald.It was clear to Brown that these were actions of questionable legality, but beyond that, government contractors were attempting to undermine Americans’ free speech—with the apparent blessing of the DOJ. A group of Democratic congressmen <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022805810.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">asked for an investigation</a> [9] into this arrangement, to no avail.By June 2011, the plot had thickened further. The FBI had the goods on the leader of LulzSec, one Hector Xavier Monsegur, who went under the nom de guerre Sabu. The FBI arrested him on June 7, 2011, and (according to court documents) turned him into an informant the following day. Just three days before his arrest, Sabu had been central to the formation of a new group called AntiSec, which comprised his former LulzSec crew members, as well as members as Anonymous. In early December AntiSec hacked the website of a private security company called Stratfor Global Intelligence. On Christmas Eve, it released a trove of some 5 million internal company e-mails. AntiSec member and Chicago activist <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/news/lulzsec-jeremy-hammond-bail-denied-hacker/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Jeremy Hammond</a> [10] has pled guilty to the attack and is currently facing ten years in prison for it.The contents of the Stratfor leak were even more outrageous than those of the HBGary hack. They included discussion of opportunities for renditions and assassinations. For example, in one video, Statfor’s vice president of intelligence, Fred Burton, suggested taking advantage of the chaos in Libya to render Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, who had been released from prison on compassionate grounds due to his terminal illness. Burton said that the case “was personal.” When someone pointed out in an e-mail that such a move would almost certainly be illegal—“This man has already been tried, found guilty, sentenced…and served time”—another Stratfor employee responded that this was just an argument for a more efficient solution: “One more reason to just bugzap him with a hellfire. :-)”(Stratfor employees also seemed to take a keen interest in Jeremy Scahill’s writings about Blackwater in The Nation, copying and circulating entire articles, with comments suggesting a principle interest was in the question of whether Blackwater was setting up a competing intelligence operation. E-mails also showed grudging respect for Scahill: “Like or dislike Scahill’s position (or what comes of his work), he does an amazing job outing [Blackwater].”)When the contents of the Stratfor leak became available, Brown decided to put ProjectPM on it. A link to the Stratfor dump appeared in an Anonymous chat channel; Brown copied it and pasted it into the private chat channel for ProjectPM, bringing the dump to the attention of the editors.Brown began looking into <a href="http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Endgame_Systems" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Endgame Systems</a> [11], an information security firm that seemed particularly concerned about staying in the shadows. “Please let HBGary know we don’t ever want to see our name in a press release,” one leaked e-mail read. One of its products, available for a $2.5 million annual subscription, gave customers access to “zero-day exploits”—security vulnerabilities unknown to software companies—for computer systems all over the world. <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/cyber-weapons-the-new-arms-race-07212011.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">Business Week</a> [12] published a story on Endgame in 2011, reporting that “Endgame executives will bring up maps of airports, parliament buildings, and corporate offices. The executives then create a list of the computers running inside the facilities, including what software the computers run, and a menu of attacks that could work against those particular systems.” For Brown, this raised the question of whether Endgame was selling these exploits to foreign actors and whether they would be used against computer systems in the United States. Shortly thereafter, the hammer came down.The FBI acquired a <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/exclusive-fbi-escalates-war-on-anonymous" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;">warrant</a> [13] for Brown’s laptop, gaining the authority to seize any information related to HBGary, Endgame Systems, Anonymous and, most ominously, “email, email contacts, ‘chat’, instant messaging logs, photographs, and correspondence.” In other words, the FBI wanted his sources.When the FBI went to serve Brown, he was at his mother’s house. Agents returned with a warrant to search his mother’s house, retrieving his laptop. To turn up the heat on Brown, the FBI initiated charges against his mother for obstruction of justice for concealing his laptop computer in her house. (Facing criminal charges, on March 22, 2013, his mother, Karen McCutchin, pled guilty to one count of obstructing the execution of a search warrant. She faces up to twelve months in jail. Brown maintains that she did not know the laptop was in her home.)By his own admission, the FBI’s targeting of his mother made Brown snap. In September 2012, he uploaded an incoherent YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">video</a> [14], in which he explained that he had been in treatment for an addiction to heroin, taking the medication Suboxone, but had gone off his meds and now was in withdrawal. He threatened the FBI agent that was harassing his mother, by name, warning:“I know what’s legal, I know what’s been done to me.… And if it’s legal when it’s done to me, it’s going to be legal when it’s done to FBI Agent Robert Smith—who is a criminal.”“That’s why [FBI special agent] Robert Smith’s life is over. And when I say his life is over, I’m not saying I’m going to kill him, but I am going to ruin his life and look into his fucking kids…. How do you like them apples?”[barr never charged?]The media narrative was immediately derailed. No longer would this be a story about the secretive information-military-industrial complex; now it was the sordid tale of a crazy drug addict threatening an FBI agent and his (grown) children. Actual death threats against agents are often punishable by a few years in jail. But Brown’s actions made it easier for the FBI to sell some other pretext to put him away for life.The Stratfor data included a number of unencrypted credit card numbers and validation codes. On this basis, the DOJ accused Brown of credit card fraud for having shared that link with the editorial board of ProjectPM. Specifically, the FBI charged him with traffic in stolen authentication features, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft, as well as an obstruction of justice charge (for being at his mother’s when the initial warrant was served) and charges stemming from his threats against the FBI agent. All told, Brown is looking at century of jail time: 105 years in federal prison if served sequentially. He has been denied bail.Considering that the person who carried out the actual Stratfor hack had several priors and is facing a maximum of ten years, the inescapable conclusion is that the problem is not with the hack itself but with Brown’s journalism. As Glenn Greenwald remarked inThe Guardian: “It is virtually impossible to conclude that the obscenely excessive prosecution he now faces is unrelated to that journalism and his related activism.”Today, Brown is in prison and ProjectPM is under increased scrutiny by the DOJ, even as its work has ground to a halt. In March, the DOJ served the domain hosting service CloudFlare with a <a href="http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/doj-issues-subpoena-for-info-on-barrett-browns-project-pm-site/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">subpoena</a> [16] for all records on the ProjectPM website, and in particular asked for the IP addresses of everyone who had accessed and contributed to ProjectPM, describing it as a “forum” through which Brown and others would “engage in, encourage, or facilitate the commission of criminal conduct online.” The message was clear: Anyone else who looks into this matter does so at their grave peril.Some journalists are now understandably afraid to go near the Stratfor files. The broader implications of this go beyond Brown; one might think that what we are looking at is Cointelpro 2.0—an outsourced surveillance state—but in fact it’s worse. One can’t help but infer that the US Department of Justice has become just another security contractor, working alongside the HBGarys and Stratfors on behalf of corporate bidders, with no sense at all for the justness of their actions; they are working to protect corporations and private security contractors and give them license to engage in disinformation campaigns against ordinary citizens and their advocacy groups. The mere fact that the FBI’s senior cybersecurity advisor has recently moved to Hunton and Williams shows just how incestuous this relationship has become. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice is also using its power and force to trample on the rights of citizens like Barrett Brown who are trying to shed light on these nefarious relationships. In order to neutralize those who question or investigate the system, laws are being reinterpreted or extended or otherwise misappropriated in ways that are laughable—or would be if the consequences weren’t so dire.While the media and much of the world have been understandably outraged by the revelation of the NSA’s spying programs, Barrett Brown’s work was pointing to a much deeper problem. It isn’t the sort of problem that can be fixed by trying to tweak a few laws or by removing a few prosecutors. The problem is not with bad laws or bad prosecutors. What the case of Barrett Brown has exposed is that we confronting a different problem altogether. It is a systemic problem. It is the failure of the rule of law.Journalist Michael Hastings, 33, died in a car crash yesterday. Read Greg Mitchell’s obituary <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/174870/journalist-michael-hastings-33-dies-car-crash" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">here</a> [17].</div></div></div> <hr class="print-hr" style="height: 1px; border: 0px; width: 2080.2px; background-color: rgb(158, 158, 158);" /><div class="print-source_url" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Source URL: <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.thenation.com/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown</a></div><div class="print-links" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Links:
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barrett-brown/anonymous-australia-and-t_b_457776.html
[3] http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/426198/may-09-2013/colbert-s-book-club—-learning—the-great-gatsby-
[4] http://boingboing.net/2011/02/18/hbgarys-high-volume.html
[5] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Main_Page
[6] http://www.hunton.com/
[7] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/19/chamber-of-commerce-still_n_768076.html
[8] http://images2.americanprogress.org/ThinkProgress/ProposalForTheChamber.pdf
[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/28/AR2011022805810.html
[10] http://www.dailydot.com/news/lulzsec-jeremy-hammond-bail-denied-hacker/
[11] http://wiki.echelon2.org/wiki/Endgame_Systems
[12] http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/cyber-weapons-the-new-arms-race-07212011.html
[13] http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/exclusive-fbi-escalates-war-on-anonymous
[14] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOW7GOrXNZI
[15] https://subscribe.thenation.com/servlet/OrdersGateway?cds_mag_code=NAN&cds_page_id=122425&cds_response_key=I12SART1
[16] http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/04/05/doj-issues-subpoena-for-info-on-barrett-browns-project-pm-site/
[17] http://www.thenation.com/blog/174870/journalist-michael-hastings-33-dies-car-crash</div>
Read more: <a href="http://www.thenation.com/print/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#ixzz2Y7YhAbgh" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">The Strange Case of Barrett Brown</a> <a href="http://www.thenation.com/print/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#ixzz2Y7YhAbgh" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.thenation.com/print/article/174851/strange-case-barrett-brown#ixzz2Y7YhAbgh</a> 
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