Jeremy Hammond of LulzSec Pleads Guilty To Stratfor Attack 192
eldavojohn writes "After facing 30 years to life imprisonment and pleading not guilty to charges last year, Jeremy Hammond has pleaded guilty to his alleged involvement in Anonymous' hacking of Stratfor. The self proclaimed hacktivist member of LulzSec, who has compared his situation to that of the late Aaron Swartz, explained his reasoning in his plea: 'Today I pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. This was a very difficult decision. I hope this statement will explain my reasoning. I believe in the power of the truth. In keeping with that, I do not want to hide what I did or to shy away from my actions. This non-cooperating plea agreement frees me to tell the world what I did and why, without exposing any tactics or information to the government and without jeopardizing the lives and well-being of other activists on and offline. During the past 15 months I have been relatively quiet about the specifics of my case as I worked with my lawyers to review the discovery and figure out the best legal strategy. There were numerous problems with the government's case, including the credibility of FBI informant Hector Monsegur. However, because prosecutors stacked the charges with inflated damages figures, I was looking at a sentencing guideline range of over 30 years if I lost at trial. I have wonderful lawyers and an amazing community of people on the outside who support me. None of that changes the fact that I was likely to lose at trial. But, even if I was found not guilty at trial, the government claimed that there were eight other outstanding indictments against me from jurisdictions scattered throughout the country. If I had won this trial I would likely have been shipped across the country to face new but similar charges in a different district. The process might have repeated indefinitely. ... I did what I believe is right.'"
Re:New strategy in criminal law? (Score:5, Informative)
http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/11/23/233208/stratfor-hacker-could-be-sentenced-to-life-says-judge
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/05/14/232217/lulzsec-member-pleads-not-guilty-in-stratfor-leak-case
Jeremy has a long history of run ins with the law, I doubt this will be his last. I distanced myself from both him and the site years ago due to his volatile political stance and open opinions on hacktivism.
For a site that was touted as a safe place to learn computer and internet security it was obviously a recruiting ground for hacktivism.
Re:New strategy in criminal law? (Score:4, Informative)
You moron...
"Now that I have pleaded guilty it is a relief to be able to say that I did work with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites"
He even admitted his guilt in TFA.
So establishing his guilt, yes the sentence is way out of proportion with the crime, and yes this is a tactic way too often used by prosecutors to "scare" a defendant into a plea bargain. The problem here is the underlying law allowing for the possibility for a 30 year conviction, while it seems like DA is doing their job in an unjust manner, they are doing their job within the confines of the law. Best option is still to not get caught.
Re:New strategy in criminal law? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not new in the least.
It's a standard feature of the legal system. You can claim many things, they can even be mutually exclusive, and the court case is there to check which ones hold up.
It applies to both sides, as well. Defendants routinely claim that a) they didn't do it, b) they were intoxicated when doing it and c) it was an accident. The geek in you winces that these can not all be true, so how can you claim them all - but to a lawyer, that's not even worth mentioning.
Most disturbing; buffered charges (Score:4, Informative)
So, inflating charges is one thing, but I guess I have a much bigger problem with the idea that the government can buffer some of the inflated charges for later and keep you in a state of permanently accused and tried. I've heard of this for serial killers, where they only bring 1/2 of the cases in one block in case they don't get the conviction or the convict is released at a later date. I have no clue how you address this, but it sounds like a horrible precedent. A really unscrupulous DA could trickle out charges one at a time and keep you in court for life for all kinds of offenses.
Slightly OT, but I just watched a movie called American Violet about disreputable DAs in Texas who were piling on charges with sometimes innocent poor people, getting them to plead out under the threat of YEARS in prison, then collecting money from the Feds for successful drug convictions.
Re:New strategy in criminal law? (Score:5, Informative)
Pleading "not guilty" is a "plea" to charges laid and read. It is not a statement of facts. It is a formal notification that you are going to make a case for consideration by the Court. On some charges, in a number of jurisdictions, you are not even allowed to plea other than "not guilty". Pleading is not and cannot be either a truth or lie.
So, when did he lie?