AT&T Hacker 'weev' Demands One Bitcoin For Each Hour He Spent In Jail 449
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "The notorious troll and hacker known as Andrew 'weev' Auernheimer spent 13 months in jail for exposing an AT&T security flaw. He was recently released when a federal court overturned the conviction on grounds of improper venue. Now, Auernheimer has penned an open letter to the Department of Justice in which he demands reparations for acts of 'fraud' and 'violence' carried out against him over the past three years. Those reparations must be paid in Bitcoin, he says — 28,296, to be exact. At current market value, that comes out to $13.7 million. The bombastic letter is titled 'Open letter to federal scum,' and was allegedly bcc'd to 'a few hundred journalists.' In it, 28-year-old Auernheimer writes that he calculated the sum owed to him based on his market value:"
A gem: "Know that all this wealth will be directed towards a good and charitable cause. I am building a series of memorial groves for the greatest patriots of our generation: Timothy McVeigh, Andrew Stack, and Marvin Heemeyer. You see, In the 'Special Housing Unit,' which is Bureau of Prisons codespeak for 'solitary confinement' and 'torture,' I had enough time to think about the current state of federal government. "
Re:Clearly they've broken him and... (Score:5, Interesting)
Prison does that. Americans are so interested in retribution and punishment that they forget what can happen to someone you treat like an animal, particularly given that said person will be released some day. The ironic part is that death row inmates are treated far better.
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed.
Now if he named folks like Snowden, Manning, and similar (where folks could actually go "yeah - they uncovered government badness and were whistleblowers", he could have gotten at least some support.
I mean, c'mon: he could have even stopped short and not even named anybody. At first I figured okay, he probably got a bad shake and deserves the compensation for his maltreatment. But nooo... he goes on to let his freak flag fly, and name those dumbasses as his heroes. My thoughts immediately became: "fuck that."
Mind you, the government is still way the hell in the wrong for locking him up if all he did was uncover a security flaw (and didn't sell or exploit it for personal gain), but holy shit...
Re:Clearly they've broken him and... (Score:4, Interesting)
Governments should assess the societal cost of each inmate who continues to commit crimes and offer half of that to the prison if the inmate emerges properly rehabilitated, perhaps in lieu of the normal per-inmate payments. This would make the profit motive work for us rather than against us as crime is lowered and our streets become safer.
Of course it might result in prisons wanting to release some murderers early because they've been rehabilitated, and some prisons may even refuse some shoplifters if they think the cost of rehabilitating them outweighs the societal cost of them stealing a pack of gum every once in a while, but would either of these results really be so bad?
Re:Um... McVeigh a hero? You lost me pal (Score:4, Interesting)
Its not murder when nation states with clearly declared intentions are involved. Its murder when its an individual in a non-combat scenario against unarmed civilians. Its terrorism when its non-governmental organizations with that target civilians.
If you're still not getting it, you may want to re-take that poly sci class.
i was with him right up until... (Score:4, Interesting)
I was with him right up until he revealed his love of deranged, hillbilly trash like McVeigh. Weev did get a raw deal, but it is worth mentioning that the people in the justice system (that run it) are in fact people, and people (flawed as they are) love seeing assholes (like Weev) get their comeuppance. And given what an asshole he is, I'd say that comeuppance was a long time coming.
But hey, good news for him: He now has a legitimate cause to fight for the rest of his life. If this keeps him from discrediting other causes through his support (this manifesto essentially makes Weev completely toxic to any political activism on any topic, forever, period) then we should consider it a net win.
Re:A fifth horseman (Score:5, Interesting)
You see, In the 'Special Housing Unit,' which is Bureau of Prisons codespeak for 'solitary confinement' and 'torture,' I had enough time to think about the current state of federal government. "
The guy is clearly messed up in the head from his experience (or maybe he was to some degree before, I don't know). They successfully broke him. Most likely with all that time in solitary confinement, in his mind he rallied behind the names of people who are famous for hating the government, regardless of their cause. I wonder if he can find a good psychotherapist willing to accept bitcoins.