Freedom Downtime Released to Video

tomcat writes "For those who don't know, Freedom Downtime is 2600's two hour long documentary that deals with one of the stories the mass media managed to overlook - that of hacker Kevin Mitnick, imprisoned for nearly five years on charges that to this day remain unclear."

Clarity?

[QuodEratDemonstratum]

on charges that to this day remain unclear

They look quite clear on the indictment [kevinmitnick.com]

Screw Mitnick.

[billn]

Make no mistake about it: Kevin Mitnick is a criminal, and a repeat offender.

The last time he got caught, it's because he was STUPID. He stole credit card info, and BRAGGED about it. He is not some innocent script kiddie who thought DoS attacks were harmless.

Before anyone gets off on a 'Free Kevin' rant, keep this at the forefront: He was tried, convicted, and put in jail on more than one occasion. He was released, and then violated his parole.

That said, "Fuck Kevin". Don't get your grassroots panties in a wad over some seemingly oppressive violation of his rights until you've read the entire mess of data on the matter.

Re:Screw Mitnick.

[Glytch]

I agree that he's no innocent bystander, but he was denied his rights to a speedy trial. He was held in custody without trial for years. It was a terrible violation of basic civil rights.

Re:Screw Mitnick.

[billn]

Is it possible he might have waived that right? Or under some circumstance of state or federal law, as a repeat offender, it didn't apply?

Unjust punishment

[L-Train8]

Kevin Mitnick broke into computer systems, he copied a bunch of data that he was not authorized to copy. He made a bunch of cell phone calls without paying.

What he did not do was use any of that data (including credit cards) for any fraudulent purposes (other than the free cell phone calls). He did not physically hurt anyone. He did not publish any trade secrets.

And he spent 5 years in jail. For comparison, I checked out some standard sentencing guidelines for my home state of Washington. Crimes for 2nd time offenders that warrant less than 5 years in prison include:

• Robbery
  
• Vehicular Homicide
  
• Arson
  
• Manslaughter
  
• Possesion with intent to deliver Heroin or Cocaine
  
• Drive by Shooting
  

I don't dispute that Kevin did something wrong. But what he did and the punishment he got were unbeleivably out of proportion. By portraying Kevin as some sort of super-hacker, the prosecution was able to get away with quite a bit courts with technically illiterate judges.

Also, the police used questionable tactics to find and arrest him, including lying to a judge to obtain a warrant and illegally tapping cell phones. These actions should have been enough to get Kevin's case thrown out.

Call me a "Mitnick apologist" if you want, but in this case, justice went overboard, and made a scapegoat out of a Kevin.

The evils of Punishism

[JCCyC]

Amen to that brother. It seems people can't get the notion that there is such a thing as just punishment, and then by definition any punishment greater than that is too much. They give in completely to anger, and whenever something bad happens to the person they don't like, they say, "Fuck Person X! If he didn't want to be punished he should have obeyed the law!" I can almost see the foam forming on the lips.

Someone should ask Jack Valenti, "How much fine/jail time would be too much punishment for copyright violation?" Or to the Drug Czar (whoever it is now), or John Ashcroft, "How much jail time for marijuana possession would be too much?"

Re:The evils of Punishism

[Rick the Red]

Geeze, don't ask those people those questions! They would both say: "The death penalty is too good for them, and a life sentence is way too short."

blatant cut-and-pastes rampant in slashdot

[juju2112]

Why in the hell do the editors constantly accept story submissions that are blatant cut-and-pastes from the story itself? Do peopl have no creativity at all? No words of their own??

blatant cut-and-pastes rampant in slashdot

[Rick the Red]

Why in the hell do the editors constantly accept story submissions that are blatant cut-and-pastes from the story itself? Do people have no creativity at all? No words of their own??