Weev's Attorney Says FBI Is Intercepting His Client's Mail 109
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "The FBI is intercepting the prison correspondence of infamous Internet troll Andrew "weev" Auernheimer, including letters from his defense team, according to his attorney. 'He's sent me between 10 and 20 letters in the last month or two. I've received one,' Tor Ekeland, who had just returned from visiting Auernheimer at the federal corrections institute in Allenwood, PA., told the Daily Dot in a video interview.
Last March, Auernheimer was convicted of accessing a computer without authorization and sentenced to 41 months in prison. As a member of the computer security team Goatse Security, Auernheimer discovered a major security flaw in AT&T's network, which allowed him to download the email addresses of some 114,000 iPad users. Goatse Security reported the flaw to Gawker and provided journalists with the information, who then published it in redacted form."
Last March, Auernheimer was convicted of accessing a computer without authorization and sentenced to 41 months in prison. As a member of the computer security team Goatse Security, Auernheimer discovered a major security flaw in AT&T's network, which allowed him to download the email addresses of some 114,000 iPad users. Goatse Security reported the flaw to Gawker and provided journalists with the information, who then published it in redacted form."
Re:Sweet revenge (Score:5, Insightful)
Civilised society doesn't work like that.
If someone breaks a rule, and you punish them for it, you cannot them go off and break the same rule for them.
If someone steals something, it's not "justice" to steal something of theirs. That makes you just as bad as they are. And leads to "he did it to me first!" kind of baby-crap.
You show that you are an advanced, modern, civilised country by not breaking your own rules. Not carrying out "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" (where does that come from? Possibly the WORST example of literary fairness/justice there is. Mankind bad? I'll just drown the fucking lot of you in a flood....). And having nobody be above the law, not even courts, judges, or the leader of the country.
It doesn't mean you have to pussyfoot around. It doesn't mean you have to give prisoners playstations and compassionate leave and halve their sentences for good behaviour. It means you have to abide by the same rules that you are punishing others for breaking.
Also, if a populous gets a whiff of "one rule for me, another rule for them" being the actual greater truth of things (rather than an occasional spurious claim), then all the rules can soon become useless anyway and you descend into anarchy.
Unfortunately, this is lost on many "modern" countries.
Revenge is for five-year-olds who had their toy smashed. It invariably ends in tears and nobody having any toys.
Re:How Does He Know it's the FBI? (Score:3, Insightful)
Quoting from the article is officially informative. We are either a time-constrained or a very lazy lot of posters here on Slashdot.
TFA implies only that the FBI had access to what was in the Attorney/client communiques, not who's surveillance arm gathered it.
This (Score:4, Insightful)
Civilised society doesn't work like that.
This.
When someone violates Constitutional Rights in America, two things happen: First, evidence that comes from that violation is inadmissible in court. Second, the person whose rights have been violated can sue the pants off the government.
It is more complicated because of a massive fraud on the part of the prosecution to pretend that the information is not based on that violation.
It is also more complicated because juries, as a whole, care less about the government having violated your constitutional rights when you are a criminal.
It is also more complicated because when they get caught doing something bad enough, cops usually offer a deal where you won't sue and they won't prosecute.
Re:Sweet revenge (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, don't you think that a judge knows the law better than you, a random bloke posting on the internet?
It is one thing to know the letter of the law in verbatim, it is another thing to interpret and apply the letters of law into something that resemble a fair and just ruling.