I'm not disputing that what he's charged with (nothing that whitehats and journos don't do all the time) doesn't suck, or that potential maximum sentences in computer crime aren't oddly out of whack at times.
But lets cut the crap - Barret was a target because he dedicated a considerable amount of his time to being the mouth piece of some of the more radicalized groups inside anonymous, who went out of their way to directly antagonize the US government over and over, the more public the better.
If you're going to ask as a spokesman for an ongoing criminal enterprise that are making fools out of law enforcment you'd better hope to hell they get caught before too long. Because you will always represent a decent 2nd place trophy for them if push comes to shove.
I'm not saying it's right, it's just realism. It's nothing that wouldn't go down the same way (or much worse) in a vast majority of nations.
It's like rolling your cat in bacon grease and sending it out to play with the mountain lions. No doubt you loved your pet and it's sad that it died. And maybe you're dumb enough that you didn't realize how stupid that was in advance.
But you can't really blame the mountain lions, it's just their nature.
Seems like the best way to be the mouthpiece of an organization considered criminal by the DoJ would be to be one of it's lawyers. I would imagine that gives you some degree of immunity in cases where you aren't actually doing something illegal, just linking to it like in the case of Barrett Brown. For example, something like withholding information necessary for a criminal investigation would be protected under attorney client privilege, would it not?
You're right that I'm not an active part of the solution, here. If you have the energy to actively campaign against every injustice you know of in this world or anything even close then I honestly thank you for working so hard for the public. From where I sit though, most of the world appears corrupt and injust to varying degrees, many far worse than what's going down here. So I pick other fights.
And while I have no illusion that I'm somehow being of any real help here, i think it is fair to say that pointing out that it is extremely unsafe to play in traffic is a reasonable approach to reducing the number of people who will get hit by a bus.
not the best choice of words i agree. They do at times bear some similarities with what I might call "freedom fighters" - but that is also usually true of people that the US labels terrorists.
But lets cut the crap - Barret was a target because he dedicated a considerable amount of his time to being the mouth piece of some of the more radicalized groups inside anonymous, who went out of their way to directly antagonize the US government over and over, the more public the better.
If you're going to ask as a spokesman for an ongoing criminal enterprise that are making fools out of law enforcment you'd better hope to hell they get caught before too long. Because you will always represent a decent 2nd place trophy for them if push comes to shove.
I'm not saying it's right, it's just realism. It's nothing that wouldn't go down the same way (or much worse) in a vast majority of nations.
It's like rolling your cat in bacon grease and sending it out to play with the mountain lions. No doubt you loved your pet and it's sad that it died. And maybe you're dumb enough that you didn't realize how stupid that was in advance.
But you can't really blame the mountain lions, it's just their nature.