'Hactivist' Faces 10 Years in Fed Prison for Stratfor Leaks

[Octafish]

Now can we see why Snowden decided to hoof it? No non-billionaire can afford Just-Us.



'Hactivist' Faces 10 Years in Fed Prison for Stratfor Leaks

Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond agrees to “non-cooperating plea agreement” as alternative to endless court battle and decades of prison time

by Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Tuesday, May 28, 2013 by Common Dreams

Jeremy Hammond will now face up to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty Tuesday for hacking the shadowy intelligence company Stratfor and eight additional hacks of law enforcement and defense contractor websites.

In one incident, Hammond and other members of the group Anonymous retrieved millions of emails that exposed Stratfor's vast surveillance of protesters, activists, and groups like WikiLeaks for corporate and government clients.

Hammond was charged under the same law used to prosecute internet activist Aaron Swartz and other recent cyber-activists, the 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Hammond's lawyers say the government is using the outdated law to stifle the flow of governmental information to the general public.

"There's a war going on about corporate spying and access to information," said defense attorney Sarah Kunstler at a press conference immediately following the hearing. "Jeremy is someone who worked toward making information public."

Hammond has already been in jail for 15 months without bail at the Manhattan Correctional Center in New York City. He has been denied family visits and was held for weeks in solitary confinement.

CONTINUED...

https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/28-8

Those interested need to know that STRATFOR leaks showed how the corrupt Secret Government operates to benefit the very wealthiest warmongers at the expense of the nation as a whole and the peace-loving common folk majority in particular.

[think]

1. K&R

[Octafish]

2. STRATFOR and Goldman Sachs made beautiful warmongering inside dope music together

Wikileaks Release Suggests Stratfor Inside Info Plan with Goldman Sachs Exec

By Ryan Villarreal: Subscribe to Ryan's RSS feed
IBTimes.com
February 27, 2012 6:26 PM EST

WikiLeaks released more than 5 million e-mails Monday hacked from U.S.-based global intelligence firm Strategy Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor), revealing an alleged plan between the firm's CEO and a Goldman Sachs executive to set up an investment fund that would rely on inside information gathered by the company.

A September 2011 company-wide e-mail composed by Stratfor CEO George Friedman indicates that Goldman Sachs financial adviser and former Managing Director Shea Morenz was directly involved in the establishment of the investment fund StratCap.

"Shea Morenz provided us with two opportunities," wrote Friedman.

[font color="green"]"First, he made an investment in Stratfor designed to give us the capital needed to build our staff and our marketing. Second, he proposed a new venture, StratCap, which would allow us to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue -- an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds. We would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea." [/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/305532/20120227/wikileaks-stratfor-stratcap-goldman-sachs-fund-julian.htm

PS: Thank you, think! Odd times, these, when a guy who exposes government fascist tyranny is decried as a traitor.

[think]

4. Odd times indeed. I must give these companies credit for their ability to vilify the heroes

while being almost completely ignored.

And laughing all the way to the bank while we argue amongst ourselves if it's Obama or Snowden that's to blame...

[questionseverything]

3. so much for innocent until proven guilty

Hammond has already been in jail for 15 months without bail at the Manhattan Correctional Center in New York City. He has been denied family visits and was held for weeks in solitary confinement.

[Octafish]

6. 15 months in the Manhattan Correctional Center and many good people would plead guilty to get out.

A statement from Jeremy Hammond indicates what he would expect had he won at trial:

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. Ultimately I decided that the most practical route was to accept this plea with a maximum of a ten year sentence and immunity from prosecution in every federal court.

SOURCE: http://freejeremy.net/category/press-release/

This is not the United States of America that the Constitution describes. When it comes to the law, there is justice and there is just-us.

[deurbano]

9. "When it comes to the law, there is justice and there is just-us." Too true...

And the right to privacy is only for corporations and our government. They can spy on us all they want, but if we try to find out the truth about THEM, god help us. (Thank you Jeremy Hammond.)

[Initech]

5. Yup, we've set up a system that's of, by and for the uber wealthy.

And to even question it is a faux pas. Fuck Reagan, fuck Ayn Rand, fuck Fox "News", and anyone who works to further the cause of the Koch Bros and their bullshit.

[Octafish]

8. The profitable portfolio of today sees steady growth through permawar and electronic espionage.

"Hunh. No weapons o' mass destrushon here!"

Stratfor and former Goldman Sachs director start investment fund. Stratfor CEO and founder George Friedman and former Goldman Sachs regional director Shea Morenz plan to launch their own investment fund, Stratcap. According to a Friedman email, Morenz has invested $2 million in Stratfor, and “more in Stratcap.” The venture “would allow (Stratfor) to utilize the intelligence we were gathering about the world in a new but related venue — an investment fund. Where we had previously advised other hedge funds. We would now have our own, itself fully funded by Shea.” Specifically, Stratcap will use “Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currency, and the like in the world's emerging markets.” Thus Morenz, a former Texas Longhorns quarterback, provides the capital while Stratfor provides the intelligence, i.e., inside information. Whether this enterprise would be susceptible to insider trading accusations will depend on how exactly Stratcap plans to trade its information and the sources it utilizes.

Money quote:[font size="6"][font color="green"] “We have also been asked to help the United States Marine Corps and other government intelligence organizations to teach them how Stratfor does what it does, and train them in becoming government Stratfors.”[/font color][/font size]

SOURCE: http://www.policymic.com/articles/4833/top-5-stratfor-wikileaks-revelations-so-far

[Initech]

12. Damn!! How is this legal????

[felix_numinous]

7. Kick!

[Octafish]

10. WikiLeaks' Stratfor dump lifts lid on intelligence-industrial complex

WikiLeaks' latest release, of hacked emails from Stratfor, shines light on the murky world of private intelligence-gathering

by Pratap Chatterjee
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 28 February 2012 12.54 E

What price bad intelligence? Some 5m internal emails from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based company that brands itself as a "global intelligence" provider, were recently obtained by Anonymous, the hacker collective, and are being released in batches by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, starting Monday.

The most striking revelation from the latest disclosure is not simply the military-industrial complex that conspires to spy on citizens, activists and trouble-causers, but the extremely low quality of the information available to the highest bidder. Clients of the company include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, as well as US government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Marines.

Analysts working on the Middle East for the company appeared to be very poorly informed, with no more experience than a semester of studying abroad, according to journalists who have studied the documents. "They used Google translate to read al-Akbar news articles," says an incredulous Jamal Ghosn, associate editor of that newspaper in Beirut, Lebanon. "This is a guaranteed way for good intelligence to be lost in translation."

SNIP...

Stratfor is not the first company to be caught selling low-quality "intelligence" to government agencies and multinational corporations. Aaron Barr, then CEO of HB Gary Federal, a Sacramento, California-based company that sells similar services, boasted in 2010 that he could extract information about hackers like Anonymous from social media. In early February 2011, the company website was hacked to reveal the company was selling very inaccurate information about WikiLeaks.

What is more disturbing is that the information revealed about HBGary Federal and Stratfor suggests both companies were also seeking to profit by disrupting journalists and activist groups. HBGary Federal documents suggest that they were marketing a campaign for Bank of America to attack Glenn Greenwald of Salon and for the US Chamber of Commerce to attack the Washington, DC-based thinktank, the Center for American Progress (full disclosure: I do consulting work for the CAP). (There is no evidence Bank of America or the US Chamber of Commerce responded to the alleged offer of these services.)

SNIP...

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks says that the emails also reveal that Stratfor has recruited a "global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards – which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world." This, he says, "is corrupt or corrupting because Stratfor is a private intelligence organisation that services governments and private clients."

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/28/wikileaks-intelligence-industrial-complex

Thank you, felix_numinous! All we got on our side is the truth.

[questionseverything]

13. brad was targeted too

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8354

snip>

As I learned late last Thursday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the most powerful Rightwing lobbying group in the country, was revealed to have been working with their law firm and a number of private cyber security and intelligence firms to target progressive organizations, journalists and citizens who they felt were in opposition to their political activism, tactics and points of view.

[woo me with science]

11. No words are adequate.

Every American should be enraged at what this country has become, and at what is being done to those who try to raise the alarm.

I have to post this link again here:

What The Fuck... Have WE... Done To America ???
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023213577

[ReRe]

14. You're right... no words are adequate...

It is almost too much for our minds to grasp. How to explain it to the general public? People look at you like you have lost your mind and quickly move away from you.

[reusrename]

15. The underlying technology could be used against the foes of liberty.

There are some powerful weapons at play here. All manner of psyops and intimidation and such, but I am specifically talking about the mapping of social networks. This is the critical part of neutralizing political opposition. The most influential people in the organization must be identified.

We know we are up against a many headed monster. Which two or three heads are the most critical to their operation? You may think you have a good idea who they are, but the science shows that you would probably be wrong. The most critical members of a group are not usually the most vocal or the most militant or most visible.

[woo me with science]

16. Kick

[chimpymustgo]

17. So frightening and sad. K&R

[LiberalLovinLug]

18. And if Snowden had quickly given himself up

as some on here advocated under threat of being a coward, the same thing would happen.

He'd be sent to solitary with no contact with friends and family and a gag order on his defense lawyer. The MSM would dutifully ignore the story now that it can be safely confined and out of the control of Snowden himself and he is tucked away and the first we'd hear again from him is when he accepts a plea bargain instead of life in prison. Which then would come full circle and the anti-Snowden crowd would then crow about how "I knew it, he IS guilty of being a bad American"

And the NSA would get another bump in approval from those that assume that his guilty plea means that his motives and thus every issue he raised about domestic spying was overblown.

[woo me with science]

19. kick