US prosecutors drop link-related charges from Barrett Brown case? | Hacker News Reader

US prosecutors drop link-related charges from Barrett Brown case?

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56 pointschoult32 comments

So a US prosecutor gets to throw a man in jail for two years on trumped up charges and before any trial say "oopsies!" and suffer no consequences.

Giving prosecutors enormous power and absolute immunity is a recipe for abuse, our justice system is fundamentally broken.

In Canada, this would be grounds for "Malicious Prosecution", which is pretty much the only way to oust a prosecutor.

I've seen it done only once with my own eyes; Lawyer was disbarred, and the now-former lawyer "settled" the criminal charges as a pro-se litigant (which I didn't know was possible) by paying a fine (literally, writing a cheque in court), and walking out the door a free man.

I'd say giving people the ability to settle criminal charges as a civil matter is a much larger recipe for abuse, leading to Prosecutors not caring about the damage they do, even if their feet are held to the fire.

Good news for him. But I kinda wanted this to make it to the supreme court so the question of linking could be more summarily decided.

I agree. I wanted to see the EFF's amicus brief, and for the Court to decide on the issue so that we could have good case law with hyperlinks as protected speech.

Do you want that outcome enough to get yourself charged for activities that would bring it about? After all, without a SCOTUS decision the fruit is still hanging on the vine for any of us to snatch.

There's no reason the EFF can't release their amicus brief, even if there's no longer a reason for them to file it. Good arguments should be shared.

Are you serious? Why would you even say that?

People like you are the problem. Linking to something, just like talking about something, is protected in most countries by free speech. The simple fact that this journalist was arrested is disgustingly totalitarian and should be of great concern. To everyone.

Why would you want this to go all the way up the rotten vines of a corrupted court system that only gives favorable rulings to those with ties to the rulers?

A Supreme Court ruling upholding linking as free speech would be incredibly important.

But, a Supreme Court ruling equating linking with distribution would be a disaster. If I were the Internet I'd rather not roll the dice with a court consisting of people who remember black and white TV.

Sorry, but that made me laugh and feel terribly old at the same time (touché, oh wait... so do I!). Can we use "played 78RPM records in their teenage bedrooms" instead?

(Fun fact: "The date of the very last 78-rpm record is not known, although some claim that the last one issued in the U.S. was Chuck Berry's "Too Pooped to Pop " (Chess 1747), released in February 1960.)

The NRA pretty much never wants to settle 2nd Amendment issues at the Supreme Court for the same reason, you never really know which way the dice will roll.

(Beyond that, it's much more lucrative for the NSA to have the doubt and controversy persist, because there will always be pro-2nd people who see the NRA as their best shot at grouping together to fight for their 2nd Amendment rights. That was my main motivation when I belonged to the NRA. "It's a profit deal.")

When it comes down to it, I trust the supreme court more than I trust prosecutors.

Right now, the decision of if linking is speech that can be prosecuted is being decided by prosecutors.

And, if scotus rules that it isn't protected I'd like to know that so we can fight to change the laws to make it protected. And so I can follow their clear tests to keep myself out of prison.

I find prosecutorial discretion to usually be a far worse form of tyrany than clear case law, even if I disagree with it.

Tyranny thrives in the opaque discretion of buerocrats.

You think the Supreme Court somehow manages to wade through incredibly complex insurance or financial regulation cases but can't understand the relevant features of a hyperlink? Read through Reno v. ACLU, which struck down portions of the Communications Decency Act almost two decades ago (written by Justice Stevens who was at the time 77): http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1557224836887427.... The description of the internet, as it existed in the late 1990's, is pretty cogent for a bunch of people who remember black and white TV.

Yeah, but Stevens was the smartest one on the court on tech issues into his 90's because he cared. That overcomes age. But Stevens is gone. I hope his retirement is healthy and happy.

Aside from Breyer, I don't think anyone on the current court cares at all.

Those protections you say other countries have, I want them too. Case law created by the supreme court is how we get them.

I don't trust the system at all, which is why I want the system to generate case law which will prevent the system from doing wrong things.

What?

Are you intending the first sentence to be a quote from somebody? If so, it couldn't be from the person you responded to, who never said that they didn't trust the system.

Setting precedent is great and all, but I wouldn't dream of telling somebody else that I think it should it happen at their expense.

You wanted to turn him into a martyr? That doesn't seem very nice.

No, I wanted him to ultimately be vindicated by the highest court so as to protect us all in the future.

Martyrs die, I wanted him to set a precident without getting harmed. Like Brown when he fought the board of education, or Johnson when he fought the state of Texas.

The sentence he's facing is effectively a death sentence. Care to volunteer yourself?

By that reasoning all of life is effectively a death sentence.

Poetic, but not entirely logical.

I'm not sure I understand the relevance, care to elaborate?

He's saying you're full of shit

Except...I'm not?

... used a particular hacking method called a sequel injection to exploit ...

Are the legal docs not proofread?

Not by anyone who has any idea what SQL is let alone how or why it might be injected.

A sequel injection? Isn't that patented by Hollywood?

Yes. They have patents pending for prequel injection too.

What charges does that leave remaining?

From the main indictment, its the charge of possessing account information and credit card numbers from Stratfor subscribers with intent to defraud. The two smaller indictments with a total of 5 more charges are still intact, but I don't remember what those charges are.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2012/10/feds-indict-self-pro...

... Barrett Brown ... has been indicted on three federal charges: making an online threat, retaliating against a federal officer and conspiring to release the personal information of a U.S. government employee.

The other 12 (11 of which were dropped as described in the main article): http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2012/12/new-federal-indictme...

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