Get off it -- that search warrant was based on a reporter posting a link to data. The underlying issue is that he is being punished for engaging in 1st Amendment activity, the ultimate basis for his punishment doesn't matter to the Feds.

Think of it this way: say you decided to install Chrome on your computer, so you download it from the official location and install it. Then a warrant is issued so the cops can examine your laptop to figure out if you installed Chrome. You're thinking "WTF?" that's not a crime and so you give them some lip. Now you're fucked. They hated you because of some random reason, but now they get to punish you -- that it is for some random reason doesn't matter. That's what happened here -- the Feds were out to get him and they got him.

He isn't even a hacker -- he's a reporter FFS. He's going down for reporting stuff the powers that be didn't want reported, the actual crime he is being punished under is just a technicality.

This is /. not People Magazine. It is sort of reasonable to think the usual readership would be familiar with Barrett Brown. Of course there's always wikipedia. Let me tell you how to get there. Go to the Start button and press on the blue "E" icon. That will get you the internets ....

10.5 decades to be exact.

Barrett Brown Faces 105 Years in Jail: But no one can figure out what law he broke. Introducing America's least likely political prisoner

And just so it is clear what level of morality exists among Federal prosecutors, consider this "game" which certainly gets applied in real life:

At the federal prosecutor's office in the Southern District of New York, the staff, over beer and pretzels, used to play a darkly humorous game. Junior and senior prosecutors would sit around, and someone would name a random celebrity -- say, Mother Theresa or John Lennon.

It would then be up to the junior prosecutors to figure out a plausible crime for which to indict him or her. The crimes were not usually rape, murder, or other crimes you'd see on Law & Order but rather the incredibly broad yet obscure crimes that populate the U.S. Code like a kind of jurisprudential minefield: Crimes like "false statements" (a felony, up to five years), "obstructing the mails" (five years), or "false pretenses on the high seas" (also five years). The trick and the skill lay in finding the more obscure offenses that fit the character of the celebrity and carried the toughest sentences. The, result, however, was inevitable: "prison time."

http://www.slate.com/articles/...

Complacency. What freedom haters have for breakfast.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...

Aside from statutes, beware the CFRs:

These rules can carry the force of federal criminal law. Estimates of the number of regulations range from 10,000 to 300,000. None of the legal groups who have studied the code have a firm number.

"There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime," said John Baker, a retired Louisiana State University law professor who has also tried counting the number of new federal crimes created in recent years. "That is not an exaggeration."

Exactly. Everyone seems to think he was a hacker. He's a __reporter__ .

Not hacker.

Writer.

It's his job to tell people the news. He's going to jail essentially (though not technically) for linking to data. That ain't hacking.

Barret Brown didn't do any hacking. He's a reporter. Reporters are fucking supposed to report the news, not keep it secret. This was just an example of the fact if the Feds want to get you, they have criminal code base so large, nobody can even count crimes let alone fit all of that knowledge into a single brain. Of course, not knowing the law is no excuse (unless you are cop), and having no intent to break the is irrelevant. What this boils down to, is the Feds can fuck you up any time they want if they don't like you. It's called tyranny.

[In 1998, the ABA tried to count crimes contained in Federal statutes but gave up estimating the number to be in excess of 3000.]

* * *

None of these studies broached the separate -- and equally complex -- question of crimes that stem from federal regulations, such as, for example, the rules written by a federal agency to enforce a given act of Congress. These rules can carry the force of federal criminal law. Estimates of the number of regulations range from 10,000 to 300,000. None of the legal groups who have studied the code have a firm number.

"There is no one in the United States over the age of 18 who cannot be indicted for some federal crime," said John Baker, a retired Louisiana State University law professor who has also tried counting the number of new federal crimes created in recent years. "That is not an exaggeration."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB...

See also, "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent" http://www.amazon.com/Three-Fe...

That sounds so nice, doesn't it...

The law of unintended consequences would kick in... because the minute the government goes around taking companies, everyone else sees this...

Then the government discovered what a great money maker this is, and goes after all companies for anything they might be doing wrong...

It is a bad path to go down... and the people hurt are the employees and customers, not the big fish...

---

What you are suggesting has actually been done, in other countries... it isn't pretty...

Thank you for saying what I was thinking...

People DO all that, they are just not caught... We're hearing about this guy because he didn't and was caught.

Or do you think the FBI catches everyone?

That solution requires that the whole world do it...

It doesn't work if only the US does it, or even the US and Europe.

Just the 4 BRIC nations alone over the next 20-30 years will increase their carbon output as much as the entire US puts out today.

We could cut our output to zero, unless everyone else joins in, it will make no difference. That is what the talking heads never point out because it isn't the message being pitched.

It is just a power and money grab, those who actually know, know that we've passed the point of no return anyway. The only way the world is going to be forced to change would be war, and it would be a nuclear war before it finished.

That is not the preferred solution, IMHO.

Changing to LED bulbs won't alter the outcome, whatever it is...

Changing to electric cars won't alter the outcome, whatever it is...

The changes required to alter the outcome are far greater than anyone wants to talk about and far greater than we will accept, so it is moot.

The entire argument is a pissing contest and a challenge for money, nothing more or less.

Are you referring to Obamacare and suggesting that no Republican ever tried to foist it on the whole country?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
(yes, he was a republican)

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/2...

Nixon never really got anywhere with it though -- he had to resign the office. BUT, republicans have wanted to foist this forced subsidization of the private insurance companies crap on us for decades. Now they got it thanks to our Demoplicans.

I don't know why people keep calling it Obamacare, it's Nixoncare. http://www.salon.com/2013/10/2...

Today's democrats make Nixon look like a pot smoking hippie -- they've managed to engage in more war than he did, more massive surveillance than he did, and give away more money to private corporate interests than even GWB managed to do.