Hacker Jeremy Hammond was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison for stealing internal emails from the global Stratfor information company.
She came before the court with her long hair, a wide smile and shouted "what's up, my brothers" in a room filled with dozens of his supporters. When it was his turn to speak, he asserted in a defiant statement that his actions were meant to reveal the truth and hacked government websites at the behest of an FBI informant.
Ο Hammond, είναι σήμερα 28 χρονών και έχει ένα πολύ βεβαρημένο ποινικό μητρώο για τις διαμαρτυρίες του, τόσο online όσο και offline σε διαδηλώσεις εναντίον της Ρεπουμπλικανικής Εθνικής Συνέλευσης του 2004 και σε διαμαρτυρίες ακτιβιστών που ήταν ενάντια στον Πόλεμο του Ιράκ. Η κλοπή όμως των δεδομένων από το Stratfor, μαζί με τους Anonymous πήρε πάρα πολύ μεγάλη δημοσιότητα.
In May, he pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy and piracy by the Strategic Forecasting Office, or Stratfor. The breach has resulted in theft of employees' email addresses and account information from approximately 860.000 subscribers of Stratfor. This information also provided 60.000 credit cards.
Hammond did not use credit cards and encouraged his supporters to use them to make donations to charities.
"Mr Hammond seems to see himself as a modern Robin Hood," said Prosecutor Loretta Preska before being convicted. He dismissed the defense's allegations that his actions were similar to those of Martin Luther King Jr. or Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, who also wrote a letter of defense.
Read Hammond's apology, as announced by his defense team.
Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Jeremy Hammond and I'm here to condemn my hacking activities during my engagement with Anonymous. I am jailed in MCC for the last 20 months and I have had a lot of time to think about how I would like to explain my actions.
Before I start, I want to thank all the lawyersconditions and everyone who worked on my case: Elizabeth Fink , Susan Kellman , Sarah Kunstler , Emily Kunstler , Margaret Kunstler , and Grainne O'Neill . I would also like to thank the National Lawyers Guild, the Defense Committee and the network supportof Jeremy Hammond, the Free Anons, the Anonymous Solidarity Network, the Anarchist Black Cross, and everyone else who has helped me and sent me letters of support.
The acts of disobedience and immediate action to be condemned today are in accordance with the principles of Community law and equality guiding my life. I went to dozens of high profile companies and government bodies, knowing clearly that what I was doing was contrary to the law, and that my actions could lead me to the federal prison. But I felt that I had an obligation to use my abilities to expose and face an injustice. I wanted to bring the truth to light.I would like to be able to achieve the same goals as legitimate means. I have tried everything by voting and peaceful protests and I have found that those who have power do not want to expose the truth. We are faced with a power structure that does not respect its own system of control and balance, the rights of its citizens or the international community.
My entry into politics was when George W. Bush stole the presidential election in 2000, and taking advantage of the waves of racism and patriotism after 11/9, he launched unprovoked imperialist wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. I took to the streets in protest naively believing that our voices would be heard in Washington and that we could stop the war. Instead, we were branded traitors, beaten and arrested.
I have been arrested for many acts of political disobedience on the streets of Chicago. From 2005 I started using my computer skills for political protest. The FBI arrested me for hacking into the computer systems of a group called Protest Warrior, an organization that sells racist t-shirts on their website. I was convicted under the Electronic Fraud and Abuse Act, and the "loss" in my case was calculated arbitrarily by multiplying the $ 5000 credit cards in the database by $ 500. A total of $ 2,5 million. I was sentenced for this amount, and the credit card was not used by me or anyone else. I was then sentenced to two years in prison.
In prison I saw the ugly reality of how the criminal justice system is ruining the lives of millions of people held captive behind bars. My experience has stabilized my opinions that were opposed to any repressive action and the importance of supporting what one believes.
When I left, I was willing to continue participating in the struggles for social change. I did not want to go back to prison and so I focused on organizing the community. But over time, I became disillusioned with the restrictions on peaceful protest, considering it to be reformist and ineffective. The Obama administration continued the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, escalated the use of drones, and did not close Guantanamo.
This time, I partnered with Wikileaks and Anonymous. It was very encouraging to see the ideas of hacktivism bear fruit. I was particularly moved by the heroic action of Chelsea Manning, who exposed the atrocities committed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. She took a huge personal risk of leaking this information - believing that the public had a right to know and hoping that her revelations would be a positive step in stopping all this abuse.
I thought a lot about choosing this course again. I had to ask myself if Chelsea Manning entered the prison nightmare for the truth, would I like to do any less? I think the best way to show solidarity is to continue the work by exposing and tackling corruption.
I went to Anonymous, because I believe in autonomous, decentralized actions. At the time, Anonymous was involved in actions in support of the Arab Spring uprisings, against censorship, and in defense of Wikileaks. I had a lot to contribute, including my technical skills. It was a thrilling moment - the birth of a digital divide, where the definitions and possibilities of hacktivism took shape.
I was particularly interested in the work of LulzSec hackers who violated a number of important goals. Then for the first time I started talking to Sabu, who was very open to the alleged violations and encouraged other hackers to join forces and attack large state and corporate systems under the Anti Security banner . But immediately after my participation, the Lulzsec hackers were arrested, letting me break systems and write press releases. Later, I learned that Sabu was the first to be arrested, and I was talking to him while he was an informant of the FBI.
Οι Anonymous συμμετείχαν επίσης στα πρώτα στάδια της Occupy Wall Street. I took part in operations as part of Occupy Chicago and was very excited to see a global mass movement against the injustices of capitalism and racism. Within months, the "Occupations" were halted, with police crackdowns and mass arrests of protesters driven from public parks. The suppression of Anonymous and the Occupy movement provided targets for AntiSec in the following months – the majority of subsequent hacks were against police targets in retaliation for the arrests of our comrades.
I had never heard of Stratfor until Sabu suggested it to me. Sabu encouraged people to violate systems, and helped in the strategy of facilitating attacks. He also gave me the vulnerabilities of the targets that had been communicated by other hackers and it was a great surprise when I learned Sabu was working with the FBI.On 4 December 2011, Sabu was approached by another hacker who had already broken the Stratfor credit card database. Sabu, under the watchful eye of the government, called the hacker into our private chatroom, where he urged us to download the entire Stratfor database.
I spent a lot of time investigating Stratfor and reviewing the information we were given. I decided that Stratfor's strong customer base contained credit cards that could be used for donations to humanitarian organizations.
It took me more than a week to gain further access to Stratfor's internal systems, until I finally "broke" their mail server. There was so much information that we needed a lot of our own servers in order to carry all the emails. Sabu, who was involved in the business at every turn, offered a server, which of course belonged to the FBI. Over the next few weeks, messages were transmitted, credit cards were used for donations, and Stratfor systems were tampered with and damaged. Why the FBI did not arrest the first hacker to find the initial vulnerability that allowed this hack remains a mystery.
After Stratfor, I continued to violate other goals, using a powerful "zero day exploit" that allowed me to have administrator access to systems running the popular Plesk webhosting platform. Sabu has often asked me to access this exploit, but I refused to give it to him. Sabu continued to supply me with lists of vulnerable targets. I violated many websites and uploaded the data to the FBI server.
The government celebrates my conviction and my imprisonment, hoping that this will end this story. I took responsibility for my actions, I confessed guilty, but when will the government report for its crimes?
The US uses the threat of hackers to justify the billions of dollars it spends on industrial cyber security.bluebut at the same time they have the same aggressive behavior and claim that they do it for prevention. The hypocrisy of "law and order" and the injustices caused by capitalism cannot be cured by institutional reform, but through civil disobedience and direct action. Yes, I broke the law, but I believe that sometimes laws have to be broken to make room for change.
Frederick Douglas, said "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue until they are resisted either with words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. "I understand that giving public information to innocent people who had nothing to do with the authorities' actions was not the best. I apologize for circulating data that was harmful to people who were irrelevant to my goals. I believe in the individual right to privacy - from government surveillance, as well as from bodies like me, and I appreciate the irony of my own involvement in the violation of these rights. I am determined to work to make this world a better place for all of us. I still believe in the importance of hacktivism as a form of political disobedience, but it is time for me to move on to other ways to bring about change. The time I have spent in prison has cost my family, my friends, and the community. I know they need me at home. I admit that 7 years ago I stood before another federal judge with similar charges, but that will not diminish my honesty.
Stay strong and keep struggling.
