Hey y'all, Scott Wharton here for the Future of Freedom, the journal of the Future of Freedom Foundation.
Every month, Plum Line individualist editor Sheldon Richman brings you important news and opinions on policy by heroic FFF President Jacob Hornberger, hard-hitting journalist columnist James Bovard, and others from the best of the libertarian movement.
The Future of Freedom tackles the most important issues facing our country, from the bankrupt and insane welfare and regulatory states, to foreign wars and empire, the dismal state of our economy, and ongoing assaults on civil liberties.
This society needs peace and freedom for prosperity to prevail.
Subscribe to the Future of Freedom in print for just $25 a year, or online for $15 a year at fff.org/subscribe.
And hurry up, because this summer they'll be running my articles about the wars in Libya, Syria, and Somalia in the Future of Freedom, too.
That's fff.org/subscribe for the Future of Freedom.
And tell them Scott sent you.
Thanks a lot, Scott.
Very happy to have you here.
Very happy to see this great article.
I really like Bear Brown, and I can't stand to see what's happening to him, and I guess I just take pleasure in seeing his story covered at all.
It's the only hope he's got of freedom is for his story to be out there wide enough that the government's efforts against him become such a laughingstock that they finally have to back down, basically, as far as I can tell.
That's the only hope he's got.
So this great article, when you simply recite all the facts of the case, do a great job in explaining just how horrible the government's position is on this thing.
I had a question, Scott.
Did you actually know him before you went to jail?
I've interviewed him a couple of times.
Yeah, I've never met him in person, but I've interviewed him a couple of times, back in 2010, 2011.
Right, right.
Okay.
And, well, it's kind of a complicated thing, but go ahead and tell the story.
You do such a great job of telling the story in here.
Give the audience, I guess, the short version, and we can go back and follow up on all the important points to hit.
Sure.
Let's do the short version of the story.
Barak Brown is a very interesting journalist.
He's written some nice pieces in Vanity Fair and places like Huffington Post and The Guardian.
And at a certain point around 2010, he got interested in Anonymous and the work they were doing in the Arab Spring, and that sort of took him further into Anonymous and reporting on it.
He was basically writing a book about Anonymous at that point.
And there were a couple of hacks of interest that were directed at private intelligence firms.
One was a firm named HBGary.
The other was a firm named Stratfor.
And they yielded massive troves of emails.
In the HBGary case, I think there was like 70,000 emails.
And in the Stratfor case, there were something like 5 million emails.
And Barak had a wiki set up called Project PM, where he and a number of his associates were basically working on an analysis of what they were digging up from those emails that were released.
And the crucial thing to understand is that Barak wasn't involved in any hacking at all.
And in fact, what he did do is take a URL to the location of the material.
And I don't know if it was on Pastebin or WikiLeaks or where, but he copied the URL from a chat channel, and he pasted the URL into a chat channel for the editorial board of his Project PM.
And that seems to be the principal thing that got him in trouble, which is right now he's looking at something like 105 years in prison.
And the key charges are a number of charges involving alleged credit card fraud.
And the whole idea is that there were unencrypted credit card numbers in this data dump from the Stratfor hack.
And they're claiming that by copying and pasting the link to where all those emails were located, he was in fact engaged in credit card fraud with his associates.
And so that's his situation.
He's sitting in federal custody in Texas, down by you somewhere.
And he is looking at a total of 105 years in prison.
Okay.
So now, when it comes to that original chart, I guess we've got to talk about the whole FBI thing and all that in a second, but that main charge about the copying and pasting of the link, the only thing they're able to make out of that is, or that they're trying to make out of that, is credit card fraud.
They're not trying to pretend that this means that he participated in the hack, which as you say, someone else has already pleaded guilty to.
That's correct.
And he's a journalist.
He's not a hacker.
Barrett couldn't have broken into Stratfor if he'd tried all week long, right?
No, he couldn't hack his way out of a paper bag.
Right.
I mean, I think that everyone realizes that.
I don't think the government is conceding that he is a journalist, or that Project PM was a journalistic enterprise.
So they're claiming that Project PM, which you could go and, you know, you can all go Google it, just Project PM, and it'll take you there.
They're claiming that it was a kind of criminal enterprise.
And they're also disputing that he's any sort of journalist, which is peculiar because what do you call someone who publishes articles in, you know, The Guardian and places like that?
Terrorist!
I guess so.
I guess.
Well, okay.
That's coming.
So now, okay, tell me this now.
Let's take politics out of this for a second, and, well, I don't know how to really construct a hypothetical without the, you know, political motivations of the people involved here in the first place.
But I want to try to narrow it down to just the behavior of copying and pasting that link.
When you talk to the legal eagles about this, would they concede that the feds could possibly have a case that this would amount to him conspiring with those who did the hack to knowingly get someone's credit card used?
You know what I mean?
Like, they have their court precedents in a case just like this, sort of that kind of thing.
Yeah, but look, I don't think they, by they I mean the Justice Department, I don't think they're thinking in terms of, do I have a case?
Can I cobble something together which threatens this person with life in prison and force him to plea to something?
So the whole idea of is there a case or did he do something wrong, that sort of thinking is just out the window.
We're living in an age where people rig up, you know, some sort of preposterous charge like we have in this case.
And maybe it's a low likelihood that you could, you know, win with that case, but someone is gambling with their life, in effect, and so you force a plea to whatever it's going to be.
You know, Jeremy Hammond pled to 10 years or pled to, made a plea which could put him away for 10 years.
So no, no sane person would think that there's actually a case here, but that's not the issue.
It's like, it's like a game of chance, like if I can threaten you with life in prison, maybe I can get you to plead to, you know, however many years he's eventually going to do here.
Right.
Yeah.
In other words, it's just a political prosecution, the same kind of thing where John Kerry would be screaming his little head off about it if it was any other country in the world.
That's true.
I think, though, that when you say it's a prosecution, Matt, in a certain sense, when you say it's a prosecution, you have an image of some sort of trumped up kangaroo court with an actual trial.
And we don't even have that facade in this case.
I mean, I don't think these things are actually going to go to trial.
You just, I mean, it's like what they did with Aaron Schwartz, for example.
I mean, if you remember that case, right, where he's hounded him to death, either hounded him to death.
Yeah.
And he was looking at whatever it was, 35 years, something like that.
And it becomes there's this sort of prosecutorial discretion that we have now, wherein basically, if you think about it, you know, everyone is technically a felon at this point.
I mean, so start with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is the one that they used to get or to go after Aaron Schwartz, which the Justice Department interprets that to mean that if you violated the terms of service of some computer program, you are in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
I'm sure you've been through this on your show before, right?
So in effect, when you click that box that says, you know, I am not, you know, when you go on OkCupid and you say I'm not going to lie about my age, right, and if I lie about my age, I violated the terms of service and I am technically a felon.
Well, in an age when everyone is technically a felon, that means that prosecutors have this ability to go after anyone who happens to be too much of a gadfly or too much of a pain in the ass system.
And I think this is just one piece of evidence.
This is just one example of many, many recent cases like that.
Yeah.
And again, where they know their intention is never to really have a jury trial of any kind.
They just pile on charge after charge after charge after charge until you just finally lay down and say, fine, whatever.
Go ahead.
Who do you want me to snitch on?
What do I got to do?
Don't kill me.
I think that's right.
I don't think there's any intent at all to have a trial.
I mean, I mean, just in general, 95% of all cases, if that, or 95% or more are are pled out at this point.
So only 5% of these cases where someone's charged, if people go to court and raises questions about, you know, what kind of legal system do we actually have here?
If, you know, things aren't being adjudicated at trial and, you know, people are concocting these sort of crazy interpretations of the law to like threaten people with 35 years or 105 years or whatever it is, and just sort of bully them into either accepting a plea or suicide or whatever it's going to be.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So now talk about the whole thing with the FBI agent.
Is that still one of the charges that he threatened the FBI agent?
Yeah, that's one of them.
So in addition to these charges that have to do with various forms of credit card fraud, there is an obstruction of justice charge, and there's a charge relating to a threat against an FBI agent, and those two are related.
At some point...
Now, as I understand the details, it goes something like this.
The FBI acquired a subpoena to look at his computer or computers, and I believe that when they came to look for him, he wasn't at home.
He was at his mom's house, and he...
At least the story I get from his side is that he stashed his computer at his mom's house.
The police came to his mom's house with a search warrant and a subpoena for the contents of this stuff, and they charged his mom with obstructing a federal investigation, obstruction of justice, threatened her with years in prison, and she pled to, I believe, a year of probation.
But when his mom was a target of the investigation, and apparently his mom was really, really messed up about this, he...
Basically he flipped out.
I mean, they basically found a way to push his buttons to the point where he flipped out.
So he uploaded these kind of incoherent videos on YouTube, and one of which he says, oh, he threatens the FBI agent who's going after his mother, and he says, well, I'm going to go after you.
I'm going to destroy you, and by that, I don't mean I'm going to kill you, but I'm going to look into you, and I'm going to look into your kids, too.
How do you like those apples?
And so that got him the charge of threatening a federal officer.
And you know, the thing of it is, and people can go and look at it on YouTube, and as you watch it, you will think, oh, man, just stop yelling into the camera now.
Oh, no, don't keep talking.
I really wish he had not done that or whatever, but it is clear in context, and I forgot his exact words, but whatever, I'm going to destroy you, or some very vague term like that, but it is so obvious that what he's talking about is, I'm going to Google the hell out of you, and I'm going to post what I find on a page on the Internet somewhere.
This is not a threat.
Yeah, I don't think it's any sort of, it's certainly not a physical threat.
It did, I mean, it's not, I mean, the other thing you have to put in context here is that the guy is, he was a recovering heroin addict, and he had been on Suboxone for a couple years, and for whatever reason, in the middle of all this, he had gone off his Suboxone, so he was going through withdrawals from that, and he was completely flipped out.
I mean, he was out of his mind when he was posting this stuff.
So it's, yeah, but I agree with you.
It's like, he's totally tweaked out, I mean, flipped out when he's posting this, but it's also obvious he's not going to like, it's not an actual threat.
I mean, I don't think anyone could look at that and say it's a real threat, but obviously, you know, the FBI can take that and go to a judge and say, look, we've got to go get this guy, and they did.
And he's just being held without bail now, or what?
That's correct, yep.
Because of this terrible threat?
Yeah, as a general rule, these people get held without bail.
I do, there's a sort of level of paranoia about anyone who is associated with, forget about whether they're hackers, anyone who's associated with the hacking community, there's a kind of level of paranoia that, you know, they can do things like start World War III by whistling into the telephone or something like that.
I mean, that was an actual case some years ago.
Yeah, you know, Cracked has a good one, the top 10 things that movies think computers can do, like control every red light in America from a laptop or whatever, and it's like, no, only in your imagination and in Hollywood, that's it.
Yeah, yeah, but it shows there's a kind of level of ignorance about technology that sort of runs through the legal system, especially when you get to the bench and judges basically, you know, they're still trying to figure out how to program a VCR, and like, no one even has VCRs anymore, so they could stop trying and try something else.
And so you get, you know, us prosecutors are generally smart enough to know that judges don't know anything about technology, and they could put the fear of God into a judge just by, you know, talking about some very rudimentary tool like Tor, for example.
I mean, that was one that came up in the case of Jeremy Hammond's trial.
The judge was very concerned that he was using this program Tor, and, you know, I mean, like a, you know, most college kids, I think, know how to use Tor, but it was just a total mystery to the judge, and this is like, this is one of the problems that we're, you know, that people are facing here.
Yeah, well, it's amazing.
Now, so they try to take his money away, say, oh, no, you can't have a defense fund, but then they gave it back, right?
Well, they had raised something, I mean, they haven't raised that much money, but at a certain point, they had raised $20,000 for his defense fund, and then they froze it.
No idea what they were thinking there.
I mean, they thought it was going to be used for some nefarious purposes.
I mean, I have no idea what that was about.
I have no idea what the judge is thinking in this case.
I mean, it just seems, it almost seems like the judge is clueless, I mean, on many, many levels.
Well, but he's got some good lawyers now, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, he's got, like, a kind of a strong legal team right now, and I hope things work out well for him.
Yeah, I mean, I forget the guy, he was famous for defending somebody else.
Yeah, yeah, Guantanamo, he was with the judge, the general thing, Swift, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, oh, he's the guy that won the Hamdan case.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
So that speaks well of him.
You know, I like the sound of that, if anybody's got a chance of standing up to the government on this.
I mean, a lot of times it really just does come down to the personality of the lawyer, you know what I mean?
I always think of the Randy Weaver case, where man, they had the entire weight of the state against him, and that lawyer, the guy with the tassels on his jacket, can't remember his name anymore.
He just went in there and just tore them apart, and didn't even put on a defense.
He was done when he was done with his last cross-examination, and that was it.
You know?
Yeah.
And that happens from time to time, where a lawyer just gets in there, like Dick DeGaran or one of these guys, who's just a super, you know, like a pro basketball player, only a lawyer, right?
That much better than all the rest of them, who waltzes right in there and just tears the government to shreds and walks out in victory.
Does happen from time to time.
Yeah, but the problem is we don't have enough of those lawyers.
Yeah, no, we don't.
There's too many people in jail and not enough lawyers that are able to help out with this.
I think Cletus on The Simpsons says, I want that lawyer from TV with the tassels and the cowboy hat.
Yeah, I don't know his name either, but yeah, I want that guy.
The guy that got Randy Weaver off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember.
Yeah.
Tassels.
Anyway.
So, well, you know, I don't know.
You know, part of it.
Here's something to talk about from this article here is this whole new culture, this whole new aspect of society that never existed before.
These anonymous activists, these level 12 computer geniuses who really can protect their identity identities while they communicate with each other and do these hacks like against H.B. Gary and against Stratfor and others who deserve it.
And I mean, it doesn't seem to me like they're going away.
Maybe the FBI can crack down and get one or two at a time, but it doesn't seem like they could ever destroy this movement.
It's on now.
They got the the masks from V for Vendetta and everything.
I would say that, yeah, I mean, people have been a little bit careless.
About talking about what they're doing and so forth.
And it seems to me that these events are not really going to scare anyone off of these kinds of hacks, but probably just people make people more cautious and more careful.
And I think the other the other element of this is that part of what these hacks have revealed is is really the real story here, I think, which is this whole business with these private intelligence companies and how they're basically carrying out psyops against, you know, the U.S. civilian population.
I mean, that's that's what's really been revealed by all this.
And this is why Barrett got into it.
I mean, this is what Barrett was really researching was, you know, this is not everyone thinks about NSA, CIA, FBI, but that's just the tip of the iceberg here.
I mean, the U.S. government, 70 percent of what it spends on intelligence doesn't it goes it's outsourced, right?
70 percent of every dollar spent on intelligence goes to these places like Booz Allen and Stratford and H.P. Gary and so forth.
So there they are out there without any congressional oversight.
And what are they doing?
What are they up to?
And the stuff that Barrett was digging up was the fact that, you know, people like Coca-Cola was going to Stratford and saying, can you give us information on PETA?
You know, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
And then and then the guy at Stratford says, oh, yeah, the FBI has a classified file on them.
I'll see if I can get it.
You know, so it was like it was so weird because it showed that there is this weird symbiotic relationship between these private intelligence companies and the Department of Justice in this case.
And it was almost like the Department of Justice was working for Stratford in a way, because the guy was like, yeah, they have a classified file, I'll get it for you.
And, you know, Barrett was going through case after case after case like this, where Dow Chemical was doing surveillance on the yes men, where people were doing stuff, you know, making proposals to undermine Chamber Watch, which is a group that monitors the Chamber of Commerce.
And, you know, there were weird disinformation campaigns that were being discussed where they would they would like create thought puppets and and go on social media sites and give the impression of grassroots support.
So everyone is freaked out, rightfully so, about the NSA business in Snowden.
But that is just the tip of the iceberg.
And I think the real story here is like, what are all these private intel companies doing without any kind of government surveillance going on?
You know, I mean, I don't know what kind of oversight they have, maybe none.
And they are quite possibly a bigger piece of the intelligence pie than than, you know, our alphabet soup of FBI, CIA, NSA, CIA, etc.
Sure.
Yeah.
I don't have it yet, but I'm trying to get it.
There's a brand new book about Tim Shorrock.
The new.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I've seen this book from 2006.
Is this the book you're talking about?
Yeah, it could be.
And then, of course, you know, even The Washington Post, Arkin and Priest did the top secret America and all that.
There's been a really good Bartlett and Steele did a great one on SIAC.
I mean, there's there's some good journalism out there against, you know, about just how much of the intelligence is outsourcing.
You're right.
It's most of it.
Yeah.
The Cheney even.
Yeah.
Even the New York Times is waking up to this because they their editorial on the 20th was about this.
So it's it's a problem.
I mean, it's a I mean, people have basically created this Frankenstein monster of these little private CIA is running around the globe and like no one is in control of them.
And this is what this is really what Barrett Barrett was on about this.
If you go and look at his Project PM site, you'll see there's a lot of material on this.
Right.
I mean, really, this is Barrett's problem, right, is he basically is doing like Julian Assange.
He's doing the New York Times where he's just a journalist, but he's and he's not the one doing the breaking in or the liberating of any documents.
He's just making a lot available at once in a way where the New York Times would never do this to Stratfor or the U.S. government and make them look that bad and in fact, liberate so much information at once that you got to create a whole new program to be able to sift it all and whatever.
They just don't know what to do with a guy like Barrett, except try to bury him under concrete because he's just way out ahead of them.
But unfortunately, he couldn't get to the Ecuadorian embassy in time.
Well, Barrett is, you know, there's one way in which he's not like Assange because Barrett's not making all this information available.
All that information is actually on WikiLeaks.
So the Stratfor stuff is up on WikiLeaks.
So Barrett didn't even do that end of it.
All he's doing is providing analysis of it.
He's saying he's connecting the dots.
He was looking at this stuff.
He's turning the data into information.
He's making it available to people.
Yeah.
That's right.
Right.
That's right.
And it's weird.
It's almost seems like it's like it's almost as though the DOJ is working for Stratfor in this case.
It's like Stratfor needed to get the toothpaste back in the tube.
We can't let all this information out about about, you know, what we're up to as private intelligence contractors.
And it's like this guy, Barrett Brown, someone's got to put him down.
It's almost like it's almost like the Department of Justice is running errands for these these guys.
Exactly.
Since the days of Alexander Hamilton.
That's the name of the game.
All right.
I'm sorry.
We got to go.
That's the end of the show.
I really appreciate it.
Yes.
All right.
Bye bye.
Everybody, that is Peter Ludlow.
He is a professor at Northwestern University and he's got this great one.
Man, it's really good.
Please go look at it.
It's called The Nation at TheNation.com.
The strange case of Barrett Brown.
Free Barrett.
Free Brad.
See you guys tonight on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.
630 to 7 Pacific time or see you Monday back here 11 to 1 Texas time.
Scott Horton.org.
Hey, I'm Scott Horton here for WallStreetWindow.com.
Mike Swanson is a successful former hedge fund manager whose site is unique on the Web.
Subscribers are allowed a window into Mike's very real main account and receive announcements and explanations for all his market moves.
The Federal Reserve has been inflating the money supply to finance the bank bailouts and terror war overseas.
So Mike's betting on commodities, mining stocks, European markets and other hedges against a depreciating dollar.
Play along on paper or with real money and then be your own judge of Mike's investment strategies.
See what happens at WallStreetWindow.com.
Hey, all.
Scott here.
First of all, thanks to the show's sponsors and donors who make it possible for me to do this.
Secondly, I need more sponsors and more donors if the show is to continue.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
ScottHorton.org.
