14 DAY TRIAL // Famous activist Barrett Brown has been charged with several offenses, including publishing links to data leaked by Anonymous hackers from the think tank Stratfor. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warns that Brown’s prosecution could have a negative impact on routine journalism practices.
Journalists often provide links to hacker data leaks in their stories. Normally, this would be considered an activity that’s protected by the First Amendment, considering that the journalists have nothing to do with the data theft.
However, Barrett Brown has been indicted for similar activities and if he’s found guilty, the verdict could have serious consequences for the freedom of press, the EFF notes.
Brown has never been accused of hacking anything. Instead, he simply took a link posted by Anonymous and published it on the private chat channel of ProjectMP, a website that looks into the practices of security contractors that work for US government agencies.
“Under the government’s theory in Barrett Brown’s case, all journalists (and anyone else for that matter) tweeting out the link to the list of Congressional staffer email addresses and passwords were trafficking in authentication features and are guilty of a felony,” the EFF explained.
“While it turns out that many of the passwords in this case may not have been accurate, this lesson holds true anytime someone links to groups of stolen passwords posted online, which seems to happen fairly frequently,” the EFF added.
“And in this situation, under the Justice Department’s theory, those linking to the list violated the aggravated identity theft statute too because during that crime, they knowingly transferred ‘without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person’—the email addresses.”
Furthermore, the EFF claims there are other aspects of Brown’s case – which the organization will detail soon – that might have serious consequences for both the press and the public.