11 Mar 2014 | Americas, News, United States
(Image: Free Barrett Brown)
On 7 March, a US federal judge granted the government’s motion to dismiss the majority of its criminal case against journalist Barrett Brown. The 11 dropped charges, out of 17 in total, include those related to Brown’s posting of a hyperlink that led to online files containing credit card information hacked from the private US intelligence firm Stratfor.
Brown, a 32-year old writer who has had links to sources in the hacker collective Anonymous, has been in pre-trial detention since his arrest in September 2012 – weeks before he was ever charged with a crime. Prior to the government’s most recent motion, he faced a potential sentence of over a century behind bars.
The dismissed charges have rankled journalists and free-speech advocates since Brown’s case began making headlines last year. The First Amendment issues were apparent: are journalists complicit in a crime when sharing illegally obtained information in the course of their professional duties?
“The charges against [him] for linking were flawed from the very beginning,” says Kevin M Gallagher, the administrator of Brown’s legal defense fund. “This is a massive victory for press freedom.”
At issue was a hyperlink that Brown copied from one internet relay chat (IRC) to another. Brown pioneered ProjectPM, a crowd-sourced wiki that analysed hacked emails from cybersecurity firm HBGary and its government-contracting subsidiary HBGary Federal. When Anonymous hackers breached the servers of Stratfor in December 2011 and stole reams of information, Brown sought to incorporate their bounty into ProjectPM. He posted a hyperlink to the Anonymous cache in an IRC used by ProjectPM researchers. Included within the linked archive was billing data for a number of Statfor customers. For that action, he was charged with 10 counts of “aggravated identity theft” and one count of “traffic[king] in stolen authentication features”.
On 4 March, a day before the government’s request, Brown’s defence team filed its own 48-page motion to dismiss the same set of charges. They contended that the indictment failed to properly allege how Brown trafficked in authentication features when all he ostensibly trafficked in was a publicly available hyperlink to a publicly available file. Since the hyperlink itself didn’t contain card verification values (CVVs), Brown’s lawyers asserted that it did not constitute a transfer, as mandated by the statute under which he was charged. Additionally, they argued that the hyperlink’s publication was protected free speech activity under the First Amendment, and that the application of the relevant criminal statutes was “unconstitutionally vague” and created a chilling effect on free speech.
Whether the prosecution was responding to the arguments of Brown’s defense team or making a public relations choice remains unclear. The hyperlink charges have provoked a wave of critical coverage from the likes of Reporters Without Borders, Rolling Stone, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the New York Times, and former Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald.
Those charges were laid out in the second of three separate indictments against Brown. The first indictment alleges that Brown threatened to publicly release the personal information of an FBI agent in a YouTube video he posted in late 2012. The third claims that Brown obstructed justice by attempting to hide laptops during an FBI raid on his home in March of that year. Though he remains accused of access device fraud under the second indictment, his maximum prison sentence has been slashed from 105 years to 70 in light of the dismissed charges.
While the remaining allegations are superficially unrelated to Brown’s journalistic work, serious questions about the integrity of the prosecution persist. As indicated by the timeline of events, Brown was targeted long before he allegedly committed the crimes in question.
On 6 March 2012, the FBI conducted a series of raids across the US in search of material related to several criminal hacks conducted by Anonymous members. Brown’s apartment was targeted, but he had taken shelter at his mother’s house the night prior. FBI agents made their way to her home in search of Brown and his laptops, which she had placed in a kitchen cabinet. Brown claims that his alleged threats against a federal officer – as laid out in the first indictment, issued several months later in September – stem from personal frustration over continued FBI harassment of his mother following the raid. On 9 November 2013, Brown’s mother was sentenced to six months probation after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice for helping him hide the laptops – the same charges levelled at Brown in the third indictment.
As listed in the search warrant for the initial raid, three of the nine records to be seized related to military and intelligence contractors that ProjectPM was investigating – one of which was never the victim of a hack. Another concerned ProjectPM itself. The government has never formally asserted that Brown participated in any hacks, raising the question of whether a confidential informant was central to providing the evidence used against him for the search warrant.
“This FBI probe was all about his investigative journalism, and his sources, from the very beginning,” Gallagher says. “This cannot be in doubt.”
In related court filings, the government denies ever using information from an informant when applying for search or arrest warrants for Brown.
But on the day of the raids, the Justice Department announced that six people had been charged in connection to the crimes listed in Brown’s search warrant. One, Hector Xavier Monsegur (aka “Sabu”), had been arrested in June 2011 and subsequently pleaded guilty in exchange for cooperation with the government. According to the indictment, Sabu proved crucial to the FBI’s investigation of Anonymous.
In a speech delivered at Fordham University on 8 August 2013, FBI Director Robert Mueller gave the first official commentary on Sabu’s assistance to the bureau. “[Sabu’s] cooperation helped us to build cases that led to the arrest of six other hackers linked to groups such as Anonymous,” he stated. Presuming that the director’s remarks were accurate, was Brown the mislabeled “other hacker” caught with the help of Sabu?
Several people have implicated Sabu in attempts at entrapment during his time as an FBI informant. Under the direction of the FBI, the government has conceded that he had foreknowledge of the Stratfor hack and instructed his Anonymous colleagues to upload the pilfered data to an FBI server. Sabu then attempted to sell the information to WikiLeaks – whose editor-in-chief, Julian Assange, remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London after refusing extradition to Sweden for questioning in a sexual assault case. Assange claims he is doing so because he fears being transferred to American custody in relation to a sealed grand jury investigation of WikiLeaks that remains ongoing. Though Sabu’s offer was rebuffed, any evidence linking Assange to criminal hacks on US soil would have greatly strengthened the case for extradition. It was only then that the Stratfor data was made public on the internet.
During his sentencing hearing on 15 November 2013, convicted Stratfor hacker Jeremy Hammond stated that Sabu instigated and oversaw the majority of Anonymous hacks with which Hammond was affiliated, including Stratfor: “On 4 December, 2011, Sabu was approached by another hacker who had already broken into Stratfor’s credit card database. Sabu…then brought the hack to Antisec [an Anonymous subgroup] by inviting this hacker to our private chatroom, where he supplied download links to the full credit card database as well as the initial vulnerability access point to Stratfor’s systems.”
Hammond also asserted that, under the direction of Sabu, he was told to hack into thousands of domains belonging to foreign governments. The court redacted this portion of his statement, though copies of a nearly identical one written by Hammond months earlier surfaced online, naming the targets: “These intrusions took place in January/February of 2012 and affected over 2000 domains, including numerous foreign government websites in Brazil, Turkey, Syria, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Nigeria, Iran, Slovenia, Greece, Pakistan, and others. A few of the compromised websites that I recollect include the official website of the Governor of Puerto Rico, the Internal Affairs Division of the Military Police of Brazil, the Official Website of the Crown Prince of Kuwait, the Tax Department of Turkey, the Iranian Academic Center for Education and Cultural Research, the Polish Embassy in the UK, and the Ministry of Electricity of Iraq. Sabu also infiltrated a group of hackers that had access to hundreds of Syrian systems including government institutions, banks, and ISPs.”
Nadim Kobeissi, a developer of the secure communication software Cryptocat, has levelled similar entrapment charges against Sabu. “[He] repeatedly encouraged me to work with him,” Kobeissi wrote on Twitter following news of Sabu’s cooperation with the FBI. “Please be careful of anyone ever suggesting illegal activity.”
While Brown has never claimed that Sabu instructed him to break the law, the presence of “persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury,” and whatever information they may have provided, continue to loom over the case. Sabu’s sentencing has been delayed without explanation a handful of times, raising suspicions that his work as an informant continues in ongoing federal investigations or prosecutions. The affidavit containing the evidence for the March 2012 raid on Brown’s home remains under seal.
In comments to the media immediately following the raid, Brown seemed unfazed by the accusation that he was involved with criminal activity. “I haven’t been charged with anything at this point,” he said at the time. “I suspect that the FBI is working off of incorrect information.”
This article was posted on March 11, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
4 Mar 2014 | Americas, Awards, News, United States
Glenn Greenwald had previously blogged on surveillance and civil liberties for Salon and the Guardian, attracting thousands of followers with his dogged writing. Laura Poitras’s background is in documentary making, having made highly acclaimed films about Iraqis living during the US military occupation and The Oath, a film about Yemenis caught up in the War on Terror.
A lawyer by training, Greenwald built a strong reputation for detailed, forensic articles. According to the Guardian, an article by Greenwald about Poitras’s work and fears over targeting by the government was what convinced Edward Snowden to approach him with his cache of NSA files in late 2012.
Working with a range of outlets, from the Guardian to Brazil’s O Globo, Greenwald published a range of stories on the workings of the National Security Agency’s surveillance. Germany-based Poitras collaborated with Der Spiegel amongst others, generating huge debate in that country.
In August 2013, Greenwald’s partner David Miranda was detained at Heathrow Airport under terrorism legislation and had documents he had received from Poitras confiscated by UK authorities.
Interviewed by Esquire magazine, Greenwald explained why he felt it was important to uncover mass surveillance: “ultimately the reason privacy is so vital is it’s the realm in which we can do all the things that are valuable as human beings. It’s the place that uniquely enables us to explore limits, to test boundaries, to engage in novel and creative ways of thinking and being”
Nominees: Advocacy | Arts | Digital Activism | Journalism
Join us 20 March 2014 at the Barbican Centre for the Freedom of Expression Awards
This article was posted on March 4, 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
25 Feb 2014 | News, Politics and Society, Turkey
Photo illustration: Shutterstock
Turkey stands at 154 out of 180 places on Reporters Without Borders 2014 Press Freedom Index.
As of December 2013, a total of 211 journalists were behind bars somewhere in the world. Almost one fifth of these alone were jailed in Turkey, making it the country with the most number of journalists imprisoned globally, and placing it behind countries with such as Iran and China.
In the past 18 months many renowned journalists have been removed from their positions due to direct and increasing government pressure on media organisations in an attempt to control the level of critical coverage.
The height of government pressure came during the June 2013 Gezi Park protests, in which 153 journalists were injured and 39 detained for just doing their job.
The majority of mainstream national TV channels failed to cover the initial protests for fear of backlash from the government. The recent approval of a new “internet law”, a law brought in on the grounds of protecting the privacy of private information, is seen by many as the latest step in a conscious effort by the government to control freedom of expression in Turkey.
In a 2007 article, Concentration of ownership, the fall of unions and government legislation in Turkey (£) journalism professor Christen Christensen argued that the enormous power of Turkish media owners leaves journalists powerless.
Journalists’ Trade unions are seen as “useless” in, leaving reporters vulnerable to economic and political pressure. In the same article, Christensen more importantly stated that while there has been an increase in penalties for crimes committed through print or mass media, simultaneously there is a lack of provisions securing the rights of journalists to report and discuss issues. The difficulty of carrying out the profession in Turkey is enhanced by the restrictions on access and disclosure of information and the vague language used to define defamation and insult.
Today, a high number of journalists have been charged under Turkey’s anti-terrorism legislation The law’s vague wording allows a broad interpretation what constitutes support for a terrorist organisation. Many high profile journalists, such as Nedim Şener, Ahmet Şık and Cumhuriyet’s Mustafa Balbay, were charged with involvement in the “Ergenekon plot” – an alleged shadowy conspiracy that authorities claim aimed to overthrow the government. These charges have been laced with claims of falsified evidence, discrepancies in computer records and doctoring of evidence.
The grounds for arrests have similarly been a cause for confusion, Şık, for example, was arrested for allegedly supporting Ergenekon when his unpublished book was allegedly found on internet news portal OdaTV computers, while evidence against Mustafa Balbay comprised of documents seized from his home and office, which he states were notes and recorded conversations with government and military officials conducted for the purpose of his journalism.
Again, the same anti-terrorist legislation has resulted in the arrest of several Kurdish journalists for what authorities say is dissemination of propaganda aligned with the banned Kurdish Worker’s Party, or PKK, and related organisations.
As political tensions in the country increase, vague legal frameworks continue to be the enemy of not only journalists, but also other groups, most significantly students – all of whom are being taught to fear the implications of expressing their thoughts. Despite there being talks on revising the anti-terrorism legislation to narrow its scope, it is clear that the major link between the above arrests is the presence of a voice of opposition and the lack of a strong legal framework to ensure a sound judicial process.
Today, journalists such as Nedim Şener, Ahmet Şık and Mustafa Balbay, still face jail time if sentenced and it is only with a revision of the law in question and the wider legal framework relating to journalists that the profession will be able to develop and fulfil its democratic role.
This article was published on 25 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
21 Feb 2014 | News
To: All Governments
From: Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship here. We’ve noticed some you have had trouble telling the difference between terrorists and journalist lately (yes, you too Barack: put the BlackBerry down). So we thought as people with some experience of the journalism thing, we could offer you a few handy tips to refer to the next time you find yourself asking: journalist or terrorist?
Have a look at your suspect. Is he carrying a) a notebook with weird squiggly lines on it, or b) an RPG-7. If the latter, odds on he’s a terrorist. The former? Most likely a journalist. Those squiggly lines are called “shorthand” – it’s what reporters do when they’re writing things down for, er, reporting. It might look a bit like Arabic, but it’s not, and even if it was, that wouldn’t be a good enough reason to lock the guy up.
A journalist
Still not clear? Let’s move on to the questioning part.
Questioning can be difficult. Your modern terrorist will be highly committed, and trained to withstand even your steeliest glare (and whatever other tactics you might use, eh? LOL! Winky Smiley!). So it may be difficult to establish for certain whether he or she is in fact a terrorist by simply asking them. They might even say they are a journalist, when actually they are terrorists! Sneaky! But there are some ways of getting past this deviousness.
Does your suspect have strong feelings about unpaid internships and their effect on the industry? Or “paywalls” and profit models? Your journalist will pounce on these question in a way that may be quite scary to watch, and keep you there talking about it long after you’ve told her she’s free to go. Your terrorist is not as bothered by these issues, generally, though may accept that it is very difficult for kids to get on the terror ladder these days and nepotism is not an ideal way to run a global bombing campaign.
A terrorist
Ask your suspect if he spends too much time on Twitter: If he gets defensive and says something along the lines of “Yes, but the fact is it’s justified. Stories break on Twitter. It’s not just all hashtag games and…” (again, this could go on for several hours, and will most likely end up being all about hashtag games), then he’s a journalist. [Note: If your suspects seem to spend a lot of time getting into Twitter spats with the Israel Defence Force, they may be a bit terroristy].
Does your suspect look stressed? Like, really, really stressed? Probably a journalist.
Finally, just try saying the phrase “below the line”. If you get a slightly confused look, you’ve probably got a terrorist. If there is actual wailing and gnashing of teeth, journalist.
Now let’s go over why you might be making this mix up. This is where a lot of people get confused, so we’ll be as clear as possible, but do keep up.
Terrorists generally hold quite extreme views which, it’s fair to say, most of us probably do not agree with. However, this does not mean that anyone you disagree with is a terrorist. Or, importantly, that someone who’s spoke to someone who you disagree with is a terrorist.
We understand that this can be quite a difficult point to get your head around, so here’s an example: If, say, a large, international news organisation reports on things you’d rather they didn’t, in a way you don’t like, this does NOT make them a “terrorist organisation”. The people working for them are NOT terrorists “broadcasting false news that harms national security”.
Sometimes, journalists will cover the activities of terrorist organisations, like al-Qaeda. This, however, does not automatically make them their “media man”. Get this — you can even interview members of a terrorist organisation without actually being a terrorist yourself.
Similarly, if someone has something that you want back, that doesn’t mean you get to use terrorism laws to get it, even if you think that thing is very, very important. And yes, even if they intend to use that thing to write stories about you.
Keep these basic ideas in mind and we can almost guarantee you’ll never make the embarrassing mistake of calling journalists terrorists again. Any doubts? Call us. We’re here to help.
The Index team
This article was posted on 21 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
