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What Is a Worse Crime, Rape or Publishing Evidence of the Rape?

Anonymous_at_Scientology_in_Los_Angeles

Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Guest Blogger

You may recall an article that I wrote back in January discussing the Steubenville, Ohio rape case.  It was a case where members of the town’s high school football team were charged with repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting an unconscious young girl and it also exposed the community support these alleged rapists had.  In that case a local unit of the Hacktivist group, Anonymous, published tweets and pictures of the alleged rapists.  One of the citations or links that I provided in the article has since been taken down and now the local Anonymous activist had his home raided by a FBI SWAT team and may be charged with hacking into the high school website and could face a potential 10 year sentence for the alleged crimes!  You may ask what are the sentences that the now convicted rapists are facing?  Since they were minors at the time of the alleged serial rape, they are facing 2 year sentences.  

“In April, the FBI quietly raided the home of the hacker known as KYAnonymous in connection with his role in the Steubenville rape case. Today he spoke out for the first time about the raid, his true identity, and his motivations for pursuing the Steubenville rapists, in an extensive interview with Mother Jones.

“The goal of the media interviews is to get the entire nation to say ‘f-uck you’ to these guys,” said KYAnonymous, whose real name is Deric Lostutter. He was referring to the federal agents who raided his home in Winchester, Kentucky, and carted off his computers and XBox.

Lostutter may deserve more credit than anyone for turning Steubenville into a national outrage. After a 16-year-old girl was raped by two members of the Steubenville High football team last year, he obtained and published tweets and Instagram photos in which other team members had joked about the incident and belittled the victim. He now admits to being the man behind the mask in a video posted by another hacker on the team’s fan page, RollRedRoll.com, where he threatened action against the players unless they apologized to the girl. (The rapists were convicted in March.)” Mother Jones

Does it trouble you that the FBI sent a fully armed SWAT team out to execute a search warrant at the home of a single hacker for the alleged crime of hacking into a high school team’s fan webpage when another hacker has admitted that he/she hacked into the webpage?  “Lostutter says he played no role in the hacking the team’s fan page; he points out that another hacker, Batcat, has publicly taken the credit. Mother Jones

Was the FBI just being prudent and careful in “taking down” this dangerous alleged criminal, or were they sending Mr. Lostutter and the rest of his comrades in the Anonymous community a message?  Mr. Lostutter has not been indicted as of yet and the FBI will not confirm if an investigation is continuing according to the lawyer representing Lostutter.

“Lostutter is being represented by Jason Flores-Williams of the Whistleblower’s Defense League, a coalition of lawyers who specializes in defending hacktivists and freedom of information campaigners. The Whistleblower’s Defense League has set up a fund to raise money for Lostutter’s defense.

Flores-Williams told Gawker the raid was connected to a grand jury investigation in Ohio, though Lostutter has not yet been informed that he is a target of the investigation.

“We certainly hope the United States comes to its senses and decides not to indict, and if they do we will aggressively litigate the incident,” said Flores-Williams. “What’s unique here to me is that it’s not a national security issue. This isn’t at the forefront at the NSA or the CIA. This comes out of the heartland of the country, and this is a person who is just trying to do what is right for the heartland.” ‘ Gawker

While I do not condone hacking into any individual’s or any group’s computers, wouldn’t it make sense for the FBI to send the SWAT team to the home of the individual who has admitted to the alleged crime?  If the FBI can determine who the KYAnoonymous hacker was, why can’t they determine who is responsible for the mountains of spam that hit my computer on a daily basis and send the SWAT team to end that nonsense?  I would imagine that the Nigerian Prince who wants me to send him money so that he can give me millions is much more dangerous than Mr. Lostutter!

I urge you to read the full search warrant that I have provided here, thanks to Gawker. It is amazing how thorough the FBI can be when it is going after a dastardly character like Mr. Lostutter.  Is this kind of blunt force governmental reaction a symptom of larger problems on the horizon for the rest of us?

I have to admit that I do love watching the movie “V for Vengence” whenever I can, but I hope that watching it will not cause me to appear on the FBI’s radar.  I am not sure my neighbors will look kindly at the FBI SWAT team charging through their flower beds to encircle my abode.  I guess it is becoming safer to cheat and steal millions using the mechanisms Wall Street has at its disposal than to actually speak up about a heinous crime committed against a defenseless woman!  What do you think?

(Please note that one of the earlier quotes contained the “F” word and I had to amend it in order to get past the WordPress censors!)

39 thoughts on “What Is a Worse Crime, Rape or Publishing Evidence of the Rape?”

  1. The evidence he published was already in police custody and used to arrest these boys months before Michelle McKee, an NCIB and media washout, conned him to get involved to help make HER famous and use his “hacker” friends to harass others she had years of feuding with. The did just that.

    All that aside the fact remains is that he bragged about having control of the website. He is being investigated for his involvement. He is not being charged with bringing attention. Not to mention this hack was to a site not involved with neither the case, school, or anyone involved in the case and practically accused the owner of being involved in a rape crew that did not exist, a pedophile and involved in the Savanna Dietrich case as well. Causing this man and many uninvolved students, and their families to have their names dragged through the mud, harassed, threatened and stalked.

    In the end he uncovered no new evidence, revealed no new suspect other than those already in custody and court months ago and who were arrested days after the crime and thus exposed NO cover up.

    All he got was information and evidence already in police custody and followed up, it was not hacked info but gained through McKee who weeks prior to his public appearance, manipulated him to terrorize the boy suing her friend Alex Goddard for her blogs comments against him who was also exonerated from the rape, who soon after dropped the suit and was writing apology to her and HIM.

    Some are refusing believe or just blind (including many journalists)to these obvious and well documented facts and some will try to spin the point that his antic….no crimes, make it worth it because of the “attention” (even though it was attention the victim did NOT want and whose name HE helped make public). Is the attention really that worth commit crimes that did not further the case and in someways almost compromised it, left a town of innocents in terror, kids traumatized and many good names ruined?

    Then there’s the fact that this hero to women and women rights has a public video blogs where he refers to women as “bitches” , “indecisive” and whose only good option for abortion is that the “bitch better swallow”.

    Sorry if not everyone else is so moved by such “heroics” and think that it has earned him a free pass as a thank you.

  2. The use of the FBI’s SWAT terrorists has most certainly been deemed an appropriate and proportional response by the cretinous thugs that rule the US through coercion and fear.

  3. Thanks Raff…. It’s nice to be noticed in a good way for once…. But hey… Ya never know…. Life is like a pair of dice….. Sometimes you roll box cars and sometimes snake eyes the hard way…..

  4. AY,
    I didn’t forget about you. The FBI did use a FedEx truck to disguise their entry. I wonder if FedEx gets a royalty for the use of their truck? 🙂

  5. A similar case is Landen Gambill, student at the University of North Carolina who reported being raped rather than reported by a third party. UNC attempted to expel her for reporting the rape rather than investigate and prosecute the rapist. The rapist was only charged with harassing her, a far lesser charge than rape.

    UNC dismissed the “charges” against her this week, likely because their hypocrisy was on display and it made for bad publicity. I have no doubt they would have expelled Ms. Gambill if they could.

  6. “I have heard of people who were raped as they say wanting it to happen again. How traumatic can the sex be?”

    At this hour of this particular morning, I would like nothing more than to be a witness to Jonathan Hughes being gang raped by 15 men so that he might get some small part of the reality of gang rape through his crippled little Christian mind.

    Where do the “depths of delusion” find these dupes?

  7. I think we need to have a topic on the text of the criminal statutes referenced in the Warrant Application here. We need to talk about removing this judge from office.

  9. Blouise, from what I have read several people were given immunity to cooperate in the initial investigation and court case. I don’t know what that will do should any of them be implicated in this round of inquiries. I guess it depends on the particulars of the inital deal.

    Stubenville sounds like a football town and much like Penn. State rallies around the school and players/coaches rather than the victim. Football is an institution and the town may have an institutional mindset. I actually hope I’m wrong about that and more complete coverage will reveal a stand-up town.

  10. Did the FBI at al. get a permit to raid a home and confiscate computers from a judge?

    Do judges still have their own discretion, or are they just ‘rubber-stamps?’

    If this ain’t dictatorship, I do not know what dictatorship is!!!

  11. lotta,

    It’s going to be interesting to see if participants are trying to nudge the Grand Jury away from parents, coaches, police and prosecutors by centering on the hackers. According to some folk I know who live down in that part of the state, there are a lot of very nervous people walking the streets of Steubenville and surrounding communities.

  13. Darren, when Lostutter’s suspicion that a target of his inquiry (the Rollredroll blawg owner) was not in possession of incriminating evidence which was being withheld) he publicly apologized and repudiated his own suspicions and threats to out him a party to the cover-up. That should moderate any lasting, sympathy-denying disdain you might harbor. If the police had done their job earlier on perhaps that armature’s error would not have been made.

    Blouise, from my search regarding the grand jury it appears that they have recessed themselves more time off than time spent on the job. From on the record statements it seems that the football coach may have been involved in an attempt to cover up the rape. The grand jury, in its search for wider criminal activity surrounding the incident, looks like its dragging its collective feet.

    Yea, the government has definitely targeted Anonymous; even if Lostutter didn’t hack the Rollredroll site they will go after him on a conspiracy charge. He’s in line to do more time than the rapists- who are in line to be moved to a bar-less, fence-less minimum security “privately run residential rehabilitation center” later this month.

    http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/06/steubenville-hacker/65976/

  16. This is dominance behavior. Just like mass surveillance is meant to intimidate dissenters into self-censoring themselves, SWAT raids on affinity groups are meant to inflict a similar chilling effect.

    Anonymous is acting in an organized fashion, and that’s the real threat. This is about ensuring that there does not arise any “unjust combination of the majority” to quote the Federalist. Citizens must remain factious and disorganized, for ruling class to remain aware of its status and also focused on keeping power.

    In cases like this, the idea is to pick a few strategic targets so word gets around. A periodic reminder of the government’s power , especially when focused on a specific affinity group, serves to reinforce power continuously.

    To quote Foucault:

    “Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power… So… that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action; that the perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary; that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relation independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.”

    “To achieve this, it is at once too much and too little that the prisoner should be constantly observed by an inspector: too little, for what matters is that he knows himself to be observed; too much, because he has no need in fact of being so… In view of this, Bentham laid down the principle that power should be visible and unverifiable. Visible: the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon. Unverifiable: the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so.”

    — Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 1975

  17. nick spinelli 1, June 9, 2013 at 2:24 pm

    What the hell happened to the Leon Panetta thread? Is it being monitored and deleted?
    ———————————–
    Remember where you are.

  19. I believe you hit the nail on the head, “…I guess it is becoming safer to cheat and steal millions using the mechanisms Wall Street has at its disposal than to actually speak up about a heinous crime committed against a defenseless woman!…”

    The evidence for this statement comes from the AJ Holder himself when he admitted that the size of the bank and the consequences of charging it criminally are part of the discussion process.

    We are truly in a sad state of affairs.

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