There is a highly troubling case involving Jeremy Hammond,27, who was sentenced to 10 years for the December 2011 hacking of Strategic Forecasting. It was the maximum possible sentence that Chief US District Court Judge Loretta Preska could give him. The case involves a recurring controversy over the government’s effort to punish hackers and whistleblowers revealing a massive surveillance state and attacks on privacy in the United States. However, this case has the added disturbing element of an allegation of a conflict of interest by Preska who refused to recuse herself from the case despite the fact that her husband was an alleged victim of the hacking.
Hammond hacked into Texas-based Stratfor Global Intelligence Service and turned over 5 million emails to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. The charges included allegations of electronic theft and distribution of credit card information. He was also accused of using credit card numbers to make charges of at least $700,000. Now there is the twist. Those stolen documents included communications by Preska’s husband, Thomas J. Kavaler, who worked for Stratfor client Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP. Not only that but Preska herself worked for the international law firm as an associate before becoming a judge. It is the husband’s status (rather than her earlier employment) that raised the most concerns.
Preska ruled:
Upon review of the record, Defendant has failed to carry his substantial burden of showing that a reasonable observer, with knowledge and understanding of the relevant facts, would “entertain significant doubt that justice would be done absent recusal,” Lauersen, 348 F.3d at 334. Finding otherwise on a record as suspect as here would only encourage supporters of this defendant—or other defendants—to allege unsubstantiated conflicts of interest against any of my brothers and sisters of the Court until no judge remained qualified to hear his case. Therefore, accepting Defendant’s invitation for recusal in this case would actually undercut the very policy Defendant prays this Court to sustain-namely, promoting public confidence in the Judiciary. Accordingly, Defendant’s motion to disqualify is DENIED.
The judge concluded that there was no injury to her husband beyond having his public email disclosed and, according to the FBI report, a two-week subscription that he had no memory of having ever accepted. She noted “[a]ccording to Mr. Kavaler’s undisputed sworn affirmation, he never provided his credit card information or any other personal financial or identifying information to Stratfor.” However, the defendant was accused of releasing documents from the firm of her husband and the firm was a client of Stratfor. Her husband was a partner at that firm and this controversy likely caused considerable unease and expense to the firm in addressing any potential for compromised files. In his affidavit, the judge’s husband states categorically that he never gave Stratfor any personal information and the company was never a client of his or his firm.
I think some judges would agree with Preska but I would not denounce the allegation, as did the judge, as “rank hearsay.” Nevertheless, such hacking cases can encompass many thousands, if not millions, of users in some way. Preska views the simple inclusion of her husband’s email and the involvement of his firm to be too attenuated to amount to a basis for recusal.
What do you think?
Jill,
Agreed.
As you said, “Civil disobedience confronts govt. propaganda and other wrong doing at its most deep level. This is people saying I will not confront injustice by being unjust but by being courageous.”
It, of course, seems that fertile grounds for appeal have been well plowed and sown, but since this appears to a be a politically motivated vendetta more than an attempt to establish justice and the rule of law, it is doubtful that any such appeal would succeed. The vested interests and the “powers that be” will ensure that the appeal fails just as they assured that an example was made of this young man who was willing to sacrifice all for his ideals and for the common good of the American people (once we called such people “patriots”). This was not a person out to exploit his considerable skills for personal gain, but for community gain & for this he should be commended (if anything), not punished.
But the corporate controlled beast that is our government now is taking all necessary steps to protect itself from “the people”, the people it is supposed to be “by, of and for”. It is ready to quash any dissent, end any insurrection, and violently defeat any attempts by the people to demonstrate against it or to take those last measures that out founders recommended in case of repression. The individual constituent has become an irrelevancy – if you are not a huge multi national corporate entity capable of generating and funneling multimillions in campaign contributions towards a candidate you don’t matter either.
It was one of these corporations that was the “victim” of this “hack” not the individuals so much – and look what a mighty slap down that corporation was able to generate (the actual law be damned) on the defendant!
I used to love my slip-n-slide(tm) as a kid, but it’s not quiet as much fun when you’re all grown up and it’s your country sliding down that slippery slope towards fascist authoritarian rule.
Michaelb,
That movie plays right into the hands of govt. propaganda. For example, poisoning other people is not going to solve the problem. Poisoning people is what the corporations/govt. approve of. How can it be a rebellion if you simply replicate the very actions of your oppressor?
Civil disobedience confronts govt. propaganda and other wrong doing at its most deep level. This is people saying I will not confront injustice by being unjust but by being courageous.
Hammond’s sentiment stems from his correct observations that government largely ignores peaceful and legal avenues to “petition the government for grievance”. That Constitutional right exists, but is given short shrift in any attempt to change the status quo. It barely protects people who actually do follow the proper legal channels.
What happens is people begin to get the de facto message that such avenues are toothless, and that only extra-judicial or extra-administrative process is the things that gets results.
I do not agree with Hammond’s base philosophy on government and society, he is an anarchist and a communist, both ends of the spectrum of government administration I disagree with. But his actions are borne out of the frustrations that we are all suffering when the government just does what it wants, ostensibly in our name, when those actions are clearly antithetical to the individual in the particular, and against the people en masse.
That quote from Kennedy is so true and prophetic, and happening now:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
John F. Kennedy
Hotsi tot sie, I smell a Nazi.
–Curley, Three Stooges
Curley would definitely snort and blow his nose after smelling this Nazi from district court bench in New York, federal district court of Manhattan.
Now, to all you hackers out there. Report back what you find on her. Rumor has it she cheated on her husband back in law school and everyone knew it.
We need a Libertarian Candidate to come forward in the next Presidential election an oppose these tyrannical practices of the federal government against hackers. Perhaps Snowden should run. If Snowden and Hammand are hackers then so are the perps in the NSA. We also need some people to hit the streets to demonstrate. That Occupy Wall Street Movement did not last long.
With such practices of government work and private practice being intermingled…. It will be hard to find anyone that’s capable of hearing cases…. But… Since Thomas has set the standards…. It’s a pretty low bar….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VZpeoQsQ1w
This movie is about the corporate espionage the hacker was revealing. Remember Monsanto bought XI ( formally known as Blackwater)
The Statement of Reasons by a judge to either sentence upward or downward are not public record. However, sometimes there is a reference to a deviation in the judge’s final order. I couldn’t find it in this case. The Kuntsler law firm could answer that question.
Anon Posted,
I really agree. We are in truly deep trouble.
On Glenn’s site they had a speaker from Chile who spoke strongly about how if the govt. wants to get you, they will get you. One after another, people who oppose the illegalities of this corporate government are being taken down, one way or another.
The police are physically attacking people and the DOJ is busy putting dissenters in jail.
Obviously, this judge should have recused herself. However, the govt. has lackey judges at every level, just waiting to do their bidding. There is literally no branch of govt. which, as a whole, believes in the rule of law. Hammond is correct that “we the people” are left with civil disobediance to confront injustice. The govt. is quashing all attempts at civil disobediance.
I believe they begin with terraforming our minds through propaganda, then move to other govt. structures to suppress the truth and dissent. This sentence is about sending a message.
I think it’s borderline conflict. Most good judges recuse themselves on borderline situations. I would be interested in knowing if the judge was following the recommendation of the presentence investigation conducted by the Probation Office, or if she adjusted upward. That could give some insight into her mindset.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/feeding_the_flame_of_revolt_20131117
“No one will save us but ourselves. That was the real message sent out by the sentencing of Jeremy Hammond. And just as Hammond was inspired to act by the arrest of Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning, others will be inspired to act by Hammond and the actions taken against him. And we can thank Judge Preska for that.” -Chris Hedges
What do I think?
I know that we’re in more trouble than many people realize. Unbelievable trouble.
What state is this district court located in? Was there evidence adduced that anyone person’s privacy was publicized to others? “Hacking” is too nebulous to be a crime and does include all of you when you use a wifi for example or when you listen to the radio. Something is out there on an airwave and you are using a device to inquire into it. You do not take a piece of paper or a thing that is tangible. When the NSA obtains emails they are doing the same. Do they have a right to Hack? Should Clapper get ten years prison for lying to Congress about it? Maybe we should all Hack.
This Judge needs to be impeached, tried for treason and hung by her high heels over her hubbypoo’s bathtub.
Chris Hedges on “Judge” Preska:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/feeding_the_flame_of_revolt_20131117
“I did not hope for justice from the court. Judge Loretta A. Preska is a member of the right-wing Federalist Society. And the hack into Stratfor gave the email address and disclosed the password of an account used for business by Preska’s husband, Thomas Kavaler, a partner at the law firm Cahill Gordon & Reindel. Some emails of the firm’s corporate clients, including Merrill Lynch, also were exposed. The National Lawyers Guild, because the judge’s husband was a victim of the hack, filed a recusal motion that Preska, as chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, was able to deny. Her refusal to recuse herself allowed her to oversee a trial in which she had a huge conflict of interest.
The judge, who herself once was employed at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, fulminated from the bench about Hammond’s “total lack of respect for the law.” She read a laundry list of his arrests for acts of civil disobedience. She damned what she called his “unrepentant recidivism.” She said: “These are not the actions of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela … or even Daniel Ellsberg; there’s nothing high-minded or public-spirited about causing mayhem”—an odd analogy given that Mandela founded the armed wing of the African National Congress, was considered by South Africa’s apartheid government and the United States government to be a terrorist and was vilified, along with King and Ellsberg, by the U.S. government. She said there was a “desperate need to promote respect for the law” and a “need for adequate public deterrence.” She read from transcripts of Hammond’s conversations in Anonymous chat rooms in which he described the goal of hacking into Stratfor as “destroying the target, hoping for bankruptcy, collapse” and called for “maximum mayhem.” She admonished him for releasing the unlisted phone number of a retired Arizona police official who allegedly received threatening phone calls afterward.
The judge imposed equally harsh measures that will take effect after Hammond’s release from prison. She ordered that he be placed under three years of supervised control, be forbidden to use encryption or aliases online and submit to random searches of his computer equipment, person and home by police and any internal security agency without the necessity of a warrant. The judge said he was legally banned from having any contact with “electronic civil disobedience websites or organizations.” By the time she had finished she had shredded all pretense of the rule of law.
The severe sentence—Hammond will serve more time than the combined sentences of four men who were convicted in Britain for hacking related to the U.S. case—was monumentally stupid for a judge seeking to protect the interest of the ruling class. The judicial lynching of Hammond required her to demonstrate a callous disregard for transparency and our right to privacy. It required her to ignore the disturbing information Hammond released showing that the government and Stratfor attempted to link nonviolent dissident groups, including some within Occupy, to terrorist organizations so peaceful dissidents could be prosecuted as terrorists. It required her to accept the frightening fact that intelligence agencies now work on behalf of corporations as well as the state. She also had to sidestep the fact that Hammond made no financial gain from the leak.
The sentencing converges with the state’s persecution of Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Barrett Brown, along with Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Appelbaum, Laura Poitras and Sarah Harrison, four investigative journalists who are now in self-imposed exile from the United States. And as the numbers of our political prisoners and exiled dissidents mount, there is the unmistakable stench of tyranny.
This draconian sentence, like the draconian sentences of other whistle-blowers, will fan revolt. History bears this out. It will solidify the growing understanding that we must resort, if we want to effect real change, to unconventional tactics to thwart the mounting abuses by the corporate state. There is no hope, this sentencing shows, for redress from the judicial system, elected officials or the executive branch. Why should we respect a court system, or a governmental system, that shows no respect to us? Why should we abide by laws that serve only to protect criminals such as Wall Street thieves while leaving the rest of us exposed to abuse? Why should we continue to have faith in structures of power that deny us our most basic rights and civil liberties? Why should we be impoverished so the profits of big banks, corporations and hedge funds can swell?
No one will save us but ourselves. That was the real message sent out by the sentencing of Jeremy Hammond. And just as Hammond was inspired to act by the arrest of Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning, others will be inspired to act by Hammond and the actions taken against him. And we can thank Judge Preska for that. “
In the effort to sentence the defendant and preside over the case, the Judge determines that her own husband was not a victim because the so called “hacking” did not harm him. If it did not harm hubbypoo it did not harm others. This is a travesty of justice. Ten years! The Judge should get ten years for trying to protect the Koch Brothers.
“Finding otherwise on a record as suspect as here would only encourage supporters of this defendant—or other defendants—to allege “unsubstantiated” conflicts of interest against any of my brothers and sisters of the Court until no judge remained qualified to hear his case.”
Really? The accusation doesn’t seem all that unsubstantiated. One of the fictions we maintain as fact in our broken judicial system is that Judges can always be impartial. This goes contrary to not only human nature, but to the heart of the very system by which Judges are selected. To be sure there are and have been extraordinary people who can deal with judicial issues impartially, but sadly I think they are few and far between. This doesn’t meet the “Caesar’s Wife” smell test.
“As a result of the Stratfor hack, some of the dangers of the unregulated private intelligence industry are now known. It has been revealed through Wikileaks and other journalists around the world that Stratfor maintained a worldwide network of informants that they used to engage in intrusive and possibly illegal surveillance activities on behalf of large multinational corporations.” -Jeremy Hammond
http://www.sparrowmedia.net/2013/11/jeremy-hammond-sentence/
“JEREMY HAMMOND’S SENTENCING STATEMENT | 11/15/2013″
Excerpts:
Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is Jeremy Hammond and I’m here to be sentenced for hacking activities carried out during my involvement with Anonymous. I have been locked up at MCC for the past 20 months and have had a lot of time to think about how I would explain my actions.
Before I begin, I want to take a moment to recognize the work of the people who have supported me. I want to thank all the lawyers and others who worked on my case: Elizabeth Fink, Susan Kellman, Sarah Kunstler, Emily Kunstler, Margaret Kunstler, and Grainne O’Neill. I also want to thank the National Lawyers Guild, the Jeremy Hammond Defense Committee and Support Network, Free Anons, the Anonymous Solidarity Network, Anarchist Black Cross, and all others who have helped me by writing a letter of support, sending me letters, attending my court dates, and spreading the word about my case. I also want to shout out my brothers and sisters behind bars and those who are still out there fighting the power.
The acts of civil disobedience and direct action that I am being sentenced for today are in line with the principles of community and equality that have guided my life. I hacked into dozens of high profile corporations and government institutions, understanding very clearly that what I was doing was against the law, and that my actions could land me back in federal prison. But I felt that I had an obligation to use my skills to expose and confront injustice—and to bring the truth to light.
Could I have achieved the same goals through legal means? I have tried everything from voting petitions to peaceful protest and have found that those in power do not want the truth to be exposed. When we speak truth to power we are ignored at best and brutally suppressed at worst. We are confronting a power structure that does not respect its own system of checks and balances, never mind the rights of it’s own citizens or the international community.
My introduction to politics was when George W. Bush stole the Presidential election in 2000, then took advantage of the waves of racism and patriotism after 9/11 to launch unprovoked imperialist wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. I took to the streets in protest naively believing our voices would be heard in Washington and we could stop the war. Instead, we were labeled as traitors, beaten, and arrested.
…
As a result of the Stratfor hack, some of the dangers of the unregulated private intelligence industry are now known. It has been revealed through Wikileaks and other journalists around the world that Stratfor maintained a worldwide network of informants that they used to engage in intrusive and possibly illegal surveillance activities on behalf of large multinational corporations.”
@Justice Holmes. Sad but true.
Ethical rules, conflicts of interest they don’t matter unless the government doesn’t like your ruling and I am sure the government is very please with this sentence.
Shrill chases make shrill law, shrill “facts”, and do harm to the public respect of the officials in the judicial system.
What little respect there is.
Even the U.S. Attorney General recently publicly declared “the criminal justice system is broken.”
The entire system is all aFlutter and aTwitter over the whistleblowing of Tice, Benny, Manning, Wikileaks, and Snowden.
They are not shrill over the Orwellian state of official affairs revealed, but rather they are shrill over anyone who would pull the curtain back to expose the evil Wizard of Odds behind it.
The following video shows a shrill case when officials in that broken system went bat shit crazy circa 9/11 when the afterbirth was confused with the baby:
http://nyti.ms/1aB2WIr
Reblogged this on Brittius.com.