The Other McCain

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New Federal Charges Filed Against Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown

Posted on | January 24, 2013 | 11 Comments

September 2012: Barrett Brown threatens an FBI agent in video

For the third time in four months, a federal grand jury in Texas has returned indictments against Barrett Brown, the former spokesman for the hacking group Anonymous. Brown was arrested in September after a video rant in which he threatened to “destroy” an FBI agent.

Brown was indicted in October on charges stemming from those threats and indicted again in December on multiple charges related to the “LulzSec” hacking of Stratfor. Now, the grand jury has returned an indictment on two obstruction of justice charges, accusing Brown of concealing evidence in a March 6 raid (at the same time that the feds arrested several members of the “LulzSec” hacking group).

In an interview with Wired magazine, Brown’s former attorney Jay Leiderman portrayed the latest indictments in a conspiratorial light:

“Clearly they’re more worried about what they perceive as his egging people on to go after defense contractors and secret spy organizations. . . . Barrett believes in privacy for individuals and transparency for corporations and government. The government doesn’t like his belief system. And Barrett was effective in expressing that belief system.”

Leiderman compared Brown to Aaron Swarz, the Reddit co-founder who committed suicide after being prosecuted for hacking an MIT database:

“I would have thought in the wake of Aaron Swartz that the government might have learned something and might have thought twice about bringing the weight of the entire [United States] down upon someone when it wasn’t warranted,” says Leiderman.

The Dallas Observer reports:

Brown is due in court again next Wednesday, in the case related to his alleged FBI agent-threatening. At that time, U.S. District Judge Sam Linday will rule on a prison psychologist’s recommendation that Brown be founded mentally competent to stand trial.

The video rant that led to Barrett Brown’s September arrest:

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Category: Barrett Brown

Comments

11 Responses to “New Federal Charges Filed Against Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown”

  1. www.EganMedical.com
    January 24th, 2013 @ 8:50 pm

    I’m not a huge fan of his work… Not sure quite what to think of this one.

  2. ThomasD
    January 24th, 2013 @ 9:21 pm

    Equating the two is an insult to Swartz. Brown is a mendacious twerp of no significant accomplishment, unless you count his epic self-aggrandizement. But none of that means that the Feds aren’t being gratuitous in their treatment of the self destructive jackweasel.

    You can feel sadness witnessing the hopeless struggles of a mouse caught a toying cat’s clutches. But not so much when you know the mouse was caught trying to take a dump in the cat’s food bowl.

  3. Rob Crawford
    January 24th, 2013 @ 9:44 pm

    So Brown and his ilk believe that the moment two people decide to cooperate in some endeavor, they lose their right to privacy?

    So why hasn’t Anonymous exposed the members of Anonymous?

  4. ThomasD
    January 24th, 2013 @ 9:51 pm

    The sooperjeenyus of Barret Brown dissected in two sentences.

    Bravo.

  5. jakee308
    January 24th, 2013 @ 10:27 pm

    And the hits just keep on coming.

    Pro tip for anyone contemplating becoming the spokesperson for any group or organization espousing and/or committing illegal activities: DON’T.

  6. sablegsd
    January 25th, 2013 @ 12:28 am

    I wonder what drugs he was on in that picture.

  7. richard mcenroe
    January 25th, 2013 @ 1:22 am

    go watch the video and see.

  8. JAMed171
    January 25th, 2013 @ 1:25 am

    I agree with some of the notion of what he is discussing, just… like with liberarianism, I can’t quite accept the sum of it or means of it, not completely.

    The problem is, I am starting to see where his method seems to be the only way to get any information out of this administration. If they focused purely on that, I could… at least turn a blind eye.

  9. Adjoran
    January 25th, 2013 @ 3:17 am

    It’s an outrage! Brown is just a neurotic punk, Swartz was a genius and had altruistic motives.

  10. Publius2
    January 27th, 2013 @ 3:34 am

    found more this morning and there’s an audio of Neal Rauhauser with Kelly Hallissey on the phone and he’s admitting that he was carlito2000

    Lookie at that. We just got a long thread of email communication between Kelly Hallisey (@Bitchiest) and @NealRauhauser.

    Due to popular request we are back in the U.S. And this is a complicated story. We begin to tell it.

    For now we give you a phone call between Kelly
    Hallissey and Neal Rauhauser and two calls between Tom Ryan and Chet
    Uber. The story is confusing and complicated because there is lots of
    internal drama. But in this case this is about people who are at least
    in part getting paid by the government, to do… well that you should
    find out yourself.

    Phone call Chet Uber & Tom Ryan, September 22, 2012, Part 1
    Phone call Chet Uber & Tom Ryan, September 22, 2012, Part 2 – Added January 13, 2013
    Phone call Chet Uber & Tom Ryan, September 28, 2012
    Email communication Kelly Hallissey & Neal Rauhauser – Added January 13, 2013
    Phone call between Kelly Hallissey and Neal Rauhauser

    As you may know, Chet Uber is the father of so called
    Project Vigilant. For background you should read up about it here and
    here. Now you may wonder, who exactly is Project Vigilant? Well since
    their security is lousy, it was not hard to find out. Here are names,
    job titles, email addresses and phone numbers of the involved people:

    Project Vigilant Members

    Update January 20, 2013

    http://par-anoia.net/incoming/us/kelly_neal.pdf
    http://par-anoia.net/incoming/us/Incoming_Call-Neal_Rauhauser-20120916-164632.mp3
    http://par-anoia.net/incoming/us/Chet%20Uber%209-22-2012%201st%20call-VSDN_01.mp3
    http://par-anoia.net/incoming/us/chet_uber_pt2_9-22.mp3
    http://par-anoia.net/incoming/us/chet%20uber%209-28-2012%202nd%20call-VSDN_01.mp3

  11. Anonymous Spokesman Barrett Brown Is Sane Enough to Stand Trial, Judge Rules : The Other McCain
    January 30th, 2013 @ 3:29 pm

    […] Brown was charged in connection with the LulzSec hacking of Stratfor. Last week, Brown was indicted against for an obstruction of justice charge.Now facing as much as 100 years in prison on these charges, […]