American Government Will Drop Key Charges against Activist Journalist

By: Unknown on 11:43

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The American authorities have moved to drop key charges against the activist-journalist Barrett Brown. The charges include the most controversial count that Brown transferred stolen property by republishing a hyperlink to a site containing hacked content.

US prosecutors found themselves under widespread criticism for seeking to prosecute Barrett Brown for the posting of a hyperlink. Lots of public, including lawyers, publishers and online freedom campaigners had warned the government that this move could set a precedent that would have put a chill on the culture of linking across the Internet.

The prosecutors lodged in a court a motion to dismiss 11 of the 17 counts against Barrett. They all related to the hack of the site of private intelligence company Stratfor three years ago by Anonymous.

Barrett Brown, 32, copied a hyperlink from one of the chat rooms linking to a site containing some of the hacked email addresses and credit card details stolen from the Stratfor site. Brown also republished the link on his own Internet chat room, Project PM

The decision to drop counts one and three to 12 in the indictment relating to the Stratfor hack was made the next day after Brown’s lawyers filed a legal memorandum calling for those counts to be dropped. They argued that the prosecution violated the First Amendment right to free speech, as reposting a link doesn’t itself transfer content from one location to another. Perhaps, the government lawyers decided instead to focus on the other charges still facing Barrett.

Brown, who was writing for the UK’s Guardian and other publications before his arrest in September 2012, is still accused of count two in this indictment – that he committed access device fraud relating to the credit card details stolen by Anonymous. In addition, Brown faces 2 separate indictments, one for obstruction of justice by trying to hide laptops, and the other for making threats against an FBI officer and disclosing data about an FBI agent and his family. Overall, Barrett still faces 70 years in jail, though another 35 years have been removed through the dismissed counts. His attorney appraised the government’s decision to drop the charges.

Meanwhile, the prosecution’s case that by publishing the hyperlink Barrett had transferred stolen property had sparked widespread alarm among First Amendment lawyers, campaigners, news outfits and other publishers who were afraid it would send a chill across the web. They admit that if Brown is held criminally liable for linking to a site, the implications are profound.