Nearly a year after he is arrested and charged with a seventeen-count indictment for, among other alleged crimes, concealing evidence and disseminating stolen information, Barrett Brown is once again making the headlines.
The Guardian reports that, prior to his arrest in September of last year, Brown was a fairly well known journalist specializing in the government’s use of private military contractors and cybersecurity firms in furtherance of U.S. surveillance goals.
Commonly linked to the network of hacktivists known as “Anonymous,” prosecutors allege that Brown’s most egregious offense was posting a link on an Anonymous chat channel that gave users access to a private intelligence company’s documents. According to The Nation, the contents of this leak allegedly included discussions of opportunities for rendition and assassinations. Brown faces a maximum sentence of 100 years in prison for the crimes with which he is charged.
So what’s new with Mr. Brown? Yesterday, a Texas federal court imposed a gag order on Brown and his attorneys prohibiting them from communicating with the media about the ongoing case against Brown.
You can read the gag order here.
You can find The Guardian’s report here.
Here, too, is an interesting interview with Professor Peter Ludlow of Northwestern University in which he discusses his article on the arrest and incarceration of Brown and how Brown’s story can serve as a case study illuminating the “failure of the rule of law.”
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