Truthdigger of the Week: Jeremy Hammond

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from Truthdig:


Truthdigger of the Week: Jeremy Hammond

Posted on Nov 17, 2013
By Alexander Reed Kelly

Every week the Truthdig editorial staff selects a Truthdigger of the Week, a group or person worthy of recognition for speaking truth to power, breaking the story or blowing the whistle. It is not a lifetime achievement award. Rather, we’re looking for newsmakers whose actions in a given week are worth celebrating.

The national security state claimed another victim, and the international struggle for civil liberties a living martyr Friday when Anonymous-affiliated computer hacker and political activist Jeremy Hammond was sentenced to 10 years in prison for liberating 3 million email exchanges that indicate the U.S. government routinely uses anti-terrorism laws to criminalize nonviolent protesters and falsely link dissidents to international terrorist groups. Simultaneously, Hammond committed the dubious and plainly illegal act of accessing 60,000 credit card numbers that were then used at his urging by his supporters to make reportedly as much as $700,000 in fraudulent donations to charity groups.

The emails were contained in the computer servers of Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor, a private security firm that does work for the Department of Homeland Security and other security arms of the U.S. government. The messages confirmed the company infiltrated and spied on participants of Occupy Wall Street on behalf of other corporations and the state. Hammond, who says he was goaded into the hack by an FBI informant, called his sentence a “vengeful, spiteful act” intended to intimidate others who would consider hacking as a form of political action.

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Though unrepentant, Hammond has expressed a willingness to bear the punishment the state has ordered for him. If indeed he does not respect the law, what is it he does respect? In a statement to the court made before his sentence was read, he said: “The government celebrates my conviction and imprisonment, hoping that it will close the door on the full story. I took responsibility for my actions, by pleading guilty, but when will the government be made to answer for its crimes?”

He continued: “The U.S. hypes the threat of hackers in order to justify the multibillion dollar cybersecurity industrial complex, but it is also responsible for the same conduct it aggressively prosecutes and claims to work to prevent. The hypocrisy of ‘law and order’ and the injustices caused by capitalism cannot be cured by institutional reform but through civil disobedience and direct action. Yes I broke the law, but I believe that sometimes laws must be broken in order to make room for change.” ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/truthdigger_of_the_week_jeremy_hammond_20131117?ln