Free Barrett Brown

Supporting the defense of Barrett Brown, formerly imprisoned American journalist and activist, founder of Project PM and Pursuance Project. Winner of the 2016 National Magazine Award in Columns & Commentary for his writing with The Intercept. "My Glorious Defeats", a memoir slash manifesto, to be published in 2020 by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux.

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My Glorious Defeats to be published December 2020

Latest expected publication date of My Glorious Defeats, from the MCD imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux: December 1, 2020. A synopsis is below. Here’s the link to pre-order: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374217017/

…

Barrett Brown―journalist, hacktivist, troublemaker, face of Anonymous, legend in his own mind―went to prison for four years for leaking intelligence documents. He was released to Trump’s America. This is his story.

After four years in prison for obstruction of justice, accessory after the fact, and threatening a federal officer, Barrett Brown is a free man.

Bringing together a unique blend of journalism, activism, and personal hubris in My Glorious Defeats, Brown recounts tales of his connection to the hacktivist group Anonymous, of his volatile relationship with the world's most notorious hackers, of the drugs he took and stories he wrote, and of his time in prison. He describes his arrest for threatening an FBI agent in a YouTube video and subsequent indictment on twelve federal charges related to the 2011 hack of private intelligence contractor Stratfor. And he guides us with hilarious and unapologetic contempt through his charges, trial, and sentencing.

But his story doesn’t end with a heavy-handed miscarriage of justice. From prison, Barrett wrote an award-winning column about life behind bars and his compulsion to speak truth to power. Now, he tells us how he’s addressing the corrosion of the rule of law and the diminished role of the media under the rule of a demagogue. He has a viable, active plan to harness the collective power of modern tools of communication to promote the public good.

Bold and combative, part Hunter S. Thompson, part Antonio Gramsci (not really), My Glorious Defeats is part memoir, part manifesto―a roaring indictment of the increasingly powerful and increasingly dangerous cyber-industrial complex.

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Journalist Barrett Brown on Prison, Leakers, and Private Intelligence Agencies

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The Circle of HOPE (2018): Barrett Brown Onstage Interview

Writer and anarchist activist Barrett Brown was prosecuted and sentenced to 63 months in federal prison and nearly a million dollars restitution after posting a link to a URL where stolen emails of private intelligence agencies were already online. He will be interviewed onstage by award-winning journalist Spencer Ackerman, who is currently a senior national security correspondent for The Daily Beast. This freeform interview will cover a variety of topics, likely to include Brown’s alleged past connections with Anonymous and LulzSec and their reported exfiltration and sharing with WikiLeaks of a huge trove of stolen emails and other sensitive info from private intelligence agencies HBGary, Infragard, and Endgame Systems. This data exposed collusion between U.S. government law enforcement and intelligence agencies with private sector intelligence agencies that have no public oversight. An audience Q&A will follow.

Interview by Spencer Ackerman

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Barrett Brown and Anonymous: P(ro)(er)secution of Information Activists

from HOPE X, July 2014

Speakers: Gabriella Coleman @BiellaColeman

Kevin Gallagher @ageis

Ahmed Ghappour @amadooooo

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Project PM: Crowdsourcing Research of the Cyber-intelligence Complex

The mission of Project PM is to investigate the private intelligence sector and promote effective opposition to surveillance, data mining, and advanced disinformation techniques by states and other institutions. 

Speakers: 

Kevin Gallagher @ageis

Joe Fionda @subverzo

Andrew Blake @apblake

Douglas Lucas @DouglasLucas

Lauren Pespisa @SplendidSpoon

from HOPE X, July 2014

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My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir [Barrett Brown] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Barrett Brown―journalist, hacktivist, troublemaker, face of Anonymous, legend in his own mind―went to prison for four years for leaking intelligence documents. He was released to Trump’s America. This is his story. After four years in prison for obstruction of justice

Barrett Brown’s fantastic new book is coming this spring from publisher Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. Order it now!

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Here’s why I’m suing them now and felt strongly motivated to become a plaintiff.

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Brief statement by anonymous Donor #1, a class representative in our lawsuit

“I absolutely believed my donations were a response to the government's prosecutorial overreach towards Barrett. It was the same tactic that was used against Aaron Swartz, and most likely the reason why we don't have him in the world anymore.¹ We'd already lost Aaron as an activist, and Barrett had been taken out of the fight as well with his incarceration.

It seems like they were, and are still trying to make an example out of information activists by charging them with anything they can think of.

I expected my contributions to the campaign to remain anonymous. I asked other people to donate, but never disclosed through social media how much I'd donated, nor when.

Barrett definitely crossed a line when he appeared to threaten SA Smith, but the charges they were trying to pin on him were more excessive than the ones brought against Jeremy Hammond, who actually broke into Stratfor’s system—with the knowledge and help of the FBI, for whatever that's worth.²

I was definitely politically motivated to donate to Barrett's defense because of those reasons, and more. Greenwald explains it better than I can in this article.³ I believe it was this article that also helped boost donations to Barrett's cause.”

https://web.archive.org/web/20130112233941/http://rememberaaronsw.tumblr.com/post/40372208044/official-statement-from-the-family-and-partner-of-aaron

https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/hammond-sabu-fbi-stratfor-hack/

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/21/barrett-brown-persecution-anonymous

The rights of hundreds of like-minded citizens such as the one quoted above were violated when DOJ & FBI offices in Dallas sent an improper subpoena asking for "any and all information" to WePay, Inc., a company which was then our payment processor. It must have been a fishing expedition of sorts; as we cannot imagine any legitimate purpose for such a broad request.

The advocacy campaign for Brown has always been a private entity, operating independently from him—with the goal of securing the defendant competent legal representation. Those who merely gave money to support hiring and paying for new private attorneys had absolutely no business having their information being caught up in an investigation. At the time, he'd already been indicted three times and was facing 105 years maximum, so what more could they have been looking for?

See also the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. constitution, which provides: "the accused shall enjoy the right…to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." A right they sought to deny to him by asking the court for this unprecedented order to seize $20,000 we'd raised: http://cryptome.org/2013/04/brown-050.pdf

Our lawsuit against them remains severely under-reported and has been picked up very little by the media, which is remarkable considering the significant issues at stake. If these patterns continue, there will be a chilling effect upon defense fundraising campaigns for those accused of computer crime(s), security research or hacktivism-related offenses, not to mention cases involving jailed journalists and activists.

We think that every American possesses the right to give money anonymously without being unlawfully surveilled in doing so, and that’s what we’re fighting for. Financial donations to causes (political or otherwise) are unambiguously First Amendment protected speech and free association. What was done by the agents in Barrett's case was illegal.

For those who still might be interested in writing about or covering this, I will refer you first to our initial press release announcing the complaint: https://freebarrettbrown.org/2017/02/07/donors-sue-doj-fbi-right-give-anonymously/

The government and each official respectively then filed their motions to dismiss: https://freebarrettbrown.org/2017/05/12/us-government-moves-to-dismiss-our-lawsuit/

The latest development in the case is that we have responded, and our claims still stand: https://freebarrettbrown.org/2017/08/13/lawyers-counter-govt-motion-to-dismiss-lawsuit-over-illegal-surveillance-of-donors/

Stay tuned for more. Contact me: kevinmg [at] riseup [dot] net or Barrett: arbenzlola [at] gmail [dot] com if there are any further questions.

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Lawsuit Accuses Dallas FBI Agents of Illegally Monitoring Contributions to Barrett Brown's Defense Fund

It has been interesting, these past few weeks, having Barrett work at D Magazine. Seems like I get a Google alert every couple of days or so about something he’s involved with. Interviews with other media. Efforts to overthrow the government. It’s all fine with me so long as he gets his work done. Just …

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Barrett Brown's The Intercept column receives honorable mention from the National Press Club

"for his witty columns on topics ranging from politics to writing to federal prison bureaucracy."

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Roger Hodge, Barrett Brown’s editor at The Intercept, filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for documents concerning Brown, who is federal prisoner #45047-177. After a long wait he received back 177 pages, 58 of which were redacted. The files contain news stories about Brown, as well as documents related to intake, administrative, and disciplinary matters.

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Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels

There are some big ideas about the Internet in Jonathan Franzen’s new novel, but none worth having, much less writing down.

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Barrett Brown Vs. the Department of Justice - Blurring the Lines of Journalism part 2

At a time when a new megaleak seems to hit the Internet every week, the imprisonment of journalist Barrett Brown is causing many to ask if it is legally safe to share hyperlinks to leaked document troves containing credit card or personal identifying information

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The Government's Hypocrisy on Hacked Information

'If the government is going to be consistent, it can do two things, in my view. It can either drop all of these witch-hunt investigations into federal employees with Ashley Madison accounts right now, or it can release from prison immediately a federal inmate named Barrett Brown.' John Kiriakou

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Just days out of Segregated Housing, still under heavy restrictions, Barrett Brown continues to endure prison retaliation. Barrett reports, “A guard seized a notebook of mine right outside the law library despite my objections that it contained privileged legal information.” Barrett says that he will discuss this further in his next Intercept column.The incident report, dated 23 August 2015, indicates that Brown was in possession of contraband: “unauthorized green notebook.”

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Why Solitary Confinement is Modern Day Torture | Molly Crabapple

As of 2013, there were 80,000 men and women in solitary confinement in the United States, some of them as young as 14 years old. In this illustrated op-ed vi...

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The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Prison

My new cellmate snuck over to Dallas from Mexico when he was 15, became the leader of a gang, did a year in state prison for shooting another drug dealer with a shotgun, and worships Santa Muerte, the skeletal narco-deity beloved throughout the Mexican underworld.