A STIFF PRICE TO PAY FOR A LITTLE ACTIVISM!

A STIFF PRICE TO PAY FOR A LITTLE ACTIVISM!

(Truthdig, Chris Hedges, Nicole Perlroth, Milan Patel)

(Nate Anderson, Peter Krapp, Robert Lemos, Sami Ben Gharbia)

(Huffington Post, Amanda Terkel, Ed Pilkington, Eva Galperin, Frazer Chronicle)

It was only a matter of time until somebody, somewhere got their butt handed to them for being a non-violent pacifistic activist…..the attitude never works, there simply aren’t that many Jesus’ out there. People usually stop short of being foolhardy when it comes to their beliefs…..and in this case, the freedom of one man.

This is the case of Jeremy Hammond, a non-violent pacifistic activist who just last week got his butt kicked in a court of law for the hacking trial that was officiated by Judge Loretta A. Preska, whose husband, Thomas Kavaler happens to work for the company, Strategic Forecasting, Inc. who Jeremy Hammond was on trial for hacking into the company computers.

It really was just a matter of time before Hammond got his bell rung for some of the shenanigans he’s pulled through his computer knowledge. Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (known as Stratfor) is not in the weather forecasting business, the closest they ever came to predicting a forecast was when they reported a dust storm in the deserts of Iraq…..you see, Stratfor is a global intelligence company founded in 1996 in Austin, Texas by George Friedman. Fred Burton is the company Vice President of intelligence….and knows more about the intelligence game than anybody else…..don’t take my word, go ahead, make Burton’s day, ask him.

The world-wide hacker group, Anonymous, downloaded more than 5 million e-mails which were published by WikiLeaks as the Global Intelligence Files://wikileaks.org/the-gifiles.html. The e-mails revealed that Stratfor was hired by companies and government agencies to complete information on activists and infiltrate activist communities. Anonymous also published 860,000 e-mail addresses and 75,000 unencrypted credit card numbers on the Web, and made at least $700,000 worth of unauthorized charges to credit card accounts stolen in the hack.

JEREMY HAMMOND WAS BORN…..

Jeremy Hammond was born January 8, 1985 in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in a Chicago suburb of Glendale Heights with his twin brother Jason. Jeremy Hammond became an adept computer user and  was building databases at age thirteen. As a high school student Hammond won an award for a computer program that he had designed.

It was during his high school career that he became an activist, organizing a student walkout on the day of the Iraqi invasion and started a student newspaper to oppose the Iraq War. Hammond attended the University of Illinois at Chicago on a full scholarship, however was kicked out after his freshman year for pointing out a security flaw on the computer science department’s website to department administrators and offering to fix it….. Hammond was called before the department chair and ultimately banned from returning for his sophomore year.

Hammond was arrested twice for…..(what else) marijuana; first November 2004 then in December of 2010. During the Republican National Convention protest activity in New York, Hammond was arrested during a drum-banging protest.

Other rap sheet incidents included an arrest for occupying Wicker Park’s Damen and Milwaukee traffic intersection, for protesting a Neo-Nazi groups gathering at the National Socialist Movements December 10, 2005 rally in Toledo, Ohio. Hammond pleaded guilty for getting into an altercation with anti-gay protesters and police while marching in a gay pride parade.

On December 7, 2006 Hammond was sentenced to two years in federal prison and three years’ probation for pleading guilty to charges of breaking and entering into the computer system at Protest Warrior, a group that aggressively targeted anti-Iraq War Activists.

In March, 2010, Jeremy Hammond was arrested for taking part in a confrontation with Holocaust denier David Irving. Also in 2010 Hammond was sentenced to 18 months probation and 130 hours of community service for mob action. Hammond and others were arrested for tearing down a Chicago 2016 banner at Daley Plaza and burning it to protest the Chicago bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

It was obvious that Jeremy Hammond had become a zit on the face of authority, and the judicial system had grown weary of seeing him in their court system. When the Stratfor case came up, there was little doubt…..or should have been little doubt in Hammonds mind that a deep dark pit was being readied for him, and his transgressions.

THE LEGAL SYSTEM LOWERS THE BOOM

For his part in the Stratfor hack, and his preceding behavior, and protests…..on Friday, November 15 a court in Manhattan sentenced the erstwhile political activist to a crushing ten year prison term. Whether the judge, Loretta A. Preska held malice towards Hammond is really immaterial, the court chose to levy the harshest punishment that the law could give.

There are several ways that what Jeremy Hammond received at the federal courthouse on November 15, can be viewed. Being one of the harshest prison terms given for the nonviolent crime of computer hacking, what Hammond did, actually could be called a civil disobedience act, one in a series of behavioral patterns that needed to be addressed.

Or Hammond’s act(s) championed the public good by exposing abuses of power by the government and private security firms. In addition his nonviolent protests that were pointed towards unsavory elements and groups was a voice in the wilderness of our country, a voice that now will probably forever be quitted.

Was Hammond simply protecting (in his own way) the right for Joe citizen to know what his government is doing…..and does behind closed doors. In addition were Hammond’s acts letting us know what corporate American does with government…..as well as federal contracts?

I have come to understand that when people show a total disrespect for the laws of the land on a repeated basis, that law will, whenever possible will throw the book at the perpetrator. You can’t continue to flaunt your beliefs or activities in the face of legal authority.

What Hammond’s sentence terms ordered by Judge Preska did was effectively end an activist’s career…..before Jeremy Hammond can fart sideways  he’ll be close to 50 years old…..and by then he’ll undoubtedly have lost the ability to grow long hair…..let alone be a voice in what he might perceive as problems in our nation.

WHAT HAMMOND’S ACTIONS MIGHT REALLY HAVE EXPOSED

We spend billions of dollars on a protection system that is supposed to robustly protect us from the habitual bad guys. As time goes by…..however, we are learning how intrusive that these systems really are. We are beginning to learn about the almost wall to wall information that our security agencies need to know.

Computer hacking is nothing new, it goes on around the world, sometimes for personal gain (monetary) and sometimes to share and spread the information that is being gathered against citizens by their own government.

Maybe we should be cheering the efforts of Jeremy Hammond, maybe we should be protesting his incarceration, and maybe we should march to the front gate of whatever federal facility Hammond is being held at.

Don’t call me though, if you want to organize a march, protest or an engagement with the authority figures, it would interfere with my nap schedule…..anyways, protesting is for the young…..I did my tour of duty.

HAVE A NICE DAY!