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10 years' jail for US hacker
Hammond pumped a fist in the air and said, "Hurrah for anarchy", as he left the courtroom last Friday.
New York - A prominent member of the hacking group Anonymous has been sentenced to 10 years' jail after pleading guilty to breaking into the computer servers of a string of US corporations, government agencies and law enforcement advocacy groups.
A federal judge slammed claims by Jeremy Hammond that his hacking activities were "acts of civil disobedience" aimed at an expanding surveillance state and the companies that do the government's bidding.
His lawyers had claimed he was part of a proud tradition of protest in the United States, but US District Judge Loretta Preska was unmoved, telling Hammond last Friday "there's nothing high-minded or public-spirited about causing mayhem".
"These are not the actions of Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, John Adams or even Daniel Ellsberg," she said. Former military analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who helped to strengthen public opposition to the Vietnam War when he leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, had written to the court praising Hammond's hacking campaign.
Judge Preska said her decision was influenced in part by Hammond's "unrepentant recidivism". He was convicted and jailed for similar activities in 2006.
Hammond, 27 was a prominent member both of Anonymous and LulzSec, a splinter group that claimed credit for hacking a range of targets, including the CIA website. His most highly publicised hack came in late 2011, when he orchestrated the computer sabotage of Stratfor, a private intelligence firm based in Austin, Texas. Prosecutors said he stole at least 200 gigabytes of information from Stratfor's computer servers, including the e-mail and account information of about 860,000 clients.
Documents filed by the government said Hammond's associates used thousands of credit card numbers taken from Stratfor to make more than US$700,000 worth of donations to non-profit groups.
Hammond and several other hackers were arrested based on information from another prominent member of Anonymous, Hector Xavier Monsegur, whom the FBI had turned into a government informant.
Last Friday, Hammond said Mr Monsegur had pushed him to expand his hacking targets to include numerous foreign government websites, including those of Iran, Turkey and Brazil.
He described Stratfor as a "deserving target", an organisation engaged in "intrusive and possibly illegal surveillance activities on behalf of large multinational corporations". Both he and his lawyers framed his actions as noble efforts to bring greater transparency to a rapidly growing and largely unaccountable private intelligence industry.
Judge Preska said Hammond had caused "widespread harm" beyond his intended targets.
Among other things, she said, his 2011 attack on the computer system of the Arizona Department of Public Safety had disrupted the state's sex offender website and Arizona's Amber Alert System, which broadcasts messages about abducted children.
Hammond showed little emotion but as he left the courtroom, he pumped one fist in the air and said: "Hurrah for anarchy."
New York Times