I know this guy, “weev”. Real name: Andrew Auernheimer. He is almost always offensive. He constantly says things that brutally offend my liberal sensibilities. He never takes anything seriously and generally treats life as a piece of performance art. He’s undisciplined and lazy. I can’t believe I count him amongst my acquaintances, but he’s very charming and funny at a dinner party. That doesn’t really change how gigantic of a jackass he is. As the world’s most notorious Internet troll, his ability to repulse is quite high.
Unfortunately, it has become essential to our first amendment freedoms to keep this jackass troll out of jail.
In June of 2010, there was a public AT&T webserver that was publishing iPad 3G user email addresses. When I say “publishing”, I mean it. This thing had no password, no firewall, no authorization mechanism stopping any member of the public from collecting this data. One man, Daniel Spitler, collected a sample of this data. He brought it to Andrew Auernheimer. Andrew gave it to a journalist because he feels that when a big company puts you at risk, you deserve to know about it and the company responsible deserves to be held to account and publicly shamed.
As his reward for performing a public service, Andrew is now facing two consecutive 5-year felonies. No good deed goes unpunished.
Much more worrisome than the injustice that Andrew is receiving is the precedent it creates against us. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, isn’t just a criminal statute, it is civil. Andrew’s co-defendant accessed a publicly available webserver and Andrew gave the data to a single journalist. This means that any time you visit a URL if the web operator later decides they just don’t like you, you may face prison.
You may also just get sued by a gigantic company with more resources than you.
THE CHARGES
Andrew is indicted on two charges, USC 1030 “Conspiracy to access a computer device without authorization” in furtherance of a violation of a New Jersey state statute. The New Jersey state statute includes the language “discloses”, which means the federal government is saying that the very act of giving something to a journalist to inform the public is a criminal act. This represents an extremely dangerous prior restraint upon free speech. Beyond that, if you run any sort of business that touches the Internet at all, you should be concerned about the language behind USC 1030. If you query an API that a company makes public as part of their web app, and later they decide that your technology is too disruptive or you provide competition to a feature they’re planning, they can have you imprisoned or sued.
Andrew is also charged with USC 1028, “identity theft”, for possessing a list of email addresses. The statute is so broad that it criminalizes possessing home addresses, which means you’re a criminal every time you walk down the block of a suburb and look at house numbers.
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” - Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government
Regardless of what you think of Andrew’s identity, associations or politics, you must understand the urgency of helping fight the case against him. The interpretation the justice department is putting forward in this case affects everyone that opens a web browser, writes a web app that references external APIs or talks to a journalist about any externally acquired data. This case reeks of dangerous prior restraint upon free speech, and a guilty verdict that sticks will harm the free and open internet as badly as SOPA/PIPA would have.
Legal defense costs money. Federal criminal defense generally takes a hundred thousand dollars. By helping Andrew you safeguard your own liberties from the assault of a tyrannical government. Andrew needs a large amount of money. Please consider giving a donation or a loan.
