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[Devling]

SHOULD he be punished? Did he actually do anything wrong?

If a cop searches through your house, then yes he did something wrong.

[penguinofhonor]

Should he be punished?

Yes.

Is invading someones privacy worse then rape?

No.

Don't assume I support the punishment just because I disagree with Sock's argument against it.

[Devling]

Should he be punished?

Yes.

Is invading someones privacy worse then rape?

No.

Don't assume I support the punishment just because I disagree with Sock's argument against it.

I was just sharing my opinion on the matter in general, not specifically replying to you.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[penguinofhonor]

Oh, sorry. I reacted a little too aggressively.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think he did anything wrong. The rapists probably wouldn't have been convicted if not for him. Hell, they were barely convicted with all the evidence he exposed.

[SalmonGod]

I'm looking at this from two angles right now.

1.  Would he be prosecuted as aggressively if he had stolen personal communications, photos, and video that didn't relate to a high-profile criminal case?

2.  If all this surveillance is going on, why isn't it being employed in cases like this?  It's obviously being used in plenty of other cases that have nothing to do with terrorism.  It seems quite plain to me that the will simply isn't there to effectively investigate this type of crime with the same tools.  Given these circumstances, is it really wrong for citizens to take private action in leveling the field of justice? 

The police bust down criminals' doors and point guns at them, so they should be glad when I do the same thing.

It's quite possible (probable, even) their only argument is "Citizens don't have the right to do anything the government can."

Does mere collection of evidence make one vigilante?

[Devling]

Breaking the law makes you a criminal.
Change the law, don't condone people breaking it for good.

[XXSockXX]

Don't assume I support the punishment just because I disagree with Sock's argument against it.

I wasn't making an argument, I was being sarcastic. The US government collects lots of private information from foreign users (the PRISM thing). That is clearly against our privacy laws, recording phone conversations without consent or court order is a crime in Germany. So it seems hypocritical to me that they might sentence this guy to 10 years, while they basically do the same thing "to fight crime".

I think he was doing something wrong, and he should be punished. But I would have expected something like 6 months on probation, up to 10 years seems completely excessive.

I'm looking at this from two angles right now.

1.  Would he be prosecuted as aggressively if he had stolen personal communications, photos, and video that didn't relate to a high-profile criminal case?

2.  If all this surveillance is going on, why isn't it being employed in cases like this?  It's obviously being used in plenty of other cases that have nothing to do with terrorism.  It seems quite plain to me that the will simply isn't there to effectively investigate this type of crime with the same tools.  Given these circumstances, is it really wrong for citizens to take private action in leveling the field of justice? 

1. I wonder if they notice these things much at all outside of high-profile cases, ie security risks, economic espionage, maybe filesharing.
2. Seems like they don't have the ability to do that yet. Maybe they just collect data. Or only secret service has access to it, so it is not used in a case like this.
Vigilantism is always a two-edged sword, I understand that they don't want to encourage that, but they are going to need make use of their own surveillance, otherwise there might be more of this.

[freeformschooler]

I'm confused about how he's being charged at all when, according to the article, the only thing he did was leak "social media evidence." I'm pretty sure hacking into phones with his Anonymous hacker powers is not the same as putting together a bunch of evidence from Facebook, youtube, etc.

[SalmonGod]

Breaking the law makes you a criminal.
Change the law, don't condone people breaking it for good.

I would agree with this if I had any level of faith that it's actually workable in practice, at present or in the foreseeable future.  Currently, the letter of the law is quite blatantly the tool of the powerful to be used against everybody else.

[Scelly9]

I'm confused about how he's being charged at all when, according to the article, the only thing he did was leak "social media evidence." I'm pretty sure hacking into phones with his Anonymous hacker powers is not the same as putting together a bunch of evidence from Facebook, youtube, etc.

Pretty sure that the evidence was private messages from hacked accounts.

[Devling]

Breaking the law makes you a criminal.
Change the law, don't condone people breaking it for good.

I would agree with this if I had any level of faith that it's actually workable in practice, at present or in the foreseeable future.  Currently, the letter of the law is quite blatantly the tool of the powerful to be used against everybody else.

Oh ye of little faith...

Call me a bright eyed optimist, but I think that laws should be obeyed, and people should work to change them if they feel they are not right and just laws.

[freeformschooler]

Call me a bright eyed optimist, but I think that laws should be obeyed, and people should work to change them if they feel they are not right and just laws.

The problem is the people who get screwed over by the letter of the law (like this guy, esp. if he loses his court case [not sure if that already happened?]) have an extraordinarily low ability to change them compared to elected officials. And, of course, elected officials are the ones who - according to Obama's press report about how well-informed all the expected parties were about PRISM - do this same kind of stuff but get away scott free, without a 10 year sentence or anything like that.

Yes, this guy's a criminal for breaking the law. Due to the fact that I and everyone I know as a group can't up and start changing the written word of the law tomorrow or any time soon, I still condone him for what he did while breaking the law.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Law for the sake of law is worthless and self-serving. What would you have done if you had known about this? Not leaked it because "THE LAW"?

The law is only so good as it serves society's interests, which in this case it did not.

[SalmonGod]

1.  Would he be prosecuted as aggressively if he had stolen personal communications, photos, and video that didn't relate to a high-profile criminal case?

1. I wonder if they notice these things much at all outside of high-profile cases, ie security risks, economic espionage, maybe filesharing.

My point for thinking on, though, was if it was noticed, would it be prosecuted as aggressively?  My guess is authorities could be aware that sort of invasion of privacy was taking place and they likely wouldn't care.  This is only different because it embarrassed the local authorities in front of the world.