Birgitta Jonsdottir is a member of the Icelandic Parliament
and an outspoken advocate for at-risk whistleblowers and journalists.
The following is MP Jonsdottir’s open letter regarding the prosecution
and protracted abuse of Barrett Brown since his incarceration. We
encourage others to copy, excerpt and share this content freely and widely
THE CRIMINALIZATION OF JOURNALISM
If Barrett Brown is found guilty we will all be forced to
rethink how we use the Internet and share information, knowledge, blog, report,
tweet, use facebook and google.
His case has been like a long drawn out fiction since he was
arrested in Dallas
at gunpoint by a heavily armed raid on his apartment on the 12 of September
2012. He has been kept in prison ever since, charged with 17 counts that
include threatening a federal agent, concealing evidence and disseminating
stolen information. He faces a maximum sentence of 100 years in custody and has
been placed under gag order by specific request of the government.
When I first heard of the bizarre case of Barrett Brown, a
journalist for among others Vanity Fair, The Guardian, and Huffington Post, I
was shocked to notice that his ordeal was not headline news. His central work
at the time was around investigations and research that was focused on the
cyber-industrial complex. Barrett was investigating the private intelligence
industry with Project PM using leaked e-mails from HBGary and Stratfor. That
earned him the attention of the Justice Department. Project PM is a
crowd-sourced research project, and a very valuable resource for data on the
privatized segment of the invisible Empire.
Barrett was a prominent activist for transparency, he worked
as an embedded reporter with Anonymous. At the time of his arrest Barrett Brown
was onto something that the governmental Watchmen wanted to be keep below the
surface no matter what.
Barrett is obviously being punished for looking into the
surveillance state and being vocal about it. The judicial overreach is to the
extent that, as stated, he was even imposed a gag order by a federal court in
Dallas, and not only him but also his legal team. This gag order prevents them
from talking to the media about his unprecedented prosecution for alleged
offenses relating to his work exposing online surveillance. Imposed
at the request of the US
government, the court
order, prohibits the defendant and his defense team, as well as
prosecutors, from making any statement to all media outlet members.
Indictments for linking set a very dangerous precedent not
just for journalists who want to link to hacks/leaks in their reporting, but
the Internet as we know it and modern media development where citizen research
plays an important role in sifting through raw data. The right to link is at
stake, a function that is the backbone of Internet culture of sharing knowledge
and information. But there is more, much more.
Reporter’s privilege to protect their sources is at stake,
and if it has ever been important to be vigilant in that regard, then that time
is now. With new revelations about mass surveillance capacities of the NSA and
its sister clandestine institute in the UK by the courageous whistleblower
Edward Snowden the world has been forced to face that ongoing violation of our
privacy as the norm. It also means that journalists can´t protect their
sources, doctors can´t ensure patients confidentiality nor can lawyers
guarantee confidentiality towards their clients.
Barrett was digging deep into uncomfortable information
about how the US Government has outsourced most of it’s spying to private
companies. Big Corporate Brother is watching our every thought, our every
emotion and our every action. Every breath we take is being analyzed and
scrutinized by algorithms of increased sophistication and there is an intent of
an all encompassing surveillance in the name of false security. Knowing this,
that probing into my private life is happening does not make me feel any
security at all, it is quite the contrary.
Reporter’s privilege and free speech is something most of us
hold sacred. The very laptops that Barrett is charged with obstruction for
concealing contained journalistic sources and work product, including a
book-in-progress. The First Amendment is understood as protecting reporters
from revealing confidential information or sources, but there are clear signs
that the constitutional values in the USA are being eroded by DoJ
investigations into national security leaks. The FBI raid which led to these
charges was based on false information, and actually there was no crime to
investigate. It was nothing more than an attempt to stifle Barrett’s reporting
on the private/public partnership concerning surveillance and inhibit his
research.
Despite Aaron Swartz’s suicide, the government is still
waging an unjust war on whistleblowers, journalists, and information activists.
People are being prosecuted (and also highly over-prosecuted) for political
acts or merely because the government doesn’t agree with them. Just why is
Barrett being charged when numerous other people, including established
reporters, shared the same link?
Evidence is mounting towards the bleak reality that Barrett
is being persecuted because of his work exposing the activities of private
security and intelligence companies that do the government’s dirty work and spy
on the public. If citizens are not allowed to research the growing surveillance
state, what will happen in the future to privacy, transparency and not to mention
our civil liberties? We cannot allow his case to be ignored, it demands a
reflection of brutal honesty on where our democratic rights are heading, the
very foundation of democracy is at stake when the most important and valued
constitutional rights are being violated in a systematic wave of governmental
abuse, not only in the US
but around the world. The secret service is out of control and it is revealed
more and more each week that this surveillance state is working toward
questionable ends. Nobody wants to live in the United World of Stasi, and
this undeniable fact is exactly why we have to show the political prisoners of
the information evolution profoundly more support.
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