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from the shades-of-"Weev"-and-Aaron-Swartz dept.
Thanks in part to America’s ill-defined hacking laws, prosecutors have enormous discretion to determine a hacker defendant’s fate. But in one young Texan’s case in particular, the Department of Justice stretched prosecutorial overreach to a new extreme: about 440 years too far.
Last week, prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas reached a plea agreement with 28-year-old Fidel Salinas, in which the young hacker with alleged ties to members of Anonymous consented to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of computer fraud and abuse and pay $10,000 in restitution. The U.S. attorney’s office omitted one fact from its press release about that plea ( http://www.justice.gov/usao/txs/1News/Releases/2014%20November/141120%20-%20Salinas.html ), however: Just months ago, Salinas had been charged with not one, but 44 felony counts of computer fraud and cyberstalking—crimes that each carry a 10-year maximum sentence; adding up to an absurd total of nearly a half a millennium of prison time.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday November 30 2014, @09:49PM
Agreed, the clown was not worthy of our sympathy.
Further, the prosecutor was NEVER asking for 440 years, simply charging every crime that he actually committed. It was the PRESS that dreamed up the 440 years nonsense. That's not the way these things ever play out.
In short the idiots at Wired just hyped the maximum penalty you could possibly get, (say if your hack caused a death or you made off with a million dollars of ill gotten gain) and rushed to judgement to assume that is what would have been handed down, and asserted, without a shred of evidence, that the prosecutor was actually asking for that.
Prosecutors don't set sentences. (Wired should know this). Prosecutors don't even ASK for specific penalties.
Judges and sometimes Juries do.
The whole nerd rage around this issue is based on the idea that someone who inflicts damage using only a computer should somehow not face any penalties because electrons aren't bullets.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.