Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to The Maximum 10 Years in Prison

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A New York federal judge on Friday sentenced Hammond, 28, to the maximum 10 years in prison for a 2011 hacking spree that exposed confidential and sometimes personal information about law enforcement officers, private intelligence firms and U.S. government contractors and cost millions of dollars in damages. He had pleaded guilty in May.

The hacker Jeremy Hammond, a member of Anonymous, was sentenced today in federal court in New York to 10 years in prison and three of parole, to venture into computers intelligence firm Stratfor.

“Upon review of the record, Defendant has fail to carry his substantial burden of showing that a reasonable observer, with knowledge and understanding of the relevant facts, would ‘entertain significant doubt that justice would be done absent recusal,’” Judge Preska told the court[pdf]

Hammond had earlier this year declared guilty of entering 2011 on servers Stratfor, a private intelligence company based in Austin, Texas, where deleted files and databases and stole five million emails and 60 000 credit card numbers customers of the firm. Emails were given to WikiLeaks for public dissemination and numbers of credit cards used by Anonymous (hacker group) to accumulate $ 700,000 in fraudulent donations to NGOs. 

Hammond Lawyers, armed with a petition signed by thousands of people over the Internet and more than 250 letters of support, had asked the judge in the process your customer impose a sentence of 20 months in prison, while equivalent has already spent in jail. 

Hammond described defense-of 28 years as a whistleblower, working to expose the abuses of private contractors linked to the police and intelligence agencies. "I focus on corporate systems application of law by racism and inequality with implementing the law, "Hammond told the federal judge Loretta Preska, to justify their actions in a court packed with journalists and supporters, who see their actions as a form of civil disobedience . "I focus on manufacturers and distributors of military and police who benefit from the weapons used to promote political and economic interests of the United States abroad and repression at home people," said Hammond. "I focus on security firms because they work in secret to protect government and corporate interests at the expense of individual rights, to undermine and discredit the activists, journalists and others who seek the truth, and the dissemination of misinformation " said Hammond "Yes violates the law, but I think sometimes you have to break the law in order to make room for change," said Hammond, showing no remorse for his actions. 

Stratfor is mainly engaged in business of selling geopolitical intelligence reports to customers around the world, including companies and individuals. Yet emails stolen by Hammond showed that Stratfor is also engaged in other, more controversial, as activists monitoring for those affected by the gas leak Dow Chemical Company in Bhopal, India, in 1984. 

Hammond was discovered and arrested last year with the help of Hector Xavier Monsegur, a famous hacker known as "Sabu" that helped police to serve as informant Anonymous infiltrated. Hammond officials described as "a recidivist hacker happened to participate in mass hacking spree during which caused damage to numerous businesses, individuals and governments."

“What is needed is not reform but total transformation; not amendments but abolition,” writes Hammond.