Another Anonymous hacktivist has been identified and charged with hacking-related crimes.
Deric Lostutter, a 26-year-old corporate cyber-security consultant, said his home in Winchester, Ky., was raided by the FBI after he publicized information about the Steubenville rape case under the name KYAnonymous.
The Steubenville case centers around the rape of a 16-year-old girl by two members of the Steubenville High football team. Lostutter posted tweets and Instagram photos that showed other students had belittled the victim and made light of the incident. He claimed he got the tweets and photos from Michelle McKee, an Ohio blogger who had written about the case.
Anonymous subgroup KnightSec launched a campaign to collect, analyze and distribute information about the rape case, hoping to draw attention to it. Until Anonymous got involved in publicizing the case, much of the local media’s coverage focused on how the rapists’ football careers were likely ruined because of the seriousness of the charges.
Speaking with Mother Jones, Lostutter said he publicized the case because he “was always raised to stick up for people who are getting bullied.”
In a separate interview with Mint Press News, Lostutter said that because he was the shortest kid in his class and didn’t participate much in sports — a no-no in the south where he grew up — he was picked on by his classmates.
“One day I started standing up for myself,” Lostutter said, adding that he began sticking up for other people who were being bullied because he didn’t want them to go through what he had.
Lostutter joined the online hacktivist network Anonymous last year after watching the documentary “We Are Legion.” He said that as he learned more about the group’s commitment to government accountability and transparency, he felt compelled to join the group.
“I can’t get in fistfights everyday… but I can voice my opinion and that’s what I aim to do,” Lostutter said.
Though Lostutter said that he only publicized photos and tweets regarding the case, the government believed he was responsible for hacking the Steubenville football team’s booster club site at RollRedRoll.com. Another hacker, Noah McHugh — also known as “Batcat” — publicly has claimed responsibility for hacking that page, but Lostutter said the FBI continued to surveil him.
Trying to maintain a low profile, Lostutter stopped tweeting for a few months. Two days after he tweeted again, the FBI was at his home.
Thinking that the person knocking at his door was FedEx, Lostutter said he was surprised when he opened the door and about 12 FBI SWAT team agents jumped out of the truck and told him to “Get the fuck down!” while holding M-16 assault rifles and dressed in full riot gear.
“I was handcuffed and detained outside while they cleared my house. My brother soon emerged later with his new girlfriend, both bewildered that the FBI was at my house seeing as I have no prior criminal history, both of them in handcuffs as well,” he wrote. “The SWAT team left my belongings in the floor, my dogs shocked, my family nervous, my garage door battered open with a ram though I stated I had a key and the RV camper window broken for entry though I stated to pull hard on the door.
“They said, ‘Who are you?’ I responded, ‘KYAnonymous,’” he wrote.
According to Mother Jones, the FBI’s search warrant specified that agents were looking for evidence that Lostutter was involved in the hacking of RollRedRoll.com.
In an email to Gawker, Todd Lindgren, spokesman for the FBI’s Cincinnati office, said he was “unable to confirm or deny the existence of any potential investigation into this matter.”
Lostutter said he thinks the FBI came after him at the encouragement of officials in Steubenville.
“They want to make an example of me, saying, ‘You don’t fucking come after us. Don’t question us,'” he told Mother Jones.
And to those critics who say that Anonymous hacktivists are cowards hiding behind their computers and Guy Fawkes masks, Lostutter responded that it’s not hiding per se, but is instead a “form of unity without fear of persecution for having an opinion.”
Though Lostutter faces up to 10 years in prison if he is found guilty of hacking-related crimes — much more than the one- and two-year sentences given to the teens convicted of raping the 16-year-old girl in Steubenville — he says he would do it again.
“I’m just a normal guy and I hunt, fish, drink beer, live on a farm — I’m not a super international criminal. I wish people would show me some support,” he told Mint Press News.
Lostutter is being represented in court on a pro bono basis by Jason Flores-Williams of the Whistleblower’s Defense League, a group of lawyers who specialize in defending hacktivists and freedom-of-information campaigners.
“We certainly hope the United States comes to its senses and decides not to indict, and if they do we will aggressively litigate the incident,” Flores-Williams told Gawker. “What’s unique here to me is that it’s not a national security issue. This isn’t at the forefront at the NSA or the CIA. This comes out of the heartland of the country, and this is a person who is just trying to do what is right for the heartland.”
In an interview with Mint Press News, Flores-Williams, who called himself the heart and founder of the Whistleblower Defense League, said his organization takes on clients that stand up in the name of truth and democracy.
He called Lostutter an “ideal client” who stood up for a righteous cause and says “now we’re standing up for him.”
The timing of Lostutter’s case comes as several other online whistleblowers have been put on trial for hacking into computer systems and publicizing information, including Jeremy Hammond and Bradley Manning.