“We packed the court for #jeremyhammond!” wrote Twitter user @IOHNYC — a self-described anarchist network made up of autonomous collectives, projects and individuals who share the goal of building a culture of resistance. “Next court date is April 30th at 2pm Let’s do it again! #FreeHammond! #FreeAnons.”
Yesterday afternoon, the Twitter hashtag, “#FreeHammond,” was widely used as regular citizens and advocates joined with and supported Anonymous hacktivist and political activist Jeremy Hammond — dubbed the new “Bradley Manning” — for a hearing on pre-trial motions.
Hammond has been held in the Manhattan Correctional Center, a federal jail in lower Manhattan, N.Y., without bail for over a year for his alleged involvement in hacking internal information from Strategic Forecasting or Stratfor, a private intelligence company, and releasing the information to the transparency organization WikiLeaks.
For releasing information regarding Stratfor’s “inner workings, including information about the company’s spying on victims of the Bhopal disaster [in India] at the behest of Dow Chemical, concocting an insider trading scheme with Goldman Sachs and conducting surveillance of the Occupy Wall Street movement for the Department of Homeland Security,” Hammond was charged with five federal felony charges under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
Various “Free Jeremy Hammond” groups encouraged the public to come show support for Hammond by attending the April 10 status hearing at the New York City Federal Courthouse at 4 p.m. As written on a support Hammond page, courtroom support was viewed by activists and supporters as a way for Hammond to see for himself that “he has support and fighters working for him. Please remember … Jeremy has been in jail for more than one year and this is the only time he is able to see his support. It is vital that we pack that courtroom.”
Hammond has spent time in solitary confinement while in prison and has not been permitted to have family visits for one year, and non-family visits for two years.
Though she has only seen him twice since he was arrested, Hammond’s mother, Rose Collins, wrote on the Jeremy Hammond Court Date Facebook page that “Jeremy looks great, and was so happy to see another courtroom with standing room only! Thank all of you who were there in person and in spirit ♥ it makes all the difference in the world to him.”
Groups, such as Free Jeremy Hammond, say they support Hammond because if he is “indeed the source of the leak, then he is a whistleblower serving an essential role in a free democratic society, the basis of which is an informed public.
“People have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors. Jeremy’s continued imprisonment and the extreme charges he is facing clearly show that [this] is a political prosecution meant to silence anyone who would expose wrongdoing.”
Hammond faces a maximum punishment of a 42-year-to-life sentence for what the Department of Justice calls “economic espionage.”
Supporters of Hammond include longtime civil rights attorney Elizabeth Fink, who has taken up his legal defense. Other notable names who have spoken up against the government’s prosecution of Hammond include Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild, Andy Bichlbaum of the Yes Men, and Pulitzer Prize-winning former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges.
Impending trial
Hammond’s next day in court is April 30 at 2 p.m. Supporters are already preparing to join Hammond in the courtroom that day as well, especially since the judge hearing Hammond’s case has refused to recuse herself, even though she is married to someone whose information was released in the hack Hammond is being prosecuted for.
Judge Loretta Preska is married to Thomas Kavaler, a lawyer and former client of Stratfor, whose email and encrypted password were leaked in the Stratfor hack. Kavaler is a partner at Cahill Gordon & Reindell LLP — where Preska was also a partner before becoming a judge — a firm that has represented more than 20 victims of the hack.
“As any first year law student knows,” Boghosian said. “a judge must withdraw from hearing any case in which his or her impartiality might reasonably be questioned. The New York Canons of Judicial Conduct are clear: judges must avoid not only impropriety, but also the appearance of impropriety.”
But Preska maintains she can remain impartial since she says that her husband did not have his credit-card information revealed, only his email address, which was already publicly available, and called the fact that she was presiding over the same case that affected her husband “merely a coincidence.”