Freelance journalist Barrett Brown, charged with posting a link to a file of stolen data including the credit card numbers of subscribers to the intelligence firm, Stratfor, was sentenced by a Texas judge to five years and three months in prison. The charges of posting the hyperlink brought Brown a lot of attention from First Amendment advocates, but in 2013 the government dropped those charges. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced for aiding-and-abetting and obstruction of justice and for a separate charge concerning threats to an FBI agent. (Wired, January 22, 2015, by Kim Zetter)
Critics of the sentencing were concerned that even though the government tried to strip First Amendment issues from the case, the move to indict Brown contributes to a hostile climate for journalists doing their jobs. (U.S. News & World Report, January 23, 2015, by Tom Risen)
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Centre for Research on Globalization, January 24, 2015, says that the Barrett Brown case and others show that the U.S. justice system operates to support government crimes. “It is not the perjurers and liars, the torturers, war criminals and mass murderers [who are imprisoned in America]. It is the good people who peacefully protest the crimes of those who control the US government and its policies,” writes Roberts.