"Hacker Crackdown.Part 4.THE CIVIL LIBERTARIANS" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

everyone else caught up in the crackdown had
"cooperated fully" and pled guilty in hope of reduced
sentences. (Steve Jackson was a notable exception, of
course, and had strongly protested his innocence from the
very beginning. But Steve Jackson could not get a day in
court -- Steve Jackson had never been charged with any
crime in the first place.)

Neidorf had been urged to plead guilty. But Neidorf
was a political science major and was disinclined to go to
jail for "fraud" when he had not made any money, had not
broken into any computer, and had been publishing a
magazine that he considered protected under the First
Amendment.

Neidorf's trial was the *only* legal action of the
entire Crackdown that actually involved bringing the
issues at hand out for a public test in front of a jury of
American citizens.

Neidorf, too, had cooperated with investigators. He
had voluntarily handed over much of the evidence that
had led to his own indictment. He had already admitted
in writing that he knew that the E911 Document had been
stolen before he had "published" it in *Phrack* -- or, from
the prosecution's point of view, illegally transported stolen
property by wire in something purporting to be a
"publication."

But even if the "publication" of the E911 Document
was not held to be a crime, that wouldn't let Neidorf off
the hook. Neidorf had still received the E911 Document
when Prophet had transferred it to him from Rich
Andrews' Jolnet node. On that occasion, it certainly
hadn't been "published" -- it was hacker booty, pure and
simple, transported across state lines.

The Chicago Task Force led a Chicago grand jury to
indict Neidorf on a set of charges that could have put him
in jail for thirty years. When some of these charges were
successfully challenged before Neidorf actually went to
trial, the Chicago Task Force rearranged his indictment so
that he faced a possible jail term of over sixty years! As a
first offender, it was very unlikely that Neidorf would in
fact receive a sentence so drastic; but the Chicago Task
Force clearly intended to see Neidorf put in prison, and
his conspiratorial "magazine" put permanently out of
commission. This was a federal case, and Neidorf was
charged with the fraudulent theft of property worth almost
eighty thousand dollars.