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OK, so we want to talk
a little bit about a very important
new case that I think everyone here
should be concerned about, and the
legal case is officially titled
Love versus the United States,
because it's about a British computer
scientist, an Occupy activist called
Laurie Love, who
you see on the screen.
But now it's gone. There you go.
Who?
So Jake and I have been friends of
Hillary for quite a while, and at the
moment he's facing some very serious
allegations from the United States
where the FBI is trying to extradite him
to face charges under the computer
and under the Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act, where he could potentially be
facing up to 99 years in jail.
He's being accused of essentially taking
part in a series of online protests
called Operation Last Resort that
followed the persecution and death of
Aaron Swartz, where in
a website of the United States Sentencing
Commission was hacked and replaced
with a home page that allowed visitors
to play a game where they could control
a missile and able nyan cat that allowed
them to shoot chunks of text off the page
and.
So so Laurie was a long time friend of
Aaron, and in fact, I first met Laurie
in an icy tunnel set up by around 15
years ago.
Laurie is currently being pursued by the
US criminal justice system, worked for
effectively protesting
abuses of the same system.
And as protesters in three separate
US court districts accusing
him of hacking into various governmental
agencies, including NASA, the
US Army, the Federal Reserve and
also the Environmental Protection Agency.
And as a result of all of this, Laurie
was arrested in October 2013
by the National Crime Agency, which is
like the UK's equivalent to the FBI.
And nine months after that, his
police bail was allowed to expire.
And he wasn't charged with anything
because the National Enquirer Agency
couldn't find any evidence of what
the FBI was accusing him of.
And of course, the FBI wasn't too happy
about this because they were quite keen
to press charges.
So the FBI
put in an extradition request
and not just one extradition requests,
but three separate requests from
three separate districts.
And this is actually just one of the ways
that the FBI can abuse
the justice system in order to coerce
defendants to enter a guilty plea,
even if they're not, even if they're
innocent.
So Lori's case actually has a pretty
interesting political significance here
because his case is essentially a deja vu
of another case that happened 10 years
ago, 10 years ago.
The FBI also tried to extradite another
man called Gary McKinnon, who was
accused of hacking NSA.
So what happened to Gary?
He fought extradition battle for 10
years.
And this raised a lot of interesting
political questions in parliament because
it revealed that the UK, US
extradition treaty, extradition treaty
was quite unbalanced, as in
it's very one sided with the US.
It's much easier for a British for the
US to extradite us, for
the US to extract a UK person than
it is for the UK to extradite a US
person.
And the reason for that is because
for the US to put an extradition request,
they don't even have to show any evidence
or even present the case, which
is pretty insane because you'd think
that's the basic right to a
fair trial, including the ability for a
defendant to be able to view the case
against them so that they can formulate a
defense.
And the British parliament also agreed
that this was unfair.
So they campaigned on behalf
of Gary to
change the law.
And
eventually, Theresa May, which was
the home secretary at the time, blocked
the extradition on the
basis that it would be a human rights
violation because Gary
had had a long and documented history of
depression, anxiety through his whole
life. And he was also diagnosed with
Asperger's.
So sending him to a US prison in the UK
prison would have been inhumane because
essentially it would have
put him away from his family and the
support system that essentially sustains
him. And like Gary, Laurie also has
a long and documented history of
depression and is also diagnosed with
Asperger's. So this case really is a deja
vu of a case that happened 10 years ago.
So after Gary's case, the law changed
and Theresa May introduced a new piece of
legislation called the Foreign Bar.
And the foreign bar was designed to
prevent cases like this from happening
ever again, like it is now.
And it created it
essentially allowed the courts to block
an extradition on the basis
that the case
can be heard in the UK and it has to be
had in the US, which is the case
I will be talking about in a while
because we will prosecute
in the UK, even though we were accused
of hacking into a whole bunch of stuff in
the US.
So there's no reason why Laurie can't be
tried in the U.K.
But unfortunately, a few weeks ago the
Magistrates Court in the UK
actually approved Lawry's extradition.
But it's not over because
they thought there will still be appeals
and this will at least go
on for another two years.
And the reason why
they were able to accept it in this case,
because after one after the foreign bar
was introduced, the ability
for the home secretary to
block an extradition on human rights
basis was transferred to the courts
instead of the home secretary.
So the home secretary no longer has the
power to do what she did
in Gary's case.
Now, the interesting thing about this
case is that the judge in the case
actually accepted that law, represented,
in her own words, a severe, substantial
and high risk of suicide.
But she didn't she didn't accept
that the US prison systems don't have
adequate health care to deal with this,
which is ridiculous because the US prison
systems are notorious worldwide for
the way that they treat people with
mental health issues.
So just as an example,
Chelsea Manning was in the news
a few months ago for her suicide attempt.
What did the president do?
Did they give her care?
No. Instead, they disciplined her.
I sentenced her to solitary confinement
because she committed she attempted
suicide in the U.K.
The exact opposite would happen if you
had mental health issues.
You would be given more freedoms in
yourself and and access
to care rather than simply being locked
away in solitary confinement.
Now, there's been a lot of campaigning
work done for Lurrie by Naomi
and the Courage Foundation, which has
been doing some really incredible work.
And thanks to the work, we have
one hundred and fourteen members of
parliament on our side who have cosigned
a letter to Barak Obama requesting
him to reconsider
Lawrie's extradition.
Also, Laurie's case was brought up in
parliament during prime minister's
Question Time, which is a pretty great
achievement, and I'm going to play the
video now.
A young man with Asperger's syndrome
awaits extradition to the United States
facing charges of computer
hacking and is then likely to kill
himself. It sounds familiar.
He's not, of course, Gary McKinnon, who
was saved by the prime minister,
but Larry Love, who faces, in effect,
a death sentence.
So when the prime minister introduced the
former to, in her words,
provide greater safeguards for
individuals.
Surely she expected it to protect the
vulnerable. Like Gary McKinnon.
Like Larry Love.
Yeah,
the honorable gentleman, my honorable
friend, obviously campaigned long and
hard for Gary McKinnon.
And obviously, I took that decision
because at that time it was a decision
for the home secretary to decide whether
there was a human rights case for an
individual not to be extradited.
We subsequently changed the legal
position on that. So this is now a matter
for the courts. There are certain
parameters that the courts look at
in terms of the extradition decision, and
that is then passed to the home
secretary. But it is for the courts to
determine the human rights aspects
of of any case that comes forward.
It was right, I think, to introduce
the former bar to make sure
that there was that challenge for cases
here in the United Kingdom as to whether
they should be held here in the United
Kingdom. But the legal process is very
clear and the home secretary is part of
that legal process.
And Koka.
So, yeah, I mean I mean, that's pretty
much a non answer, but at least it was
brought up.
Now, the reason why I'm personally so
invested in this case, well, for
a start, I believe that it's really
important for our community to have
solidarity with technologists and
activists who are facing injustices.
But also,
five years ago, there was a lot less
support organizations supporting
whistleblowers and hackers.
If you are charged with the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act, there weren't that
many places that you could turn to to
get support.
And there's this case that there's one
case that's really close to my heart
that I want everyone to know about
because it's been completely forgotten
and I think we've completely failed this
person.
So in 2012
and AT&T employee could launch more
committed suicide after he was charged by
the FBI for leaking some documents.
They had access to you from AT&T
and he leaked these documents via
Anonymous.
Now, despite the fact that there was no
hacking involved and he was leaking
information that I had access to, the
FBI charged him for hacking at AT&T,
which sets a pretty bad precedent for
whistleblowers leaking information that
they already had access to.
Now, at that time,
the Solidarity Committee for Hackers and
Whistleblowers was a lot smaller.
The Courage Foundation didn't exist and
there wasn't really no one reached out to
him and there was no natural place for
him to reach out to you.
But what really gets me about this case
is that in hindsight, he would've
actually eventually has been found not
guilty because the FBI
also prosecuted, prosecuted
one other person with for hacking
AT&T, and he was eventually
acquitted in 2014 because
the FBI didn't have a case against him
because of technicalities.
Now, the exact same thing probably
would have happened to Lance because the
details of the case are very similar.
But sadly, he never lived to be able to
see this.
And finally, Lance Moore was completely
forgotten and there's been no mentions
and no news articles about him
whatsoever.
And that's why I think it's really
important for us to build a loud and
visible solidarity movement
for hackers and whistleblowers so that if
anyone finds themselves in trouble in the
future, they will always know that they
will have someone to look out for them.
I hand it over to Naomi from the Recovery
Foundation, who's going to talk a little
bit about the importance of Laura's case.
Thank you for that.
You're normally asked to care about
hacker prosecution cases because here is
someone who's really great.
A really horrible thing is happening to
and we it's right and proper that we
should care when horrible things are
happening to great people.
Larry is a great person, and everybody
who uses encryption in the United Kingdom
owes him a debt of gratitude for
defeating a national crime agency in
court earlier this year.
The NCA. We're putting forward a novel
legal theory that any effectively
no one had a right to property that law
enforcement could not then read,
which thanks to Larry, was was
turned back. And so we avoided a
disaster there, a victory for the privacy
rights of vanishingly rare in the U.K.
and that was an important one.
Solidarity is an unambiguously good
thing, and Larry definitely
deserves your solidarity.
But this case is also more important than
you think.
I want to explain why everybody
in this room should care about Larry's
case, not just because it's the right
thing to do and you should be generous,
but because of your out of your
self-interest as well.
There are several grand narratives in the
community that come up again and again at
Congress.
One of those which I think we've heard a
lot about in recent years, probably with
misplaced optimism, in my opinion, is
that the hacking community is better with
surveillance and for privacy rights.
And I'm sure a lot of us remember
OPCON gripes talk about a decade
ago when he said that we lost the war,
meaning the war on mass surveillance.
And I think we're all far too familiar
with another war, and that is the war on
hackers and hacking by law enforcement.
That is a war where the creative approach
to and use of systems is marginalized
and pathologies as criminal by
governments and law enforcement agencies.
And then that word hacker itself is used
to mean something cruel and dangerous.
It's a war that disproportionately
affects the neuro divergent.
So it's a war not just on what people do
and not just don't want people think, but
also how they think.
I'm afraid to say that I think we're at
risk of losing that war, too, and now
this case is absolutely pivotal to that.
If we don't manage to keep Larry in the
United Kingdom and a transnational
extradition regime is established, that
means that all hackers well, anyone who
does anything interesting with computers
is potentially subject to the laws and
penalties of the worst legal regime of
the lot, regardless of where they live.
And that legal regime is, of course, the
United States.
We all know how bad the criminal justice
system is.
We all know that the criminal justice
system in the United States is bad.
Maybe we forget sometimes just how bad it
is.
The United States has the highest per
capita prison prison population in the
world. And tonight,
tens of thousands, probably hundreds of
thousands of people are spending that
their time in solitary confinement.
Over 90 percent of defendants in the
United States are coerced into pleading
guilty or the threat of ridiculous
sentences.
I'm not I wonder sometimes how we can
talk about fair trials when the reality
is that a vanishingly small number of
people ever receive a trial at all.
Lowry is almost uniquely facing
charges in three separate US court
districts, which amount to
a potential sentence of some 99 years.
That's ninety nine years for alleged acts
of political speech that pertain to the
actions of US prosecutors.
So US prosecutors are now trying to
absolutely crush Larry love.
It's not subtle.
The situation, the United States is not
going away for Larry or for anyone, I
find it kind of difficult to imagine
a moment would have been more propitious
for reform of the Computer Fraud and
Abuse Act than Aaron Swartz.
His death.
And although the shockwaves are heard,
word across the world and
representations were made in Congress,
nothing happened. I think we should write
off legal reform in the United States
as a possibility in the near term.
The CFA, as many of us know, gives
prosecutors extremely wide discretion.
US prosecutors collect hacker skins as
trophies, and that's because their career
making prosecutions.
And if we do allow trans national
jurisdictions in these kind of cases
to become a regular thing, everybody here
is potentially Extraditables
to us on the whim of an American
prosecutor who wants to build their
career and risks. No consequences for
making allegations that don't stack up.
Remember that the US does not have to
present any evidence to extradite Lowry,
the entire court proceeding in Larrys
extradition case is taking place on the
basis of allegations only no
evidence is ever presented.
This is a win based justice system.
And even if he thought a win based
justice system was just about OK under a
philosopher king like Barack Obama,
although if you do think that we might
have to have words later, how do
you think that's going to work under
Donald Trump's Department of Justice?
I'll just leave that one for a second.
And as Mustapha explained, we've had a
close escape with this kind of thing
before Gary McKinnon was
that was the test case for the bilateral
extradition treaty between the UK and the
US and that concluded computer crimes
just because the US was unhappy about how
the UK had handled a couple of hacker
prosecutions in the 1990s.
That's all it is.
So after securing the law, US prosecutors
try to establish the precedent with Gary.
They failed, but only just.
And it took a 10 year battle of, you
know, almost unparalleled
ferocity to stop it.
A subsequent change in the law, which I
am going to insist on calling Theresa
May's foreign bar, was supposed to
prevent cases like this ever happening
again. And it forms the immediate context
of Larry LAVs legal defense in the United
Kingdom.
But in September of Westminster
Magistrates Court, it fell at the first
hurdle.
We're now waiting to hear whether an
appeal will be allowed to go ahead and if
it is, we can expect that to happen
towards the middle of next year.
We really need to keep Larry in the UK
because the precedent of his extradition
will not easily be turned back as
Brexit. Britain is about to find out
transnational legal regimes are very hard
to turn back once established.
A new transnational regime of
America's global jurisdiction over the
Internet and the regime of criminal law
as it pertains to hackers is going to be
similarly difficult to extricate
ourselves from if it's allowed to be
built.
And that is why this case is more
important than you think.
And its outcome has the potential to
affect everybody in this room and will
have far reaching implications, which we
are going to find it very difficult to
reverse in the future.
So I'm calling on everybody here and
everybody who's watching on Livestream to
please, if not out of solidarity with
Larry, who incidentally, is a wonderful
person who should feel solidarity with
and he deserves your support, if not out
of solidarity with Larry, than please
just think of yourself and your comrades
in your community and please help us save
Larry, because if we don't save Larry,
we will not be able to save ourselves.
Thank you.
And I'll hand over to Jake.
Hi, this is what
I'm going to speak. Just very briefly,
before we get Larry on himself
a little bit about extradition and then a
sort of pretentious statement about how
great Larry is.
So so
the first time Mr. and I met in real life
was in the dock of court,
having both been arrested for involvement
in Anonymous.
And also the only reason we're able
to sit here today
next to each other is we weren't
extradited to the United States, even
though at one point there was talk of it.
We were prosecuted, sentenced in the UK,
received two years, suspended prison
sentence. I received a two year prison
sentence, though,
if extradition had been sought.
And it had been successful.
I'm sure we'd still be unable
to do the things we do today, we'd be
locked in a very tiny cell,
but now we're
functional members of society, paying
taxes and the like.
And Larry should be able to have the same
the opportunity to be, to be, to be tried
in the country in which he lives, in
which he was arrested and his loved
one lives.
So said
pretentious statement about Larry.
So I do. I vividly remember the first
time I met Larry Love 2014.
It was in the middle of the busy London
Kings Cross train station, and
he introduced himself by way of wheeling
into the back of my legs with a giant
boombox trolley system that was
blasting a reggae jungle playlist.
We were meeting as a group of security
researchers and ex hackers.
Some of us knew each other online and
we were meeting for the first time in the
real world for the previous 12 months
between 2013 and 2014.
I had been legally banned from speaking
to anyone in Anonymous, which was
difficult to moderate on the basis
that everyone and no one is anonymous,
apparently.
So that was a fun year, but it
was fascinating and terrifying prospect
then to meet people in the real
world.
That had meant that we had just known
online, Larry, being
there.
He he provided an enthusiasm and
energy that and which was immediately
contagious.
And I learned that he has the look
and demeanor of of someone who's
always thinking of the well-being and
happiness of others around him.
And simultaneously, you may have caught
a glimpse of it in the livestream.
He has this sort of subtle
glimmer that suggests he's in on a very
funny joke that no one else can ever hope
to conceive of.
But he can also consume
pints of beer at a staggeringly
impressive rate. You may have seen some
of that going down in the
stream.
So the last time I met Larry,
the it's the second time.
So it was at this conference two years
ago, 31 CE three.
And if you talk to him even briefly, I'm
sure you'll remember him in the
conversation.
He has the ability to effortlessly
span so many different genres of
information security weaving.
He weaves inconceivably
fascinating politics, philosophy,
comedy and complex technical concepts
into these beautifully crafted and highly
memorable advice and ideas.
He collaborated with so many people here
two years ago that I thought there were
there wasn't one but 10 Larrys just off
and all parts of the center dispensing
wisdom to everyone.
Absolutely remarkable, remarkable
person, and really brought a sense
of joy here.
And that joy spreading continued.
And around three a.m.
when he and I and Mustafa and several
others got lost on the streets of Hamburg
trying to find our way back to our
hostel.
And he inspired us endlessly throughout
our stay. And it's it's it's depressing
to that's such an absurd situation
means you can't be here today
with us.
And what I've what I've learned since
then, since hanging out with Larry
and being around him in so many different
types of situation from,
you know, being completely out of our
minds at festivals to sitting
down with members of the UK government
trying to convince them that our
extradition relationship with the US is
flawed and corrupt.
And we heard from most of his video that
to watching Larry sit
in a court dock.
As prosecutors berated
him,
sitting, making origami, beautiful
origami as a coping mechanism,
I've learned through all of this that
Larry is
he is Larry, he
he has a oh,
there we go.
This is not printed correctly.
It's printed.
It's actually printed backwards.
How is how have words printed backwards?
Most of it. This year I
started reading the next sentence.
I began reading and it's literally
backwards. I have to read it in reverse.
And I've picked
my paper has been hacked.
No, that's
OK.
Well done, whoever hacked my paper is
fine, looks fine.
No, it's fine. Yeah, just yeah,
just read it.
Well, it's fine.
Well, yeah.
Take a look. Larry is
really backwards.
Larry is open, honest, compassionate.
He's capable of adapting
and making the best of any situation.
He always, always adds value
to any project, idea or social dynamic.
And, you know, it's absurd to remove that
talent from society.
And it's meaningless.
It's completely illogical.
Someone in power needs to just make the
extradition request go away and give him
a job, basically.
Because people like Larry
have helped to secure things that most
people would be shocked to learn, we're
even vulnerable to begin with.
And he is right now, this day,
helping to make the digital world a safer
place for everyone.
And there's a real irony to it than
locking Lowry away genuinely
makes it easier for the critical
infrastructure of the U.K.
and other countries to be compromised.
And it's ridiculous to think that any
benefit can come from shipping someone
away to a dark room in another country
far from their loved ones.
Most often I
would drag through the legal system for
hacking.
And as I say, we now contribute to
society, to society in our own ways.
Having been dealt with in the U.K., our
own country.
No extradition was formally sought for
us, nor has it for countless other
UK hackers and nearly every single one.
But it has been for Larry, and that seems
to come from a place of vengeance, more
than justice.
And there are so many people that should
be here right now.
Jeremy Hammond, Chelsea Manning,
Edward Snowden, Barry Brown, Larry Love,
of course, and many others.
These remarkable,
fiercely intelligent people don't deserve
to be crammed into some tiny prison cell
for years or barred from entering or
leaving their own countries.
And they shouldn't even be here via some
dodgy video link.
But they should be physically here at the
conference listening to talks,
dancing in the disco lounge till 4:00
a.m.
and sitting with friends and colleagues,
enjoying a nice,
cool, crisp club matter.
So I'd like to, on that note,
raise a club matter to those people
and others around the world that are
facing the unjust wrath, wrath of the US
government and its corrupt, overreaching
intelligence agencies and thank them
for being brave and fighting
and know that we'll keep fighting for
them.
Thank you. And now we'll go to Larry.
So, no, we will hand over to Larry.
All right, Larry.
If
it's.
A lot of that.
Yes.
All right, well, and
also how much I need to.
OK, I'll just get myself to the.
OK, so I was just hearing the feedback of
myself asking if you could give me 20
seconds so
there's not huge I really need to add to
that.
Well, it's fairly minor stuff.
And Jake and me, who have been
fantastic at their support, and
especially in the Koch Foundation,
a little crazy.
So
I just want to
say, what is this about?
And I would to
my friends and family, loved ones,
they don't want to see the
country locked up, probably
for the rest of my life, but tragically
of violence,
somebody else's
people.
And for the US, it's
about making an example
of long term persecution
of hackers, inflation,
transparency, this and
so kind of especially online.
I would like to see
better things to contribute to the
world.
Study engineering.
I do.
I take an interest in politics,
take an interest in the
civilization. So I think
of it is
indefinitely into the future.
And there's a lot that is done.
This is not something that we can take
for granted.
And part of having the assurance
they will continue to drive
to civilization is maintaining.
A few important things on
the Internet as a free
resource available to
the need better
without being dominated by.
The interests of nation states,
but one another will be tolerated
by corporate profit making interests
to the exclusion of communication,
education
and cultural.
Another thing that we need to ensure is
to process the
due process is
what allows us to be that we can go about
what we're doing with freedom
and liberty to fight
against injustice or just to enjoy
the privacy of our lives
without our politics being able to
step in. Because I can see some
reason
only to see.
This case
especially needs to
be locked away and tortured
to.
The few things that people would like to
explain to due process, that's when
they were arrested
after their arrest, they will be charged
with the crimes for which they were
suspected.
And if you
take a look, business and
property tax.
In my case, I wasn't charged.
And I'm still
slightly free because
it was my property
that this was a
passwords.
And despite
the facts
and since then,
the issue of
this principle
of jurisprudence.
But they to get
into to make a prima
facie case because of
the one sided extradition treaty
between Tony Blair and George Bush,
you may remember some other things that
have gone so well.
And it's very concerning
in the abstract, not just because it's my
life now
given to is going to be running
the administration for the next four
years, that somebody
from this country without a shred of
evidence to see
the evidence will be able to test it
on the basis of the
allegations.
And that there is
seems to be so far in the court process
about the other issue,
because I would consider it a fight.
This is the first place
I think
the prosecution's
is in your life and have access
to the information that you need to
prove. And so in terms
of just having
any kind of justice
possession of the 20 people
without a trial because we made an offer
in, this is the alternative,
which is having the charges set so
that they can, in my case, I
guess, which
would be the rest of my life.
So it's important
that we win this case on appeal
as much as possible
so that these systemic issues
can be really looked at,
hopefully through the refusal of
the precedent to be set that
you can't trust the people
that you like without having to at least
make a case that maybe something
to the disproportionality of sentences
under the law
for nonviolent offenses.
And you said that we shouldn't
be too optimistic about legal aid for the
US in the immediate future, but
to continue to ask for it.
So this is for peace
because of the systemic problems
we are getting with this
regime, the mandatory sentencing
guidelines, which allows
the charges to stack up in such a way
that it gives some of the additions to
the people that give it
to
them. If
I
could say anything I said,
but I really think people are taking an
interest in the case.
I
basically say
simply because I.
Surrendered the sovereignty of my life to
my will.
However, the people they're
trying to say you have
the right to silence, which I
would probably
not raise to that level.
And so my
options for not something that's pretty
awesome, because that would be another
case for the two of them.
But there will be no
extradition afterwards
be to the issues of the
person when they
go through the process rather
than the guilty
with the.
It's the people like.
OK, let's open it up to
Q&A.
We have about eight microphones in
the room and we also have a lovely signal
angel that will be taking questions from
the Internet.
So please, if you have any questions,
Laurie, don't be shy.
Get up to the microphones and speak
loud and clear.
Otherwise, you have anything from the
panel that you want to say in
response to what Laura was just saying?
Microphone number three, please.
It's more like not a question,
but a comment.
I mean, I,
I, I kind of understand
the louder situation
because I both have Aspergers
and have had an
issue with the law
for. But I am not yet to
hear that the US government.
Lockette.
But maybe it will change
if if I
do some things and we should cover
it just like this, so.
Thank you.
We have a question from microphone number
four, please, mostly questions
and not so much comments.
Comment.
One comment, though, it seems that the
Internet in the U.K.
is still the way it has always
been.
So, Jake, could you
could you possibly make a few comments
about resemblances and what
can be applied from your case in Laurie's
case? I mean, I think it would be very
interesting for everybody to know your
story as to how much time did
you actually do and why
and what from that should Laurie
be actually kept in the U.K.
or what from your story can be applied to
his case?
If you're not got help, he's got to stay
there.
Yeah, sure. So a very brief timeline
of arrest through to
release. Mustapha and I were both
arrested in 2011.
We were both banned from the Internet for
two years as part of police bail for
interesting times 2013.
We were also we were on home
detention with a big electronic tag
around our ankles.
Um, 2013, we were sentenced.
So the Crown Court I received a two
year prison sentence, though, of the
amount of time spent through an
electronic tag.
The way we work in the UK is we do half
of the time in prison and half of the
time on probation.
Mathematically speaking, because of two
years on, I served six
or six or seven weeks in a prison,
received a suspended sentence.
We then both did a year of probation
and that year I was banned from speaking
to anyone from Anonymous.
Currently, we're both still under
an order called a serious crime
prevention order, which means we can
encrypt our files or delete
Internet history and a bunch of other
little things.
So when I came to this office,
when we both came to this conference, we
had to declare that we were getting a
flight out and a flight back and that
will be enforced until 2018.
That all put together some pretty
ridiculous as a as a case, but
it's far saner than anything that would
occur if we were sent to the states would
be far simpler. If we were sent to the
states, we'd just be put in a cell for
a very, very long time.
And it's complicated.
In the UK, it's messy, but our parole
system is reasonable, our legal system
is reasonable.
And in terms of similarities
with alleged crimes, we were alleged
to have broken into US government
computers as well
and at us and
about 20 other cases were dealt with
successfully here. And a number of ways.
There's so much paperwork out
there now for judges and prosecutors to
make informed decisions that it clearly
works better for hackers to be dealt with
in their own country rather than be sent
to a jurisdiction that puts
them away for decades at a time.
So there are similarities to draw and at
all levels. And it's ridiculous that
they've chosen to take this, as I say,
vengeful approach.
So so the targets
that we were we hacked were pretty
much all in the US and yet
we were still tried in the UK because the
evidence was presented in the UK court.
So I see absolutely no reason why
by law you can't be tried in the UK and
why the evidence can't be seen in the UK.
Even most of the evidence our case
actually came from the US, mostly
from Hexter. Months ago it was an FBI
informant.
The UK, our UK police
officers actually hopped on
a plane to the US and bought evidence
back and a said wrong.
So I don't see why or any aspect of it
when all the evidence can be transferred
to the UK.
There's a big question in this case about
whether there has been a good faith
attempt to prosecute Louhi in the UK.
That's a big question which still has to
be tackled in UK and hopefully
we'll get a bit closer towards doing that
before the appeal happens.
It's probably worth noting that,
as you've heard, Louris
maximum potential sentence in the United
States is ninety nine years.
The equivalent, if either were prosecuted
in UK, is a maximum of about two and a
half years, of which no one I've spoken
to thinks he would actually serve that
maximum.
So the differential is pretty shocking.
We have one question from the Internet.
Actually, there are a couple of
questions.
The first one is, what are some of the
most effective things that hackers
can do to resist the mistreatment
of hackers activists?
My question.
So raising awareness of these
cases is incredibly important in
particular cases like Louris, where there
is a very knotty political
national political issue at play
and getting in touch with your elected
representatives is very useful
in Louris case, actually.
Two things we could do with in our case
we could do is more, you know, more
influential people coming forward and
explaining, you know, exactly why
extraditing now would be an astonishingly
bad idea.
Everybody in this audience probably
knows, at least knows somebody who knows
somebody who would be useful to speak out
about that. So get talking to people.
You know, the other one is that,
as was mentioned right at the beginning
and introduction, Larry, is not just a
British citizen. He also holds Finnish
citizenship.
And we could do with a bit of pressure in
Finland to get the Finnish government
to say something publicly
about Larry's case, probably.
And he would take a little push, in my
opinion, so that those are some concrete
things can happen.
One thing I should mention, we also have
a defense fund for Larry, should, God
forbid, the United States.
The costs are going to get very serious
very quickly.
So if you go to free, Larry, dot
com slash, donate and
send some money, it would be very
appreciated.
We have a question from microphone number
one.
I know you said no more comments, but I
have I have a comment.
I'm Noah Schwartz.
I'm Aaron Swartz, his brother,
who has mentioned a lot during this talk.
And one of the things that happened
during Aaron's prosecution was
that the prosecutor, Steve Hamen,
tried very hard to prevent
anyone from raising awareness about
Aaron's case or in getting
any sort of support from
people like us, the hacker community,
or any other people that knew him.
And then after
he died, a lot of people said, you know,
like, why didn't we do anything?
Why didn't people stand up for Aaron when
we had the chance?
So here you go. You have the chance now
to support Laurie.
Don't waste it.
Thank you know for everything you've
done.
We'll take one more question, Fantana.
We've got Laurie back on screen now,
apparently, apparently she's distracting
him to be put on the screen, is what they
said on
the screen. This man, this is his talk.
So he should be on the screen. I think he
should be on screen.
We'll take one question from the Internet
if the signal right angel is ready
and let's get up to the microphones if
you have questions. You're in the room
now.
Is there anything we can do within the US
legal system to stop this?
Or is it essentially up to public
pressure or legislatively either the
executive to drop the case?
Yeah, I think there's been a lot of
campaigning in the U.K., but it really
would be really great to see some
campaigning in the US.
I think it would be quite worthwhile to
contact your congressmen and senators
about this case because we've we've
we have our MPs.
We have about a fifth of our government
sending a letter to Barack Obama, but
we'd have nothing on the other side.
So I think it would be very powerful for
for people in the US or
potentially in the US to also try
and do something, because otherwise it
would just seem like it's
the US is coming to you demands.
Yeah, I would second that we need a lot
more noise about this in the United
States, in my opinion.
I think for elsewhere in EU, of course,
Finland is a particular case here, but I
think an awareness that,
you know, it's not just hackers in the
U.K. who are indicted in the US
and managed managed
to stay here.
This is a situation which happens all
across the European Union.
And one of the dangers
of Larry's case is that should he be
extradited, God forbid, then
it's going to open the floodgates
elsewhere in the EU as well.
So there really needs to be a proper
rearguard action all over the place
to stop the US asserting
the extraterritorial jurisdiction over
these kinds of issues.
We have more questions from the Internet.
No more questions, do any of you have any
more questions in the room now is your
time to shine. Come up to the
microphones.
If not, do we have any final comments
from the three of you on the panel?
Microphone number one, yeah, that just
to play devil's
advocate, kind of.
So you're saying it's mainly about
vengeance, the extradition,
but what about the argument that.
Well, so you said there were 20
cases that were handled without
extradition,
and I'm guessing the sentences were
pretty lenient.
So maybe from the US perspective,
OK, these guys are hacking into our
computers from Europe.
Their governments are giving them pretty
lenient sentences because from
the government's point of view, I don't
want the political heat of putting
some geeky guy in
prison who's, you know, not some
thug that.
So
so when you say leniency
in comparison to the sorry,
U.S. government, so when you say lenient,
you do realize that the US government
in the US has a harsher sentencing
laws possible?
That's what I'm saying.
You're saying maybe the US is concerned
that if this
becomes the norm, that these
crimes there is no extradition
and the the local governments
will also always their incentive will be
to give a very lenient sentence?
I think they probably do think
something along those lines.
But on the basis that they think that the
sentences are lenient, I mean, they're
not that lenient,
Mr.. Often under restrictions until
2018.
Our case began in 2011, as if you face
anything up, put anything up against the
kind of punishments and that
the US throughout Chelsea,
etc., or
it's the US security.
And like what?
I'm sorry, what kind of thing
did you do?
Did you do something that hurts
us?
We were alleged to have hurt your society
and I'm indicted in the United
States. In New York, though, no
extradition was not.
Our case is pretty severe like lories,
don't worry.
OK, we have one more question
from the Internet.
Someone on the on the scene tells me
Laurie wants to see you again something.
Is it possible to give
to him whatever it is?
It's kind of a great.
I think it's possible if the connectivity
wants to play along.
Laurie?
So you touched on I
announced there's a five second delay
or something.
I guess
I'll tell you what hurts US security.
The.
It's coming, yes and
yes.
We can hear you please do speak.
Yeah, I just wanted to say that
the US, he would be out
by improving the
security and
which means takes the engineering
problem of the security
services, but infrastructure.
That's especially covered by
the people that
they saw, the lack of security, but
obviously the need to enforce
the law and
prioritizing class
rather than
taking advantage of information to
fix the actual underlying problems
is probably not the best strategy
for.
I think I'll ask Naomi from the Courage
Foundation to try and remind us what we
could all be doing to help
Lori and also future cases
if we get them.
Sure.
So what what can you do to help, Larry,
if you're in the UK and your MP
did not sign the letter to Obama saying
that his extradition would be a bad thing
and he should be prosecuted in the UK,
then, you know, if there's evidence, then
you should
certainly. Right. You should certainly
write to them and ask them why they
haven't signed. And if they have signed,
you should you should write to them and
say thank you for signing and please
keep an eye on this as it goes forward
further and that it's really important to
just make sure that people are aware of
this case. I think the Internet is pretty
much aware of this of this case.
But there's a whole world beyond the
Internet, some of some of whom you know
and some of whom you can speak to in
person.
And that's that's very valuable
beyond the UK.
As I've said, we really need to raise the
pressure on this in the United States,
having some influential people in the
United States coming forward and saying
that this is a bad thing, it should not
be allowed to happen, would be very would
be very useful.
If you're in Finland, then put it, then
putting pressure on Finnish
representatives would also be super
useful.
And beyond that,
there's there's a defense funds that, you
know, with the defense fund, we've been
able to make sure that Larry
had the maximum number of expert
witnesses possible at his extradition
hearing. And as we go further,
the cost implications could be quite
serious. So that makes a massive
difference.
Just keep an eye on
what is going on.
You know, follow the Courage Foundation,
follow follow, Larry Twitter.
And,
yeah, I imagine that there will be
further concrete things to do as we
move on into the next year.
And we have a couple of more final
questions of comments.
Well, one last thing, if you want to talk
to Laurie and we're going to be hosting
a one hour Q&A session
in the Tea House and the fourth floor
livestream will continue.
Yes. And she wanted
to thank everyone here and on the
Internet for supporting
Larry and many cases in our
case back in 2011, which
means we can be here today and talk about
Larry's case and we should move that
forward and we should harness that power
and take the lessons we've learned so
that the best outcome can be hard for
for Larry.
Well, thank you very much for being here
and thank you for a great panel, and
I think we should have one more round of
applause also for the people that have
been fighting very hard for you to to be
able to be here.