{"id":78299,"date":"2013-10-11T23:08:58","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T22:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/anonymous-members-arraigned-in-operation-payback-case-2\/78299\/"},"modified":"2013-10-11T23:41:16","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T22:41:16","slug":"anonymous-members-arraigned-in-operation-payback-case-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/anonymous-members-arraigned-in-operation-payback-case-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Anonymous members arraigned in \u2018Operation Payback\u2019 case"},"content":{"rendered":"
The United States government pressed forward Friday afternoon with its case against 13 alleged cybercriminals accused of conspiring to take down government and corporate websites as part of an anti-censorship campaign waged by the Anonymous movement.<\/div>\n

US Federal Judge Liam O’Grady arraigned Austen L. Stamm and
\nDennis Owen Collins Friday afternoon from a courtroom in
\nAlexandria, Virginia near Washington, DC. The two defendants are
\naccused of cooperating with 11 other individuals in 2010 and 2011
\nof participating in \u201cOperation PayBack<\/a>,\u201d an initiative led by the
\nAnonymous hacktivist collective that targeted the websites of
\nentities committed to protecting copyrighted material.<\/p>\n

An indictment unsealed earlier this month accused the alleged
\n\u201cAnons\u201d of taking part in a \u201cworldwide conspiracy<\/i>\u201d
\ntargeting groups that conflicted with the hacktivists’ \u201cstated
\nphilosophy of making all information free for all<\/i>.\u201d
\nDuring the operation, the
\nwebsites of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA),
\nMotion Picture Association of America, US Copyright Office and
\nothers were momentarily taken offline by way of distributed
\ndenial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks. That tactic involves
\noverloading a website’s server with irrelevant traffic that
\ncauses the site to buckle under an information overload and thus
\nprevents legitimate users of navigating through the site.<\/p>\n

The defendants, since dubbed the \u201cPayBack 13,\u201d were charged with
\none count each of conspiring to intentionally cause damage to a
\nprotected computer, which carries a maximum sentence of five
\nyears.<\/p>\n

Collins, an Ohio man in his early 50s, is currently a
\nco-defendant in a nearly identical case underway in the Northern
\nDistrict of California that revolves around an Anonymous-led
\noperation that targeted PayPal in response to the site’s refusal
\nto process donations made to WikiLeaks.<\/p>\n

Dressed in a long-sleeved navy blue shirt beneath a buttoned
\nplaid top, Collins entered O’Grady’s chamber with a slight limp
\njust after his 2 p.m. appointment was scheduled to begin Friday
\nafternoon. A medical apparatus connected to a series of tubes
\nwent up the back of Collins’ head and over his ears into either
\nnostril, and when he approached the bench with his lawyer, John
\nKiyonaga, he spoke in a deep voice every time the judge asked him
\nif he understood the nature of the case. Collins is the second
\noldest co-defendant in the case \u2013 all other accused Anons are in
\ntheir 20s with the exception of 65-year-old Geoffrey Kenneth
\nCommander from New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

O’Grady ordered a $25,000 unsecure bond for Collins, and said the
\ndefendant is barred from traveling out of Ohio unless required as
\npart of his legal matters currently underway in Virginia or
\nCalifornia. He also said Collins is forbidden from making contact
\nwith any witnesses, victims or co-defendants, and can’t access
\nany computer connected to the Internet without receiving
\npermission first.<\/p>\n

Less than an hour earlier, O’Grady told Stamm \u2013 a tall, slender
\nman of maybe 25 \u2013 that he would be subjected to similar
\nconditions during the duration of the trial.<\/p>\n

Kiyonaga and Stamm’s attorney, Jessica Carmichael, both agreed to
\nwaive their clients’ right to a speedy trial given the large
\namount of information that has already been cited in the
\nindictment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is my understanding that this case is fairly complex<\/i>,\u201d
\nCarmichael told the court.<\/p>\n

O’Grady agreed that that there had been a significant amount of
\ndiscovery obtained through investigation so far, and twice
\nacknowledged the complexity of the case before the court. Indeed,
\nthe \u201cPayPal 14\u201d case involving Collins and more than a dozen
\nothers in California is still underway more than two years after
\nthose defendants were first indicted.<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the PayBack 13 are expected back in Alexandria next
\nFriday morning to establish the start to what’s expected to be a
\nlengthy ordeal. Meanwhile, Collins and his cohorts in the PayPal
\ncase were expected to resolve that matter in California at the
\nend of the month, but that hearing is reportedly being considered
\nfor a different date.<\/p>\n

Wade Carl Williams, a co-defendant in the Collins and Stamm
\nmatter, reportedly went before a different judge Friday afternoon
\nat Eastern District Court in Alexandria along with two other
\naccused cybercriminals.<\/p>\n

Copyright: RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States government pressed forward Friday afternoon with its case against 13 alleged cybercriminals accused of conspiring to take down government and corporate websites as part of an anti-censorship campaign waged by the Anonymous movement. US Federal Judge Liam O’Grady arraigned Austen L. Stamm and Dennis Owen Collins Friday afternoon from a courtroom in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-78299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}