Award-winning journalist
Barrett Brown was re-arrested and taken into custody Thursday, the day before
he was scheduled to be interviewed for a PBS documentary.
Brown quickly became a symbol
of the attack on press freedom after he was arrested in 2012 for reporting he
did on the hacked emails of intelligence-contracting firms. Brown wrote about
hacked emails that showed the firm Stratfor spying
on activists on behalf of corporations. Brown also helped uncover a
proposal by intelligence contractors to hack
and smear WikiLeaks defenders and progressive activists.
Faced with the possibility of
100 years in prison, Brown pleaded guilty in 2014 to two charges related to
obstruction of justice and threatening an FBI agent, and was sentenced to
five years and 3 months. In 2016, Brown won a National Magazine Award for his
scathing and often hilarious columns in The Intercept, which
focused on his life in prison. He was
released in November.
Jay Leiderman, Brown’s lawyer,
told The Intercept Brown was arrested Thursday during a check-in. According to
his mother, Brown had not missed a check-in or failed a drug test since he was
released to a halfway house in November. Neither his mother nor lawyer has been
informed where he is being held.
According to his mother, who
spoke with Brown by phone after his arrest, Brown believes the reason for his
re-arrest was a failure to obtain “permission” to give interviews to media
organizations. Several weeks ago, Brown was told by his check-in officer that
he needed to fill out permission forms before giving interviews.
Since his release, Brown has
given numerous interviews, on
camera and by phone. But according to his mother, Brown said that the
Bureau of Prisons never informed him about a paperwork requirement. When he
followed up with his check-in officer, he was given a different form: a
liability form for media entering prisons.
Just last week, Brown was
interviewed for two days by VICE, and his PBS interview was set for Friday.
Leiderman said he had not been
presented with a formal justification for the arrest but was told that it had
“to do with failing to abide by BOP restrictions on interviews.”
Leiderman called the
impromptu media restrictions “disgusting” and said he believed the arrest
was an act of reprisal for criticizing the government. “I would call the people
who did this a bunch of chicken-shit assholes that are brutalizing the
Constitution,” Leiderman said.
Top photo: Journalist Barrett
Brown is released from prison after serving his sentence.
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