The acts of this individual demonstrated that he was unable to operate within the bounds of human society. 11 years is about right in relation to other sentences with the US justice system, but that presupposes that the US justice system is fair and proper.
I don't believe the purpose of prison is punishment. I think the US system of prisons is cruel, unusual and close to insane. People are regularly threatened with rape in prisons and a lot of average US citizens think this is perfectly acceptable. This unconstitutional system is terrible for our society, as it churns out repeat offenders.
According to the article, Norway has a mere three thousand prisoners out of a population of four million. I really don't think America (which incarcerates people at about ten times that rate) could afford Norwegian style prisons.
I don't think you can decouple the process of incarceration and the number of people incarcerated. If a functional penal system actually helps to curb society's fundamental problems rather than simply concentrating the undesirables, there's a feedback loop that affects the number of people incarcerated. In other words: fix the problem, don't just push it away.
Modern Western penal systems assume that everyone can be rehabilitated. They are in the state they are now because that isn't actually true. In the old days people understood this, and that's what penal colonies were for.
The modern US justice system, conversely, assumes that almost noone can be rehabilitated. At least, nobody that's committed anything resembling a serious crime.
We're really all chubby little Weigmans-- grasping at anything for validation and meaning. When one thing disappoints us (Wow, I'm a total fail with poor hygiene and no friends...) we just find something else to give us meaning (...but at least my stock just vested!).
We can always find something new to validate ourselves. But if you're a poor blind bastard with no friends and a world that thinks you're garbage, what hope do you have? Probably none, so you just pick up the phone one more time.
I feel like I've heard too many stories like this lately, stories that are sad as much as anything.
This kid has major emotional and behavioral problems, and I don't think they're going away any time soon.
I didn't buy into the tone of the writing, which had a lot more pity and sympathy for him than I bet his victims have. And I found his self-image deeply tied to his "abilities" -- and it probably will be for life. And I also found this kid to be a cruel tyrant, ready to use whatever abilities he had to force other people to his will, laughing the entire time.
This guy is a completely vicious puke. He deserves everything he gets and a whole lot more.
Did you read the bit where he told a woman who wouldn't have phone sex with him that he would kill her baby by flushing it down a toilet? How do you think that made her feel?
Kid had turned his talent to music, he coulda been the next Biggie. A man who got the girls, the money and the respect and no-one cared about his immense girth.
I had a blind childhood friend who did a little "work" with the phone system (in the era of dial phones in a small rural area) and got caught making many long distance phone calls. A call by the phone company to his parents cleared the issue up. He had a much better family than Weigman, but the stress of a blind child eventually led the parents to divorce.
My blind friend used to follow me on his bicyle all over town, and he could navigate down his own street, up the driveway, using the sound made by the trees to guide him.
What is interesting about this article is the talents we aren't using that blindness exposes.
I wonder how he kept track of all the phone company employees he gained the trust of, etc. Being blind he probably couldn't write things down easily.
I also wonder if he could have avoided being caught indefinitely by keeping track of information better and taking more precautions. How long would it take a superintelligent computer to effectively take over the world with nothing more than phone access?
"As he listened in on the party lines, Weigman began pressing random numbers on his phone, just to see what would happen. Once he held down the star button and was surprised to hear a computerized voice say, "Moderator on." He had no idea what it meant. But when he hit the pound key, the voice suddenly began ticking off the private phone number of every person in the chat room."
Security FAIL! Would it have been that hard to require a NIP for access to that feature?!
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"If he heard a supervisor's voice once, he could imitate it with eerie precision when calling one of the man's underlings."
Did you read the article? Obviously, this is a rhetorical question since your quote is from near the end. But seriously, after doing all that stuff, is your suggestion that he should... what... get off with a stern verbal warning? Because that's not just hacking into the local payroll computer, "poking around", and harmlessly leaving. Those are, like, crimes. In fact, if you fill out the quote you cut off:
"Last January, he pleaded guilty to two felony counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and intimidate a federal witness. In June, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison."
He didn't even plead guilty to any computer-related change, though perhaps he plea-bargained them away (article doesn't say). He was warned before he was of age.
What more do you want, exactly?
"Throwing the book at hackers" was when you could get 400 years for (essentially) "annoying the phone companies", or get hit with a umpty millions in "damages" for hacking into a computer vaguely in the vicinity of valuable data. Or get hit with that for trying to report a vulnerability, or even just accidentally stumbling onto something. Those days are, if not over, certainly on the wane. It's not being charged with things you actually did, then convicted of them, then sentenced in accordance with that just like any other non-hacker.
It may. But it may also engender more problems than it solves.
Don't forget that the burden of maintaining the prison system is on the shoulders of the rest of society.
America has an absolutely amazing number of people in prison at any given time, also the chances of becoming a prisoner in your lifetime border on the medieval compared to the rest of the developed world.
The second link is very interesting. What crimes against "public order" are people committing? Wikipedia suggests that prostitution, statutory rape, and DUI are all in the category. (I would guess that DUI comprises the bulk of their public order crime number then, but maybe they count that under drug crime instead?)
> If you don't commit major crimes then your chance of being imprisoned is near zero.
In most first-world countries, you won't be imprisoned for having minor amounts of marijuana; you won't get strip searched at middle school if they suspect you have Midol; you won't be labeled a sex offender for life for having oral sex with a fellow teenager who happens to be 3 months (1 year on paper) younger than you; you certainly won't get arrested and have your children taken away for taking a picture of yourself breastfeeding your baby.
Let's not even talk about the trumped up criminality of not-for-profit copyright infringement.
On the other hand, these things all happen in the US on a seemingly regular basis.
People have gone to jail "forever" for the final crime of stealing a box of candy. You can pound that til it's flat, but that is the truth. The other offenses were not violent.
And the woman who had her kids taken away because of the breastfeeding pic? I don't think that was exaggerated at all.
What I mean is this: there are literally millions of cases, there would have to be in order to have 2 million people in prison. Many more cases will not have made it through the prosecution process, I'm assuming there are still some level-headed judges and juries out there.
But 'woman exonerated for making breast feeding pic' does not make a very good headline, so you'll never hear about it.
Which is ok, because the system already took care of that one.
So, the media is on the right side in this one, but it still distorts the image.
Again, though, what's your alternative? "Oh, gosh, do you promise to stop?" "Yes, your honor." "OK, you're released. Have a nice day!"?
You're simply alluding to a vague argument that, if you spell it out, will probably sound very silly. I understand and acknowledge that there are different reasons a penal system could be based on (deterrance vs. vengeance vs. simple separation of criminal from law-abider). But under none of those reasons is this a terribly "throw-the-book" punishment. Are you simply against the idea of a prison system in general? Are you for legalizing harassment of witnesses? What? Spell it out.
That statement was more about the parent's attitude than the article in question - yes we need a deterrant for harassing witnesses because without it we cannot have a legal system.
I don't think prison is the answer except when we decide that the person in question believes themselves above the law/is too great a risk.
We do need some sort of means of deterrant and stripping one's liberty should be strong enough - to introduce someone into a enclosed society (prison) where rape, violence and drug abuse may as well be decriminalised seems too much for most crimes.
People commit crimes because either a) they don't think they'll be caught, b) they don't care if they get caught or c) they're insane. People that respect the law rarely do so because of the threat of punishment.
I'm not saying he isn't guilty. I'm saying 11 years is a very long time. 2 or 3 or hell even 5 years in a prison full of non violent criminals. With good attention making sure he doesn't fall back into crime when he gets out, best he should have a job waiting for him in Verizon or law enforcement.
And Gary Mckinnon shouldn't do time either. He should get more like detention and again best have a job waiting for him.
And Adrian Lamo should have gotten a stern talking to and a job offer.
Simply because these kids are brilliant, non-violent, and socially inept, doesn't mean we should be putting them jail.
If someone broke down your door and threatened you and your family with a gun, would you call that a "non-violent crime"? That's what happened to this kid's victims.
Sure, the kid wasn't personally breaking down doors and pointing the weapons, but he effectively ordered it. He is responsible for that violence. He and his victims were just lucky that no one actually got killed because of his actions, as does sometimes happen when the police invade completely innocent people's homes by mistake.
I agree that 11 years is stiff. I'd say he needs some serious mental health treatment more than a long prison term, but then I feel that way about many crimes.
He did some pretty heinous stuff. Causing someone's house to be invaded by an armed SWAT team is no prank. And intimidating witnesses has to be taken very seriously or the whole justice system breaks down.
I don't see how causing someone's home to be invaded by a SWAT team is so different from sticking a gun in their face yourself. What if it had gone wrong and someone actually got shot?
