
A document leaked from New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services reveals that Federal Bureau of Investigation considers Anonymous hacker Jeremy Hammond a possible terrorist organization member, and put him on the multi-agency Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), alongside individuals suspected of ties to Al-Qaeda, Somalia-based extremists Al-Shabaab, and Colombia’s leftist FARC guerrilla movement. The document is marked “destroy after use” and includes the instruction: “Do not advise this individual that they are on a terrorist watch list”.
Jeremy was arrested in March 2012 and sentenced in November 2013 to 10 years in prison for his role in a series of high-profile hacks carried out by Anonymous; one of them being the leak of five million emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor. He was prosecuted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. During the court proceedings, there was no mention of him being part of any terrorist activity or terrorist organisation. Interestingly, there is no justification given by the FBI in the leaked document for including him on the list. Well, nearly 40% of those currently on the government’s terrorist watchlist have no known affiliation to recognized terrorist groups.
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