http://m.ruvr.ru/2013/11/11/08/feffe.jpgJeremy Hammond

Susan Crabtree

The FBI Could Have Stopped the Stratfor Leak at any Point  - Part One 

http://www.jar2.com/Topics/Jeremy_Hammond.html

Download audio file   2 November, 2013 11:39 

The persecution of Jeremy Hammond is largely being ignored by the US mass media but the case of the young man  accused of being involved in the passing of the Stratfor E-Mails to WikiLeaks is full of contradictions and serious reasons to question the motives of the judge and the entire prosecution, including the FBI which, it has been revealed, not only orchestrated the hack through an FBI informant known by the code name "Sabu", but could have stopped the leak of the files anytime had they wanted. The FBI were in fact storing the "Stratfor Files" on their own servers for two weeks before they were released to WikiLeaks. According to Sue Crabtree, a close friend of Jeremy and the mother of the family who took Jeremy in and whose children considered him a brother, the FBI may have been interested in the activities of Stratfor which may explain why they held the material on their servers for so long. Mrs. Crabtree also believes that the FBI was interested in selling the material to WikiLeaks so that charges of espionage could be brought.

This is John Robles, I'm speaking with Mrs. Sue Crabtree – a very close associate to Jeremy Hammond .

Robles: Hello! How are you this evening?

Crabtree: I'm well sir. And yourself?

Robles: I'm very well. Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. Can you tell us about the history of Mr. Jeremy Hammond? And then I'd like to discuss his case with you, if we could?

Crabtree: Yes sir! Jeremy was arrested in March of 2012 and he was accused of hacking the US Government spying firm Stratfor and releasing the e-mails that were taken to WikiLeaks.

Robles: Was this information that he supposedly took from this company, did it cause any harm to anybody? Or what was the damage done, if any?

Crabtree: No, Sir, he didn't cause harm to anyone. This was all done under the direct supervision of the FBI with the help of a government informant, who had been previously arrested and opted to act as a snitch working for the FBI to coordinate the hack of Stratfor. There was no harm to anyone. Emails were taken.

Robles: I've personally seen many of them. The person we are calling a "snitch" was he the initiator of this?

Crabtree: Yes, it is my understanding, he was the initiator.

Robles: So, he kind of got Jeremy involved in this in order to bring about his arrest, to get himself off, or something like that? Can you tell us about that person? Do you know anything about him?

Crabtree: Oh yes sir, I do know about that person. His name is Hector Monsegur. He goes by the nickname Sabu. He was arrested I believe in June of 2011 for credit card theft-related charges and hacking. And he decided to act as a Government informant rather than face charges that were against him.

He worked with Jeremy, along with several other codefendants, who were ultimately arrested in March of 2012 for the hack of Stratfor which took place in December of 2011.

Robles: And he was the initiator of all this. Did anything happen to him because of that or he just walked away after causing all these other people to be arrested?

Crabtree: Actually, he still has charges pending against him. But he continually receives a delay in any sentencing, because he is a cooperator for the FBI. And there have been several other arrests with his help. So, he continues to actually work alongside the FBI in trying to bring down other activists.

Robles: So, he is currently active. He is probably using other names and things or what?

Crabtree: Yes, he could be using other names. He is not in jail. His crimes did involve theft of credit cards, loss of money to people, the use of stolen credit cards, etc. But he is out of jail currently working with the FBI.

Robles: Okay, he was actually stealing money and causing financial damage to people, right? Jeremy didn't cause anything like that, did he? I mean, his actions were all political, right? What were his motivations?

Crabtree: His motivations were totally political. Jeremy believes in transparency, that the people have a right to know what our government is doing. The US Government was contracted with the spying firm Stratfor who has been spying on Occupy Wall Street protestors, victims of the Bhopal disaster, spying on the Yes Men, spying on PETA supporters.

There are documented e-mails showing that the US Government was working with Mexican drug cartels to import drugs into this country. There were e-mails regarding the facial recognition software TrapWire. And all of this was exposed within those emails that were taken from Stratfor.

But it is important to know that the FBI was fully aware of all of the events that were taking place throughout that hack and the 5 million e-mails that were taken, were stored on the FBI's servers for a week to two weeks before they were transferred to WikiLeaks.

Sabu, who is the FBI informant, was trying to sell those e-mails to WikiLeaks. Jeremy Hammond said he never agreed to sell anything and the e-mails were turned over to WikiLeaks for free.

Robles: A very important step there if you can elaborate a little bit: why were they stored on FBI computers? Were they stored there, so they were accessible to the group that was doing this or what?

Crabtree: Jeremy was not aware that Sabu was acting as an FBI informant. And Sabu told Jeremy and all of the codefendants that he had a location where the information that was taken could be stored. And so, the information was transferred to those servers which were controlled by the FBI.

Robles: And then, they went from those FBI servers to WikiLeaks, as I understand?

Crabtree: Yes, that's correct. So, at any time the FBI could have prevented the transfer of those emails to WikiLeaks.

Robles: But they didn't.

Crabtree: They didn't.

Robles: The FBI allowed this stuff to get out there in the public domain, right?

Crabtree: Yes. It was transferred to WikiLeaks. They are known as the Global Intelligence Files and they are accessible on WikiLeaks. They are not all accessible at this time. I know there are still some volunteers that are going through them, there were 5 million e-mails.

So, they are trying to organize them, go through them, understand what was happening within those e-mails. But I believe about a million of them have been released for public view at this time.

Robles: One more time, the FBI could have stopped this any time.

Crabtree: They absolutely could have. And as a matter of fact, they knew that the hack was going to take place prior to it taking place and they could have notified Stratfor. Stratfor could have taken down their servers and prevented the hack altogether.

Robles: It sounds to me like they didn't only just know in advance, it sounds to me like they planned it.

Crabtree: One could consider that to be correct.

Robles: This is kind of dangerous, because all that information could have been manipulated, it could have been cherry-picked or something, right?

Crabtree: You mean the e-mails?

Robles: Yes.

Crabtree: Do you think they could be altered?

Robles: Yes, do you think that’s possible that they allowed just certain stuff to get through? Do you think they were filtered or anything?

Crabtree: Do you mean I think Stratfor filtered them?

Robles: No, the FBI.

Crabtree: It is possible that they were filtered. I know they weren’t altered by Jeremy or his codefendants. There were 5 million e-mails, it would be very hard to alter that number of the e-mails. But they were on FBI servers long enough for anything.

It is hard to say what the motives were of the FBI to take a look at Stratfor or why Stratfor was chosen to be hacked, but they were, and it was done under the supervision of the FBI, and this is found in the court documents.

So, this isn't something that I'm just making up and handing to you. It is within the court documents that they were well aware of it.

Robles: Do you have access to those documents?

Crabtree: Yes, I do have access to those documents. They are a public record. The documents are actually on freeanons.org, and you can just go to the resources page...

Robles: Going back a little bit to the motivation here, why would the FBI or maybe rogue elements in it (if we want to give them a way out of it) why would they want to setup a young man like Jeremy, destroy his life, allow information that was supposedly damaging to get out there? What would be the reason for that? Just to make some big arrest or something or what? In your opinion.

Crabtree: I believe I would only be speculating if I were to answer that as to why and one would have to consider what was Stratfor doing that the FBI may want to know about.

Robles: So, it is possible the FBI wanted to know something about Stratfor and they got this Sabu to enlist some other computer savvy young people to get this stuff from Stratfor, give it to the FBI and then arrest them?

Crabtree: Yes, that's very possible.

Robles: So, the FBI organized a hack of Stratfor. They go through all this stuff, they have it of course, they know everything Stratfor is doing, right? And then they arrest the guys who actually did it for them?

Crabtree: One could speculate that. One could also speculate that the e-mails were offered to be sold to WikiLeaks so that the folks that run WikiLeaks could be charged with espionage for buying those e-mails.

WikiLeaks refused to purchase them, Hammond said "I never did this for money" and those e-mails were transferred to WikiLeaks. It's all speculative.

Robles: Well… when you are dealing with something like this, I think logic here is a "relevant tool" that we can use. How long has Jeremy been detained already?

Crabtree: He's been detained 19 months. He was denied bail in November of 2012 and he has been incarcerated since. He was arrested on March 5th, I believe, or the 6th of 2012.

Robles: And when was he charged?

Crabtree: I believe he was charged then. He was raided in Chicago, he was seen in court in Chicago the next day and then he was taken from all of his support in Chicago and flown to New York, where he is being held ever since.

Which is very problematic for a person to be taken from their family, their support and to be taken to a state where he has no support, no visitors, no nothing.

Robles: This may be an internal US issue, but it is also touching us internationally regarding the city of New York, and I believe this is the New York Federal Court, it is probably the same federal prosecutors that, pretty much renditioned Viktor Bout and some other Russian nationals, Konstantin Yaroshenko, and I believe Jeremy is in the same jail that Viktor Bout was, is that correct?

Crabtree: That may be, I'm not really sure of that. He presently is at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, which is the federal jail in Manhattan. The address is on Park Row in New York. And I know there are a lot of federal prisoners there, so it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Robles: It seems like more and more, (I've been following and reporting on all kinds of the situations like this, and it seems like the Federal Court for New York is being specially used for questionable prosecutions of people that are innocent or setup etc, but that's a subject for an entire other interview.

What about other people in that case right now? Have they been charged? How many other that you know about are suffering because of this along with Jeremy?

Crabtree: There are I believe three in the UK that were charged, that have pretty much served their time and been released, and I believe there was one in Ireland that was given a probationary thing. But they were all granted bail prior to their sentences and their sentences were very minimal.

Jeremy when he was arrested was told that he would serve 35 years to life if he were found guilty, which is a very severe amount of time, considering no one was injured, he didn't murder anyone, he didn't rape anyone, he wasn't drunk driving and killed someone.

This is a nonviolent action. Jeremy believes in what he pled guilty to. He believes in transparency, he believes the people had the right to know what our Government was contracting with this company and what was going on. And it is also a very interesting piece of information, but the federal informant Sabu, his judge is also the same judge that Jeremy Hammond has.

So, the snitch and Hammond have the same judge. And that judge continuingly allows Sabu's case to be postponed, while Hammond can't even get bail.

Robles: I see… It sounds extremely "corrupt". Something is seriously wrong there, in my opinion, I'm sure you would agree.

Crabtree: Shortly after his bail was denied in November, we were doing some research and we found that the judge’s husband himself had an e-mail address associated with Stratfor.

So, a request was made by Jeremy's attorneys to change the judge because of a conflict of interest. And the judge refused to change, denied the request for a new judge. So, Jeremy has the same judge. However, her husband’s e-mail address was one of the leaked e-mails from the Stratfor hack.

Robles: I see. That's kind of like the whole paradigm right now. I mean, of course the US Army is not going to prosecute their own soldiers for war crimes, the NSA is not going to prosecute themselves for illegal spying on everybody.

Unfortunately, "Very" unfortunately, people like Jeremy, young bright people are suffering for this. What do you think we can do to help Jeremy and other people in the same situation?

Crabtree: I think the best thing that we can do is to gather us much support as we can for Jeremy. He is willing to accept the consequences of his actions and he is willing to accept that his beliefs led him to do what he did. And he feels very strongly about that, he has not apologized, he will not apologize for what he’s done.

And so, if you visit freejeremy.net, there is an address at the moment to write him. Once he is sentenced that address will change and we will post his new address once he is moved on mail to the jail.org, which you could visit. And it’s got a list of many our United States and other countries' political prisoners. As long as we can get an address for them, we can write to them and that is very important.

You were listening to an interview with Susan Crabtree. She was someone who was very close to Jeremy Hammond. This was the first part of a longer interview. You can find the rest of this interview on our website at the voiceofrussia.com

In the U.S. One Must Be Careful What One Shares  - Part Two

Download audio file  6 November, 2013 20:15

Obama and the US Government are waging a war on whistleblowers and anyone who can expose the wrongdoings and illegality being committed by the authorities. This includes the entrapment of activists, hackers, and whistleblowers. One such young man, Jeremy Hammond, is currently being held in solitary confinement awaiting sentence for releasing the Stratfor e-mails, a hack arranged by the FBI, most likely to entrap WikiLeaks. The files were stored on the FBI’s own servers and uploaded directly from FBI servers to WikiLeaks. Rather than stop the release of the information, the FBI allowed it to happen and then blamed Hammond. Sue Crabtree, the mother of a family who had taken Jeremy Hammond in spoke with the Voice of Russia about the persecution of Hammond, a member of Anonymous.

Robles: To back up a little bit, you talked about the other people that were involved in the case, so they’ve already pretty much served their time and they’re out. That was in the UK, that was in Ireland, I believe.

Why is the US so insanely cracking down on people for doing simple things like DDoS attacks and stuff? I mean, 35 years for this, it seems insane to me, I'm sorry.

Aaron Swartz, he took some educational material that was funded by the Government and the public, and they were going to give him 35 years and look what happened to him. Isn't this insanely outrageous? I mean, the level of sentencing that they are giving to people?

Crabtree: Well, and look at Bradley Manning's case too, these are whistleblowers. And Jeremy Hammond is a whistleblower as well.

He exposed information about what was happening in this country, that the people had a right to know. And the interesting part is our president said that if whistleblowers came forward they would not be prosecuted.

In fact, here we have Bradley Manning who was prosecuted as much as any young man could be prosecuted, and Hammond threatened with 35 years to life for exposing that our government was working with a private contracting firm and what they were doing.

He was no different, he is a whistleblower and yet, this is how the government is treating whistleblowers.

We have John Kiriakou who is a former CIA individual employee, who is spending I believe 30 months in jail for whistleblowing. So this is how we treat our whistleblowers.

Robles: Remember Obama, promising that whistleblowers would be taken care of, and he has prosecuted, persecuted and hit whistleblowers harder than any president, and more than any president in US history.

Crabtree: Oh I'm not sure that anybody… that our country wants any other country to see what is going on here. Obviously, other countries are very upset with the leaks from Edward Snowden and the spying that is being done and the monitoring of other embassies, the monitoring of phone calls.

It's an embarrassment to the US. I personally am ashamed of what our country is doing to other countries in the way of spying, our drone programs are concerning regular citizens.

So I'm not sure that the government is pleased when people like Hammond, Snowden, even Hastings, - any of these people come out and expose the government for what's really going on.

Robles: Sure, I agree with you 100 percent... A member of the German Bundestag met with Edward Snowden less than 24 hours ago here in Moscow, and he is ready to give evidence to the German Parliament regarding spying on Angela Merkel and her personal cellphone, and everything.

It's gotten that ridiculous and people in Europe are pretty upset, they try to blow it over, blow it off at first, but I think it's not possible to do that anymore.

Can you comment on that, on the spying on supposed allies? There were 34 allied leaders around the world that were being spied on according to Snowden.

Crabtree: I actually watched something on TV about this either today or yesterday. And one of the Heads of the NSA said that, “All governments spy on each other, and that these countries are spying on us just like we are spying on them.”

Hence the fact. I have never seen anything to lead me in a direction of believing that, but I do know that the information provided by Mr. Snowden shows what our US government is doing to countries that are supposed to be our allies.

And I don't believe that there is any way that other countries are going to trust the US. And to us, that bothers us, that the US should not be recognized as a country that spies on their allies and on personal phone calls.

Robles: They always flip the switch and try to switch the blame. Recently members of the European Union, they arrived in Washington representatives for Angela Merkel and all of a sudden the US media's full of reports that Russia was doing some spying or something. I mean. It was ridiculous to watch. I don't know how they can keep doing this.

Back to Stratfor: did Stratfor know that the FBI could have stopped this? Did they know the FBI had these files? I'm sure they do, but...

Crabtree: It’s my understanding that Stratfor knew that the hack was taking place and were advised by the FBI not to do anything to interfere with the hack itself.

Robles: Wow, really?

Crabtree: Yes.

Robles: Afterwards, how could they say anything?

Crabtree: A writer in the US, his name is Nigel Parry. He wrote a very interesting in-depth article about the hack of Stratfor and how easy it would have been for the entire thing to have been halted, had someone just chosen to do that, and literally take down their servers would have ended the entire intrusion into their system. But they were advised not to do that, to let that continue. And it did.

And I almost believe that the FBI thought they were going to be able to maintain their files on their servers and perhaps limit the damage that was done. But they were taken from their servers, they were released to WikiLeaks, without WikiLeaks having to pay for them. Thereby avoiding an espionage charge against them.

And within those e-mails that were taken there were also comments and discussions about getting Julian Assange to the US without an indictment, there were just a multitude of things that are being found within those e-mails.

And with 4 million – I believe there are 4 million left to go through – one can only imagine what else will come of those. But I do believe that Hammond is a whistleblower and should be treated as such. In the US whistleblowers get many years in jail.

Robles: He should be released tomorrow. You said he's been in custody for a year and a half already?

Crabtree: Yes, sir. And at what point are the charges … a lot of people say, 'well, you know, he did hack this and he deserves to be put in jail for it' but how much jail time is enough jail time, and we believe that 18 months is a long enough time, and Jeremy should be released with time served and allowed to return home to his family and his supporters in Chicago where he does great work, activism type of work, to help the homeless and to help the people in need there.

And I believe18 months in jail should more than suffice for the crimes that were organized by our own FBI.

Robles: Yes, I think that has to be underlined over and over again. I mean, he was clearly set up.

I have two questions here I'd like to ask you regarding this. If somebody broke into an office, say, and stole some files in a file cabinet and gave them to a newspaper and they show that some corporation was doing something illegal, how much time would they get?

Crabtree: It's interesting that you say that because I spoke about that on a radio interview just a couple of days ago.

If Jeremy had taken a car and driven through the front doors of Stratfor and stolen all of their files, and drove away with all of their files he would have been given about 6 months in jail and community service.

Robles: Are you serious?

Crabtree: Yes, for the exact same crime had he driven through and stolen them he would have gotten about 6 months in jail and community service instead of 35 years to life. He was originally facing 35 years to life before he accepted a non-cooperating plea deal of ten years.

Robles: Unbelievable. The same thing with DDoS attacks. People are facing ten years, I think, for a DDoS attack which it really does no damage at all.

Crabtree: Well our PayPal 14 – I’m sure you are familiar with them – were in court today and their case was postponed until I believe December 5th, but there’s was a simple DDoS attack of PayPal because PayPal had refused to send donations to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

It was a simple protest, but they could face years in jail for a simple DDoS attack.

Robles: And I think they came up with some, you know, abstract monetary loss of like hundreds of thousands of dollars or something in that one? But it wasn't based on anything, and, I mean, if that shut it down temporarily people would just go and pay for … or buy what they wanted to buy anyway a little bit later.

I don't see any loss at all. This is just ridiculous.

Crabtree: I'm not even sure I should be mentioning this, but there is a case of a young man here, I believe in New Jersey, his name is Adam Nafa. Adam produced a YouTube video for an operation against Verizon.

The event never even took place and the op never happened. Adam was arrested for inciting an op and was charged, I really can't recall the fee, for Verizon Wireless to upgrade their security.

And one has to wonder when you are in possession of people's private information because they are using your service, why is a person who has done nothing but produce a YouTube video, paying for you to upgrade your security. Shouldn't your security be as upgraded as possible, when you are in possession of people's private information?

Robles: Yes, absolutely right, absolutely.

Crabtree: And Hammond is being charged, we are told, the amount that Hammond could have paid over in restitution, could be $2,5 million in restitution to Stratfor.

Robles: I'm sorry.

Crabtree:We were told that the restitution that Hammond could be forced to pay to Stratfor could be something like $2,5 million.

Robles: Oh my God.

Crabtree: One does have to wonder when a company like that is securing people's credit card information, their personal information, when they are a spying company that not only contacts with the US, but with other governments, one would assume that their security would not need to be upgraded and why would Hammond need to pay for you to maintain your security?

Robles: Yes, right. It's all about the money- is that what we are looking at?

Crabtree: It's all about something, I'm just not sure what it is. But it's very questionable.

Robles: Yeah, It sure is. You mentioned, you said, maybe you shouldn't talk about Adam Nafa, is there a reason why?

Crabtree: Well, I believe Adam just accepted a plea deal in his own case and I believe it was a probationary situation. But just speaking about his case in a simple YouTube video, he was threatened with years in jail for producing nothing more than the YouTube video.

Robles: It seems insane. I'm sorry, but it's getting ridiculous. And then they got killers and war criminals just walking the streets, right?

Crabtree: Yes. And we have people for instance who drunk-drive and kill people who only get a couple of years in jail.

Robles: Or you got people like Zimmerman. They just go and they shoot someone dead in the street and they just get off.

Crabtree: That's correct.

Robles: And you got war criminals, you got people cutting off body parts and taking them home as trophies and they are just walking the streets as well?

Something is seriously sickly wrong. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be getting emotional, but I deal with this stuff so much and it makes me physically nauseous sometimes.

Crabtree: The severity of these cases and the way the United States is handling them is making many countries outraged at how the US is handling these cases. And it's exposing a lot of wrongdoings that other countries simple don't approve of.

Such as the spying. And Edward Snowden to many of us should be viewed as a hero who is exposing things that our government should not be doing.

And Hammond in my opinion, and in the opinion of many others, exposed things, too, that our government should not have been partaking in, and he will be jailed for exposing those things.

Robles: Two things – back to Stratfor for a minute. Why in your opinion is the US Government farming out intelligence type-work to private companies?

Now I know the Director of Stratfor, he was either CIA or he had CIA connections, but why would they be doing that?

Crabtree: That's an interesting question. I'm told that the Government has limitations that private contractors don't have. So, their ability to work outside of Government laws, it's much easier for them to do that, so they contract with companies like Stratfor.

Robles: I see. Let's say I’m a journalist, right, I’ve accessed the Stratfor logs, the Stratfor e-mails. Let's say I've written some articles based on them. Could I be charged, or could I face charges in the United States for accessing or using that information?

Crabtree: I really can't say. But I can speak on the case of Barret Brown. He shared a link, he did not produce a link. He shared a link to those Stratfor e-mails for the purposes of investigating what was in those e-mails and he has presently been in prison for a year, without bail, awaiting trial for sharing a link to the Stratfor e-mails.

Robles: For sharing a link?

Crabtree: Sharing a link to the Stratfor e-mails.

Robles: Well, I have a link on my site and I’ve probably shared it with several million people, so I mean I'd better stay in Moscow, I guess, right?

Crabtree: Well I think you should because you could end up like Barret Brown.

Sharing a Hyperlink May Get You 100 Years in Prison in the US  - Part Three 

Download audio file   11 November, 12:58

The sentencing of former Anonymous Hacker Jeremy Hammond is scheduled for November 15th in New York City. Mr. Hammond will be sent to prison for being entrapped in a hack of Stratfor Global Intelligence by an FBI informant named Hector Xavier Monsegur who is still working for the FBI and went by the hacker name Sabu when he was part of Anonymous. The sentence in the case is expected to be close to 10 years for a cyber crime which in an analogous real-world situation would have gotten Mr. Hammond six months. Mrs. Sue Crabtree, a close family friend of Mr. Hammond spoke to the Voice of Russia about the case and also the case of a journalist named Barret Brown who may be sent to prison for 100 years for (according to Mrs. Hammond) sharing a link to the Sratfor e-mails.

Robles: Unbelievable!

Crabtree: He is facing over a hundred years in jail for sharing a link. He is a journalist, his information was journalistic and he is facing a hundred years in jail.

Robles: A hundred years?

Crabtree: Yes.

Robles: You’re kidding, right?

Crabtree: No, I’m not kidding.

Robles: How could somebody face a hundred years for sharing a link?

Crabtree: Yes, to the Stratfor e-mails.

Robles: I have no words. That’s not even Orwellian, that’s beyond belief!

Crabtree: I believe you will find that indictment as well under the resources on freeanons.org. I believe that indictment is there as well.

Robles: This isn’t even Oceania, this is like the twentieth Dante’s Inferno under Oceania or something. Unbelievable!

Crabtree: He’s been in jail over a year for sharing a link.

Barrett Brown is a well-known journalist and he was interested in what was in those Stratfor e-mails. And he shared the link in order to gather some support to go through 5 million e-mails. And he was arrested for sharing a link.

Robles: You have a world audience right now. After everything you’ve just told us, what would you say to people who say that Julian Assange is not facing any danger, he can just walk out of that embassy and he’ll be okay?

Crabtree: I don’t believe that. I believe that if Julian Assange walks out of that embassy, the Government will ship him to the United States where he will be charged with espionage or anything else.

My fear is that he’ll never be seen again.

I believe that Julian Assange should stay right where he is or be allowed to safe transport to Ecuador. But I do not believe that he could safely leave that embassy and not be shipped to the US and charged with espionage or anything else that the US decides they want to charge him with.

Robles: What’s going on November 15th ?

Crabtree: Jeremy’s sentencing in November 15th in New York City. And that is when the judge will hand down a sentence of up to ten years, given the fact that Jeremy will not express his apologies for what he’s done.

He stands firm in what he has pled guilty to, he has no apologies to give. And with that in mind it is our belief that he will face ten years in jail.

Robles: Did he plead guilty under duress? Some people were saying he was under conditions that amounted to torture.

Crabtree: Jeremy has been in and out of solitary confinement for a year and a half. He’s had his commissary privileges taken away. He’s had his phone privileges taken away.

So, the only thing he has is letters. He loves to read. We tried to send him books and that sort of thing. But they’ve done everything they can to keep him away from the public. With the exception of the letter writing he has lost his phone call privileges, he’s lost everything.

So, he did take a non-cooperating plea deal in which he would not apologize for what he’s done, he would not cooperate with the Government against anyone else, but he’s accepted fully his responsibility in that hack of Stratfor.

Robles: Normally, accepting responsibility for your own actions – that’s an honorable thing.

Crabtree: But if you apologize and say you are sorry, and you’ll never do it again – it appears in the United States you get a lesser sentence. And he is not willing to apologize.

Robles: If they told Bradley Manning to apologize: "Oh, you exposed heinous war crimes, now apologize!"

It is like the guy that Dick Cheney shot in the face with the shotgun and the guy had to apologize to him for being in a way of the buckshot, remember that? Unbelievable!

Crabtree: I think Bradley Manning is very-very strong. His beliefs and his strength throughout very torturous circumstances are commendable.

I think Jeremy’s strength is commendable.

I think Mr. Snowden, I’ve heard a lot of people in the US say – well, why did he flee to Moscow, why don’t he come here and face charges?

Mr. Snowden in my opinion would be a fool to come to the United States and face charges given the ridiculous charges that are being placed on people who are whistleblowers.

Robles: Just a reminder for everybody out there: the United States revoked his passport while he was in Moscow and Russia was forced to protect him.

I mean, he wasn’t a Russian agent, he wasn’t working for Russia, his destination wasn’t Russia. I just wanted to make that clear.

Crabtree: That’s correct. His passport was revoked and if anyone remembers Mr. Snowden was stuck in the Russian airport for quite some time until Russia was kind enough to give him a temporary visa.

And in that time the US, although they deny it, was able to force down the plane of another country’s president in an effort to see if Mr. Snowden was on that plane.

Obviously, it outraged many people and denying airspace to other presidential planes… I mean, I just don’t know where we are headed, but this sounds like the strong-arm-of-the-law and it is a dangerous place to be for people who want to expose the truth.

Robles: And let this be a warning to the architects behind it; it is not sustainable, really. I mean, they can do it for a while, but it is not sustainable.

One more time, what’s the judge’s name in this?

Crabtree: Her name is Loretta Preska. And I think if you search the case of Susan Lindauer, who is also a whistleblower and who was also a defendant under judge Preska, you’ll find that judge Preska has a long history of very harsh punishment and not so kind behavior.

Robles: One more time, like you said, if he had stolen a car, driven through the front door of Stratfor, physically stolen all their files and left – you said, he’d get something like six months or something?

Crabtree: Correct! And some community service where he’d sweep the streets and clean up garbage.

Robles: And he is facing 35 to life for being led into this by an FBI informant.

What can people do to support Jeremy? It is got to be something serious I think.

Crabtree: The thing they can do is go to freejeremy.net . If anyone would like to donate, there is a donation button there. That will help Jeremy with commissary needs while he is incarcerated for the next several years.

In the United States prisoners literally have to pay for their socks, for their uniform, a coat, their food, because they are not fed enough.

So, those things are purchased through the commissary. They pay for their soap. These are things that prisoners pay for here. So, you can donate.

If you use Facebook, we have a Facebook page called Free Jeremy Hammond Support Network. It provides an address to write to Jeremy and until this address is changed, that address is where he can be written to. And that’s all he has. He has your letters of support. That is all he has, everything else has been taken away.

Robles: Sue, you sound, I’m sorry to say this, but you sound a little resigned, you don’t think…? They should let him out on the 15th, shouldn’t they?

Crabtree: I think that Jeremy deserves time served. I think that we are all hopeful for time served. But we are prepared for ten years.

Robles: One more time the web address.

Crabtree: The web address for Jeremy’s website is freejeremy.net and you can get his address off mailtothe jail.org, if you use Facebook. We have the Free Jeremy Hammond Support Network where we provide almost daily updates: whatever we can find.

We have put together literally a road trip of as many people as we can gather to drive throughout the country to New York to be there at that sentencing to support Jeremy.

There is a donation link for that, to help us to afford those costs for everyone to get there, and be in court for Jeremy and support him, and not let him accept this sentence alone. And we’ll continue to support him for however long he is incarcerated.

Robles: Is there anyone working on like a petition to the governor of New York or this would be to the federal authorities, has anyone put a petition up? Anything like that?

Crabtree: There is one at change.org. And if you search Jeremy Hammond, you will find that there. It is a petition to judge Preska to allow him time served and return him home.

We have just completed letters to judge Preska to explain what type of person Jeremy is and his importance to his community, and to request leniency for Jeremy.

And we’ve gathered about 300 letters for the judge requesting leniency for Jeremy.

So, at this point now we are waiting for the hearing. We are collecting donations to get as many people as we can there. And there is a donation thing at freejeremy.net which goes to Jeremy’s commissary and there is Hammond Support Network on Facebook which has his address for you to write him.

Robles: What kind of letters are you collecting? Can this be international?

Crabtree: We actually had to stop that on October 15th, because we only had a certain amount of time to provide those to the judge, so that she would be given the amount of time she needed to read them. And so, that project ended. And now we are just looking at letters for Jeremy.

I would point out though, if they are coming from other countries and they may take more than two weeks to get here, you may want to hold off on letters until he is moved, because they won’t transfer them. The bureau of prisons will either through them away or return them.

Robles: Was there a response yet or is that going to come out later?

Crabtree: We are hoping that that will aid her in her sentencing of Jeremy.

It’s been an 18 months battle of trying to support a young man who means so much to his community. And he is such a wonderful human being, but at his bail hearing he was literally vilified and it is disheartening to so many of us.

But we continue to fight for it and we will have a giant rally for him before court, and we will fill that court room.

So, if there is anyone in New York who happens to be to hear your show, November 15th is the date to show Hammond that we support what he did and we support him.

Robles: You need to fill up the entire city.

Okay, thank you very much Sue. I’ve taken a lot of your time, I really appreciate you speaking with us.

Crabtree: Thank you sir.

Robles: Don’t call me sir I work for a living! (jokes)

Parting

You were listening to an interview with Mrs. Sue Crabtree

 

Last Update: 08/06/2023 03:24 +0300

 

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