Protests sentencing recommendations

Keys lawyers say that that the pre-sentencing guidelines presented to the court by a probation officer miscalculated the losses to the Times as a result of the Anonymous hack, resulting in an overly harsh potential sentence. Their argument notes that revenge porn pioneer Hunter Moore received only 2.5 years for “far worse and far more harmful behavior” than Keys’. The lawyers also say that the sentencing guidelines have little to do with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He was not charged, nor was he convicted of, unauthorized access to a computer and obtaining information, but actually charged with ‘“know[ing].. transmission of a program, information, code, or command, [the result of which] intentionally causes damage without authorization to a protected computer.”

Imposing a sentence of over seven years and roughly $250,000 in speculative restitution is a draconian sentence for a minor occurrence that could have been more appropriately handled by a civil lawsuit instead of three federal felony criminal convictions.