Brian West

[John Young]

David,

Thanks for the Wired pointer. From reading Declan's article it is 
not anymore clear now what Brian West did or did not do than
before -- maybe less so now -- because most of the information 
about latest developments has come from the feds, and Declan 
does not appear to have done thorough checking the feds' version 
with other sources, and indeed has put an unfortunate slant in 
his story not yet objectively supportable. 

You must know that the feds often put out misleading press 
releases, especially in cases with high media coverage, and
most especially when they have made a well-publicized mistake.

The story is not yet out about the complete Brian West story,
as with predecessor stories about  compsec cases and plea 
bargains and, worse, rush to judgment convictions.

I am not being crotchety just awaiting information that does
not too quickly help obscure the current law enforcement
practice of demonizing all compsec complaints made
by poorly secured sites operators and plea bargaining 
of coerced targets. This case still appears to be that kind 
of witchhunting loose upon the "defenseless" homeland.

John




At 02:15 PM 9/27/01 -0400, you wrote:
>He pled guilty and admitted he'd been up to no good; he wasn't an innocent
>victim of an overzealous Justice Department
>
>http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47146,00.html