At a time when the word “hacktivist” is routinely used to describe random brigands and petty vandals, Jeremy Hammond stands out as the real deal. In 2004 he urged DefCon attendees to target Republican National Convention delegates for “electronic civil disobedience.” In 2006 he was sentenced to two years federal for hacking the website of a right-wing group. In between he reportedly picked up a handful of minor arrests for real-world civil disobedience, including at least one drum-banging protest.

Today, the 28-year-old Chicagoan pleaded guilty to conspiring in the keystone attack of the short-lived Lulzsec/AntiSec era, a damaging December 2011 intrusion into the servers of the private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, Inc. The Stratfor hack compromised 60,000 credit card numbers, some of which were promptly loaded up with $700,000 in fraudulent charges. Also stolen were 5 million email messages, which have been trickling out of WikiLeaks ever since.

As with his previous adventures, Hammond’s motives in the Stratfor attack were purely non-profit.

“Now that I have pleaded guilty it is a relief to be able to say that I did work with Anonymous to hack Stratfor, among other websites,” Hammond writes in an unrepentant press release. “Those others included military and police equipment suppliers, private intelligence and information security firms, and law enforcement agencies.

“I did this because I believe people have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors. I did what I believe is right.”

Hammond says he pleaded guilty to forestall further indictments and avoid the risk of a 30-year sentence if he lost at trial: In the federal system, hacking sentences are determined mostly by prior convictions and financial losses. Under the terms of his plea agreement, he now faces up to 10 years in prison and restitution of up to $2.5 million. He’s been held without bail at a federal detention center in New York since his arrest in March of last year.

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