http://www.wired.com/2014/04/att-hacker-conviction-vacated/
By Kim Zetter
Threat Level
Wired.com
04.11.14
A hacker sentenced to three and a half years in prison for obtaining the
personal data of more than 100,000 iPad owners from AT&T’s unsecured
website is about to go free, after a ruling today that prosecutors were
wrong to charge him in a state where none of his alleged crimes occurred.
Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer was in Arkansas during the time of the hack, his
alleged co-conspirator was in California, and the servers that they
accessed were physically located in Dallas, Texas and Atlanta, Georgia.
Prosecutors therefore had no justification for bringing the case against
Auernheimer in New Jersey, a federal appeals panel ruled this morning.
The appeal was closely watched in cyber law and civil liberties circles,
and Auernheimer had a powerhouse legal team that handled his case
pro-bono.
"Venue in criminal cases is more than a technicality; it involves 'matters
that touch closely the fair administration of criminal justice and public
confidence in it,'" the judges wrote in their opinion (.pdf). "This is
especially true of computer crimes in the era of mass interconnectivity.
Because we conclude that venue did not lie in New Jersey, we will reverse
the District Court’s venue determination and vacate Auernheimer's
conviction."
[...]
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