Jay Leiderman Quotes

16 Sourced Quotes

It's scary as hell, living through these times, because we don't know how this is going to play out. Our times are fraught with peril and I'm glad that I started this when I did and I intend to see it through to completion and I don't know what that means: in terms of taking on more clients, in terms of taking on more pro bono cases, in terms of more work and being away from my family and having harm come to my business. Clearly I'm not making the authorities pleased with me. I could be where Barrett is [Barrett Brown is at FCI Seagoville federal prison, where he has been for almost two years awaiting trial]. So that's where we are.

Jay Leiderman
They're not so good at letting them out. Yes. And that's consistently painful for families, and that's one of the really ugly parts of incarceration. I have a feeling they kind of do things like that because…well, it's one of those things where you don't like it? Oh, then don't come back! So they'll get jerked around so badly that it forms a disincentive to commit any further crimes.

Jay Leiderman
It is fashionable always to cast aspersion upon those that defend persons accused of committing crimes. The viler the accused crime, the more vigorous defense the accused needs, yet, at the same time, the more vitriol the defense attorney will face. I cannot speak for my brethren in the legal community, I can only state that what follows is my own brand of patriotism; I defend those charged with crimes because it is both my duty as a lawyer and as an American. Each piece of resistance to the encroachment of overreaching governmental power is, in and of itself, a victory for freedom.

Jay Leiderman
Our best and brightest should be encouraged to find new methods of expression; direct action in protest must not stifled. The dawning of the digital age should be seen as an opportunity to expand our knowledge, and to collectively enhance our communication. Government should have the greatest interest in promoting speech – especially unpopular speech. The government should never be used to suppress new and creative – not to mention, effective – methods of speech and expression

Jay Leiderman
Hack has become a sort of all-encompassing term, when in fact some of this was social engineering, some of this was good old-fashioned regular 'there's a hole, I'm going to walk through it', said Leiderman. If you left your front door open people wouldn't really call it a break-in. To some extent Stratfor were unsecure to the point where it was like their front door was open and Mr Hammond allegedly, with some others, walked right in, and people are calling it a hack. As far as I'm aware, nothing was really hacked in the classic sense, he added.

Jay Leiderman
DoJ [Department of Justice] is not supposed to be used to send messages. It's supposed to be used to specifically target actual criminality, not to be this theoretical law creation machine where they want to push and twist the law so far to the point where it's unrecognizable and use that to chill dissent. That's when our country looks its most evil, and it really does. It's an ugly picture of the US government

Jay Leiderman
Since the revelations of NSA surveillance and mass data collection, Leiderman has consistently referred to this as the tin foil age. It is a reference to the days when if someone thought the government was spying on them they would be seen as crazy – the kind of person that would wear a tin foil hat to combat the government surveillance. Now that we are all aware that our government is collecting mass data on so many people, we don't think the tin foil hat wearing people were quite so crazy [sort of], hence the tin foil age.

Jay Leiderman
I'm not saying we're in a police state, but it sure looks like it when you evaluate the system of pretrial release.

Jay Leiderman
The warrant did not give the power to rummage through the journalist's files... there is no indication of why all this information needed to be seized

Jay Leiderman
The days of 'Let's haul this kid in front of the judge, scare him and send him home with a warning' are long since gone... Prosecutorial discretion is a great thing if it's exercised, but it doesn't happen in any meaningful way these days, because prosecutions are so politicized.

Jay Leiderman
Not only has Anonymous redefined what it means to be an advocate, Anonymous has reinvigorated advocacy in this country and has sent it flying off to the digital revolution.

Jay Leiderman
Being quiet should be the default [when being questioned by the police].

Jay Leiderman
Investigators like to wave around the word 'gang.' They use it to strike fear in the heart of the community. It tends to also involve a lot of puffery and allegations that maybe perhaps aren't 100 percent solid.

Jay Leiderman
There's no such thing as a DDoS [distributed denial of service] 'attack'... A DDoS is a protest, it's a digital sit it. It is no different than physically occupying a space. It's not a crime, it's speech.

Jay Leiderman
You shouldn't think for a minute that politicians and other organizations are not taking what has been learned from Anonymous and applying it to their outreach strategies. Anonymous has been extremely successful in mobilization and has shown how strong a crowdsourced effort could truly be

Jay Leiderman
The thing about free speech and free expression is people that are interested in it are by their very nature always tending to explore the boundaries... In a society that prizes free expression and one that has a great premium upon the marketplace of ideas, it's hard to say that someone went too far in expressing themselves when really no harm was done.

Jay Leiderman