Attorneys for Barrett Brown want case on linking to hacked material dismissed
FUD.<p>This is a federal case, and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines (while now discretionary, see <i>Booker</i>) simply don't work that way.  100 years is the potential maximum he would get if the sentences were served consecutively, but at the federal level, there must be special circumstances to justify imposing consecutive sentences.  Consequently,  consecutive sentencing is the exception, not the rule, and is almost exclusively reserved for the most heinous crimes, i.e., rapes, murders, or high-level drug offenses.  (Note that certain factors can also result in consecutive sentences, such as gun "enhancements" which can add 5-25 years to a base sentence.)<p>Edit:  The above assumes the case even proceeds to the sentencing stage.  Several US courts have already ruled that merely hyperlinking is not enough; there must be an additional circumstance to make the hyperlinking illegal.  For example, if the information hyperlinked was clearly intended to be protected or private (i.e., Schwartz and the AT&T subscriber data), then dissemination of links <i>could</i> fall within the meaning of one or more statutes for unauthorized access.<p>A physical analogy to explain why this matters: a URL isn't simply an address; it is a <i>path</i>, and this makes all the difference.  A p.o. address, for example, may tell you how to get to someone's apartment but it wouldn't tell you how to get up there if the front door is locked.   A URL is more akin to giving someone an address and telling them how to get inside.  (And for you nitpickers, in this example also assume that you don't know the person at this address; you simply know the URL.)