Torturing hackers in prison: surviving as an act of protest

I grew up in the shadow of great hackers I admired, like Kevin Mitnick, Bernie S, and Phiber Optik (aka Mark Abene). They all have something in common: they went to prison for computer crimes and ultimately emerged even stronger than anyone could have imagined.

However, I have a hard time reconciling the idea of computer nerds going to prison with murderers, gang members, and other societal outcasts. At the height of my glory days as a computer hacker myself, little did I know I would eventually find myself experiencing and surviving prison life and having to overcome in a world that does not welcome nor understand computer nerds.

I remember reading the story of Bernie S, the computer hacker who, in 1995, was arrested and charged by the United States Secret Service for possessing a non-functional RadioShack red box. This device could potentially be used for phone phreaking, or making free phone calls.

Notably, there was no evidence of unauthorized access, fraud, or victims in his case. That didn’t stop the strong arm of the law from intervening and making an example of him, absent any actual crime being committed.

He was thrown into a maximum-security prison, reportedly as retribution for speaking out about the prison conditions he experienced, where he was violently assaulted by another inmate, resulting in significant injuries, including a shattered jaw and a broken arm.

Yet, he survived against insurmountable odds despite prison authorities deliberately placing him in an environment that could have cost him his life. I ended up relating to hackers like him.

Then there’s the legend, Kevin Mitnick. He was depicted as pure evil and the most prolific hacker and social engineer of his time. His legal troubles, caused by his insatiable curiosity, started to catch up with him by 1981, which was the start of his notoriety.

In 1988, he served 12 months in federal prison and was released with three years of supervised release. However, he had other plans. He went on the run for two-and-a-half years, assuming a new identity.

This story has been told a million times across the world by exaggerating media outlets trying to spread the hype and writers wanting to capitalize on his story, which repeated the myths and mistruths spouted by Kevin’s prosecutor.

The point is, after Kevin was arrested for the second time, he was sentenced to serve five more years, including eight months in solitary confinement, due to exaggerated fears from prosecutors and law enforcement. One of the most infamous claims made against him was that he could allegedly "start a nuclear war by whistling into a payphone."

Additionally, I ended up embracing hackers like Aaron Swartz, Derrick Lostutter (aka KyAnonymous), Jeremy Hammond, and journalist Barrett Brown, whose plights gave me strength during my darkest hours and times of great uncertainty. Thus, we were each placed in an anti-world – Bureau of Prisons black sites – where no public scrutiny could reach.

My story begins here

The United Nations, under the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) and other human rights bodies, has asserted that prolonged solitary confinement, typically defined as lasting more than 15 consecutive days, can constitute cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Furthermore, it may be considered a violation of human rights.

I was arrested on June 26th, 2009, and convicted on two counts of transmitting a malicious code, 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(5)(A), which involved botnets and commercial remote access software that I installed on healthcare computer systems.

Ultimately, I served 11 years because I ended up becoming a fugitive – twice. Those are the basic facts. The things I was framed for could arguably amount to an article entirely, but I will save you the grief.

I digress. In 2012, I was placed in solitary confinement at Seagoville Federal Correctional Institution’s Special Housing Unit (SHU) after it was discovered that I was using another inmate's TruLinks account, which was something he and I had previously agreed on. Instead of admitting guilt, he actually told the investigators that he wasn’t aware I was using his account and that I must have hacked into it. My own authorized access to TruLinks was revoked due to my computer crime. And I was still fighting the length of my sentence on a direct appeal to the court.

To give you a picture of the age of this facility, during World War II, this prison served as an internment camp for Japanese, German, and Italian civilians. It was initially operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) under the name Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station.

However, due to the Geneva Convention of 1929, which prohibited the detention of prisoners of war and enemy civilians in prison facilities, the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) was not authorized to intern civilians during the war.

The facility was originally constructed in 1941 by the Bureau of Prisons as a minimum-security women’s reformatory. On April 1st, 1942, the Seagoville Enemy Alien Detention Station was transferred from the Bureau of Prisons to the INS.

I needed a way to not only communicate with my lawyer but also with my family and friends. After all, nobody has time to sit down and write letters anymore. Having no way to really communicate with people left me insulated and cut off.

If I hadn’t been convicted of hacking, this would have gone very differently. Nobody anticipated that this incident would confine me to an 8x12 cell for 13 months, in temperatures reaching 125°F (51.67°C), during one of the hottest summers on record for the Dallas-Fort Worth area in Texas.

Let me put this into perspective. The Furnace Creek area of Death Valley, California, is the hottest place on the planet. In 1913, temperatures reached a scorching 134.06°F (56.7°C). Notably, in 2020, it was still the hottest recorded location on Earth, at 129.2°F (54°C). Where I was housed was only four degrees cooler than the hottest location on Earth. It was then that I knew that I was on the threshold of a death sentence.

I had no fan. No air conditioning unit, and no adequate ventilation. Just palpable, inescapable, mind-bending heat. This was heat that whispered in your ear to take your own life, if only to escape it but for a moment. Heat is so insatiable that it burns your skin and covers your body in heat rashes. This means that if you fell asleep, you could die from dehydration.

On the wing where I was housed, you could hear the screams of the tortured, crying out for ice. Some did not survive it. Some were lucky enough to only faint from heat stroke, dehydration, or heat exhaustion. It was too hot to wear clothes. You slept on the bed frame or on the floor to try to absorb even a modicum of coolness, if you could find it.

There was one instance when a guard turned the heater on, which distributed hot air through the dead, dusty vents on each floor – vents that were caked in black mold and moisture from leaky toilets upstairs. It was so unbelievable that none of the guards believed us.

These are punishments you might imagine occur in third-world countries, and not America, which is the self-proclaimed global leader in human rights.

I remember falling into auditory hallucinations within the first month or two. This lasted for the entire duration of my time there. The lack of social interaction, limited stimuli, and confinement to a small, isolated space contribute to a state of sensory deprivation and extreme isolation, which can significantly affect the brain.

There is no law here. Only the law of the strongest.

Surviving was my activism.

The fight to overcome

My case was infamous at the prisons I was housed in. There was even a time when other inmates didn’t want to be seen associated with me because they feared they’d come under investigation in some way.

While in solitary, I was now facing an FBI investigation to ascertain whether or not I had hacked the inmate’s email system. Whether that was factual or just what I was told in order to justify the need for prolonged confinement is anyone’s guess.

While I was in solitary, all my legal material was secretly confiscated by unknown prison authorities. This means I could not rely on it for reference when writing letters to my attorney in preparation for my direct appeal. Because of this, I went on a four-day hunger strike.

That is when the Special Housing Unit (SHU) Lieutenant threatened to force-feed oatmeal through a tube in my nose while strapped to a gurney. I was unphased by the threat and really didn’t care.

“I just so happen to love oatmeal,” I told him, just to see if he would go through with it.

Instead, this ordeal ended over a negotiation. I would eat. In turn, he would track down and return my missing legal work. And that’s exactly what happened.

But as time went on, the severity of my confinement escalated. I was exposed to black mold for a prolonged period and consequently developed a chronic rheumatic cough. I had been confined there for so long that it was now winter, and we were showering in ice water three times a week.

Social engineering the enemy

One of the things I used to say is, 'You don’t know your limits until it kills you. Adversity can squeeze deeply, unrealized character out of you.’

At some point, I began to form a new perspective about my indefinite confinement. Yes, it was indefinite. Therefore, it was imperative to harden my resolve and stay in the game, even if I had no plays left.

At one point, I sought presidential clemency and mailed the petition to the Office of the Pardon Attorney, hoping for relief. Instead, it was intercepted by prison authorities and discarded, with someone sent to inform me that it had been denied by the OPA – in only 38 days. I was extremely suspicious, so I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the OPA, only to find out that they had never received it.

How do you win? When the gatekeeper is holding all the keys and guarding all the doors? I sought to sue the individuals responsible for my confinement but was blocked at every turn. I even obtained an attorney who had heard of my plight from his client who was similarly situated, but even at the risk of being sued, he was largely obstructed from communicating with me.

I started mailing all my mail through other inmates’s names, just to get my mail out, unobstructed. I also started keeping a secret ledger of every attempt to seek redress which is required before having a chance to file your grievances in court. I kept time stamps, who said what, and what was said.

Instead of complaining, I started asking loaded questions in an effort to steer their answers so I could quote them in my class-action lawsuit. For example, I asked one Lieutenant, “Are you guys keeping me back here because of what you think I can do with a computer?”

“You're damn right!” He responded. “We go by who you are, and what you’re capable of.” All these statements became evidence in the class action. They did not know I was keeping a tidy record, notarized and certified under penalty of perjury. This became key evidence against the individuals responsible.

This isn’t the end

This survival saga is long, so I will cut it off here. In the end, the judge in the class action I had joined ordered the institution to have me medically evaluated outside the prison. Rather than abide by the legal order, they immediately shipped me to another prison and acted as though I had already been designated and put in transit to another location, effectively undermining the order under fictional circumstances.

I often look back on this part of my life. Sometimes, I relive it in the forefront of my mind, and sometimes, I merely glance back at it and wonder how I survived it when some didn’t. More importantly, I reflect on how hackers and prison don’t meld well, especially great minds like Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide after rejecting a guilty plea deal.

This is also why I cannot fathom why some hacktivists from Anonymous have a friendly outlook on law enforcement while they are still being hunted, aggressively prosecuted, and made an example of.

Unfortunately, not much has changed. The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is still open to wide interpretation, the media loves to repeat the fictional embellishments released by self-congratulatory press releases. But due to the fact there aren’t many of us who get caught due to our elusive nature, there’s not much advocacy that can cause a lasting impact on cases like these.