Texas Journalist Barrett Brown Arrested in U.K. over 'KILL COPS' BannerFormer D Magazine contributor Barrett Brown was at a canal boat in east London last month when U.K. police arrived to arrest him. After making bail, the Dallas native was released the next day but was promptly nabbed by immigration officials.
The embattled journalist and American ex-pat had allegedly overstayed his visa, according to the Guardian . Authorities also targeted Brown for alleged incitement and public order offenses relating to a banner he’d held up at a protest, which read "KILL COPS.”
Speaking to the Guardian, Brown said he planned to claim asylum in the United Kingdom.
An independent journalist and media critic, Brown is known for his “close association” with the Anonymous hacking movement, according to U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a database of press freedom incidents. When federal authorities in 2012 began to crack down on a hacker group linked to Anonymous, the FBI raided Brown’s home as well as his mother’s.
In an email, Brown told the Observer: "I'm quite grateful for the Metropolitan Police arresting officer's open admission that they had arrested me as a back channel favor to the FBI, which appears to have another round of still-secret charges prepared for me should they manage to get me extradited."
Wingless wrote
This is awful, but so predictable. Barrett Brown is much too brave for my taste - the brooding island empire with no constitution and censorship laws against everything is no place I want to visit nowadays, let alone protest in. I was thinking he might come to his senses and do something more sensible, like fly off to court lovely Alexandra Elbakyan. They could have done great things together.