Barrett Brown
American journalist who mapped the surveillance-contractor industry through leaked email and went to prison over what largely came down to a link and a video.
Brown set up Project PM, a wiki where volunteers combed through leaked material on private intelligence and security firms, including the HBGary Federal emails of 2011. He moved in Anonymous circles and was routinely described as its spokesman, a label he rejected.
In 2012 he was arrested after posting a YouTube video threatening an FBI agent. The indictment also covered sharing a link to data from the Stratfor breach; that count was dropped after an outcry from press-freedom groups, but he was still sentenced in 2015 to 63 months. The columns he wrote from prison won a National Magazine Award. The case became a textbook example of how thin the line between reporting on a breach and taking part in one can be drawn.