Kevin Gallagher

Kevin Gallagher sits in Northampton Coffee Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2014.

(Dan Warner/Masslive.com)

NORTHAMPTON – Hacking and data leaks produced some of the biggest U.S. news stories of the past few years, such as stories surrounding WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. In that world of hacker journalism and government secrecy, one of the biggest stories is the arrest and prosecution of journalist Barrett Brown.

And the man behind Brown’s defense fund, Kevin Gallagher, sipped a Guinness Tuesday night at a Northampton bar, casually explaining his direct involvement in the well-known criminal case 1,700 miles away.

Gallagher, a 28-year-old computer systems administrator from eastern Massachusetts, is the organizer behind Brown’s legal defense fund.

Gallagher isn't a lawyer or a typical nonprofit organizer. He wasn't exactly a hacker-activist before a few years ago. He studied English at UMass before getting into activism. Working mostly from home in web development and computer system administration gives him some free time during the day to work with organizations like Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Despite that, he now is right at the center of one of the major criminal cases involving U.S. internet freedom issues.

Brown is best known for his relationship with Anonymous. He is a journalist and activist who opposed government secrecy, and he organized scrutiny of leaked and hacked documents related to the U.S. government, partly through Project PM.

Gallagher discovered Brown’s writing in 2011. Brown was funny and over the top, arrogant and engaging. His views on government censorship and internet freedom meshed with Gallagher’s libertarian tendencies. And in the fog of anarchist hacking and amoral pot-stirring, Brown was making sense.

“I noticed that Barrett Brown was someone who was getting stuff done,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher dug further into privacy and internet issues. He attended crypto parties, teaching cryptography skills to average people who wanted keep their data private. In July 2012, he attended the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York, where he met Brown in person.

Barrett Brown is pictured in a YouTube video in which he made threats against an FBI agent.

A couple of months later, Brown was in jail. FBI agents stormed his home and arrested him after Brown posted a YouTube video in which he threatened an FBI agent and said he would “look into” the agent’s children.

Brown reportedly struggled with opiate addiction, and Gallagher said his behavior had become more erratic in the weeks leading up to the YouTube video.

“I realized no one is going to step up and defend this guy, because he just crossed a line,” Gallagher said.

Brown had only a public defender on his side, so Gallagher started freebarrettbrown.org as a donation site.

Brown faced charges related to that threat, but more charges began to trickle in. And more. In the 17 charges against him, he potentially faced more than 100 years in prison.

Brown is a controversial figure, but so was the severity of the charges. The intricacies of Brown's case are well documented in Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Nation, but many of the identity theft charges swirl around a link.

Brown shared a link to a large amount of hacked information from a private intelligence contractor, and somewhere in that information was credit card data, though it’s clear from Brown’s work that the credit card data was not what he was interested in.

Brown did not steal the data himself, so the case raised big questions about internet accountability, including whether sharing a link constituted possession.

Gallagher believes the severity of the charges — brought in federal court — was a clear sign that the government was seeking to punish Brown for his journalism and activism. Brown looked into government activity with private security contractors, and he made too many people mad, Gallagher said. However, that wasn’t what made him start the defense fund.

“My only motivating belief is that everyone deserves access to competent legal defense,” he said.

This was a major story in cyber law, hacker circles and freedom of the press. But Gallagher did not expect the explosion of support — and complications — that followed.

Glenn Greenwald, the journalist known for the Edward Snowden NSA leaks, met with Gallagher and wrote about Brown's case. Thousands of dollars started flowing in.

Then, in early 2013, the prosecution motioned to seize the defense fund, even though Brown didn’t control it. The judge eventually ruled against the motion.

A gag order was issued later in the year, so Brown could not discuss his case with the press — a move that Gallagher said was meant to fight advocacy efforts.

Overall, the defense fund has raised more than $100,000. A lot of the legal work has been pro bono, Gallagher said, but the fund helped wrangle attorneys Charles Swift, who worked with Guantanamo Bay detainees, and Ahmed Ghappour, director of the Liberty, Security and Technology clinic at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.

“It changed the outcome of what his legal options were,” Gallagher said. “That was a good feeling.”

Brown pleaded guilty to three charges in April. His maximum sentence is down, now less than nine years, though Gallagher hopes Brown will get time served.

Gallagher emails with Brown. He said Brown is stoic and now sober. He has had time to reflect and read the many books supporters send him. During Brown’s October sentencing, Gallagher plans to travel to Texas and stay at Brown’s mother’s house.

Many have thrown support behind Brown: Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange, even members of Pussy Riot.

The support — and huge amount of money raised — still blows Gallagher’s mind a bit. He found skills that he never knew he had, like public relations and social media management. The Huffington Post and The Guardian have published his writing.

Still, Gallagher says what he did was not extraordinary. Anyone with a computer can immediately start making a difference on issues they care about, he said.

“I’m not the type of guy who does something,” he said.

But it doesn’t take much to share something, to tweet or make a small donation. Gallagher said most of the money raised for Brown’s defense was from small donations.

“It starts with a hashtag,” Gallagher said.