Justice Department lawyers say a former government informant convicted of hacking into TJX and more than a dozen other leading retailers was never authorized by the U.S. Secret Service, which was employing him as an undercover informant, to steal data on more than 150 million credit card accounts.
The Justice lawyers refute new claims by Albert Gonzalez, the computer wizard jailed in 2010 for history’s biggest computer hacking (
The 30-year-old Gonzalez, currently serving a 20-year sentence at the federal prison in Milan, Mich., filed a motion last year to overturn his March 2010 guilty plea on the grounds that his illegal acts were sanctioned by the government which was using him to infiltrate online Internet fraud. Gonzalez claims he was still working for the Secret Service when he hacked into the computer systems of TJX, Heartland Payment Systems, Hannaford Brothers, BJ’s Wholesale Club, 7-Eleven, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority, OfficeMax, Dave & Busters and others.
The Justice Department has asked the federal court in Boston, where Gonzalez was convicted and sentenced, to reject the computer hacker’s spectacular new claims. “Gonzalez’s recent fabrication that he was authorized by his Secret Service handlers to commit the crimes to which he pleaded guilty is refuted by the record,” said Justice lawyers in new pleadings to the court.
“Gonzalez’s assertion that he believed that his Secret Service handlers had the authority to authorize him, and were authorizing him, to steal over 40 million credit and debit card numbers (from TJX), sell blocks of victims’ numbers through a Ukrainian fence, and bury over $1.1 million of the proceeds in his parent’s back yard is inherently incredible.”
The Justice lawyers said Gonzalez never raised the so-called public authority defense at his trial. “Quite the contrary,” wrote the Justice lawyers, “he declared that he had taken advantage of his relationship with the Secret Service to commit his crimes.”
According to the Justice lawyers, to claim the public authority defense, Gonzalez would have had to have shown the court four things: that the government asked him to engage in covert activity, that the government representative had authority to make the request, that Gonzalez relied on the request and that the reliance was reasonable.
The government says it wasn’t enough, as Gonzalez claims, that he was told by his Secret Service handlers to “do your own thing, just don’t get caught” and “don’t worry, we’ve got your back.”
In addition, no one at the Secret Service would have had the authority to authorize the vast computer conspiracy to which Gonzalez pled guilty, they said.
The public-authority defense, says the government, “simply does not allow self-authorized crimes in the hope of being useful.”
The federal government has publicly conceded that Gonzalez worked for the Secret Service as a confidential informant on cybercrime after his 2003 arrest for hacking into private computer systems, including the Pentagon’s. During court proceedings the Secret Service maintained that it did not authorize Gonzalez when he subsequently hacked into many of the nation’s biggest retailers and that it was unaware of his actions.
According Gonzalez he began working for the Secret Service in 2003 in exchange for staying out of jail when he was convicted of stealing card data and selling it online as part of the Secret Service’s “Operation Firewall.” He claims his work helped lead to several major indictments and convictions and that he was somewhat of a star within the Secret Service.
“I was asked to commit acts I knew were illegal,” he said. When he questioned his superiors in the Secret Service he said they told him, “don’t worry, we’ve got your back.”
“At that point,” says Gonzalez, “I would have done anything they asked me to do.”
According to Gonzalez, the Secret Service paid him $1,200 per month as an informant, and on some occasions agents gave him extra cash. One time, he said, he needed $5,000 to pay off a debt to a Russian involved in the online card frauds so the agency agreed to look the other way when he used his hacking skills to earn the money.
Gonzalez said he was shocked when he was arrested May 7, 2008, and he tried to use his Secret Service connections to get him off. “I was expecting the Secret Service to come and take custody of me and squash the charges,” he said. Gonzalez maintains the government authorized all of his actions. He claims he is being made a “scapegoat” to cover someone’s mistake.
