Venyu Blog

Back when cable was just getting started one of the channels I found mildly interesting, (really, more like an archaeologist finding evidence of a lost civilization), was TV Land, home to 1970’s classic fare including The Flip Wilson Show. Wilson, a standup comedian and one of the first African-Americans to host his own variety show on a major network, popularized a catch phrase that almost always reared its head during his “act.” That phrase — “The Devil Made Me Do It” was always the fallback of Wilson’s saucy alter-ego girlfriend Geraldine Jones, in this case buying a new dress.

When I read this astounding account of convicted hacker Albert Gonzalez, currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to hack attacks a retailers including TJX, Dave & Busters, BJ’s Wholesale Club, OfficeMax, Boston Market and Barnes & Noble who now claims he was “authorized and directed” by the United States government to carry out his illegal activities, well that old Flip Wilson trope came roaring right back into relevancy.

Amazingly, in a petition filed last month Gonzalez, according to Computerworld and first reported by Wired, informed the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts that he wanted to withdraw his guilty plea and asked the court to vacate his sentence.

Gonzalez was indicted in three different states, New York, Massachusetts and New Jersey for his crimes. Prosecutors alleged that Gonzalez and his international gang of cyber criminals stole data on more than 130 million debit and credit cards over a multi-year period.

In Sept. 2009, Gonzalez, pleaded guilty to 20 counts of conspiracy, computer fraud, wire fraud, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft. He was sentenced to two concurrent 20 year terms by federal courts in Massachusetts and NJ.

During his trial it came out Gonzalez had been a confidential informant for the Secret Service as far back in 2003 after being arrested in connection with a series of ATM thefts. According to Gonzalez he was then recruited by the Secret Service to infiltrate various card and hacking groups, leading to several arrests. In his petition he claims his Secret Service handlers treated him almost like another member of the agency where he regularly participated in undercover operations.

At the time of his arrest Gonzalez believed he was “authorized to engage in the cyber crimes he was participating in, in order to gather intelligence on National and international cyber criminals.”

Surprisingly Gonzalez maintains that one of his attorneys did not advise him of a possible “Public Authority” defense where any individual who is “acting under the actual or believed exercise of public authority on behalf of a law enforcement agency” can claim immunity against illegal conduct arising from his actions.

There are other extenuating circumstances, of course, all of them detailed in the aforementioned Computerworld and Wired articles, however, I have a feeling that if Albert Gonzalez had come across a rerun of the Flip Wilson show before inventing this fanciful defense, the refrain wouldn’t be “the government made me do it” but rather “the devil made me do it.”  In the end it would carry just about as much weight (or believability).