Man sentenced to prison for hacking Constitutional Court website

A man who was arrested in November 2021 and accused of hacking the Constitutional Court websitre and renaming it “Kangaroo Court” has been sentenced to 3 years in prison for violation of the Computer Crimes Act.

A screenshot of the YouTube video of "Guillotine," by the American hip-hop band Death Grips, by which the content of the Constitutional Court website was replaced. 

On 11 November 2021, a day after it ruled that calling for monarchy reform is considered treason, the Constitutional Court’s website was allegedly hacked and renamed “Kangaroo Court,” a term meaning a court that ignores accepted standards of law and justice. The content of the site was also replaced with a YouTube video of the song “Guillotine” performed by the American hip-hop band Death Grips. The site then went down for several days before coming back online.

On 14 November 2021, Wachira (last name withheld), a 33-year-old man who lives in Ubon Ratchathani, was arrested and charged under Sections 5, 7, 9, and 10 of the Computer Crimes Act with wrongfully accessing a computer system, wrongfully accessing computer data with specific security measures; damaging, destroying, or revising someone else’s computer data; and blocking, deferring, obstructing or interfering with the computer system of someone else and causing it to fail.

The Criminal Court last Thursday (18 August 2022) found Wachira guilty and sentenced him to 3 years in prison. His sentence was then reduced to 1 years and 6 months because he confessed. The Court did not suspend his sentence on the grounds that he damaged the reputation of an organization in the justice system and the people’s trust in the Constitutional Court, thereby damaging the justice system, and so he should be punished and made an example so that others will not commit the same offense.  

Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) lawyer Norasate Nanongtoom said that the Office of the Constitutional Court originally sued Wachira for 10,288,972 baht in compensation, 10 Million of which were for the damage to its reputation.

He said that Wachira and his lawyers defended him on the grounds that the Constitutional Court cannot sue for compensation, since the public prosecutor indicted Wachira for damaging computer data according to the Computer Crimes Act, and not for any offense against the Constitutional Court's reputation. It therefore cannot ask for compensation for damages to its reputation because it is not related to the criminal charges Wachira was indicted for.

The court subsequently ordered Wachira to pay 87, 227 baht in damages to the Constitutional Court, and dismissed the motion for the 10 million baht compensation for reputation damage because Wachira was not charged with defamation, and so any damage to the Constitutional Court’s reputation was not a direct result of his offense under the Computer Crimes Act.

In a June 2022 interview, Wachira told Prachatai that he hacked the site because he wanted to express his discontent at the ruling on calls for monarchy reform. He questioned whether it was beyond the authority of the Court to rule on demands made by a popular movement, and said that by ruling that such demands are against the law or banning politicians when the public should be allowed to talk and find a democratic solution, the Court is becoming part of the conflict, affecting the democratic society.

“I think Thai people allow organizations like the Constitutional Court to exist because we also don’t trust politicians, but the problem is can we trust people who have been appointed?” he asked during the interview. “When people who were appointed make a ruling, obviously people who would lose out on the ruling won’t accept it. It’s not a victory you can really depend on.”

When it comes to the call for monarchy reform, Wachira said he thinks the monarchy is constantly changing, and that the people’s opinion is important in finding what the role of the monarchy should be in the modern world. He said that although he does not know what the most appropriate role for the monarchy should be, the people should be consulted instead of silenced.

He noted that he thinks that the monarchy reform demonstrations are still within legal limits, whereas his own action was out of bounds. “Like what the young people are saying is still within what should be allowed even under the current law, but to suddenly say you can’t do it is strange,” he said.

He also said that he wanted to bring attention to vulnerabilities in government agencies’ websites. He noted that a few weeks before he hacked the site, there were several reports that people’s personal information was being leaked from government  websites, making him feel that these agencies are not being responsible with the data they have, so he wondered if people would care more about cyber security if the Court’s website was hacked. 

Wachira said that, when he was being questioned by the police, he told officers from the National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA) where the vulnerabilities in the site are, since the NCSA was not sure how he hacked the site. He also noted that there are problems in the platform run by the company that constructed the site, but because the platform is not open-source, it is difficult for the public to inspect it and notify the administrators if there is any problem.

Although he did not want news about hacking government websites to go viral, because he was concerned that hackers with bad intentions would try to access these sites, he said that if these stories are not reported, the authorities would not want to admit that these sites can be hacked and would prosecute those who pointed out the issues or try to make it sound like the issues are not serious.

Wachira was granted bail using a security of 75,000 baht in order to appeal his case. The Court did not set any condition.

Following Wachira’s sentencing, Move Forward Party MP and spokesperson Rangsiman Rome issued a statement saying that hacking and modifying the Constitutional Court’s website would not have been able to damage the Court’s reputation if the Court has made its ruling according to legal principles and without political bias, and that it is the Court’s use of its own power alone, as seen in the rulings about the monarchy reform movement and on marriage equality, that can destroy its reputation and the public’s trust in the justice system.

 

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