Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer, who once leaked a bunch of email addresses to Gawker gathered from an AT&T security glitch, was subsequently convicted for "hacking", and then released when the Third Circuit ruled the feds tried him in the wrong court, is seeking restitution for the time he spent in prison.

He has written a letter to officials to that effect. I suspect it might not work, as it is phrased with the customary delicacy and deliberative tone one has come to expect from Mr. Auernheimer. It begins with an epigraph:

"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?" -Shakespeare

Then it segues into an abstract statement of political philosophy:

It has long been one of the fundamental pillars of our system of law that when one commits a crime against another, they are made to give restitution to their victims.

In less high-minded terms, it urges the addressees, who include his trial judge and DOJ and FBI officials, to take a long hard look in the mirror:

This was a conspiracy of sedition and treason, perpetrated with violence by a limited number of federal agents to deprive me of my constitutional rights to a fair trial and unlawfully put me in prison... Perhaps you haven't read the opinion of the appeals court exposing all of you as liars and seditionists yet.

It then traces the course of Auernheimer's arrest, and trial, and his many, many, many complaints about that process, some of which are about the venue issue on which his conviction was vacated, and some of which are not.

The letter turns to Auernheimer's demands, which, perhaps inevitably, are put into Bitcoin terms:

My current market-determined hourly rate is 1 Bitcoin an hour. I was taken from my childhood home at gunpoint on January 18th, 2011, and I was not allowed to freely exercise my liberties as a citizen until April 11th, 2014. That's 1179 days that you used my time that I am now billing you for (I gave you a discount by not including the last day). I am owed 28,296 Bitcoins. I do not accept United States dollars, as it is the preferred currency of criminal organizations such as the FBI, DOJ, ATF, and Federal Reserve and I do not assist criminal racketeering enterprises.

Auernheimer explains that he intends to use these funds for what he defines as a good cause:

I am building a series of memorial groves for the greatest patriots of our generation: Timothy McVeigh, Andrew Stack, and Marvin Heemeyer.

And it ends on a plea for civil order:

PAY ME MY MONEY, YOU LYING SUBHUMAN GARBAGE. You also should resign from your posts, as you've shown yourselves to be collective disgraces to rule of law and enemies of the United States Constitution. Those of us who actually love this country should take your places.

You might be wondering whether Auernheimer ran this missive by a lawyer. To another inquiry about lawyers today, he replied:

So, likely not, then.

[Photo Credit: AP.]