Sabu, one of the key members of the notorious nihilistic hacker group LulzSec, was arrested in 2011, and turned FBI informant. Hammond says that Sabu basically used Hammond as a tool to get into foreign websites. The cracking information was then given to Sabu, who gave it to his FBI handlers.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/15/jeremy-hammond-fbi-directed-attacks-foreign-government

Hammond was on trial for breaking into and stealing the secrets of Stratfor, a private non-governmental intelligence agency used by both the government and corporations. Stratfor presents a "professional" facade, but their business is spying, particularly spying for corporations.

The following quotes were copied from the Guardian:

Hammond said he had been motivated to hack Stratfor because he was “particularly moved by the heroic actions of Chelsea Manning, who had exposed the atrocities committed by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. She took an enormous personal risk to leak this information – believing that the public had a right to know and hoping that her disclosures would be a positive step to end these abuses.”

He said of Stratfor, “some of the dangers of the unregulated private intelligence industry are now known. It has been revealed through Wikileaks and other journalists around the world that Stratfor maintained a worldwide network of informants that they used to engage in intrusive and possibly illegal surveillance activities on behalf of large multinational corporations.”

IN 2012, Wikileaks was used to reveal that Stratfor was involved in hiring government spooks to spy on activists and NGOs.

http://www.ecoshock.info/2012/03/private-spies-wikileaks-outs-stratfor.html

"Stratfor was hired by the Coca Cola Company to investigate PETA, People for the Investigation of Animals, in Canada. The soft drinks company was a major sponsor for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and feared actions against Canada's seal hunt."

According to Ecoshock, Stratfor collaborated with a former Goldman Sachs C-level guy to create an investment company. As a company that also found and published cutting edge information, for the very same customers that were going to be invested in and spied upon, they put themselves in a great location to defraud their investors.

http://freejeremy.net/