Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

Since the earliest days of law enforcement, police have wrestled with the appropriate way to deal with criminal gangs. At its simplest, what should be done with two burglars who break into a house? Who is the primary lawbreaker and who is merely the assistant? Legislatures and courts have often tried to sidestep the question, declaring that a murder charge, for example, will be applied to all participants of a home break-in if anyone gets killed. As a tactical practical matter, police (and that includes FBI, Secret Service, assistant district attorneys, deputy attorneys general and anyone who else charged with apprehending and punishing wrongdoers) often uses that ambiguity as a tool to pressure confessions. In short, the one who talks first gets to point the finger at the others and cut himself/herself the sweeter cooperating witness deal, while the suspect who hesitated gets left being charged as the scheme's mastermind.

Such a drama is now unfolding with the Albert Gonzalez case, the Miami man accused of breaking into TJX, Hannaford, Heartland, Barnes & Noble, Sports Authority and a laundry list of others. Is Gonzalez the masterhead of a cyber thief ring? Was he coordinating different teams in the U.S., each group assigned to attack different retail chains? Or was he merely the pawn of an Eastern European data theft syndicate? In Dickensian terms, was he more Fagin, the Artful Dodger or even Oliver Twist?

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