It isn't a freedom of speech issue. Free speech doesn't cover using words to commit a crime. Saying "handover the cash or I'll slit your throat" is still robbery.
The law handles this fairly well in theory. You are only responsible for aiding a crime if you acted to assist the crime with the required mental state. The required mental state for most crimes is recklessness.
So you can sell someone a gun but you can't sell someone a gun if they say "I'm going to murder my wife."
Doing something totally legal to assist a crime is a crime if you were acting intentionally to assist the crime. You can be charged for giving the Gettysburg Address if the point was to get people in one place to bomb it.
Here the FBI is wrong. As of now, there is no evidence he intended to assist in these crimes.
But if you created some software designed to hack a company you hated and then released it widely hoping that someone would use it? That is a crime.
The standard for when words are criminal is much more narrow than that in the US. It isn't just words implicated in crimes. Off the top of my head, there are quite narrow interpretations of libel, slander, and incitement to imminent lawless action. Even in cases such as insider trading, it's the acting that makes the crime, not the fact someone said something.
The law handles this fairly well in theory. You are only responsible for aiding a crime if you acted to assist the crime with the required mental state. The required mental state for most crimes is recklessness.
So you can sell someone a gun but you can't sell someone a gun if they say "I'm going to murder my wife."
Doing something totally legal to assist a crime is a crime if you were acting intentionally to assist the crime. You can be charged for giving the Gettysburg Address if the point was to get people in one place to bomb it.
Here the FBI is wrong. As of now, there is no evidence he intended to assist in these crimes.
But if you created some software designed to hack a company you hated and then released it widely hoping that someone would use it? That is a crime.