Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
Free Barrett Brown donors sue DOJ, FBI for right to give anonymously (freebarrettbrown.org)
81 points by optiglitch 3415 days ago
5 comments

I just read through his Wikipedia entry. I'm confused: He got 63 months in jail for uploading a "threatening" YouTube video? The rest of the charges seem to be vague "resisting arrest"-like charges (i.e. charges they just piled on to get a plea, which they got).

In fact the original reason for the raid didn't seem to result in charges against him. It is a bunch of artificial charges they piled on later, and his response to the original raid in a video that they got him on.

Not to mention that they had twelve charges at one point because he posted a hyperlink? The whole thing is really odd. I've read a few cases like this where the federal government just piles on tons of charges because they just want to "get" an individual and they're quite indifferent for what.

>> I'm confused: He got 63 months in jail for uploading a "threatening" YouTube video?

Nope.

He actually aided and abetted the person or persons who committed the Stratfor hack. He also obstructed the investigation and hindered the feds from arresting those responsible.

The foolish act of threatening the FBI was tacked on as well. For someone with his intelligence, this was clearly a "fuck you" to the FBI which is never smart. He threatened the agent (illegal), said he would disclose his public address online (illegal) and did it over the internet (illegal).

I don't have much sympathy for him tbh. He could have rolled on his buddies and gave them up, or given the evidence the feds wanted (his laptop), but the way this whole thing went down, I feel this is exactly what he wanted and he got it in spades. The thing that gets me is he thought he could taunt the FBI, hide behind his first amendment rights and then expect nothing would happen.

Barrett Brown Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison in Connection to Stratfor Hack -https://www.wired.com/2015/01/barrett-brown-sentenced-5-year...

Yeah I've been following this for a while. The people who locked him up seem to be seriously threatened by what he was working to uncover, but beyond that it makes no sense.
IANAL but freedom of religion is the first amendment, and basically what the country was founded on: Matthews 6:3-4 "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

I don't know if it applies in this case, but that's what I think of when I read this...

IANAL either, but IIRC the majority opinion in Reynolds v. United States, a case relating to religious practice of polygamy, it was stated that the case ultimately came down to the fact that religious practice can't be protected by the first amendment, because then obviously people would just do human sacrifice and cite the 1st amendment. They said the 1st amendment just protected religious thought.

Essentially, religious freedom in the US is only marginally stronger than other relatively free countries that have no such constitutional basis for it. It basically exists because the government hasn't yet seen a need to actively limit it further.

Ok, first amendment has been effectively nullified. Was not aware.
The fact that the supreme court established that the first amendment doesn't preclude laws prohibiting human sacrifice is equivalent to nullification?
Actually it was the Supreme Court themselves who made the ridiculous leap from a typical 1st amendment interpretation of religious freedom to human sacrifice, and they did it in the case I cited. They explicitly used that example to say that the first amendment couldn't possibly protect religious action, only religious thought, because religious action could be taken too far. So as far as freedom of religion is concerned, yeah they basically nullified first amendment protections. In practice that hasn't happened much, but the point is there's a well known Supreme Court precedent they can point to any time they want.

The case wasn't even about human sacrifice. It was about consenting adults considering themselves married in a religious sense, and sharing living space, finances, relationships, etc. I get the argument that as long as there are tax benefits to a marriage, multiplying the benefit through polygamy (or any marriage not sanctioned by the state) could be seen as fraud. But as far as I'm aware no one was trying to do anything of the sort. The arrests directly and indirectly related to this case were all predicated on who was associating with who and in what way, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision that religion was not a defense for any of that.

It's about as ridiculous as someone saying that no one can have a homosexual marriage and sodomy should be a criminal offense just because it violates that one person's religion.

edit: Yeah I looked it up and my memory serves me correctly. They ruled against the religious freedom argument based on what I said above, and the fact that laws against bigamy existed from the time of a previous King of England. Which is silly since the puritans came here seeking religious freedom from... the King of England.

The Court recognized that under the First Amendment, the Congress cannot pass a law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. However it held that the law prohibiting bigamy did not meet that standard. The principle that a person could only be married singly, not plurally, existed since the times of King James I of England in English law, upon which United States law was based. The Court investigated the history of religious freedom in the United States and quoted a letter from Thomas Jefferson in which he wrote that there was a distinction between religious belief and action that flowed from religious belief. The former "lies solely between man and his God," therefore "the legislative powers of the government reach actions only, and not opinions." The court considered that if polygamy was allowed, someone might eventually argue that human sacrifice was a necessary part of their religion, and "to permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself." The Court believed the First Amendment forbade Congress from legislating against opinion, but allowed it to legislate against action. -- Wikipedia article on Reynolds v. United States

So yeah you're free to believe or think whatever you want. But when it comes to worshiping according to the dictates of your own conscience, for some reason the seemingly obvious line of "as long as you're not harming anyone" or "as long as you're not taking away anyone else's freedom" didn't come up.

The "as long as you're not harming anyone argument" is defined, legally, as more or less "as long as you aren't breaking some other law"
If he had committed this crime in the UK, he'd be out of prison by now. But because he was in the US, he may never get out.
Barrett Brown is free.
So technically, he may never get out (again).
He's already out of prison. Just as a point of contrast, Britain's Official Secrets Act would likely be far less forgiving than American law in this case.
Wait, these guys are not allowed to, but big, moneyed interests are able to give anonymously to SuperPACs?
The issue here seems to be that law enforcement agencies can compel disclosure of donor lists, even when there is no good reason. This is a different (but related) issue to Citizens United and other recent First Amendment cases, which have allowed organizations to keep donor lists non-public.

I think this case shows that Citizens United didn't go far enough in protecting anonymous speech.

Anonymous speech was contemplated by the Justices during the deliberation of Citizens United. Justice Thomas's was the only dissenting opinion in upholding the reporting requirements for contributions toward PACs.

The majority and dissent opinions agree that the public interest is served by knowing who is funding a particular set of advertisements. Wrongful retaliation based off of that speech was deemed activity that should be handled when it occurs.

SuperPACs must report their donors, actually. But there is a lag between the donation and reporting, so that's temporary anonymity.

And since SuperPACs can accept donations from organizations, listing donors might not be that enlightening. It's not hard to set up a corporation and pass the donation though it, and then the corporate name gets listed as the donor instead of the person.

I'd be a lot more willing to make political donations if I could do it anonymously: not because I care who knows what causes or politicians I support, but because I'm thoroughly sick of the relentless barrages of begging spam you call down on yourself by ever so much as breathing a hint of generosity toward any party-affiliated political operation.

I'd put cash in a bucket at a campaign event, but no way will I ever again use an online donation form.

Unintended consequences, etc.

Couldn't you donate with prepaid credit cards or is that a violation of the law?