
Free Barrett Brown donors sue DOJ, FBI for right to give anonymously - optiglitch
https://freebarrettbrown.org/2017/02/07/donors-sue-doj-fbi-right-give-anonymously/
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Someone1234
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.

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at-fates-hands
>> 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...](https://www.wired.com/2015/01/barrett-brown-
sentenced-5-years-prison-connection-stratfor-hack/)

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divbit
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...

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TallGuyShort
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.

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divbit
Ok, first amendment has been effectively nullified. Was not aware.

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ouid
The fact that the supreme court established that the first amendment doesn't
preclude laws prohibiting human sacrifice is equivalent to nullification?

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TallGuyShort
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.

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ouid
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"

~~~
TallGuyShort
Unlike lawsuits, no one has to prove they're a victim to have standing to make
things illegal. But I think your statement is missing the point of the
Constitution: there's a process for passing laws as long as they don't
contradict the Constitution. Contradicting the constitution is meant to render
a law illegal. Laws that would infringe on freedom of religion should have to
go through the process of being constitutional amendments, because the
Constitution is the standard against which the legality of the law itself is
judged. You can't say that other laws are the standard against which the 1st
amendment is judged, because that is indeed effectively nullifying the
amendment. It's like saying you have freedom from unreasonable searches and
seizures, except that an executive order says that all Muslims must carry
documentation and submit to searches when ordered by law enforcement, because
hey - that's the law now. If you can do that, what was the point of the
Constitution in the first place?

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ouid
Obviously the constitution cannot be interpreted in such a way that allows
human sacrifice.

The laws that religious practice must obey are necessarily otherwise
constitutional laws. Otherwise the law has NO WAY to distinguish if you have
done harm. There is no other standard to gauge harm. Civil law is no
exception. Civil disputes must still be resolved with legal arguments, and the
laws in question in those legal arguments must be constitutional.

Furthermore, allowing the free exercise of arbitrary religious practice means
that all laws are a violation of the first amendment, since any law would be
furthering one church's religious interest provided they added doctrine to
nullify the law.

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TallGuyShort
I guess where I disagree with you is that I don't think civil law can be the
definition of "if someone has been harmed". Otherwise there really is no point
to these parts of the Constitution. Among other things, the Constitution
defines things that they can't make a law against. Don't you see why the law
can't also be the definition of what the exceptions to that amendment are?
That interpretation is literally saying "you can't make a law against X unless
the law says X is against the law". It's circular logic. I get that it's a
tough line to draw but that makes zero sense as the line.

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xs
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.

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binarymax
Barrett Brown is free.

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tedunangst
So technically, he may never get out (again).

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st3v3r
Wait, these guys are not allowed to, but big, moneyed interests are able to
give anonymously to SuperPACs?

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nickff
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.

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linkregister
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.

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

