Brief statement by anonymous Donor #1, a class representative in our lawsuit
“I absolutely believed my donations were a response to the government's prosecutorial overreach towards Barrett. It was the same tactic that was used against Aaron Swartz, and most likely the reason why we don't have him in the world anymore.¹ We'd already lost Aaron as an activist, and Barrett had been taken out of the fight as well with his incarceration.
It seems like they were, and are still trying to make an example out of information activists by charging them with anything they can think of.
I expected my contributions to the campaign to remain anonymous. I asked other people to donate, but never disclosed through social media how much I'd donated, nor when.
Barrett definitely crossed a line when he appeared to threaten SA Smith, but the charges they were trying to pin on him were more excessive than the ones brought against Jeremy Hammond, who actually broke into Stratfor’s system—with the knowledge and help of the FBI, for whatever that's worth.²
I was definitely politically motivated to donate to Barrett's defense because of those reasons, and more. Greenwald explains it better than I can in this article.³ I believe it was this article that also helped boost donations to Barrett's cause.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20130112233941/http://rememberaaronsw.tumblr.com/post/40372208044/official-statement-from-the-family-and-partner-of-aaron
https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/hammond-sabu-fbi-stratfor-hack/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/21/barrett-brown-persecution-anonymous
The rights of hundreds of like-minded citizens such as the one quoted above were violated when DOJ & FBI offices in Dallas sent an improper subpoena asking for "any and all information" to WePay, Inc., a company which was then our payment processor. It must have been a fishing expedition of sorts; as we cannot imagine any legitimate purpose for such a broad request.
The advocacy campaign for Brown has always been a private entity, operating independently from him—with the goal of securing the defendant competent legal representation. Those who merely gave money to support hiring and paying for new private attorneys had absolutely no business having their information being caught up in an investigation. At the time, he'd already been indicted three times and was facing 105 years maximum, so what more could they have been looking for?
See also the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. constitution, which provides: "the accused shall enjoy the right…to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." A right they sought to deny to him by asking the court for this unprecedented order to seize $20,000 we'd raised: http://cryptome.org/2013/04/brown-050.pdf
Our lawsuit against them remains severely under-reported and has been picked up very little by the media, which is remarkable considering the significant issues at stake. If these patterns continue, there will be a chilling effect upon defense fundraising campaigns for those accused of computer crime(s), security research or hacktivism-related offenses, not to mention cases involving jailed journalists and activists.
We think that every American possesses the right to give money anonymously without being unlawfully surveilled in doing so, and that’s what we’re fighting for. Financial donations to causes (political or otherwise) are unambiguously First Amendment protected speech and free association. What was done by the agents in Barrett's case was illegal.
For those who still might be interested in writing about or covering this, I will refer you first to our initial press release announcing the complaint: https://freebarrettbrown.org/2017/02/07/donors-sue-doj-fbi-right-give-anonymously/
The government and each official respectively then filed their motions to dismiss: https://freebarrettbrown.org/2017/05/12/us-government-moves-to-dismiss-our-lawsuit/
The latest development in the case is that we have responded, and our claims still stand: https://freebarrettbrown.org/2017/08/13/lawyers-counter-govt-motion-to-dismiss-lawsuit-over-illegal-surveillance-of-donors/
Stay tuned for more. Contact me: kevinmg [at] riseup [dot] net or Barrett: arbenzlola [at] gmail [dot] com if there are any further questions.
