Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

theintercept.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 577 posts

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#221

Post by bawolff »

vel0city wrote: post #172
bawolff wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is the relavent question. Did he move the items because he believed that they were evidence being sought by the police? I don't really care if they are actually evidence of something or not. I care if the accused believed they were and moved them for that purpose.

Let's say someone is driving 35MPH. They think "oh snap, I think the speed limit is 30MPH here!". The posted speed limit is actually 40MPH. Was this person speeding or not? Should a cop ticket them for thinking they're doing something wrong, even if everything they were doing was legal? Did they even think the zines were implicated as evidence? Were the zines implicated as evidence? What crimes were being committed b…

> Let's say someone is driving 35MPH. They think "oh snap, I think the speed limit is 30MPH here!". The posted speed limit is actually 40MPH.

There is a difference between incorrect belief in what the law is vs incorrect belief in what actions you are taking. Although maybe that is not the most compelling. If you see the speed limit is 40, but you want to go faster so you hit the gas until you are going 60 and then brag with photo evidence about how you don't believe in speed limits on on facebook. Unbeknownst to you your spedometer was broken and you only hit 40. Should you get a ticket?

That seems like a tougher call, but still a bit silly to give a ticket.

a different example.

You intend to murder someone. The intended victim puts their clothes on a manequin in hopes of distracting you while they make their escape. You shoot the manequin. Did you commit a crime?

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#222

Post by mvdtnz »

mulmen wrote: post #201
BobbyJo wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're fighting the executive branch, then legality goes out the window and any outrage about punishment becomes moot, no? Expecting the system you intended to subvert/dismantle to save you is a bit of a weird ask.

> If you're fighting the executive branch, then legality goes out the window No it doesn’t. It’s enshrined in the constitution. The entire point of the United States is to be able to change the system. I’m struggling to imagine a worse take than this.

That must be why the American government never gets away with anything unconstitutional.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#223

Post by vel0city »

bawolff wrote: post #221
vel0city wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say someone is driving 35MPH. They think "oh snap, I think the speed limit is 30MPH here!". The posted speed limit is actually 40MPH. Was this person speeding or not? Should a cop ticket them for thinking they're doing something wrong, even if everything they were doing was legal? Did they even think the zines were implicated as evidence? Were the zines implicated as evidence? What crimes were being committed b…

> Let's say someone is driving 35MPH. They think "oh snap, I think the speed limit is 30MPH here!". The posted speed limit is actually 40MPH. There is a difference between incorrect belief in what the law is vs incorrect belief in what actions you are taking. Although maybe that is not the most compelling. If you see the speed limit is 40, but you want to go faster so you hit the gas until you are going 60 and then b…

Intending to murder someone is often directly a crime though, so yes. And murdering people is illegal. Moving some magazines isn't normally illegal. I wouldn't normally assume having some magazines is evidence of a crime.

And if they are, what crime was owning the magazines involved in? That you happen to read some of the same articles as someone else who committed a crime? Is sharing the same books as others now implicating you as a terrorist?

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#224

Post by rileymat2 »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #152
will4274 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being aware that he was moving the zines to obstruct a federal felony investigation is surely relevant. Intent is an important aspect of crime.

> Being aware that he was moving the zines to obstruct a federal felony investigation is surely relevant. Intent is an important aspect of crime. A sentence of 30 years in prison for obstructing an investigation is excessive, especially when compared to the "base offense level" of Involuntary Manslaughter (section 2A1.4 found here[0]) being between 12 and 22, roughly translating to between 10 and 51 months in prison[…

Shouldn't the punishment for obstruction, in many cases, be higher than the base offense to prevent that as a default strategy to beat the base offense? Granted, not that much higher, but there is some logic to it being a greater offense.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#225

Post by kasey_junk »

ibejoeb wrote: post #211
RIMR wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's really hard to swallow when the current president, who is responsible for the extreme uptick in ICE activity, pardoned 1,600 people who conspired against the federal government in favor of his agenda, but then that same government hands life-ruining prison sentences to people who weren't even present for conspiring against ICE. Especially when the crux of this entire case was that the convicted are members of…

[flagged]

One obvious distinction is that Tarrio was convicted of leading & planning the Proud Boys operation on Jan 6 while this defendant was convicted of moving zines. Tarrio wasn’t at the insurrection on Jan 6 because he’d already been barred from traveling to the city…

And he got less of a sentence. I don’t think your argument equating these 2 is arguing what you think it is.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#226

Post by goatlover »

smsm42 wrote: post #204
mulmen wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an oversimplification. I am not in favor of shooting the police in the neck but I absolutely will not tolerate an hindering of peaceful first amendment expression even when it happens in proximity to violence. What are the police even protecting us from at that point?

Domestic terrorists who shoot people in the neck. Among millions of things that the government claims to protect mw from, this is one of a few things that I don't doubt I want to be protected from. There's absolutely zero free speech issues here.

One might consider ICE detention centers to be morally equivalent to concentration camps. This sounds like the federal government trying to protect a controversial agency and immigration policy under the current regime, not ordinary citizens. The man who got 30 years wasn't there and didn't fire a gun.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#227

Post by 9x39 »

Chinjut wrote: post #148

A lot of people in these Hacker News comments are accepting the framing that moving the zines is evidence tampering and therefore deserves a 30 year sentence. What crime are zines evidence of?

>What crime are zines evidence of?

Not quite the right framing.

Look at the chain of events in the probable cause affidavit:https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txnd.41...

Rueda was in the jail following arrest in an armed group after a firefight at the detention center where 20-30 rifle rounds had been fired, with a police officer killed as a result.

In jail, Rueda called her mother to contact Sanchez because he would know what was going on. Rueda later directly called Sanchez and said, 'whatever you need to do, move whatever you need at the house'. Sanchez indicated to Rueda he had already been to her house.

Sanchez was then observed leaving his house with zines and was observed moving the zines to an apartment of someone else's. The zines were the same TTPs for anti-gov, anti-LE civil unrest topics as seen before and thus considered likely to be connected.

All in all, moving evidence from an investigation involving armed groups engaging in firefights with ICE isn't a stretch once we don't omit the facts known.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#228

Post by Chinjut »

thunderfork wrote: post #213

Insane charges, insane justifications, and judging by the comments in this thread, I feel insane for having ever believed in the myth of the "decent conservative".

Hacker News is for people who believe in the hacker ethos "It is immoral to do anything the government takes issue with and you deserve whatever punishment you get for doing so, unless it was breaking regulations to make money, the highest calling".

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#229

Post by goatlover »

iamnothere wrote: post #133
ipython wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re telling me the jan6 defendants had no intention to cause harm to the lawmakers? Actual people died on jan6- nobody died at prarieland afaik. Have you seen the footage from the riots? They clobbered the shit out of the police trying to protect the lawmakers inside the capitol. For example this guy: https://i.insider.com/6009c83521f52a0018cb9e21?width=1200&fo... I’m sure he was just on his way to rebundle som…

For clarity, only people who died on Jan 6th were protestors. The police officer who died on the 7th had a stroke. The two who died later were suicides. It’s negligent to conceal these facts. (Note for clarity, almost everybody posting in this thread on every side is doing this kind of thing. Just move on to the “years of lead” phase already.)

For clarification, the Jan 6th rioters were attempting insurrection, not protesting. The stroke and suicides were a result of the rioters actions.

Re: 30-year sentence for transporting zines is a five-alarm fire for free speech

#230

Post by ipython »

Auracle wrote: post #193
ipython wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone seriously define “antifa”? What would the pardon read? “Anyone who is anti-fascism is hereby pardoned…”? Edit: downvoting me doesn’t answer the question. If you have a definition please reply! If nobody can define “antifa” how the heck can you prosecute someone for being a member of it?

[flagged]

The Proud Boys have a defined organization structure and leader, with a set of definitions of what a "Proud Boy" is expected to do upon joining (see McInnes' post introducing the group here: https://www.takimag.com/article/introducing_the_proud_boys_g...)
Post reply on HN