Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense • Hacker News Board

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#171

Post by ionised » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 8:09 AM UTC

flyryan wrote: post #123

ionised wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those whose jobs it is 'to decide' have shown themselves untrustworthy and unwilling to uphold justice. So fuck 'em, time for others to take on the responsibility. Manning, Snowden and whoever else in future has access to information that would serve public interest and decides to risk their lives and their freedom to make it known. They have my full support.

The documents regarding that incident were pulled from an Inspector General's folder regarding an open investigation. That hadn't shown themselves to be anything. They were actively looking in to the incident. If anything Manning tainted the investigation and may have even prevented justice from being served. There is a difference between releasing data that is strictly related to the public interest and taking massi…

> They were actively looking in to the incident. If anything Manning tainted the investigation and may have even prevented justice from being served.

Let's be realistic. This never would have seen the light of day and those involved would never have faced justice.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#172

Post by wildmusings » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 8:58 AM UTC

knodi123 wrote: post #170

wildmusings wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone agrees Citizen's United is an insult to democracy. Do you even know what actual case was about? The government was trying to stop an anti-Hillary movie from being publicized because they claimed it was illegal campaign spending. The Supreme Court did right by rejecting an absurd attempt to regulate political speech.

What's the difference between money spent by the candidate and money spent by a super pac? If both pools are being managed by campaigning experts, there's not a single difference. Citizen's united established that there is absolutely no limit to the amount of money that a candidate can use to win an election, as long as there's a separate campaign manager for the PAC and they don't collude . No, the hatred of CU is n…

I think allowing monetary restrictions on campaign-finance (with the exception of prohibiting anonymous donations directly to politicians) is the court's campaign-finance original sin.

When multiple people share an opinion and want to advocate for it, they have to spend money to get heard. Printing pamphlets, making videos, paying people to stand on the corner. You can't have freedom of speech without the corresponding freedom of advocacy.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#173

Post by psykovsky » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 11:34 AM UTC

bshanks wrote: post #167

andrelaszlo wrote: post #11

I find it very disturbing that you need tens of thousands of dollars at your disposal to get a "fair" trial. I say "fair", because the output obviously changes with the amount of money you feed the system. Too little money and the outcome will be biased against you, too much money and the outcome will be biased in the other direction. Which amount will give an unbiased output? $50k? $100k? How can this be considered…

Here's a proposal: 1) At the beginning of the case, each party proposes how much money they would like to be spent on their side of the case. 2) The Spending Limit is set to the greater proposal. They then must pay the other party the difference between what they proposed and what the other party proposed (to be spent only on legal expenses for this case). 3) Both sides are prohibited sprom spending more than the Spe…

What would prevent them from spending and not reporting it?

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#174

Post by bhickey » Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 12:06 PM UTC

kefka wrote: post #56

bhickey wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gideon v. Wainwright established that indigent defendants are entitled to free legal representation. There's no such right for non-indigent defendants.

Not even when the price of legal representation is above my means to pay?

States establish indigence standards. Generally if your income exceeds 200% the federal poverty line, you aren't entitled to a court appointed attorney. Even then, if you're above 125% the poverty line, you can be forced to pay for your court appointed attorney. You can claim financial hardship, but the court isn't obliged to accept your claims.

Re: Donate to Chelsea Manning's Legal Defense

#175

Post by lotharbot » Sat, Jul 18, 2015, 9:21 PM UTC

andrelaszlo wrote: post #87

lotharbot wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "it doesn't apply for cases where you need a complicated defense?" More like, it doesn't apply for cases where your defense is "I totally did it, but I'm not guilty because..." in such a circumstance, you're essentially hoping to convince a judge or jury that your law-breaking was OK, which is significantly more difficult and requires significantly more research than if you merely needed to convince the jury that y…

No my point is that "I did it" and "I broke the law" are two separate things. One thing is about my actions, and the other is about how my actions are supposed to be interpreted by the law. The law is complex, and the interpretation of it is a skill we pay people a lot for. For example. Let's say I confess to killing someone, but I claim it was self defense. I "totally did it", but the self-defense is a complication.…

> "If the court decides that I acted in self defense, I didn't break the law, right?"

Right -- and that's written in the law. There are a number of similar laws which hold that X is illegal except in circumstance Y. I'm not aware of exceptions of that form in this particular case, though, which is what makes the defense complicated -- it's not "I did it but it's not illegal", it's "I did it, it's against the law, but don't convict me because the law was wrong for this reason" which is actually a pretty difficult defense.