4 ms·

then he should file his own lawsuit. he has no standing to sue over the hogan case

by huac 10y ago

yummyfajitas 10y ago
The ACLU has no standing to sue over teaching evolution in schools. The NAACP has no standing to sue over school segregation. In all these cases, powerful people with interest in a case decided to assist people who did have standing. Do you oppose that practice in all these cases?
- whyenot 10y ago
  The ACLU and NAACP are non-profits that are supported by a large number of members, publicly report their spending, and are governed by leaders chosen through a democratic process. When they back a lawsuit, they are very transparent about it. What Peter Thiel did was secretly fund a lawsuit by someone else in order to exact revenge (or depending on your point of view, to provide a service to society). I think there is a pretty big difference between the two groups.
  - ryanlol 10y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879525
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    So if Peter Thiel teamed up with Pax Dickinson and Justine Sacco, funded the non-profit "Screw You Gawker" organization which then funded Bollea's lawsuit, that would be acceptable?
  - argonaut 10y ago
    Rather than just relying on what you think, you would need to propose a legal framework that can actually be enforced, for distinguishing between the two. Because it is legally ambiguous. Because if your framework becomes "non-profit that publicly reports spending is okay," what's to stop a billionaire from donating millions to their own non-profit, governed by a bunch of their "elected" friends (membership fee = $1M)? Now you can expect a bunch of lawsuits over that question!
    - CPLX 10y ago
      That would be fine. The hypothetical billionaire non-profit would have disclosure rules, and the judge could determine if their charter was sufficiently related to be able to weigh in. This isn't actually all that complicated, we do it for amicus filings all the time.
      - argonaut 10y ago
        And if the judge determines the charter is unrelated, for example, you can expect a never-ending series of appeals over that judicial decision. That's just one example.
    - acdha 10y ago
      I keep coming back to a very simple policy: disclosure. When the ACLU pays for lawyers, it's not a secret and e.g. a judge, government official, etc. making decisions about the case does so with full knowledge of who's backing it. As with campaign finance, this has two benefits: it avoids trying to enumerate all of the ways someone might try to game the system and it addresses free speech concerns by simply requiring attribution in an area where there's a strong public interest.
      - selimthegrim 10y ago
        Oh really, so then you'd be OK with throwing out the case law for cases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Button https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Button and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama?
        acdha 10y ago
        In neither case was the NAACP's involvement concealed so I assume you're switching to the question of whether this goes more than one level deep to include the membership lists. That's a good question – it would be interesting to see how a modern court would rule on something like setting minimum thresholds, or how many more options a state-level attacker has now to build that kind of list without permission.

then he should file his own lawsuit. he has no standing to sue over the hogan case

by huac 10y ago

then he should file his own lawsuit. he has no standing to sue over the hogan case

The ACLU has no standing to sue over teaching evolution in schools. The NAACP has no standing to sue over school segregation. In all these cases, powerful people with interest in a case decided to assist people who did have standing. Do you oppose that practice in all these cases?

whyenot 10y ago
The ACLU and NAACP are non-profits that are supported by a large number of members, publicly report their spending, and are governed by leaders chosen through a democratic process. When they back a lawsuit, they are very transparent about it. What Peter Thiel did was secretly fund a lawsuit by someone else in order to exact revenge (or depending on your point of view, to provide a service to society). I think there is a pretty big difference between the two groups.
- ryanlol 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879525 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11879525
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  So if Peter Thiel teamed up with Pax Dickinson and Justine Sacco, funded the non-profit "Screw You Gawker" organization which then funded Bollea's lawsuit, that would be acceptable?
- argonaut 10y ago
  Rather than just relying on what you think, you would need to propose a legal framework that can actually be enforced, for distinguishing between the two. Because it is legally ambiguous. Because if your framework becomes "non-profit that publicly reports spending is okay," what's to stop a billionaire from donating millions to their own non-profit, governed by a bunch of their "elected" friends (membership fee = $1M)? Now you can expect a bunch of lawsuits over that question!
  - CPLX 10y ago
    That would be fine. The hypothetical billionaire non-profit would have disclosure rules, and the judge could determine if their charter was sufficiently related to be able to weigh in. This isn't actually all that complicated, we do it for amicus filings all the time.
    - argonaut 10y ago
      And if the judge determines the charter is unrelated, for example, you can expect a never-ending series of appeals over that judicial decision. That's just one example.
  - acdha 10y ago
    I keep coming back to a very simple policy: disclosure. When the ACLU pays for lawyers, it's not a secret and e.g. a judge, government official, etc. making decisions about the case does so with full knowledge of who's backing it. As with campaign finance, this has two benefits: it avoids trying to enumerate all of the ways someone might try to game the system and it addresses free speech concerns by simply requiring attribution in an area where there's a strong public interest.
    - selimthegrim 10y ago
      Oh really, so then you'd be OK with throwing out the case law for cases like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Button https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Button and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAACP_v._Alabama?
      - acdha 10y ago
        In neither case was the NAACP's involvement concealed so I assume you're switching to the question of whether this goes more than one level deep to include the membership lists. That's a good question – it would be interesting to see how a modern court would rule on something like setting minimum thresholds, or how many more options a state-level attacker has now to build that kind of list without permission.