Judge: Barrett Brown donors can sue government over subpoenaed records

Enlarge (credit: Free Barrett Brown)

A federal judge in San Francisco has denied the FBI's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a local activist who raised money for Barrett Brown. Brown is a journalist who was released from prison last year.

As Ars reported previously, in April 2014 Brown took a plea deal admitting guilt on three charges: "transmitting a threat in interstate commerce," interfering with the execution of a search warrant, and being "accessory after the fact in the unauthorized access to a protected computer." Brown was arrested in 2012 when he shared a link related to Anonymous' hack of Stratfor.

During Brown's incarceration, activist Kevin Gallagher solicited over $40,000 in donations on the WePay website. However, he soon found that the FBI had successfully subpoenaed WePay to obtain information about the myriad donors whose identities Gallagher had pledged to keep secret.

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