William Weber, a LowEndTalk member, was raided by Austrian police in 2012 for operating a Tor exit node that was allegedly used to distribute child pornography. While he was not arrested, many of his computers and devices were confiscated. He was later found guilty of supporting the distribution of child pornography through his Tor exit node, though he claims it was unintentional and he was simply supporting free speech and anonymity. He was given a 5 year probation sentence but left Austria shortly after. Though some articles portray him negatively, it is debatable whether he intentionally supported child pornography distribution or simply operated in the legal grey area of Tor exit nodes.
It sure is weird how a political system based around who has the most money always ends up hurting the people that don’t have money. Nobody could’ve predicted that.
Is there really a realistic way to do it differently? Situations ending up in court are complex and ambiguous. It’s never a simple “if this then that” kind of thing. So in the end it’s about making arguments and convincing each other. Different people have different skills and depending how you match up, arguments are lost or won. There will always ever be a limited amount of extremely skillful people. Even if you would make sure that money isn’t a barrier, time/availability will still be and so still most people will end up with inadequate council.
If a justice system is so hard to use that only a small portion of the trained professionals can do it adequately it needs a massive overhaul. This of course is basically impossible and won’t happen. The US is a particularly bad case because of the sheer outdatedness of its constitution an court procedures.
Don’t have a society that gives all the power to people who have the most imaginary tokens. Don’t assign and apportion legal counsel according to money but instead according to need. Like, obviously I’m criticising capitalism, but your question assumes capitalism is here to stay.
Of course, under capitalism this will never happen, because the legislature is thoroughly captured by capital, and they are quite happy with lawyers being extremely expensive and siloed away in massive corporate legal teams.
Now of course none of what I am suggesting is going to be easy, quick, or absolute, which I mention just to head off the inevitable critcisms along those lines from people who find it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. As Ursula K le Guin said, “We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.”
