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.

Then, in February 2017, Gallagher sued FBI Special Agent Robert Smith, along with Assistant United States Attorney Cadina Heath and the federal government itself, in a proposed class-action lawsuit. He alleged the subpoena was improper and unconstitutional.

In response to the suit, the DOJ attempted to get the suit dismissed. The department relied in part on a 1970s-era Supreme Court ruling (United States v. Miller) which found that there was no privacy interest in banking records that were ultimately handed over to authorities. Gallagher and his fellow plaintiffs claim that their acts of donation were speech and that they have a constitutional right to speak anonymously.

In a Tuesday ruling, US Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James rejected the government's arguments.

"Defendants have failed to articulate any facially reasonable explanation for requesting donors' identities," she wrote. However, the judge dismissed the claims against Smith and Heath personally, preserving the overall case against the government.

Gallagher told Ars that he was "extremely pleased" with the intermediate win. He said:

It's rare that you get to see an action like this proceed in court against the FBI... We had three legal claims against them. What yesterday's ruling means in effect is: we won outright on the Stored Communications Act claim (which will go ahead), the California Constitutional Right to Privacy claim was dismissed, and the First Amendment claim may still be addressed in further argument or judgments.

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.