Except Thiel arguably has "connection with the merits of the dispute". He feels that Gawker violated his privacy as well as Hogan's, and he wants Gawker to be punished and/or discouraged from further similar behavior. Just like the EFF or ACLU.
He does have a law degree.
One of those liberties is the right to a free press - "free" specifically meaning "has the right to annoy rich and powerful people."
Thiel promotes Thiel.
It's a clear difference in scope.
IMO a culture that can't tolerate having a court jester like Gawker on the premises isn't a healthy one.
Sometimes a jester can go too far, and a kick in the ass is deserved.
But trying to nuke the jester from orbit is an act more common in totalitarian regimes than in those that value personal freedoms.
Surely ACLU lawyers (many of whom are minorities) have been wronged by the government and that contributes to their desire to help others who have had similar treatment.
This is an interesting one. If the answer is "yes", then donating to the ACLU should itself be criminalized.
I agree with the first sentence, but not with the second. There should never be a situation in which you can use the legal process to extract revenge over a matter which has not itself been subject to the legal process. This would allow Thiel to seek revenge for almost anything.
However, Thiel has the legitimate justification of believing that Gawker's behavior in the Hogan situation was simply abhorrent, which is something that I and many other observers also believe, and also the legitimate justification of believing that Gawker abuses it's access to funds and lawyers to avoid the consequences of being sued for such behavior, both of which are reasons to fund a suit against them. Particularly for the latter reason it doesn't strike me as unfair to fund a tort by an individual against a corporation which has demonstrated every intention of avoiding justice.
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?
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.
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!
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.