Judge Says Video Games Can Use Sports Stars Likenesses

Bad Ideas: ACORN Sues Videotapers For Illegal Wiretapping

from the streisand-went-to-acorn? dept

Wed, Sep 30th 2009 6:31pm — Mike Masnick

Sometimes these things just make you wonder what people are thinking. If you follow political news at all, you've no doubt heard about the whole ACORN scandal, with workers at the organization being filmed having no problem offering advice to a fake "pimp and ho" on how to handle the tax implications of trafficking in underage sex workers. The whole thing has been pretty ridiculous, with pretty much everyone holding any sort of political office shoving each other aside to distance themselves (and any gov't funds) from the organization. Honestly, if you've ever watched Candid Camera (dating myself) or any of its modern equivalents, I'm not really sure that getting a few people to do stupid stuff on camera really says all that much about an organization, other than that it needs to better train people, but what really calls ACORN's judgment into question is its decision to sue the folks who made and financed the videos for an "illegal wiretap." Even if they broke wiretapping rules by recording the meeting without letting the worker know, no good can come from this lawsuit. In that link, Andrew Moshirnia from the Citizen Media Law Project goes through a variety of reasons why it makes no sense to sue, even if they have a chance of winning the lawsuit. All it does is call more attention to the whole thing at a time when the organization should be apologizing profusely and detailing what steps it's taking to make sure such things never happen again. Suing just makes the organization look like it still defends those actions. ACORN screwed up big time, and it's only adding to its troubles by trying to sue those who exposed the organization for an illegal wiretap.

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Filed Under: streisand effect, wiretapping
Companies: acorn

46 Comments

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iNtrigued (profile), 30 Sep 2009 @ 6:01pm

Reversal?
It is funny because at one point they were actually thanking the people that they are now suing?? (Half-way through typing that I actually got confused) This move makes no sense, but then again not much acorn does these days makes sense. They might as well pack it up, because they aren't getting another dime from the government. They should just take the good people from the organization and start a new one.
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- DeusInvictus, 1 Oct 2009 @ 2:22pm
  
  Re: Reversal?
  "They should just take the good people from the organization and start a new one"
  
  kind of hard to start an new organization with the good people from ACORN when they had none to begin with.
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  - iNtrigued (profile), 2 Oct 2009 @ 3:13pm
    
    Re: Re: Reversal?
    Ah, it may be that I have just been bested. For even I do not know everyone in the ACORN organization.
    
    Well played good sir.
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Pax, 30 Sep 2009 @ 6:33pm

You don't need to date yourself. There are plenty of people out there - I'm sure you could find *one* willing to go out on a date with you.

Boom boom, thanks for listening, I'm here all week.
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Gary Byron, 30 Sep 2009 @ 6:39pm

Defending ACORN?
This is a CRIMINAL organization, whose core members are communists and socialists, who firmly believe the ENDS justify the means. They clothe themselves in service to humanity ONLY to achieve their goals. They appear to be sheep but are ravenous wolves. The film makers are HEROES; I only hope they would or do expose the corruption that is also present in the so-called right.
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 6:40pm
  
  Re: Defending ACORN?
  Didn't I see you on Morons with Signs?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- thublihnk (profile), 30 Sep 2009 @ 7:15pm
  
  Re: Defending ACORN?
  You just have a Google Alert beep you every time someone says ACORN, don't you?
  
  Heard anything about a sequel to the Alvin And The Chipmunks movie?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- dorp, 30 Sep 2009 @ 7:23pm
  
  Re: Defending ACORN?
  Joe, Joe McCarthy? Is that you?!
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- scarr (profile), 30 Sep 2009 @ 7:49pm
  
  Re: Defending ACORN?
  How is keeping someone from paying taxes communistic?
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- Bob Vila, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:33pm
  
  Re: Defending ACORN?
  Why do these freaks CAPITALIZE certain WORDS? Jump on the Digg forums, you'll see THEM posting EVERYWHERE. I think it's worse than people who have the caps lock key stuck. Most of those people are just making an extremely dumb mistake but freaks like this guy are actually doing it on purpose.
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  - angry dude, 1 Oct 2009 @ 10:24am
    
    Re: Re: Defending ACORN?
    Well, I think you answered your own question. It's for EMPHASIS, asshole.
    
    You're WELCOME.
    
    dick.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Bob Vila, 1 Oct 2009 @ 12:14pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: Defending ACORN?
      Asshole and dick have 2 different meaning retard. I can only be one of the 2. Watch Team America for further clarification. No, I didn't answer my own question. I was just randomly capitalizing words. Thank you for the clarification.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Deus Invictus, 1 Oct 2009 @ 2:24pm
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: Defending ACORN?
        And yes you did answer your own question, because by randomly capitalizing words you applied emphasis to your question why do people randomly capitalizing words.
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 9:52pm
  
  Re: Defending ACORN?
  Uh....
  
  If the FILM MAKERS broke a LAW to catch someone else breaking a different law, how is that not ALSO an ENDS justifying a means?
  
  If they're true heroes, they should "man up" and accept whatever legal PUNISHMENT may result from their freely chosen actions.
  
  That's called RESPONSIBILITY.
  
  I know it's not COMMON in the world. But it's nice to see it on the rare occasions when it DOES show up.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - iNtrigued (profile), 1 Oct 2009 @ 11:09am
    
    Re: Re: Defending ACORN?
    From what I heard they did NOT break ANY laws, but the ones acorn THINKS exists.
    
    According to the laws in that state it is ONLY illegal to secretly record someone if there is a REASONABLE EXPECTATION of privacy. And there were NONE.
    
    Woohoo, CAPITALIZING certain words is FUN! But VERY DISTRACTING.
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- angry dude, 1 Oct 2009 @ 10:39am
  
  Re: Defending ACORN?
  Whee!
  
  Let's talk about ACORN more! Then our secret plan to divert attention away from SOCIALIZING healthcare will be complete.
  
  Did I say socializing? I meant COMMUNIZING!
  
  All you stupid Glenn Beckers have been POWNED!
  
  (silence)
  
  "Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha"
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 7:46pm

The Sacramento Gazette reported this almost months ago, it's a non-issue but because it got pulled into FOX, all the jackass politicians got involved.

Old news.
Like 3 months. And Mike, you call yourself a journalist.
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- Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 7:57pm
  
  Re:
  "And Mike, you call yourself a journalist."
  
  Umm, no he doesn't.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:13pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Whatever Mike calls himself, he's probably not going to answer. Because talking to yourself is just crazy.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:34pm
      
      Re: Re: Re:
      Anonomous Coward without a stick up their ass? Why yes, I like!
      
      Hey
      Go fuck yourself. Mike doesn't need anyone, you little hempshooter.
      
      Hey why don't you go wave a Green Flag and keep telling everyone needs to *VOLUNTARILY* give up their paycheck to save the Earth?
      
      It will make it easier when the powers that be make it law.
      
      That's quite a *yay... I'm an Asshole* flag you got there, AC. Hope you know how to use it.
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scarr (profile), 30 Sep 2009 @ 7:57pm

You didn't point out that the "filmmakers" are 20 and 25-year-old students. Suing kids going through school rarely gets you sympathy.
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- angry dude, 1 Oct 2009 @ 10:26am
  
  Re:
  Think of it as an EDUCATION.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
JupiterSuite, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:10pm

Going Nuts
ACORN: Alien Children Offered Regularly Nationwide
ACORN: Authorities Caught One Registering “Napoleon”
ACORN: Assembly of the Complacent: Organized, Registered & Non-productive!
ACORN: Association of Criminals Obama Represented in the Nineties
ACORN: Assorted Crazies, Oddballs, Reprobates, and Nincompoops
ACORN: “Audacity” and “Change” that Obama Represents Nationally
ACORN: A Crooked, Offensive, Repulsive Nut
ACORN: Agitators, Cheats, Offenders, and Repugnant Nonentities
ACORN: Association of Crooks O’Keefe Revealed in a Nanosecond
ACORN: Advising Criminals, Organizing Radical Nutjobs
ACORN: Assisting Call-girls, Obama, Reid & Nancy
ACORN: Advancing Collectivism, Obamamania, Reparations Now!
ACORN: After Clinton, Obama Retards a Nation
ACORN: Alike Carter, Obama is Regretful and Negative
ACORN: America, Could Obama Resign Now??
ACORN: Against Conservatives, Order, Republicans, and the Nation
ACORN: American Cash Outflows to Rathke’s “Nonprofits”
ACORN: Apparently “Community Organizing” Really is Nefarious
ACORN: Awarding Capital to Objectionable Rent-seeking Noncontributors
ACORN: Apathetic, Crybaby, Odiferous, Rejected Nothings
ACORN: Andrew Clearly Outplayed the Resentful NYT
ACORN: Always Cheating, Often Ruining Neighborhoods
ACORN: Addled Crack-heads and Obnoxious Race-baiting Neurotics
ACORN: Appalling Cesspool; Obscene Revolting Nightmare
ACORN: A Clan of Odious, Ridiculed Nitwits
ACORN: Another Corrupt Obama Run Network

Others? Please suggest!
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- Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2009 @ 5:31am
  
  Re: Going Nuts
  ACORN: This joke is never funny.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- angry dude, 1 Oct 2009 @ 10:32am
  
  Re: Going Nuts
  Just
  Understand
  People,
  It
  Takes
  Everyone's
  Reason
  Suspended
  Until
  Idiots
  Terminiate
  Ever yone
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:18pm

Civil discovery
IANAL but if the case does get the discovery stage, I believe both sides involved get to ask their opponents all sorts of questions, some of which may not even be 100% related to the cases. Questions like "Where does all of your money come from and where does it go?"

Now if this is true, it seems to me that ACORN will come out the big loser as they would definitely have more skeletons in the closet than the two people who did the filming. This may get interesting.
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- alternatives(), 1 Oct 2009 @ 11:23am
  
  Re: Civil discovery
  if the case does get the discovery stage
  That may be the only reason to bother, *IF* you think the original producers kept the video of a bunch of workers telling the producers to go pound sand.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:23pm

Thanks, Mike, for providing insight to the issues surrounding bad wiretap law.

Hell, it was reported that the woman in the video actually was involved in a prostitution ring, but it was plea-bargained down if she worked with a producer who created the video.

There's apparently a lot more to this story than you know.

But as the free court MSM press works, always hungry for leads, the video was aired that following Monday without verifying with sources or leads.

Thanks, FoxNews.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:24pm

Thanks, Mike, for providing insight to the issues surrounding bad wiretap law.

Hell, it was reported that the woman in the video actually was involved in a prostitution ring, but it was plea-bargained down if she worked with a producer who created the video.

There's apparently a lot more to this story than you know.

But as the free court MSM press works, always hungry for leads, the video was aired that following Monday without verifying with sources or leads.

Thanks, FoxNews.
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thublihnk (profile), 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:24pm

Man, way too many Glenn Beck watchers have figured out how to use Google Alerts.

I'm all for relevant, insightful discussion on the issues at hand, but seriously?
ACORN acronym games? What are we, twelve?
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:24pm

Thanks, Mike, for providing insight to the issues surrounding bad wiretap law.

Hell, it was reported that the woman in the video actually was involved in a prostitution ring, but it was plea-bargained down if she worked with a producer who created the video.

There's apparently a lot more to this story than you know.

But as the free court MSM press works, always hungry for leads, the video was aired that following Monday without verifying with sources or leads.

Thanks, FoxNews.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:25pm

Thanks, Mike, for providing insight to the issues surrounding bad wiretap law.

Hell, it was reported that the woman in the video actually was involved in a prostitution ring, but it was plea-bargained down if she worked with a producer who created the video.

There's apparently a lot more to this story than you know.

But as the free court MSM press works, always hungry for leads, the video was aired that following Monday without verifying with sources or leads.

Thanks, FoxNews.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Overcast (profile), 30 Sep 2009 @ 8:30pm

Funny to see people actually defend them - talk about blind partisanship.

The whole concept of suing them, just makes them look even more guilty - if that's possible.
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Anonymous Coward, 30 Sep 2009 @ 10:17pm

Goodbye ACORN, your time has come to close shop.
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..., 1 Oct 2009 @ 6:13am

Video == Wiretap ?
I thought that wiretapping was a criminal offense.
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I like Olbermann, 1 Oct 2009 @ 6:22am

Uh Oh - the fox news brigade
What a bunch of psychos
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Sean, 1 Oct 2009 @ 6:25am

Candid Camera?
"Honestly, if you've ever watched Candid Camera (dating myself) or any of its modern equivalents, I'm not really sure that getting a few people to do stupid stuff on camera really says all that much about an organization..."

Honestly, Candid Camera wasn't about government employees explaining how to handle tax implications in underage sex worker smuggling.
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JoeNYC, 1 Oct 2009 @ 6:41am

ACORN
Those of you defending this criminal enterprise (yes, they should be prosecuted under RICO) should be ashamed of yourselves. The people on the video were obviously not sophisticated enough to come up with these criminal schemes. Where do you suppose they learned them??
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2009 @ 6:44am

fox news brigade
I expected more spelling errors
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Overcast (profile), 1 Oct 2009 @ 6:50am

Who needs Craigslist when you have Acorn?
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2009 @ 7:16am

ACORN - Maryland
ACORN, Inc.–the parent organization of all things ACORN–forfeited its corporate charter in Maryland in 2006. ACORN Housing forfeited its corporate charter in 2008. Any ACORN office in the state of Maryland is potentially operating illegally.
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Kevin, 1 Oct 2009 @ 8:34am

ACORN needs to better train people??
ACORN employees ready, willing and able to discuss illegal and immoral activities with potential clients, and you think that it is just an issue of needing to train people better? You honestly believe that ACORN management was not aware of what was going on? Just imagine what would happen if a conservative organization was caught doing something similar. I'm sure that the libs would figure out how to blame Bush for it....
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Allan Masri (profile), 1 Oct 2009 @ 9:31am

Great story, strange conclusion
Most of the commenters have already decided that ACORN is a criminal enterprise. Why is that? Because the right wing media have been proclaiming it for years without offering proof? If you tell a lie enough times, people will believe it. Some of these people need to get their noses out of the Washington Times and the Fox media and look at some stories from the other side. I suggest Mediamatters.org is a good place to start, since they cover the right-wing smear campaigns directly. If you look there, you will find that, contrary to right-wing claims, ACORN workers did call police to talk about the "pimp and hooker" that came into their office. Also, you guys should recognize that there was no criminal enterprise involving child prostitution (it was just a prank, right?) so ACORN staffers committed no crime by failing to report it.

Th lawsuit is an excellent idea. The two protagonists may be students, but Fox news and BigGovernment.org, an Andrew Breitbart enterprise, have plenty of money. Those two co-conspirators aired edited videos that slandered ACORN and led to the loss of millions of dollars in grant money intended to aid the poorest segments of our population. In the court case, ACORN will be able to obtain the unedited videos and discover whether the editing slanted the raw material.

As for Fox News, what legitimate news organization would air edited video clips as news? True, Fox regularly airs video clips taken out of context, but at least those are legitimate quotes (from Obama or someone else) and can be contested because the original video is part of the public record.

Doesn't it bother you conservatives that the organizations being attacked most vociferously by Fox and friends (ACORN and SEIU) provide charitable assistance to minorities and the poor? I believe conservatives feel compelled to cover these stories because the targets are different from themselves, and hence threatening. The joke is on them, however. The attacks on ACORN have consumed time and money that could have been used to present conservative viewpoints needed to win elections. The group obsession with people of color has reflected badly on those who espouse it, as recent election results show. This obsession may be the fatal flaw that consigns the Republican Party to the dustbin of history.
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- Anonymous Coward, 1 Oct 2009 @ 11:28am
  
  Re: Great story, strange conclusion
  As for Fox News, what legitimate news organization would air edited video clips as news
  Here's a history lesson:
  One of the modern masters of such media control was the German Communist from whom Joseph Goebbels learned his trade, Willi Munzenberg. Munzenberg was not only the inventor of spin, he was also the first person who perfected the art of creating a network of opinion-forming journalists who propagated views which were germane to the needs of the Communist Party in Germany and to the Soviet Union.
  Doesn't Fox News sound like a Willi operation?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - iNtrigued (profile), 1 Oct 2009 @ 11:52am
    
    Re: Re: Great story, strange conclusion
    Why is it so popular to hate Fox News? If you don't like what they are saying, turn the channel; because most other channels present news from the other side of the isle.(olbermann & maddow from MSNBC for example)
    
    In regards to both sides calling the other communist/nazi/hitler/etc. it just makes you look stupid. Its really easy to point and call the other side names, but it takes a person of intellect to start an open and honest debate. Completely free from name calling and other kindergarten tactics.
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- iNtrigued (profile), 1 Oct 2009 @ 11:40am
  
  Re: Great story, strange conclusion
  Stop the partisanship, this is exactly what is wrong with Political discussion. People want to spend all their time trying to prove the other side wrong by throwing out all kinds of "facts". They start to actually believe they are the ones who are right. "There couldn't possibly be anything wrong with what I am saying," is their state of mind.
  
  Both sides have their flaws, both sides have portions of the media that only present news leaning their way, and both forget that there are many more things that they share in common than those they don't. But of course the loudest among them shove their idea of the truth and what is right down the throats of everyone else.
  
  So before we start casting blame on each other, lets take a good long look at ourselves.(Corny but true)
  
  The key is to diversify. Don't just get your news from one place, try going to the other side's news distribution center. Really listen to what they are saying and try to find what you agree with because of course most of what they say you aren't going to agree with at all.
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