Sorry, Rabbi, Your Second Attempt To Uncover Anonymous Critics Rejected Too

from the what-does-the-torah-say-about-harassing-your-critics? dept

Tue, Nov 22nd 2011 7:33pm — Mike Masnick

A few months back, we wrote about Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, who had tried, five or so years ago, to identify some anonymous bloggers, who had criticized what they felt were inappropriate sexual relationships with his congregants. That attempt had failed under California's anti-SLAPP laws that are useful in protecting anonymous speech. Why this came up again earlier this year was because Tendler apparently wanted to take a second shot at identifying the same bloggers. He did this by filing a different lawsuit about a contractual dispute, and using that lawsuit to subpoena Google to try (again) to identify the bloggers he had been denied learning about years ago. Public Citizen stepped in to question this, and the court has quashed the subpoena -- and did so in a very broad (and useful) manner.

As Paul Levy from Public Citizen notes in his blog post (linked above), his filing had provided a number of "procedural" reasons to reject the subpoena, but NY Supreme Court Justice Victor Alfieri chose the broadest one, saying that the revealing of the anonymous speakers needs to "go to the heart of the case." Since the commentary by these bloggers really only impacted the amount of damages, but wasn't central to the key legal questions in the case, the court rejected the attempt to identify the bloggers.

Plaintiff contends that the information sought is relevant to his mitigation of damages defense. However, mere relevance is not sufficient. Rather, the information sought must "go to the heart of the matter," i.e., that the information is crucial to the party's case.

Since that was not true in this case, the anonymity remains reasonably protected... and Tendler has to deal with another bit of news about the original accusations.

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Filed Under: anonymity, free speech, mordechai tendler

14 Comments

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Anonymous, 22 Nov 2011 @ 8:40pm

Saw in the pdf that the case is from Rockland County, NY.. I live in an adjacent county and know that Rockland is home to many communities of ultra-conservative Hasidic Jews. Might have something to do with why he sued.
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Nov 2011 @ 9:17pm

Torah
"what-does-the-torah-say-about-harassing-your-critics?"

The Torah may not say much, but the Bible says quite a bit. You see, back in those days, the rabbis were known as pharisees. Well, the pharisees were having a bit of a problem with a certain critic called "Jesus". The pharisees got the government, in the form of the local governor, Pontius Pilate, to do their dirty work for them. The troublesome Jesus got silenced rather effectively. Alas, his followers were not silenced, and there has been a spot of bother about that around the 1930s and 1940s, instigated by a chap called "Hitler".

Some of you may be familiar with the stories of this Jesus chap and the Hitler chap. It seems that getting the government to do some religion's dirty work for it has a rather long and bloody history.
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I-Blz, 22 Nov 2011 @ 10:07pm

Re: Torah
What the bloody hell are you on about?
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G Thompson (profile), 22 Nov 2011 @ 10:25pm

Re: Torah
Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Pellentesque ut mi ante, non pretium lorem. Suspendisse libero arcu; ornare egestas molestie id, tincidunt a turpis. Praesent blandit venenatis pretium. Nulla tincidunt tincidunt tellus, vitae fringilla dolor facilisis vel. Nullam odio lectus, consequat blandit convallis nec; auctor quis felis. In at magna nisi. Cras aliquet, ipsum eget commodo dapibus, lacus turpis vehicula est, ut tristique turpis erat at turpis. In condimentum nibh eu urna pulvinar sed feugiat orci sodales. Fusce nibh ipsum, rhoncus a tincidunt vitae; pellentesque eu purus. Donec facilisis auctor bibendum! Nunc quis lorem at arcu scelerisque accumsan eleifend sed eros. Phasellus vel neque tellus. Phasellus tincidunt tellus quis magna tempus consequat.

The ABOVE generated randomly by a computer makes more sense then you do
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Nov 2011 @ 11:10pm

Re: Torah
Now, let's not diverge into a theological debate. The simple fact stands, this one particular Rabbi is going a bit off the deep end over some anonymous messages without realizing the more he causes a fuss, the worse it is for him.

Anonymous rights were upheld. The courts did the right thing. And don't forget, they're part of triad of our governing system as well.
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PopeRatzo (profile), 23 Nov 2011 @ 5:22am

You missed something
Why didn't you link to the original allegations?

I want to know what this guy did. How is he going to suffer from the Streisand Effect if helpful bloggers won't link to the "inappropriate relationship" stuff.
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The Devil's Coachman (profile), 23 Nov 2011 @ 6:03am

Sounds like the Rabbi has a lot to hide
Probably a lot more than any blogger has revealed so far. But then, don't most religious "leaders" have a lot to hide? Most of it involving sex, and the rest, money. Too bad they couldn't all just simultaneously spontaneously combust, but then they might wind up burning down a lot of whorehouses and banks. Now that I think of it, the banks need to go with them, but the cathouses serve a useful purpose to some.
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nasch (profile), 23 Nov 2011 @ 7:39am

Re: You missed something
Did Rabbi Mordechai Tendler rape a murder a young girl in 1990? Why hasn't he denied it?
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nasch (profile), 23 Nov 2011 @ 7:41am

Re: Sounds like the Rabbi has a lot to hide
But then, don't most religious "leaders" have a lot to hide? Most of it involving sex, and the rest, money.

Nope. Most religious leaders don't have any issues with sexual or financial impropriety. Even if you restrict it to Catholic priests, most of the hundreds of thousands of them haven't had any problems they need to hide.
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Quizling, 23 Nov 2011 @ 9:53am

Re: Torah
Hmm.

You were rolling right along with a great analogy, and then you had to steer off onto Hitler street and subsequently off into the bushes.

Look up "non sequitur" in the dictionary, Freak.
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hmm (profile), 23 Nov 2011 @ 12:21pm

Lawsuits ahoy
Let him continue his fruitless quest to sue everyone who says mean bad things about him.

Let's see how deep the rabbi hole goes....../hide
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Nov 2011 @ 4:58pm

Re: Re: Torah
Whooosh!
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Nov 2011 @ 5:12pm

Re: Re: Torah
Oooh! An ad hominem attack! What an honor!
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Ilfar, 28 Dec 2011 @ 8:16pm

Re: Lawsuits ahoy
THAT was a mental image I did NOT need.
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