Trump Campaign Tries To Defend Itself With Section 230, Manages To Potentially Make Things Worse For Itself

from the just-one-more-wafer-thin-defense dept

It isn't unusual or unwarranted for Section 230 to show up as a defense in situations where some might not expect it. Its basic principles may apply to more situations than may necessarily be readily apparent. But to appear as a defense in the Cockrum v. Campaign for Donald Trump case is pretty unexpected. From page 37 of the campaign's motion to dismiss the case against it, the following two paragraphs are what the campaign slipped in on the subject:

Plaintiffs likewise cannot establish vicarious liability by alleging that the Campaign conspired with WikiLeaks. Under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230), a website that provides a forum where “third parties can post information” is not liable for the third party’s posted information. Klayman v. Zuckerberg, 753 F.3d 1354, 1358 (D.C. Cir. 2014). That is so even when even when the website performs “editorial functions” “such as deciding whether to publish.” Id. at 1359. Since WikiLeaks provided a forum for a third party (the unnamed “Russian actors”) to publish content developed by that third party (the hacked emails), it cannot be held liable for the publication.

That defeats the conspiracy claim. A conspiracy is an agreement to commit “an unlawful act.” Paul v. Howard University, 754 A.2d 297, 310 (D.C. 2000). Since WikiLeaks’ posting of emails was not an unlawful act, an alleged agreement that it should publish those emails could not have been a conspiracy.

This is the case brought against the campaign for allegedly colluding with Wikileaks and the Russians to disclose the plaintiffs’ private information as part of the DNC email trove that ended up on Wikileaks. Like Eric Goldman, who has an excellent post on the subject, I'm not going to go into the relative merits of the lawsuit itself, but I would note that it is worth consideration. Even if it's true that the Trump campaign and Wikileaks were somehow in cahoots to hack the DNC and publish the data taken from it, whether and how the consequences of that disclosure can be recognized by law is a serious issue, as is whether this particular lawsuit by these particular plaintiffs with these particular claims is one that the law can permit to go forward without causing collateral effects to other expressive endeavors, including whistleblower journalism generally. On these points there may or may not be issues with the campaign's motion to dismiss overall. But the shoehorning of a Section 230 argument into its defensive strategy seems sufficiently weird and counterproductive to be worth commenting on in and of itself.

For one thing, it's not a defense that belongs to the campaign. It's a defense that belongs to a platform, if it belongs to anyone, and the campaign was not a platform. Meanwhile the question of whether Wikileaks is a platform able to claim a Section 230 defense with regard to the content at issue is not entirely clear; like most legal questions, the answer is, "It depends," and it can depend on the particular relationship the site had with the hosting of any particular content. True, to the extent that Wikileaks is just a site hosting material others have provided the answer is more likely to be yes – although even then there is an important caveat: as Eric pointed out, Section 230 doesn't magically make content be "legal." It's simply an immunity from liability for certain types of claims. It's not even all claims. There's no limitation, for instance, on liability for claims asserting violations of another's intellectual property, nor is there any limit to liability for claims arising from violations of federal criminal law. While the Cockrum plaintiffs are bringing forward tort claims, which are the sorts of claims that Section 230 generally insulates platforms from, Section 230 would do nothing to shield the exact same platform from a federal prosecution arising from its hosting of the exact same information.

But the bigger issue is whether Wikileaks is just a platform merely hosting information others have provided, particularly with respect to the DNC emails. If it had too much agency in the creation of the information that ended up hosted on it, it might not be a Section 230-immune "interactive computer service provider" and instead might be found to be a potentially liable "information content provider." The Trump campaign is correct that a platform can exert quite a bit of editorial discretion over the information that appears on it without being considered an information content provider, but at a certain point courts become unwilling to regard the platform's interaction as editorial and instead find it to be authorial. There are reasons to champion drawing the line on what counts as editorial expansively, but it is naïve to pretend that courts will deem all interaction between a platform and the content appearing on it to be so. There is simply far too much caselaw to the contrary.

In fact, a great deal of the caselaw suggests that courts are often particularly unwilling to simply assume that a platform lacked creative agency in the content at issue in cases where the optics surrounding the platform and the content at issue are poor. As Eric has noted in previous posts, this reluctance is problematic, because forcing a platform to go through discovery in order to satisfy the court that there is no evidence of the platform's authorship of the content at issue, which would disqualify the platform from Section 230's protection, raises the costs of being a platform to the sort of crippling level that Section 230 is supposed to forestall. There is reason to worry that the optics surrounding this case may potentially encourage courts to create unpleasant precedent that will make it harder for other platforms to raise Section 230 as a defense in order to quickly end expensive, Section 230-barred lawsuits against them in the future.

But it's the discovery issue that makes the campaign's raising of Section 230 as a defense seem so odd: on page 1 of the motion to dismiss they complain the lawsuit was brought as "a vehicle for discovery of documents and evidence," but by raising Section 230 as a defense it only invites more of it. If any of the plaintiffs' claims were to go forward there would already be plenty of discovery demands to explore the relationship between the campaign and Wikileaks, which the campaign would appear to not want. The objective of the campaign should therefore be nothing more than making the case go away as quickly and quietly as possible. But by gratuitously throwing in Section 230 as a defense, one in which Wikileaks' authorship role is inherently in question and potentially contingent on its relationship with the campaign, rather than provide a basis for dismissal, the campaign has instead provided the court with a reason for why the case should continue to the discovery stage. It seems like a tactical error and one that does not appear to understand the jurisprudence surrounding Section 230. It glibly presumes that Section 230 applies to any situation involving a platform hosting content, and that simply isn't correct. While we have encouraged it to be liberally applied to platform situations, it obviously is not always, and sometimes even for good reason.

Filed Under: cda 230, discovery, donald trump, julian assange, russian interference, trump campaign
Companies: wikileaks

DOJ Memo Shows NSA And White House Lawyers Mainly Unconcerned About Evidence Obligations In Criminal Trials

from the let's-temporarily-sort-of-care-about-something dept

Charlie Savage of the New York Times has obtained another document detailing the internal guidelines of the NSA's STELLAR WIND program as a result of the NYT's long-running FOIA lawsuit against the government. The new document is a memo from the Department of Justice, which details its lawyers' attempts to suss out the government's obligation to defendants when it comes to evidence derived from classified surveillance programs.

As Savage points out in his post, much of the NSA program's inner workings (and abuses) have been detailed in previously-released documents, including an Inspector General's report obtained by the Times in 2015. That doesn't make this document [PDF] unworthy of a read, however. It doesn't provide more detail on the program or its apparent abuse, but it does make it clear the government didn't seem too concerned about potential due process violations arising from the obscuring of surveillance-derived evidence.

First, the memo points out very few DOJ lawyers and prosecutors have been "read in" to the program, which immediately makes it more difficult to balance adversarial issues in criminal prosecutions where the paper trail leads back to the NSA's warrantless surveillance.

But the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) doesn't have the right lawyers on staff to make this determination. Then-OLC head John Yoo himself admits (via a quotation in the memo) that "criminal law is not [his] area." To remedy this, the OLC brought in two lawyers from the DOJ's Criminal Division -- Patrick Rowan and Christopher Wray -- to analyze processes and check for adherence to Rule 16 (defendant' communications and statements in the government's possession) and Brady (exculpatory evidence) obligations. But it appears once the two DOJ lawyers were "read in," they were forgotten about.

Wray told the OIG that after his and Rowan's read-in, they "were kind of left on our own." He said that no one directed him or Rowan to continue studying the Rule 16 issues or the government's Brady obligations in connection with international terrorism prosecutions, nor did anyone tell them to develop any judgments or opinions on the subject.

What is clear is that whatever changes were made at the NSA and DOJ were the result of journalism. According to Rowan's statements to the NSA's Inspector General, the NSA was, at best, "generally aware" of its evidence disclosure obligations "prior to the December 2005 disclosure… of the Stellar Wind program in The New York Times."

But the process in place -- and likely the process that continues today with the OLC's blessing -- was to spot cases that might present discovery issues and take steps to hide the origin of that evidence.

Rowan stated that if the NSA located any responsive but classified information, it would be expected to notify senior Justice Department officials with the requisite clearances about the information. Rowan said he was confident that if Brady information were known to the NSA, it would be brought to the attention of the Department and steps would have been taken to dismiss the case or otherwise ensure the program was not disclosed.

If the government wanted both program secrecy and a successful prosecution, the FBI would engage in something that looks an awful lot like parallel construction.

[Rowan] stated that the FBI had "walled off" any evidence it collected from inclusion in criminal cases by tipping out Stellar Wind-derived information under [REDACTED] with a caveat that the information in the tipper was "for lead purposes only." Rowan noted that OIPR [the DOJ's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review] also had in place a scrubbing process to delete program-derived information from FISA applications. Rowan expressed confidence that these mechanisms ensured that no program information was used in international terrorism prosecutions. Finally, Rowan stated that the FBI is "very quick to get FISAs up," thereby minimizing the likelihood that the NSA's Stellar Wind database would be the sole repository of Brady material.

The DOJ lawyers felt evidence issues still remained mostly unaddressed, but the OLC apparently lost interest shortly thereafter. The new head of the OLC discussed some issues with Rowan but told the DOJ "he did not believe the OLC followed up on Rowan's request that it continue researching these issues." Another OLC official said he had seen Rowan's work, but the office apparently decided Yoo's memo (the same Yoo who stated criminal law "wasn't his area") was the final word on the subject. This same official also stated he wasn't aware of any "formal procedures" for handling surveillance-derived evidence arising from the DOJ's examination of the subject.

The other DOJ lawyer "read in" to the program confirmed the OLC official's statement.

Wray also told us there was no organized Departmental effort to establish formal procedures for reviewing international terrorism prosecutions to comply with Rule 16 disclosure requests and Brady obligations. He said "the thinking was" that the Rowan memorandum was the "first step" toward devising "some kind of systematized process" for such reviews. However, we found no indication that OLC followed up on Rowan's request to further study these discovery issues with any kind of written product.

So, the answer on prosecution evidence obligations comes from a guy who knows little about criminal law. On the plus side (haha), he's a strong proponent of making all rights and liberties subservient to national security concerns. The FBI does its part to protect NSA surveillance programs by erecting parallel evidence gathering, which means defendants might actually be able to see the evidence used against them, but be unable to challenge the constitutionality of the original collection. This all works out very well for the government, which somehow managed to slack its way into a playing field tilted towards the prosecution despite having one of its flagship surveillance programs splashed all over the pages of the New York Times. Remind me again how leaks damage the government's ability to pursue investigations and prosecutions?

Filed Under: christopher wray, discovery, doj, evidence, john yoo, nsa, olc, patrick rowan, stellar wind, surveillance

Hold On... We May Actually Be In For A THIRD Oracle/Google API Copyright Trial

from the you-wouldn't-reimplement-an-api dept

Yikes. A month ago, we wrote about how Oracle was asking Judge Alsup to agree to another new trial in the Oracle v. Google API copyright case. I joked that they basically had no chance, and Judge Alsup had already rejected their attempts to overturn the jury ruling. But... I may have spoken too soon. In a hearing on the matter earlier this week, Oracle insisted that there needed to be a new trial because Google had withheld information on plans to offer Android on Chromebooks -- something that Google announced at this year's Google IO which happened (awkward!) while the trial was going on.

And this morning, Alsup issued an order telling both sides to provide sworn statements about this. For Google, it's why it had not updated its discovery responses to include the plans for Android on Chromebooks, and for Oracle, whether it, too, had neglected to update its discovery responses (and specifically calls out a misrepresentation by Oracle):

By THURSDAY AUGUST 25, AT NOON, Christa Anderson, counsel for Google, shall submit a sworn statement explaining why the discovery responses referenced in Court yesterday were not updated, including the full extent to which counsel knew Google’s intention to launch a full version of Marshmallow, including the Google Play Store, for Chrome OS.

By the same date and time, Annette Hurst, counsel for Oracle, shall submit a sworn statement setting forth, after full inquiry, the full extent to which Oracle neglected to update its discovery responses by reason, in whole or in part, of one or more rulings by the judge. The same statement shall explain why counsel repeatedly represented that the Jones v. Aero/chem decision required an “evidentiary hearing” when that decision, as it turns out, made no mention of an “evidentiary hearing” and instead remanded because no “hearing” or other consideration at all had been given to the issue of discovery conduct by the district judge.

This does not mean that there absolutely will be a third trial, but it's at least more of a possibility than most observers thought possible. I honestly don't see how Android on Chromebook really matters for the fair use analysis. Oracle argues that since most of the talk on the market impact was limited to phones and tablets, that may have impacted the jury, but that's kind of laughable. The reality is that Oracle just wants another crack at a decision it disagrees with.

Of course, all of this is really a stupid side show. The real underlying problem was the Federal Circuit's decision that APIs were covered by copyright, despite almost no one actually thinking that's true. The whole fair use trial was an awkward mess, mainly because all of the arguments weren't so much about "fair use" but about whether or not anyone actually considered APIs to be covered by copyright. Going through another such trial would just be a mess.

But the other area where a new case may come about is that Judge Alsup made clear that Oracle was also free to bring new cases on new uses of Android to see if they were also fair use, meaning that any time Google does anything new with Android, it may face a new fair use trial. They wouldn't need to do this if the CAFC had just recognized that APIs are not covered by copyright, but it didn't and here we are in a big heaping mess.

By the same date, counsel shall meet and confer and advise the Court whether the form of judgment should be amended to reflect that it is not a final judgment but a Rule 52(c) judgment on partial findings, given that Oracle is entitled to challenge further uses of Android herein.

This case is never going to end.

Filed Under: android, api, apis, chromebooks, copyright, discovery
Companies: google, oracle

Bill Introduced To Create Copyright Small Claims Court... Which Copyright Trolls Are Going To Love

from the flooding-the-system dept

For a while now, some in the copyright community have been pushing for a copyright "small claims court" as an alternative to filing a federal lawsuit over copyright law. It's true that, especially for small copyright holders, the cost of filing a lawsuit may appear to be rather prohibitive. But it's not clear that a small claims court is the answer. A few years ago, we wrote about some potential concerns with such an approach, but have also admitted that if set up right, it could have some advantages. But that requires it be set up right.

Unfortunately, a new bill has been introduced, by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, along with Rep. Tom Marino, to officially set up such a system -- and it's done in a way that looks like it will not be well-designed, and instead will lead to a massive rush of small claims, especially by copyright trolls. The bill is called the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2016, or CASE Act, and... it's got problems.

The "good" news, if you can call it that, is that claims that would go before this appointed tribunal, made up of copyright lawyers recommended by the Register of Copyrights and appointed by the Librarian of Congress, would have much lower statutory damages availability than the federal courts. A copyright claim in a federal court has statutory damages up to $150k, for willful infringement. In the small claims system, the maximum statutory damages would be $15k. But, really, that's just half of today's official statutory damages -- because if there's no willful infringement, the Copyright Act puts a cap at $30k. In the small claims world, there's no option to claim willful infringement.

Another potentially good feature is that this small claims setup would be able to hear two kinds of claims: the standard ones involving claims of someone violating one of the established rights under copyright law... but then also to hear cases about abusive DMCA notifications, under Section 512(f) of the DMCA. Of course, as we've noted in the past, the federal courts have effectively written 512(f) out of the law and refuse to punish those who file bogus DMCA notices. It's not at all clear how things would change here. The bill explicitly notes that the remedies for a 512(f) bogus DMCA notice claim would be limited "to those available under this chapter." But it's unclear if that really means that you could get $15k for a bogus DMCA filing. And that's because the section on statutory damages is clearly written only with people suing for copyright infringement in mind, and not people suing over bogus DMCA takedowns.

For example, it notes that in order to qualify for the $15k maximum statutory damages, it only applies to "works timely registered." But... how does that make sense for 512(f) claims? In those cases, the question of whether or not the defendant timely registered a copyright makes no sense at all. If someone sends a bogus DMCA takedown over a copyright that doesn't exist or that they don't hold, why should its registration status matter? It's almost as if Rep. Jeffries (or the lobbyists who wrote this bill) only tossed in the part about 512(f) claims to appease people concerned about abusive DMCA takedowns, and then completely forgot about it after they included that.

But the really big problem in my mind is that this seems likely to just be swamped by copyright trolls. We already see that they're flooding the federal court system, where multiple rulings against joinder (i.e., the ridiculous bundling of thousands of possible file sharers together) has meant that when trolls do sue, they're generally limited in how many people they can sue. Making the process cheaper, but still offering statutory damages amounts that can be quite scary to the average American, and that can still get the job done of scaring threatened users into paying up fines that are much smaller than the $15,000.

And, yes, this small claims system will allow for discovery, which is the key feature that trolls want. They want to sue, and then get discovery where they can send demands to ISPs for names of subscribers based on IP addresses, and there doesn't appear to be anything in the bill to stop that. It does note that parties seeking discovery need to show "good cause" to enable discovery, but that may be a fairly low bar. It also notes that responding to discovery requests to non-parties in the dispute will be "voluntary" so perhaps ISPs will resist, but that's not certain. And thus, this three-panel board may find itself on the receiving end of a ton of ridiculous claims from trolls who have no intention of following through with the case. One would hope, with the federal court system's copyright docket currently overrun with trolling cases, that whoever drafted this law would have thought through a better plan to stop that from happening here.

Another potential issue: the bill would let individuals go after not just actual infringers, but also service providers if they fail to follow through on a DMCA takedown notice. Basically, it exports the DMCA safe harbors to this small claims process as well, but that may mean that internet platforms are going to get dragged through this process that was meant to focus on small claims that could be easily adjudicated.

There's also this oddity. After laying out the specific responsibilities of the three individuals who will handle all of these small claims cases, the bill notes:

When not engaged in performing their duties as prescribed in this chapter, to perform such other duties as may be assigned by the Register of Copyrights.

What, exactly, is that going to entail?

Who knows how this will actually play out. A few years back, the UK introduced its own small claims copyright system. But I have no idea how it's doing. I haven't seen any numbers or indication of how widely it's used. Perhaps it works great and is a useful tool for dealing with small scale infringement issues. But I do worry about the way the bill is currently written and how it can be abused, especially by trolls who just want to pressure people into settling, and where the threat of a $15k award might be plenty.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright office, copyright trolls, discovery, hakeem jeffries, small claims, tom marino

Judge In Child Porn Case Reverses Course, Says FBI Will Not Have To Turn Over Details On Its Hacking Tool

from the no-unending-solitary-confinement-for-special-agents,-apparently dept

Back in February, the judge presiding over the FBI's case against Jay Michaud ordered the agency to turn over information on the hacking tool it used to unmask Tor users who visited a seized child porn site. The FBI further solidified its status as a law unto itself by responding that it would not comply with the court's order, no matter what.

Unfortunately, we won't be seeing any FBI officials tossed into jail cells indefinitely for contempt of court charges. The judge in that case has reversed course, as Motherboard reports.

The government's motion has been granted, and the FBI does not have to provide the exploit code to the defense as previously ordered. That means that the defense in the case will probably be unable to examine how the evidence against their client was collected in the first place.

It is not totally clear why Judge Robert J. Bryan changed his mind. On Thursday, the government and Bryan held a private meeting, where the government presented its reasons for nondisclosure of the Tor Browser exploit.

The judge apparently believes the defense should still be able to examine the code but apparently can't be bothered with ensuring this will happen.

Despite backtracking somewhat, Bryan still thinks the defense has a reason to see that code, according to audio of the public section of Thursday’s hearing provided by activist Phil Mocek. Of course, whether the FBI decides to then provide it is another matter.

Given the FBI's earlier promise to withhold the details of the NIT despite being ordered to disclose them, I'd say there's about a 0% chance of the FBI voluntarily turning this information over to the defense. Right now, the agency is working overtime just trying to keep the evidence it obtained with its hacking tool from being tossed out of three other courts. It's also facing the prospect that third-party interlopers like Mozilla may still result in it having to release these details to someone outside of its own offices. At this point, hardly anything's going the FBI's way, so it will take whatever it can get, even if it's only temporary relief.

Filed Under: discovery, doj, fbi, hacking, jay michaud, malware, nit, playpen

Court Says EFF Can Move Forward With Discovery In Its Big Case Against NSA Surveillance

from the this-could-get-interesting dept

Jewel v. NSA is the EFF's big case against the NSA over its surveillance efforts. It predates the Snowden revelations (from a lot), and stems from that time an AT&T technician, Mark Klein, just walked through the doors of the EFF to provide the organization with evidence that AT&T basically routes a bunch of data through NSA filters for "upstream" collection (part of the NSA's "702" collection program). The case has gone through a bunch of permutations and procedural issues, many of which have not gone the EFF's way, unfortunately. However, the latest is a big one: the judge has said that EFF can move forward with discovery efforts, basically requiring the government to turn over a bunch of information:

This marks the first time a party has been allowed to gather factual evidence from the NSA in a case involving the agency’s warrantless surveillance. The government had fought all our requests to proceed with this lawsuit, arguing that the state secrets privilege protects it against both discovery and liability. Judge White previously rejected that argument for our statutory claims under the Wiretap Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and the Stored Communications Act. This ruling affirms Judge White’s previous decision and opens the door for discovery.

This is an important step forward to lifting the cloak of secrecy that has thus far shielded the NSA from judicial scrutiny, and EFF looks forward to finally getting to the nuts and bolts of this extraordinarily important lawsuit.

You can read the ruling here, which is mostly just procedural details. Still, given how successful the US government has been in basically killing off any and every lawsuit that attempts to challenge its surveillance, getting to move forward on discovery is a big, big deal. Kudos to the EFF team.

Filed Under: discovery, jewel v. nsa, mass surveillance, nsa, section 702, surveillance, upstream
Companies: eff

DOJ Still Not Informing Defendants About Sources Of Surveillance Program-Derived Evidence Being Used Against Them

from the laws-are-for-defendants dept

The NSA's Section 702 surveillance program is massive. It provides the NSA (and the FBI) with access to the email content and internet activity of millions of people, some of them US citizens. Quite obviously, the intelligence gathered with it has led to prosecutions. But the government is still seemingly uninterested in informing defendants about the origin of evidence being used against them.

Just Security's Patrick Toomey notes that the US government -- after a brief flurry of complying with federal law -- appears to have gone back to ignoring it.

Up until 2013, no criminal defendant received notice of Section 702 surveillance, even though notice is required by statute. Then, after reports surfaced in the New York Times that the Justice Department had misled the Supreme Court and was evading its notice obligations, the government issued five such notices in criminal cases between October 2013 and April 2014. After that, the notices stopped — and for the last 20 months, crickets.

Toomey notes that the DOJ -- after realizing its original interpretation of the statute was perhaps a bit flawed -- adopted a new interpretation of the statute, one that is only marginally broader.

Based on what can be gleaned from the public record, it seems likely that defendants are not getting notice because DOJ is interpreting a key term of art in Fourth Amendment law too narrowly — the phrase “derived from.” Under FISA itself, the government is obliged to give notice to a defendant when its evidence is “derived from” Section 702 surveillance of the defendant’s communications. There is good reason to think that DOJ has interpreted this phrase so narrowly that it can almost always get around its own rule, at least in new cases.

This is one of the government's favorite games: redefining common words to serve the purpose of obscuring surveillance efforts. How does the DOJ dodge having to report the origin of evidence "derived from" the 702 collection? Toomey speculates it could take multiple approaches. The easiest way to eliminate any mention of 702 collections from submitted evidence is to obscure its origin by citing other surveillance techniques -- in other words, parallel construction.

The five notices sent out after the DOJ briefly reappraised its notice obligations are probably the last we'll see for awhile. The DOJ clearly isn't interested in adhering to the statute. It has spent the intervening months perfecting its source obfuscation. It also may have obtained official legal guidance (from the Office of Legal Counsel) that "explains away" its obligation to inform defendants of the source of evidence. If so, the American public won't be apprised of the DOJ's interpretation of its notice obligations any time soon. The US government has made it almost impossible for the public to discover the legal rationales for its national security efforts.

The government likes its secrets. And it also likes to be challenged as infrequently as possible. That's the other reason the DOJ is burying links to FISA-authorized surveillance.

Crucially, it’s not only the rights of criminal defendants that are at stake, and it’s not only Section 702 surveillance that is implicated by the government’s cramped view of its notice obligations. The government’s use of standing doctrine and the state secrets privilege in civil cases has left precious few ways of obtaining public, adversarial court review of surveillance programs. If the government can regularly avoid its duty to give notice to criminal defendants, it will have succeeded in all but closing the courthouse doors to cases challenging surveillance that affects millions.

Few plaintiffs have been granted standing in national surveillance-related lawsuits and I'm sure that small number is still far more than the government would like to see. That number isn't going to increase anytime soon, not with the DOJ treating its notice obligations as entirely optional or never applicable.

Filed Under: discovery, doj, informing defendants, law enforcement, section 702, surveillance

James Woods Not Allowed To Find Out Name Of Guy Who Called Him A Cocaine Addict On Twitter

from the that's-not-how-this-works dept

Over the summer, we wrote about a positively ridiculous lawsuit filed by the actor James Woods, who apparently took offense to an obviously hyperbolic tweet, calling him a "cocaine addict." Woods felt that such a joke tweet deserved a $10 million lawsuit. The anonymous Twitter user hooked up with Ken "Popehat" White as his lawyer and made an anti-SLAPP claim against Woods for his lawsuit that seemed obviously designed to silence criticism on Twitter. Amusingly, one of the things that White's response pointed out was that Woods himself had referred to others on Twitter in a similar way: One of the most important parts of California's very good anti-SLAPP law (which is a way to fight back against lawsuits that are clearly just designed to shut someone up), is that it blocks all "discovery" efforts in the case until the anti-SLAPP efforts are decided. This is especially important, because it's often the discovery process that destroys peoples' lives -- costing them tons of time and money in responding to requests. In this case, Woods and his lawyer still sought to use the discovery process to find out the identity of the Twitter user who went by the user name "Abe List."

However, as Eriq Gardner at the Hollywood Reporter notes, the court has rejected this attempt, noting that it's way, way too early to get into that with an anti-SLAPP claim still in place:

L.A. Superior Court judge Mel Recana concludes that the defendant's mental state when making the tweet isn't material just yet in the case. In an order this week, the judge writes, "Defendant argues that if the court finds that the statement is a 'mere rhetorical insult,' then malice is irrelevant and defendant prevails. The court agrees that plaintiff is not entitled to discovery into malice at this stage. The anti-SLAPP motion is limited to whether the statement was a provable fact or a 'figurative rhetorical insult.' "

This is not surprising, but it's good to see that the court is following the proper procedures here and not letting Woods try to get around the anti-SLAPP process in order to identify the tweeter.

Filed Under: abe list, anonymity, anti-slapp, discovery, free speech, james woods, slapp

Popehat v. James Woods SLAPP-down Match; Coming Soon To A Court Near You

from the can-i-get-front-row-seats? dept

A month ago, we wrote about actor James Woods bizarrely suing a trollish Twitter user who had been mocking Woods on the site. The whole lawsuit seemed ridiculous. The specific tweet that sent Woods over the edge was this anonymous user (who went by the name "Abe List") saying "cocaine addict James Woods still sniffing and spouting." Soon after our post on the subject, Ken "Popehat" White posted an even better takedown entitled James Woods Punches the Muppet. That post has now been updated with a brief note that White has now been retained to defend the anonymous Twitter user. And, if that gets you excited for what to expect in the legal filings, well, you don't have wait. As first reported by Eriq Gardner at the Hollywood Reporter, White has filed the John Doe's opposition to Woods' attempt to unmask the guy. And it's worth reading.

Problem number one with Woods' suit is laid out right at the beginning of the filing, which is that Woods himself has a habit of accusing others of using illegal drugs as well, just as Abe List did: The filing shows other tweets from Woods that have similar words that Woods complained about Abe List using, such as "clown" and "scum." As the filing notes, it appears Woods thinks that he can use those insults towards others, but if anyone uses them towards him, it's somehow defamatory.

Plaintiff, an internationally known actor, is active on Twitter, a social media platform. There he is known for engaging in rough-and-tumble political debate. Plaintiff routinely employs insults like “clown” and “scum,” and even accuses others of drug use as a rhetorical trope....
But Plaintiff apparently believes that while he can say that sort of thing to others, others cannot say it to him. He has sued Mr. Doe for a derisive tweet referring to him as “cocaine addict James Woods still sniffing and spouting” in the course of political back-andforth.... He also complains, at length, that Mr. Doe has called him things like a “clown” and “scum.” Naturally, Plaintiff has himself called others “clown” or “scum” on Twitter.

The filing, quite reasonably, notes that these kinds of hyperbolic claims cannot be seen as defamatory, and since there's no legitimate claim here, there is no reason to do expedited discovery or to unmask Abe List, who is entitled to have his identity protected under the First Amendment.

Oh, and, not surprisingly, White will be filing an anti-SLAPP motion shortly, which may mean that Woods is going to have to pay for this mess that he caused.

The filing also notes that while Woods sent a subpoena to Twitter to try to seek Abe List's identity, the company turned it down as deficient. The full two page letter is in the filing below as Exhibit B, but a quick snippet on the First Amendment concerns: Meanwhile, Woods has already filed a response in which he is still seeking to uncover the name of Abe List, and which repeats more ridiculous claims about the whole thing, starting off with the simply false claim that the original "cocaine addict" tweet was likely seen by "hundreds of thousands" of Woods' followers. That's wrong. They would only see if they followed both Woods and the Abe List account, which very few did.

The filing, somewhat hilariously, claims that calling someone "a joke," "ridiculous," "scum" and "clown-boy" are not protected by the First Amendment. Which makes me wonder what law school Woods' lawyers went to. Because that's just wrong:

AL's outrageous claim appears to be the culmination of a mlaicious on-line campaign by AL to discredit and damage Woods' reputation, a campaign which began as early as December 2014. In the past, AL has referred to Woods with such derogatory terms as a "joke," "ridiculous," "scum" and "clown-boy." ... Although AL's rantings against Woods began with childish name calling, it has escalated beyond the protections of free speech, i.e., the First Amendment does not permit anyone to falsely represent to the public that another person is addicted to an illegal narcotic.

Um... but Woods himself did exactly that (see above). It's standard hyperbolic speech, which is clearly not defamatory especially when mocking a public figure like Woods who has a history of using the same sort of hyperbolic insults on Twitter. Even more ridiculously, Woods' lawyers claim that by saying that the statement was a joke, that's Abe List admitting that he knew it was a false statement. I can't see that argument flying. I can see it backfiring big time once the anti-SLAPP motion is made.

So, what about those similar tweets made by Woods himself? His lawyers tell the court to ignore those piddly things.

... to the extent AL or TG attempt to argue that the Court should consider other statements on their Twitter accounts, or any previous tweets by Mr. Woods, the argument is a red herring. First, there is no reason any of Mr. Woods' followers, all of whom were exposed to the defamatory statements, would even bother to investigate the speakers and/or their Twitter sites to determine if they were reliable sources. As to Mr. Woods, we are not aware of any false statements of fact made by Mr. Woods and his sometimes sharp commentary on political matters is irrelevant to the allegations here.

Except, uh, again, Woods suggested someone smoked crack, just like Abe List joked that Woods was a cocaine addict. And, again, Woods and his lawyers are just wrong that all of Woods' followers would have seen Abe Lists' tweets. They're just factually wrong.

You never know how courts will rule in any particular case, no matter how ridiculous, but I have a hard time seeing how Woods gets out of this without having to pay two sets of lawyers -- his own and Ken White -- for filing a clearly bogus defamation case designed to shut up (and identify) an anonymous Twitter critic. No matter what, James Woods may not be a cocaine addict, but he has made it clear that he can dish it out but can't take it back when people make fun of him. What a clown.

Filed Under: abe list, anonymity, anti-slapp, cocaine, criticism, defamation, discovery, free speech, hyperbole, james woods, ken white, popehat, slapp
Companies: twitter

Court Lets Malibu Media Move Forward With Discovery In Copyright Case, But Blocks 'Speculative Invoicing'

from the a-more-careful-approach dept

Just recently, we noted that a court in Australia, clearly understanding the issues with copyright trolling, had blocked Voltage Pictures/Dallas Buyers Club from pushing out questionable "settlement" letters (i.e., shakedown letters) to subscribers -- and required a huge bond if the organization wanted to move forward. It appears that some US courts may be thinking along similar lines in an effort to stop copyright trolls from abusing the judicial system as a way to shake people down for money in a practice known as "speculative invoicing" (i.e., pay up or we sue you).

The world's largest copyright troll, Malibu Media, has been taking some hits lately, pissing off judges who appear to be catching on to the game that Malibu and its lawyers (mainly Keith Lipscomb) are playing. And now, one judge is taking something of a page from that Australian court, in "allowing" Malibu Media to move forward with a case, but with a ton of restrictions to try to avoid the pure shakedown aspect of the business model (ht to Raul for the pointer).

The judge, James Bredar, in Maryland, clearly understands what Malibu Media is hoping to do: get ISPs to hand over names and contacts of a bunch of people, so that it can start bombarding them with demands for money, along with threats to "reveal" the names of embarrassing porn titles it's accusing them of downloading in the form of a lawsuit. Judge Bredar is allowing the discovery process to go on, but with restrictions to avoid the standard out-and-out shakedown game of Malibu Media. First off, before any names will be revealed to Malibu Media, all individuals must be given a chance to quash the subpoena:

After having been served with the Subpoena, the ISP will delay producing to Malibu the subpoenaed Information until after it has provided the Doe Subscriber with

Notice that this suit has been filed naming the Doe Subscriber as the one that allegedly downloaded copyright protected work;b. A copy of the Subpoena, the complaint filed in this lawsuit, and this Order;c. Notice that the ISP will comply with the Subpoena and produce to Malibu the Information sought in the Subpoena unless, within 30 days of service of the Subpoena, the Doe Subscriber files a motion to quash the Subpoena or for other appropriate relief in this Court. If a timely motion to quash is filed, the ISP shall not produce the subpoenaed Information until the Court acts on the motion.

Also, Malibu Media will need to pay all of the ISPs' costs, including attorneys' fees, and then if the subscriber does not seek to quash, the ISP will hand over the names... but, Malibu can't start shaking them down. Instead, it needs to hold the information in a confidential manner, and can only use it to file a lawsuit if it thinks it has a case -- and, even then, the name of the individual will be blacked out.

Malibu shall reimburse the ISP for its reasonable costs and expenses, including attorney's fees, associated with complying with the Subpoena and this Order. On receipt of the Information from the ISP, Malibu must mark it as "Highly Confidential," and, in the absence of further order of the Court, may only use it to determine whether, pursuant to Rule 11(b), it has sufficient information to amend the complaint to name as an individual defendant the Subscriber. Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, Malibu, its agents, representatives, and attorneys may not disclose the Information received from the ISP to any person not directly involved as an attorney in representing Malibu in this copyright infringement action relating to the Information received, except as provided below. Any person to whom the Information or its contents is disclosed shall be required to sign an agreement to be bound by the provisions of this Order, enforceable by an action for contempt, prior to being informed of the Information or its contents. Any amended complaint filed by Malibu naming an individual defendant shall be filed so that the name and any specifically identifying information is redacted from the publicly available court docket, to be replaced by first and last initials only, with an unredacted copy of the amended complaint filed under seal.

More importantly: no shakedown efforts:

Malibu is prohibited from initiating, directly or indirectly, any settlement communications with any unrepresented Doe Defendant whose identity has been revealed pursuant to the Subpoena or deposition described in paragraph 4 above. Any settlement communications with an unrepresented Doe Defendant shall be initiated only as approved by the Court. On request submitted to the Court at any time by Malibu or the Doe Subscriber, whether represented or unrepresented, settlement shall be conducted under supervision of one or more Magistrate Judges designated by the Court for this purpose. Unless otherwise ordered by the Court, any settlement negotiations shall be subject to the confidentiality provisions of Local Rule 607.4. This paragraph shall not prevent Malibu from initiating or responding to a request for settlement communications with a Doe Defendant who is represented by counsel.

In other words, the court knows what Malibu is up to and will be watching closely. It will be interesting to see if Malibu Media actually follows through or just cuts its losses and moves on to other courts with less aware judges.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, discovery, james bredar, speculative invoicing
Companies: malibu media, xart