California Court Not Yet Ready To Undermine The Entire Internet; Rules Yelp Can't Be Forced To Delete A Review

from the Section-230-not-quite-dead-yet dept

In 2016, Techdirt wrote about a troubling case, Hassell v. Bird, in which a court issued an injunction telling Yelp to delete a review after a lawyer won a default judgment in a defamation case. The court ignored that Section 230 of the CDA says that platforms like Yelp cannot be held liable (and thus can't be legally mandated) to remove content of third parties, and didn't seem to care that Yelp wasn't even a party in the case.

The good news is that Yelp won its appeal of the injunction. The bad news, though, is that it barely won, and the relatively elegant, cogent opinion finding that Section 230 prevented the injunction is tempered in its effect by only being a plurality decision: victorious in its ultimate holding only because of a concurring vote on different grounds that provided a less-than-full-throated endorsement of the plurality's conclusion.

This case began when someone, who the plaintiff Hassell believes to be Bird, had posted a critical review of the Hassell law firm on Yelp that Hassell claimed to be defamatory. Hassell sued Bird and ended up with a default judgment agreeing that it was defamatory. Hassell also got the trial court in San Francisco to issue an injunction ordering Yelp to delete the offending posts. Yelp appealed the injunction on several grounds, including that it never had a chance to be heard by the court before it issued a judgment against it, and because Section 230 should have barred it. After losing at the California Court of Appeals, the California Supreme Court agreed to take up its case, and this week it issued its ruling.

The plurality opinion, which garnered three votes, found it sufficient to invalidate the injunction entirely on Section 230 grounds without having to reach any due process consideration. It cited plenty of prior cases to support its Section 230 analysis, but spent some time discussing the holdings in three in particular: Zeran v. AOL, Kathleen R. v. City of Livermore, and Barrett v. Rosenthal [p. 14-20]. Zeran was an early case construing Section 230 that set forth why it was so important for speech and ecommerce that platforms have this statutory protection for liability arising from their users' content. Barrett v. Rosenthal was a subsequent California Supreme Court case, which similarly construed it. And Kathleen R. was a case where a California Court found that Section 230 precluded injunction relief. These and other cases underpinned the plurality's opinion.

It also made several other points in support of its Section 230 finding. One was the observation that if Section 230 couldn't prevent the non-party injunction against Yelp it would just prompt litigants to game the system by not even bothering trying to name platforms as defendants, since they'd have better luck getting injunctions against them if they did NOT try to sue them than if they did.

The question here is whether a different result should obtain because plaintiffs made the tactical decision not to name Yelp as a defendant. Put another way, we must decide whether plaintiffs’ litigation strategy allows them to accomplish indirectly what Congress has clearly forbidden them to achieve directly. We believe the answer is no. [p. 22]

And part of the reason the answer is no, is that Section 230 was never intended to only limit damages liability against a platform; it also was meant to prevent injunctions as well. [p. 26-27].

An injunction like the removal order plaintiffs obtained can impose substantial burdens on an Internet intermediary. Even if it would be mechanically simple to implement such an order, compliance still could interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform. (See Noah v. AOL Time Warner, Inc., supra, 261 F.Supp.2d at p. 540 [“in some circumstances injunctive relief will be at least as burdensome to the service provider as damages, and is typically more intrusive”].) Furthermore, as this case illustrates, a seemingly straightforward removal order can generate substantial litigation over matters such as its validity or scope, or the manner in which it is implemented. (See Barrett, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 57.) Section 230 allows these litigation burdens to be imposed upon the originators of online speech. But the unique position of Internet intermediaries convinced Congress to spare republishers of online content, in a situation such as the one here, from this sort of ongoing entanglement with the courts. [p. 28]

And it had to prevent injunctions, in order for platforms and the online speech they facilitate to be protected:

Perhaps the dissenters’ greatest error is that they fail to fully grasp how plaintiffs’ maneuver, if accepted, could subvert a statutory scheme intended to promote online discourse and industry self-regulation. What plaintiffs did in attempting to deprive Yelp of immunity was creative, but it was not difficult. If plaintiffs’ approach were recognized as legitimate, in the future other plaintiffs could be expected to file lawsuits pressing a broad array of demands for injunctive relief against compliant or default-prone original sources of allegedly tortious online content. Injunctions entered incident to the entry of judgments in these cases then would be interposed against providers or users of interactive computer services who could not be sued directly, due to section 230 immunity. As evinced by the injunction sought in Kathleen R., supra, 87 Cal.App.4th 684, which demanded nothing less than control over what local library patrons could view on the Internet (id., at p. 691), the extension of injunctions to these otherwise immunized nonparties would be particularly conducive to stifling, skewing, or otherwise manipulating online discourse — and in ways that go far beyond the deletion of libelous material from the Internet. Congress did not intend this result, any more than it intended that Internet intermediaries be bankrupted by damages imposed through lawsuits attacking what are, at their core, only decisions regarding the publication of third party content. [p. 30-21]

Unfortunately the rest of the Court was not as amenable to the plurality's application of Section 230 as a defense against the injunction. Even the concurrence by Justice Kruger, which provided the fourth vote in favor of overturning the injunction, did so, as Eric Goldman observed, with potentially some qualification of the Section 230 analysis ("I express no view on how section 230 might apply to a different request for injunctive relief based on different justifications."). [concurrence p.1]. But both the concurrence and the plurality recognized that there were problems with trying to hold a non-party platform like Yelp responsible for complying with the injunction to take down content that had also been directed to the defendant Bird. For the plurality it was a straightforward violation of Section 230.

[I]t is also true that as a general rule, when an injunction has been obtained, certain nonparties may be required to comply with its terms. But this principle does not supplant the inquiry that section 230(c)(1) requires. Parties and nonparties alike may have the responsibility to comply with court orders, including injunctions. But an order that treats an Internet intermediary “as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider” nevertheless falls within the parameters of section 230(c)(1). In substance, Yelp is being held to account for nothing more than its ongoing decision to publish the challenged reviews. Despite plaintiffs’ generic description of the obligation they would impose on Yelp, in this case this duty is squarely derived from “the mere existence of the very relationship that Congress immunized from suit.” [p. 24]

For the concurrence the platform's relationship with the defendant was too attenuated and not the sort of agency relationship where it may be proper to hold a third party responsible for complying with an injunction on another.

Plaintiffs, as well as [dissenting] Justice Liu, argue that the injunction naming Yelp is valid because it merely makes explicit that Yelp, as an entity “through” whom Bird acts, is obligated to carry out the injunction on her behalf. But the trial court made no finding that Bird acts, or has ever acted, “through” Yelp in the sense relevant under Berger, nor does the record contain any such indication; we have no facts before us to suggest that Yelp is Bird’s “agent” or “servant.” It is true and undisputed, as plaintiffs and Justice Liu emphasize, that Bird’s statements were posted on Yelp’s website with Yelp’s permission. And as a practical matter, Yelp has the technological ability to remove the reviews from the site. These facts might well add up (at least absent section 230) to a good argument for filing suit against Yelp and seeking an injunctive remedy in the ordinary course of litigation. But the question presented here is whether these facts establish the sort of legal identity between Bird and Yelp that would justify binding Yelp, as a nonparty, to the outcome of litigation in which it had no meaningful opportunity to participate. Without more, I do not see how they could. [concurrence p. 7]

The plurality also rejected the theory raised by the trial court and pushed by the dissent that the platform had somehow "aided and abetted" the defamatory speech. If this argument could prevail, Section 230 would become a nullity, since every platform enables user expression, and not all that expression is necessarily entirely legal.

In his dissent, Justice Cuéllar argues that even if the injunction cannot on its face command Yelp to remove the reviews, the removal order nevertheless could run to Yelp through Bird under an aiding and abetting theory premised on conduct that remains inherently that of a publisher. (See dis. opn. of Cuéllar, J., post, at pp. 3, 20-22, 34-37.) We disagree. As applied to such behavior, Justice Cuéllar’s approach would simply substitute one end-run around section 230 immunity for another. [p. 25]

The dissenting opinions, on the other hand, were very focused on the plight of the plaintiff who had apparently been injured by these purportedly defamatory posts. (I say "purportedly," because although the Supreme Court decision does not spend much time on this issue, it's worth noting that the conclusion of the posts' defamatory nature was drawn from an ex parte default proceeding at the trial court where no defense was supplied. It is certainly easier for a court to accept a plaintiff's characterization of language as defamatory when there is no one present – even Yelp was left out – to show that it is not.) As we've seen in cases like Garcia v. Google, the operation of Section 230 can make it difficult for a legitimately aggrieved plaintiff to obtain a remedy against someone who has defamed them. But it isn't necessarily impossible, and the plurality reminded everyone that Hassell was not without any recourse:

On this last point, we observe that plaintiffs still have powerful, if uninvoked, remedies available to them. Our decision today leaves plaintiffs’ judgment intact insofar as it imposes obligations on Bird. Even though neither plaintiffs nor Bird can force Yelp to remove the challenged reviews, the judgment requires Bird to undertake, at a minimum, reasonable efforts to secure the removal of her posts. A failure to comply with a lawful court order is a form of civil contempt (Code Civ. Proc., §1209, subd. (a)(5)), the consequences of which can include imprisonment (see In re Young (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1052, 1054). Much of the dissents’ rhetoric regarding the perceived injustice of today’s decision assumes that plaintiffs’ remaining remedies will be ineffective. One might more readily conclude that the prospect of contempt sanctions would resonate with a party who, although not appearing below, has now taken the step of filing an amicus curiae brief with this court. [p. 32]

Perhaps this is the most important passage in the whole opinion. It's become really popular especially as of late to try to make platforms responsible for everything their users do. It's good to have courts remind us that it's the people who do the things who really should be held accountable instead.

Filed Under: california, cda 230, dawn hassell, defamation, free speech, injunctions, section 230
Companies: yelp

Threats To Pull Database Access Increasing Misuse Reporting By Cali Law Enforcement Agencies

from the still-more-to-be-done,-unfortunately dept

Who polices the police? They can't be trusted to do it themselves. This much has been proven time and time again as misconduct and criminal behavior is greeted with minimal discipline or graceful exits that allow bad apples to move from barrel to barrel spreading rot.

What oversight actually exists tends to be beholden to law enforcement. In a few cases, truly independent oversight boards are in place, but their efforts are blunted by agencies that rarely hand out the punishment boards recommend or otherwise do everything they can to ensure this oversight is starved for information.

In California -- much like in other states -- abuse of law enforcement databases remains a problem. The EFF has been focusing on this state's efforts to curb abuse, raising it above the zero effort previously expended. This is, unfortunately, possibly one of the better years on record in California, and it still looks like this:

The records obtained by EFF show a total of 143 violations of database rules—the equivalent of an invasion of privacy every two and half days.

These numbers represent the first comprehensive accounting of misuse of the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (CLETS). While the acronym is not well known by the public, everyone with a driver’s license or criminal record has information accessible through CLETS. Police and other public safety employees access this sensitive information approximately 2.8 million times a day during the regular course of business.

The EFF's efforts led to a reform effort by the state's Attorney General. New rules were handed down by the California DOJ mandating reporting on misuse of law enforcement databases. The AG swore to "proactively enforce this requirement," and it appears to be having a positive effect.

In 2017, only 704 agencies disclosed these records—approximately 53% compliance. Following an overhaul of the oversight system, in 2018 the Attorney General gathered information from 1,285 agencies—98 percent compliance.

The teeth in the mandate are linked to database access. Failure to comply means revoked access department-wide. Local law enforcement officials aren't going to want to have to hold press conferences explaining their inability to close investigations or whatever because their database access has been severed for refusing to report misuse.

But that's not the end of the line for the state AG. Compliance is way up, but there appears to be some under-reporting occurring. The EFF reports the LAPD -- which has blown off reporting for years -- finally started turning in numbers, but the reporting is beyond belief. The LAPD claims it only had to investigate misuse three times in 2017. This means one of two things: the LAPD's employees are among the finest and most honest in the United States, or lots of misuse is going un-investigated or unreported.

The AG needs to follow up with agencies to ensure the reported numbers are accurate and that investigations are prompt and thorough. Otherwise, it will be tempting for agencies to just hand in their homework every year without making any real changes to discourage misuse of law enforcement databases.

Filed Under: california, clets, database, law enforcement, privacy

Lobbyists Descend On California To Shape A Rushed New Privacy Law

from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept

Last year, the GOP and Trump administration used the Congressional Review Act to dismantle FCC consumer broadband privacy protections before they could take effect last March. While AT&T and Comcast whined incessantly about the rules, the FCC's guidelines were relatively modest; they required that ISPs and mobile carriers be transparent about what data is being collected and sold, and get express consumer opt-in consent before ISPs can share more private financial or location data. Such rules could have gone a long way in protecting consumers in the wake of the recent Securus and Locationsmart location data scandals.

Following the ISP-funded attack on FCC authority and consumer protections, states have begun exploring their own privacy protections (mirroring what we're also seeing on the net neutrality front). For example, California last year considered passing a state-level copy of the FCC's gutted privacy rules. But those efforts hit a political brick wall thanks to the collective lobbying muscle of Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Google and Facebook, which killed that effort by lying repeatedly about what the proposal actually did, including claims the proposal would "aid extremism."

Verizon and Facebook both pretended to back away from those attacks once their efforts gained press exposure, but those promises don't appear to be worth much.

In the wake of the successful attack on FCC privacy rules, California privacy advocates have been pushing a new ballot initiative, this time dubbed the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. The initiative would require that companies be fully transparent about what data is being collected and sold (and to whom), as well as mandating mandatory opt-out tools. The proposal goes further than the FCC's discarded rules, in that it would ban ISPs from trying to charge consumers more for privacy, something that has already been previously implemented by AT&T and considered by Comcast.

The new initiative is scheduled to appear on this November's ballot, and Google, Facebook, and large ISPs are once again working in concert to ensure that doesn't happen ahead of a looming Thursday afternoon deadline. They're collectively now pushing for quickly-hacked together "compromise legislation," AB 375, they're hoping will be significantly weaker than the looming November ballot initiative.

"In addition to Facebook, Google, AT&T, Microsoft, Amazon, Verizon, and the California New Car Dealers Association have each contributed six figure donations to the Chamber account set up to defeat CCPA. Uber, the Data & Marketing Association, Cox Communications, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau have each contributed $50,000 to the account, according to disclosures."

Recall, Facebook recently made a big show earlier this year about how it wouldn't be working to undermine such privacy proposals in the wake of the Cambridge scandal:

"The inclusion of a Facebook representative is notable, given the company’s well-publicized announcement earlier this year that it would end its opposition to the initiative. In February, the company provided $200,000 to an account set up by the California Chamber of Commerce designed to defeat the CCPA initiative. But in April, following revelations about the extent to which British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica provided the Donald Trump campaign with illicit access to Facebook user data, Facebook announced that it would withdraw its opposition to CCPA and not provide additional funding to the Chamber account."

As the GDPR clearly illustrates, there's some real peril in pushing through solutions before ironing out all of the potential pitfalls. Both the scotch-taped together AB 375 and the California Consumer Privacy Act (a pet side project of San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart) have some notable problems that would have been aided by a longer, more transparent and inclusive discussion. Though the problems with AB 375 (which, again, if passed would eliminate the latter from contention) are notably worse, in large part because the bill was quickly cobbled together in just under a week behind closed doors:

"By tomorrow, the California legislature likely will pass a sweeping, lengthy, overly-complicated, and poorly-constructed privacy law that will have ripple effects throughout the world. While not quite as comprehensive as the GDPR, it copies some aspects of the GDPR and will squarely impact every Internet service in California (some of whom may be not currently be complying GDPR due to their US-only operations). The GDPR took 4 years to develop; in contrast, the California legislature will spend a grand total of 7 days working on this major bill."

Not only was AB 375 a rush job, the bill has been steadily eroded since introduction by this super group of telecom and Silicon Valley lobbying giants. AB 375 just passed out of the out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, meaning it's most likely going to be the California privacy proposal of choice. And the fact that it's a rush job is not apparently of much concern to the bill's backer:

"Assemblyman Ed Chau, an Arcadia Democrat and the chief bill author, said he doesn't like the rushed process forced by the ballot measure deadline, but he stressed that his bill gives Californians important privacy protections."

With that mindset, it's easy to wind up with a privacy law that sounds good ("look ma, I "fixed" privacy!") but doesn't actually do anything. And when you've got lobbyists from AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft disproportionally dictating the overall trajectory of the law, the chances that you're going to end up with weak-kneed "privacy rules" in name only is pretty monumental. Adding speed for speed's sake -- combined with an overall lack of transparency -- only adds to the potential that the rules you end up with are toothless or packed with unintended consequences.

That said, doing nothing isn't an option. This isn't a problem that magically fixes itself.

Modern consumer privacy oversight in the internet-era currently consists of little more than pinky swears and winks, a point driven home repeatedly by the Cambridge, LocationSmart and Securus scandals. We need to have a lengthy, transparent, adult conversation about what a potential solution might look like. The problem is that the larger companies dictating the conversation have an absolutely abysmal track record on these issues, so while they may have valuable insight on the complicated scope of a particular proposal's impact, they've managed, repeatedly, to shoot their credibility squarely in the foot on this subject.

And while ISPs and Silicon Valley giants like to go on at length about how they're "open to having a conversation" about more meaningful privacy guidelines, the reality is that most of these larger companies simply aren't. Any rules worth their salt will cost them money, since an informed, empowered consumer is more likely to opt-out of data monetization schemes, whatever they look like. As a result, you'll be hard-pressed to find many large ISPs or Silicon Valley giants willing to back truly tough consumer protections, especially rules than mandate express, opt-in consumer consent for things like location or financial data.

Eventually, after we've suffered through a few more hacks, breaches and major scandals, some of these companies may shift their thinking toward the idea that compliance with quality, even-handed rules is more profitable than chaos. But as the ham fisted repeal of the FCC privacy rules makes clear, we're nowhere near that point yet. Meanwhile, on the federal level, the Trump administration is rumored to be considering a broad new privacy plan. And if the administration's equally heavy-handed net neutrality repeal is any indication, objectivity, hard data and transparency aren't likely to have much of a seat at the table there, either.

Filed Under: california, gdpr, laws, lobbyists, privacy, rush, transparency
Companies: at&t, comcast, facebook, google

California's Quest For Tough Net Neutrality Not Dead Yet

from the try-and-try-again dept

Last week, AT&T won another major victory for itself by scuttling California's attempt to pass tough new net neutrality rules. The proposed law, pushed by State Senator Scott Wiener, was heralded by the EFF as a good state-level proposal that eliminated a lot of the loopholes in the FCC's now-discarded 2015 rules. But AT&T and Comcast lobbyists convinced California Assemblyman Miguel Santiago to introduce a series of last-minute secretive Tuesday night amendments gutting numerous, essential components of the bill. Those amendments were then quickly rushed through a vote without any debate.

Wiener initially pulled his bill, arguing it no longer protected consumers. But he has since indicated that he plans to spend this week working with Santiago to see if they can resolve their differences:

"We've agreed to make a good faith effort to make amendments to the bill in order to pass strong net neutrality," he said in an interview. "But as I've made clear in the past, there are some protections that must be in the bill. Without them, this would not be real net neutrality."

Needless to say, Santiago, a consistent recipient of AT&T campaign cash, has since been widely vilified by net neutrality activists. And for good reason; not only did Santiago help circulate misleading, AT&T-backed studies ahead of the vote (one tried to claim that AT&T's anti-competitive abuse of usage caps would somehow aid minority communities), he tried to railroad the bill changes through without any meaningful dialogue, while hiding from numerous reporters trying to shine some light on his proposed changes the evening before the vote.

After taking a press beating for much of last week, Santiago issued a statement that tried to spin what happened, claiming he was just following procedure in a quest for a "serious policy conversation":

"I laud the Senator's passion, his drive, and the integrity of his work. As Chair of the Committee, I wanted to engage in a serious policy conversation and deliver a bill that could withstand legal challenges from the telecommunications industry – an industry that sued to block implementation of the 2015 FCC Order implemented under President Obama; most definitely an industry that will sue to block implementation of landmark net neutrality protections in California."

So one, the bill in question was already resilient to ISP lawsuit, that was the whole reason the EFF backed this version and not a weaker, earlier incarnation. And again, by "serious policy conversation" Santiago means rushing through numerous terrible amendments (amendments only the ISP industry had been asking for) without any conversation whatsoever. For his part, Santiago then spent some time complaining that he and his family received death threats from net neutrality advocates angry at his attempt to neuter the bill without any substantive dialogue:

"All through this time, the flash messaging on this measure has been easy. It’s sensational, and anger-inducing. “He gutted the bill!” “SB 822 was eviscerated!” “Santiago killed net neutrality!” But none of those things are true. That level of rhetoric has created a firestorm. I have received threats and my wife has been harassed. My personal family pictures have been stolen from my social media platforms and used to create memes. Really? Using pictures of my kids? This is a new low. Progressives don’t behave that way. We expect this type of disrespect, fake news, and insults from Trump -- not those who support dignity and progressive values."

So one, it should go without saying that threatening a lawmaker or his family for tech policy is just stupid. It's something we also saw with Ajit Pai, and it's not helping anyone. In fact, it simply makes the problem worse by shifting the conversation away from policy, cronyism, regulatory capture and corruption, and toward the idea that these lawmakers are the unfair victims of entirely-unreasonable hordes of mean activists.

That said, those lobbing these kinds of threats are in the vast, vast minority. And lawmakers bear some responsibility for the backlash by engaging in the tech policy equivalent of a giant middle finger aimed squarely at already-angry consumers. Survey after survey shows massive, overwhelming bipartisan support for net neutrality, yet time and time again lawmakers tasked with representing the people keep siding with some of the most-hated, least-competitive companies in America on issues that will shape the internet for decades. Downplaying that anger only adds insult to injury.

For what it's worth, Wiener seems hopeful that his bill isn't dead, and debate should be occurring as of this writing. That said, Wiener's also well aware that if he can't get the bill past Santiago with important restrictions on things like zero rating and interconnection intact, he'll likely have to try again post midterms:

"...if a deal still can't be hammered out, Wiener said net neutrality will have to wait until next year. But he said Californians need those protections now, especially since the FCC's rules have officially come off the books and AT&T has completed its megamerger with Time Warner.

"We are in the danger zone," he said. "If I am forced to pull the bill and try again next year I will. But we don't have time. We need to pass a strong net neutrality bill this year."

Since net neutrality violations are just a symptom of limited competition (a problem most in government refuse to acknowledge even exists, much less want to fix) this isn't a fight that's going to end anytime soon. In fact, by the railroading of federal rules and consumer opinion, ISPs have only really galvanized the opposition, ensuring a tougher fight ahead and a backlash that's going to reverberate in tech policy circles for the better part of the next decade. Should voters dramatically reshape the political field in the midterm and thereafter, AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Charter aren't going to enjoy the end result.

Filed Under: california, miguel santiago, net neutrality, scott weiner
Companies: at&t, comcast

Lawsuit Argues Honking Your Car Horn Is Protected By The First Amendment

from the #LEGALIZEIT dept

The First Amendment covers a whole lot of area. Since it covers "expression," it doesn't necessarily have to be anything commonly thought of as "speech." It doesn't have to be printed. It doesn't have to be said. Lighting a flag on fire requires no statement of intent. The act itself is expressive enough. Passively gathering information (like recordings or public records) is protected by the First Amendment. Taking photos is a protected act, even if the photos are never used to express anything more than a memory of an event or place.

It has been argued nudity or partially-exposed bodies are expressions deserving of protection by the First Amendment. Exotic dancers and "bikini barristas" have engaged in multiple free speech lawsuits targeting allegedly unconstitutional restrictions on their expressive conduct.

A plaintiff currently suing a sheriff and the head of the California Highway Patrol is arguing that honking a car horn is protected speech and that the citation she received after engaging in this expression is unconstitutional. (via Courthouse News)

Susan Porter was driving by a protest held outside of Rep. Darrell Issa's office. These frequent demonstrations gathered both protesters and counter-protesters, all of who made plenty of noise. Passing traffic would express their support/displeasure for Issa by honking their horns. (Which would make not honking your horn similarly protected expression, although it's unlikely anyone would be cited for not honking their horn while driving by a protest.)

The demonstation briefly attended by Porter drew the attention of local law enforcement, who showed up to hand out citations to protesters. Porter was parked in a nearby parking lot. When the cops showed up, Porter decided to clear out. As she drove away past the protesters and newly-arrived law enforcement officers, she sent off one last car horn blast of support. Cue unneeded officer involvement. From the lawsuit [PDF]:

After Ms. Porter sounded her horn in support of the protest, Sheriff's Deputy K. Klein ("Deputy Klein"), ID. Number 7275, directed Ms. Porter to pull over.

Deputy Klein told Ms. Porter she was pulled over for sounding her vehicle horn, and issued her a citation for alleged violation of Vehicle Code 27001, which states that "[t]he driver of a motor vehicle when reasonably necessary to insure safe operation shall give audible warning with his horn," but "[t]he horn shall not otherwise be used, except as a theft alarm system" (emphasis added). Cal. Veh. Code 27001.

Section 27001 does not require that the use of a horn meet any specified noise level, disturb the peace, distract drivers or pedestrians, or endanger safety.

[...]

Ms. Porter's citation… states that the citation was for violation of "27001(A) cvc [sic] -- unreasonable use of horn" and contains no allegations as to noise level, disturbing the peace, distracting drivers or pedestrians, or endangering safety.

It looks like Deputy Klein didn't like being honked at (though he wasn't) by some protester slipping away from the scene of the crime in her vehicle and tagged her with a "don't fuck [with] the police" ticket. I'm sure he never expected his department would be named in a civil rights lawsuit, but that's the sort of thing that happens when the law is used in ways it shouldn't be. If these law enforcement officers were that concerned about horn noise, all they had to do was camp out outside Issa's office and hand out horn tickets all day long. But law enforcement is never about consistent enforcement. It's highly selective and sometimes the law that ends up being enforced isn't the one officers had in mind when they initiated the stop. (But that's a completely different amendment.)

In this case, her honked horn wasn't a violation of the law, but rather her way of "convey[ing] a message of support for the protest." But it was also a violation of the law, if officers wanted to get technical. And Deputy Klein certainly did.

Selective enforcement of seldom-enforced laws around demonstrations and protests is a great way to rack up civil liberties violations and their attendant lawsuits. Porter claims the deputy's decision to enforce the states horn ordinance out of the blue creates a chilling effect for politically-inclined drivers like herself.

Ms. Porter regularly drives her vehicle in areas of San Diego County and the State of California where the Sheriff's Department or California Highway Patrol is responsible for traffic enforcement.

In driving her vehicle in those areas, Ms. Porter observes rallies, protests, demonstrations, or other events for which she would like to express her support through use of her vehicle horn.

Given the citation issued to her and her knowledge of the statute, Ms. Porter reasonably fears that the Sheriff's Department or California Highway Patrol will enforce section 27001 against her if she uses her vehicle horn for such expressive purposes.

As a result, Ms. Porter is censoring herself by refraining from using her vehicle horn for expressive purposes, including but not limited to expressing support for political protests, rallies, or demonstrations.

It seems like a ridiculous legal hill to die on, but it does raise a valid point: if officers are going to use a horn ordinance to selectively punish supporters of certain causes, the state is basically placing itself between residents and their ability (however limited its usefulness in this particular application) to petition their government.

This will make for an interesting case. Porter isn't alleging anything but an ongoing First Amendment controversy due to the state's restriction on horn use. The state will likely claim the public is served by a law that discourages people from blowing their horns whenever they damn well please, but those arguments are going to sound kind of ridiculous when actually verbalized. Is a law really necessary to keep horns from blaring constantly? Or has it long been accepted horns do double-duty as expressive speech, delivering pithy messages like "You suck at driving," "You suck in general," "Your ride is here," and "I heartily approve/disapprove of this issue being debated freely in the marketplace of ideas, which is apparently located at Rep. Issa's office at the moment."

Whatever the basis for the law, it was pretty clearly used here to express a law enforcement officer's distaste for the message conveyed by Porter, even if the message the deputy received was "I support the people you're currently citing for other legal violations," rather than the one Porter intended to send. Since it would be almost impossible to carve out a protest-only waiver on horn restrictions, the court either has to find the law unconstitutional in whole or decide it can be selectively used to punish ostensibly political speech. However it decides to handle this, it should be a fun case to watch.

Filed Under: california, chp, first amendment, free speech, honking horns, susan porter

California's Tough New Net Neutrality Law Takes Another Step Forward

from the you-made-this dept

In the wake of the Trump FCC's attack on net neutrality last December (which formally takes effect on June 11), more than half the states in the country are now exploring their own net neutrality rules. Some states (like Oregon and Washington) have passed state laws, while others (like New York and Montana) have embraced new executive orders that limit ISP ability to strike state contracts if they violate net neutrality. All told, it's not exactly the outcome AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast lobbyists were hoping for, and it's a pretty solid indication they really didn't think this entire thing through particularly well.

But at the moment, most eyes rest on California, where one of the tougher new state-level replacement laws just took a major step forward.

Senator Scott Wiener’s SB 822 would prevent ISPs in California from engaging in blocking, throttling, or paid prioritization. The EFF has called the bill the "gold standard" for state-level net neutrality law. The proposal actually goes a bit further than the FCC rules it's intended to replace, in part because it more tightly polices things like zero rating and usage caps, which have long been used anti-competitively by incumbent ISPs as a way to make life more difficult for companies trying to elbow in on traditional TV revenues.

Despite a major push by industry lobbyists, SB 822 last week was approved 23-12 by the California Senate and will now head to the state Assembly (sometime before the end of this month). If it passes there, it will be on to the desk of Governor Jerry Brown for signing.

California's law will be one to watch. Comcast, AT&T and Verizon successfully lobbied the Trump FCC to include language in their net neutrality repeal attempting to ban states from protecting broadband consumers, language companies like Charter are already using to try and tap dance out of lawsuits for substandard service. But the FCC's authority here is shaky, and some legal experts (like Stanford Professor Barbara van Schewick) have argued that when the FCC rolled back its Title II authority over ISPs, it also dismantled its right to tell these states what to do:

"The bill is on firm legal ground.

While the FCC’s 2017 Order explicitly bans states from adopting their own net neutrality laws, that preemption is invalid. According to case law, an agency that does not have the power to regulate does not have the power to preempt. That means the FCC can only prevent the states from adopting net neutrality protections if the FCC has authority to adopt net neutrality protections itself.

But by re-classifying ISPs as information services under Title I of the Communications Act and re-interpreting Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act as a mission statement rather than an independent grant of authority, the FCC has deliberately removed all of its sources of authority that would allow it to adopt net neutrality protections. The FCC’s Order is explicit on this point. Since the FCC’s 2017 Order removed the agency’s authority to adopt net neutrality protections, it doesn’t have authority to prevent the states from doing so, either."

ISPs have promised to "aggressively sue" any states that try to pass rules protecting net neutrality or broadband consumer privacy. And while this will only disgust the majority of Americans even more, the combination of limited competition and rubber stamp regulators like Ajit Pai means there's not much in the way of punishment for the tech policy equivalent of giving a giant middle finger to the nation's consumers, small businesses, and healthy competition.

Filed Under: california, fcc, net neutrality, scott wiener

Mugshots.com Operators Arrested For Letting Money Influence Editorial Decisions

from the using-poor-inferences-to-unconstitutionally-prevent-other-poor-inferences dept

Earlier this month Ars Technica reported on the arrest of the alleged operators of Mugshots.com, a website that does what it says on the tin: hosts mugshots. The issue is, the site operators didn't just host mugshots; they also charged people to have their mugshots removed from the site through a companion site, Unpublisharrest.com.

Assuming the arrest warrant is fairly stating things, the site's operators may not have had the best of intentions in running their site the way they did. According to the facts alleged they were more interested in making money by charging people to have their pictures removed from their site than in serving as any sort of public records archive.

But it shouldn't matter why they pursued the editorial policy that they did. First of all, mugshots are generally public records, and for good reason. As South Dakota's attorney general Mark Jackley noted last year, when South Dakota declared them to be public records:

"The release of criminal booking photographs to the public will result in greater transparency in the criminal process, enhance public safety, and will further assist the media and the public in the proper identification of individuals in the criminal process."

People are ordinarily allowed to share public records on their websites, just as they may share any other lawful information. People are also free to be arbitrary and capricious in how they choose what information to share. They are even free to be financially motivated in making those decisions.

But according to authorities in California, if the decision on what information to share is linked to a profit incentive (from the arrest warrant: "The motive behind posting the damaging material is financial gain."), and that information is a mugshot, you go to jail. In the case of the Mugshots.com operators, authorities have predicated their arrest on some alarming statutory language:

As of January 1, 2015, California Civil Code Section 1798.91 .1, Subdivision makes it unlawful for any person engaged in publishing or otherwise disseminating a booking photograph through a print or electronic medium to solicit, require, or accept the payment of a fee or other consideration from a subject individual to remove, correct, modify, or to refrain from publishing or otherwise disseminating that booking photograph. By posting the booking photograph online, and requiring a fee to have it removed, the owners and operators of Mugshots.com and Unpublisharrest.com are operating their websites for an unlawful purpose.

In addition, the authorities construed what the operators of Mugshots.com did as identity theft:

California Penal Code Section 530.5 defines identify theft, stating: "Every person who willfully obtains personal identifying information . . . of another person, and uses that information for any unlawful purpose. . . without the consent of that person, is guilty of a public offense. Section 530.55 identifies a 'person' as a natural person, firm, company, corporation or any other legal entity. The section defines 'personal identifying information' as any 'name, address . . . or other unique physical representation.' Because Mugshots.com and Unpublisharrest.com have used, and continue to use, the booking photographs and PII of individuals for purposes of selling the service of removing the photographs and information, the owners are in violation of California Penal Code Section 530.5, identity theft, a felony."

Taken together, the arrest warrant concludes, the site operators are guilty of extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion. But to prove extortion prosecutors must show that the accused threatened a victim either with violence, the accusation of a crime, or the exposure of a secret, if they didn't pay the accused. Yet the defendants are accused of none of these things. Not only is there no issue of threatened violence, but what the site operators are alleged to have done in no way involves revealing a secret or accusing another of a crime. Instead it is the state that has already accused the site operators' purported "victims" of a crime, and its having done so is no secret. The state's accusation against these people became public when it originally released the mugshots, meaning there is nothing that the site operators could have been threatening to reveal that wasn't already revealed.

This apparently sloppy reading of the extortion statute, compounded with the 2015 statutory language giving mugshots a sort of magical status that prevents them from being treated as an ordinary public record, represents a chilling incursion on protected First Amendment activity. It's one thing to impose liability for publishing content that isn't lawful, perhaps because it's defamatory, infringing, or somehow intrinsically wrongful unto itself. But it's another thing entirely to impose liability for publishing content that is entirely lawful – especially, as in this case, when it is not only lawful but a public record.

California authorities would likely argue that the prosecution is not about liability for speech, but liability arising from the decisions about what speech got spoken. (Or, more particular to this case, remained spoken, for the state is not prosecuting the site operators for having posted the mugshots in the first place.) But this is a distinction without a difference. Indeed, decisions about what we choose to say can be as expressive as anything we actually do say. The government ordinarily does not get to come in and force us to make those decisions in any particular way. Freedom of expression means that we are at liberty to decide what to say, and then what not to say, for whatever reason we might decide. Even when these expressive choices are guided by a profit motive.

Were that not the case, think of how chilling it would be to profit-driven news media if their editorial decisions had to be free from any financial concern in order to retain First Amendment protection. Even in terms of mugshots themselves, think about how chilling it would be if others could not freely use them to tell us about the world around us, if there was money to be made in the process. As case in point, the very same week the arrest warrant was used to extradite the site operators back to California, the New York Times ran a story about the efforts of journalist and photographer Eric Etheridge to document the lives of Freedom Riders.

Among the important artifacts of this historic campaign are more than 300 mug shots taken of the Freedom Riders in Jackson, now the subject of “Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders” (Vanderbilt University Press). In it, the journalist and photographer Eric Etheridge provides visual and oral histories of these courageous men and women, juxtaposing vintage mug shots with short biographies, interviews and contemporary portraits. Originally published in 2008, this expanded edition, with updated profiles and additional portraits…

It is a book that is for sale, so it would seem there is a profit motive somewhere. But consider whether this important historical work could be released if authorities in California – or, perhaps more saliently, in Mississippi, where the mugshots are from – could scrutinize the expressive decisions that went into the book's use of the pictures because it profited from that use.

Yet that's what the California authorities have decided they are entitled to do with the Mugshots.com site. The arrest warrant is dismissive towards the free speech interests of the site's operators, accusing them of "using freedom of speech theories in justifying the activity." Of course, that's what the First Amendment is for, to protect expressive activities that authorities do not like. And authorities really don't like what happened here.

As noted above, the optics in this case are not great. People felt desperate to have their mugshots removed from the Internet, and the site operators profited from that desperation. It feels criminal, but just because they may have had nefarious intent does not mean that they committed a crime. Just reading about the arrest brought to mind the Monty Python sketch where a bunch of gangsters connived a devious plot to go to a jeweler's to obtain an expensive watch - that they paid for.

Sure, it looks like they are up to no good, but to determine whether a crime has been committed we can't just consider how it looks. We have to look closely at the underlying lawfulness of the activity, not the optics surrounding it, and for the very same reason that California authorities are now interested in policing the use of mugshots: to prevent unwarranted inferences of criminal culpability. As the New York Times wrote about the Freedom Riders book:

If these mug shots inadvertently captured the humanity and special qualities of their principled subjects, as Mr. Etheridge observed, their intention was nefarious: to publicly impugn and humiliate people whose only crime was to advocate equality through peaceful protest. No matter their purpose, mug shots inevitably imply aberrance or delinquency, whether or not the people they depict are eventually found to be guilty.

But that's what the California prosecutors have done: impute "aberrance or delinquency" to draw unwarranted inferences about criminal culpability from an act that the law cannot constitutionally criminalize. This inference has already been used to strip the site operators of their constitutional right to express themselves anonymously due to at least three search warrants that were served on their service providers. These warrants were issued upon probable cause, but the only probable cause that can be construed here is that the site operators engaged in expressive activity authorities did not like. Efforts by these authorities to now extradite, further prosecute, and potentially leave the site operators vulnerable to civil damages should not be cheered by anyone who might prefer not to experience the same as a result of their own lawful expression.

Filed Under: california, editorial choices, extortion, first amendment, free speech, mugshots, public records
Companies: mugshots.com