Gun Manufacturer Files Highly Speculative Lawsuit Against Forum Owners For Allegedly Libelous Statements

from the I've-got-plenty-of-hearsay-and-conjecture;-those-are-FORMS-of-evidence dept

COMES NOW... another lawsuit from an aggrieved business targeting negative reviews. There are some cases where this is the correct response, but those cases are far, far fewer than the number of lawsuits actually filed.

This lawsuit, filed by high-end rifle manufacturer Tactical Rifles, Inc. (TRI) apparently targets a negative review given to it by one of the forum members of Snipers Hide, a site dedicated to the coverage (and discussion) of long-range guns.

This is the post indirectly referenced by Orlando Law Group's meandering filing. The poster, Jeff Stevens, apparently ordered a rifle from Tactical Rifles which arrived so screwed up that he had to spend $1,400 to get it back to "working order."

I will let the video tell the rest of the story; it is not pretty. By the time it was done I had about $1,400.00 with parts and labor to make it right. After the work was done I sent the company rep a nasty gram with the link to the video you have here and figured he owed me about $ 900.00 for the machine work that Mark performed. I did not here [sic] a response so I contacted him by phone to get his response and he hung up on me. Ok my friend, that's not a problem, just thought I would get the word out about these guys.

Here's the video, which appears to have been made by Jeff Stevens. For some reason, the lawsuit claims Marc Soulie, who repaired the rifle (and runs Spartan Precision Rifles) made it, but the video description is written in a first-person perspective. ("I had them build me a platform in the below link on a Remington 700 action. I received the rifle and noticed little chips on the stock around the barrel and a few blemishes in certain areas...")

(As a commenter points out below, this video was most likely created by Marc Soulie of Spartan Precision Rifles as he prepared to fix the issues with Jeff Stevens' rifle purchased from TRI.)

This is the "nastygram" fired off by Stevens after shelling out $1,400 to fix a gun that should have been usable out of the box. (Included as Exhibit A in Tactical Rifles' filing.)

This is Jeff Stevens I had you build me a rifle 4 years ago, you know the one that came with the bent scope base and the stock with all the chips. And when I confronted you on it you told me you build shooters not pretty rifles, yea you know me remember. Well funny as it may be that shitty little short trigger you installed on the rifle the one you could not even get a 90 degree trigger finger on and clear the badger bolt knob had to be replaced, I could not deal with it. So I contacted a local builder a real precision rifle builder to install a timmney trigger and guess what we found while we were inside, the link is below.

From what I gather you owe me about $966.56 in a precision rifle you were supposed to supply me in my original purchase. You have 2 days to contact me about the matter and get it resolved and if we can't resolve it I am going to go public with the youtube link and then I am going to post on all the major shooting forums. I am going to start with Snipershide. Frank Galli personally watched the video and he could not believe you call that a precision rifle product. Well Mr Rooney I told you what comes around goes around you know the karma thing, it's here. Two Days.

This "nastygram," coupled with the attached forwarded email from Marc Soulie (stating that he was attaching a final estimate and the above video) are the basis for this bizarre lawsuit, which lists a variety of accusations that can't be easily proven, along with making the claim that Soulie's email somehow suggests he knowingly posted false information about Tactical Rifles. It also uses slander and libel interchangeably and throws in "assault" for good measure.

MARC SOULIE has posted false information on Snipers Hide, Inc.'s website. He admitted that he has done so in the email attached as Exhibit A.

SNIPERS HIDE, LLC. is a Colorado Corporation which runs a web forum where people can comment about rifles.

FRANK GALLI is the owner of SNIPERS HIDE, LLC.

TACTICAL RIFLES' Snipers Hide account was deleted to prevent it from responding to the outrageous lies made on the forum. Attempts to set up a new acct have been denied by FRANK GALLI.

FRANK GALLI also allows companies who provide him free merchandise to maintain multiple screen names for the purpose of slandering any competitor companies like TACTICAL RIFLES, INC. These screen names pretend to be dissatisfied customers of TACTICAL RIFLES, INC. Positive comments are deleted by GALLI and the posters are threatened with expulsion and banning for life if they post anything further about TACTICAL RIFLES, INC. which basically bans free unbiased speech on his forum.

Where to start…

First off, Soulie's email says nothing of the sort. Here's his email in full (included in Exhibit A).

Hi Jeff,

Here is the final estimate and link to video documentation. Right now this link is private. Let me know if you want it to be made public.

At no point does anyone (Soulie or Stevens) even suggest the information being posted is false. This appears to be complete speculation (or wishful thinking) from TRI. From there it wanders off into more allegations that will be very difficult to substantiate. Perhaps TRI is hoping it will be equally hard for the three defendants to prove otherwise. If so, TRI's legal rep seems to have forgotten that the plaintiff bears most of the burden of proof. Unless TRI is sitting on a pile of screenshots that clearly implicate Galli and Snipers Hide, there's nothing in its single exhibit that even comes close to proving that allegation, never mind the entirety of its claims.

Moving on:

Defendant created and published a false video and then made comments on website Snipers Hide.

The postings contain false accusations that are libelous on their face.

Once again, TRI makes no attempt to back up its "fake video" assertions, apparently relying on the court to somehow read into Soulie's words something that's clearly not there. Then TRI goes further, claiming the "false accusations" are so clearly libelous that it doesn't even need to prove they're libelous. Somehow, TRI's legal rep feels the statements are so obviously libelous that she doesn't even need to cite any of them in her filing or even specify which "clearly libelous" posts should be removed.

As for the posts themselves, those that I've come across are presented in a very straightforward manner. They are, however, written in a markedly restrained way that seems to indicate trashing TRI had gotten out of hand at Snipers Hide in the past. If there's something more libelous out there, then presumably TRI has already collected it as evidence. But there's nothing in the filing that indicates it's building this case on anything more than a single (supposedly) damning email and a whole lot of conjecture.

TRI is also seeking an injunction against the defendants to prevent further derogatory posts and demands the removal of current, allegedly libelous posts related to TRI. Again, the filing fails to indicate which posts offend and should be removed, leaving TRI's perception of libel (or slander, as the lawsuit uses interchangeably) to the reader's imagination. The filing also makes tortious interference claims against both Mark Soulie (as a rival gunmaker) and co-defendant Frank Galli (as a "friend" of a rival gunmaker), claiming that they both contributed libelous statements that damaged TRI's business prospects.

What we're left with is something that gives every appearance of legal threats being used to shut down critics, which isn't how the system is supposed to work. The filing goes long on motive and speculation, but provides very little in the way of actual, provable facts -- the very definition of a frivolous lawsuit, one which appears to have been filed solely in hopes of blustering TRI's critics into silence.

Filed Under: forum, libel, reviews
Companies: tactical rifles

UK Politicians Offer An Awful Bargain: Give Up Free Press If You Want Defamation Reform

from the free-expression-shouldn't-be-horse-traded dept

For many, many years, we've discussed the problems of UK defamation/libel laws, which basically put the burden on the accused, and are very broadly applied. They've also given rise to cases of "libel tourism," whereby people sue in the UK for statements made online, even if neither party is in the UK. The chilling effects on speech in the UK have been quite massive, with the case about Simon Singh being one of the most prominent. Singh wrote some columns challenging some unsubstantiated claims by the British Chiropractic Association, and got hit with a massive libel suit in response. And since the burden is on Singh to prove it's not defamation, it's an incredibly difficult position to be in. Thankfully, the BCA eventually abandoned that case due to massive negative publicity, but it still highlighted the problems with UK defamation law and how it could be abused to create chilling effects on speech.

Of course, fixing the problem has been a long and ongoing process as well, with various defamation reform packages proposed, but never getting anywhere. It had looked like the latest proposal might finally have a chance of passing... but that may now be scuttled due to a different controversial idea that has been attached to the bill.

As you may recall, after the News Corp. phone hacking scandal, the UK set up a commission on "media ethics" to explore issues related to preventing such scandals from happening again, and tragically, the recommendations included heavy regulation for the press. The rules go way overboard if you believe in freedom of the press, and really seem more designed to prevent rich and famous people from being embarrassed by the press, rather than stop egregious ethics violations.

So, here's the problem. The defamation reform package was moving forward nicely, when some politicians decided to basically lump a "Leveson Amendment" onto the bill, so that the UK is now faced with an unfortunate tradeoff. They could fix the broken defamation laws, but would have to do so at the cost of giving up basic press freedoms. It's unfortunate that UK politicians, apparently led by David Puttnam, have put others in the position of having to make that kind of ridiculous tradeoff. A functioning democracy that believes in free expression should support both a very limited defamation law and protections for a free press. Asking people to trade one for the other is really quite a travesty.

Filed Under: defamation, defamation reform, free speech, leveson report, libel, media regulations, press freedom, press regulations, uk

Philippines Outlaws Cybersex

from the oh,-and-criminalizes-libel-too dept

The EFF points us to the news of the Philippines signing into law the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, which has a number of interesting and worrisome provisions. The EFF, quite rightly, focuses on the fact that it makes online libel a criminal rather than civil offense, which could lead to jail time. They note that this provision appears to violate the UN's Human Rights Council, which claims that criminal sanctions against libel are a problem. Also troubling: that section was added by one Senator, Vicente Sotto III, without any public hearing, after Sotto claimed "introducing Internet libel laws would make people more cautious online." Hello, chilling effects.

But what caught my eye, was a couple sections up from the libel part. It appears that Cybersex is now a crime in the Philippines too. In the section that lists out "content-related offense," number one on the list is:

Cybersex. -- The willful engagement, maintenance, control, or operation, directly or indirectly, of any lascivious exhibition of sexual organs or sexual activity, with the aid of a computer system, for favor or consideration.

That wording seems a bit awkward, but it certainly seems to suggest that even willing cybersex is now illegal if it's done "for favor or consideration." People in the Philippines are quite reasonably worried that the language here is quite broad. And what's the punishment? It seems a bit on the harsh side:

Any person found guilty of any of the punishable acts enumerated in Section 4(c)(1) of this Act shall be punished with imprisonment of prision mayor or a fine of at least Two hundred thousand pesos (PhP200,000.00) but not exceeding One million pesos (PhPl,000,000.00) or both.

Prision mayor appears to mean at least six years in prison. 200,000 Philipine pesos is about $5,000. So... basically cybersex is a crime in the Philippines that could net you more than six years in jail... and fines of between $5,000 and $25,000.

That seems a bit... harsh.

Filed Under: cybersex, free speech, internet, libel, philippines

UK Pensioner Could Face Arrest For Atheist Poster

from the best-use-of-police-time? dept

Along with ridiculous libel cases, the UK is also infamous for laws that are designed to stop people hurting the feelings of others. Maybe that's a laudable aim, but the end-result is that they can cast a chill over freedom of speech. Here's a classic case from the English town of Boston in Lincolnshire:

A Boston OAP [Old Age Pensioner] who vowed to defy police advice and display an atheist poster has attracted national interest -- and an offer of support from the National Secular Society.

John Richards was advised that putting up a poster at his Vauxhall Road home denouncing religions as 'fairy stories' could be an offence under the Public Order Act.

Following the outcry that greeted this story, the Lincolnshire police naturally responded by issuing a press release:

LincolnshirePolice have not advised Mr Richards that he faces arrest for the specific posters he is displaying and he is not committing any offences by doing so.

The 1986 Public Order Act states that a person is guilty of an offence if they display a sign which is threatening or abusive or insulting with the intent to provoke violence or which may cause another person harassment, alarm or distress. This is balanced with a right to free speech and the key point is that the offence is committed if it is deemed that a reasonable person would find the content insulting.

If a complaint is received by the police in relation to a sign displayed in a person’s window, an officer would attend and make a reasoned judgement about whether an offence had been committed under the Act. In the majority of cases where it was considered that an offence had been committed, the action taken by the officer would be to issue words of advice and request that the sign be removed. Only if this request were refused might an arrest be necessary.

So the good news is that the police haven't told Mr Richards that he faces arrest for his atheist poster -- yet; the bad news is that if someone says they are offended by his poster, and the police decide that a reasonable person would agree with them, then he will indeed face arrest unless he takes it down.

Since the UK government claims that the current threat level from terrorism is "substantial", you can't help feeling that one way of tackling that would be to free up the police from having to worry about posters in a pensioner's window.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: atheism, boston, libel, lincolnshire, police, uk

Does It Makes Sense To Charge Kids & Their Parents With Libel For Online Bullying?

from the extreme-response dept

There's been lots of talk about what to do about online bullying -- even if the amount and impact of online bullying is often massively exaggerated. There have even been some attempts to outlaw online bullying or "cyberbullying" that seem to try to make it illegal to be a jerk online. These laws are of dubious legitimacy under the First Amendment.

However, it appears that one family has taken a different path to go after some online bullies. After discovering that some classmates in school set up a fake Facebook profile for a girl, they sued the kids who set up the page and their parents for libel. The student had apparently asked both the school and the police to do something about the fake page -- and in both cases they were (correctly) told that they couldn't do anything. The school couldn't get involved with off-campus speech (correct) and the police noted that no criminal laws appeared to have been broken (also correct). They also asked Facebook to take down the page, which didn't happen. That's the one that surprises me a bit. Considering Facebook's insistence on "real names" and such, you would think the company would respond relatively quickly to accusations of a fake page.

That said, is libel really the most reasonable response? It does appear that some of the statements made on the page were pretty obnoxious, and could potentially meet the bar for libel, but it's difficult to see how such a lawsuit helps anything. It did get Facebook to delete the page, so perhaps that accomplished the goal. But I can't imagine that filing lawsuits against other students helps make one more accepted in school. The fact is that kids can be obnoxious brats -- and it sounds like the kids who set up this fake Facebook page fit that description. But does that really need to be settled in court? Furthermore, suing the parents of the bullies because they paid for the internet access the kids used seems like a particularly ridiculous claim. Bullying sucks, but taking kids and their parents to court over a stupid fake Facebook profile seems like overkill in response.

Filed Under: bullying, libel

Italian 'Blog Killer' Law Rises From the Grave

from the zombie-apocalypse dept

As if Italians didn't have enough problems, it seems that their government is trying to sneak through a proposal supposedly designed to provide those who are libelled online with an automatic recourse, which activists thought they had managed to kill off five months ago. Here's the plan:

In order to protect people from online defamation, this law states that each webmaster of whatever website must rectify within 48 hours (even if you’re a private blogger who just left for the weekend!) any page on the website itself, if somebody just tells him or her (how?) that they consider themselves wronged by that page. No discussion or reply allowed, no judge needed, and the fine for not "rectifying" within 2 days is 12K Euros [about $15,000].

The newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano gives an example of just how absurd that might be in practice (original in Italian):

A site writes about an arrest; the person arrested in prison could perhaps get his lawyer to say that it is not true that he has been arrested, and the Web site would be obliged to print this correction (without comment), or face a big fine.

Although it would be nice to think that such an absurdity would be thrown out once again by the Italian politicians, that's by no means certain, not least because the ACTA technique is being employed here:

As it too often happens in Italy with similar small but surely unpopular norms, it is "hidden" as a sub-section of a wider law proposal on an unrelated issue, in this case wiretapping.

Let's hope Italian bloggers spread the word about this shabby trick -- while they still can.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: blogs, italy, libel

Georgia Lawmaker Looking To Make Photoshopping Heads On Naked Bodies Illegal

from the good-luck----that's-like-half-the-internet dept

The age-old rhetorical and theological question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" seems to be finding itself answered more and more with, "So that good people can make bad laws." Such is the case of a 17-year-old Citadel student who earlier this year found her personal contact information attached to a pornographic photo online.

High school junior Kelsey Upton was puzzled. Why was a stranger from Iowa sending her a text message?

Her confusion turned to terror last fall when she learned that the person who had sent the message had plucked her personal information from a pornographic website. Without her knowledge, someone had placed her name and phone number on the site next to a photo of a naked woman, in an explicit position, who somewhat resembled her.

Her father, a federal investigator who previously worked for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, traced the posting to a Citadel cadet, with the help of law enforcement officials. But to their dismay, Upton and her father learned that no crime was committed. Now Randy and Kelsey Upton, who live in Oxford, Ga., plan to meet with legislators and other public officials to try to make such actions a crime. "I want him arrested," said Kelsey Upton, now 17. "But if that won't happen, I want a law about this so someone doesn't just get a slap on the wrist."

Well, the Uptons are in luck. Sort of. The Agitator informs us that Georgia State Representative Pam Dickerson is looking to close this legal loophole by making it illegal to "intentionally cause an unknowing person wrongfully to be identified as the person in an obscene depiction in such a manner that a reasonable person would conclude that the image depicted was that of the person so wrongfully identified." This would include using a person's name, telephone number, address or email address.

However, Dickerson feels that isn't enough. She then adds:

"Such identification shall also include the electronic imposing of the facial image of a person onto an obscene depiction."

Now, rather than just closing an unfortunate hole in Georgia's libel laws, Dickerson is aiming to make a pastime as old as the internet itself, photoshopping celebrities' heads onto porn stars' bodies, a misdemeanor punishable by a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.

Now, I'm not here to suggest that the long and storied history of creating celebupr0n makes this a part of our rich cultural heritage and an unassailable act of free speech. What I am suggesting, however, is this:

1. Creating a law to deal with a very specific set of actions with no real precedence or evidence of mass abuse is the sort of thing that creates legal clutter and goes a long way towards explaining why it's illegal to tie your alligator to a fire hydrant in Michigan.

2. Existing libel/defamation laws should already be handling Photoshopped head transfers. There's really no reason to take this from the civil arena and turn it into a criminal act.

3. It looks as if the Citadel is already planning on handling this internally as an issue between two cadets. Adding another law to the books is redundant at best and, at worst, is just encouraging people to holler for new laws every time they've been wronged.

4. If this law goes through, it will be subject to endless expansion, much in the way cyberbullying legislation has been stretched to cover such ridiculous acts as eye rolling and so-called "deliberate exclusion." Offended citizens who find themselves photoshopped into other (non-sexual) compromising positions, like say, having their male heads attached to clothed female bodies or made to appear as though they endorse businesses and lifestyles that they clearly don't, will feel the law doesn't go far enough. The internet is a very inventive place while most lawmakers are not.

5. It will be ridiculed mercilessly. See also this post (possibly NSFW) and this clip (possibly not safe for your brain):

Filed Under: georgia, images, libel, nudes, photoshop

Claims In E-Mail Sent Via Google Found To Be Opinion, Not Libel

from the we-need-legal-protection-to-form-an-opinion? dept

Another day, another bizarre lawsuit. Well, it would be "bizarre" but we see way too much of this sort of thing to truly consider it out of the ordinary. The case, Sandals Resorts v. Google, deals with an email sent to "numerous recipients" that detailed Sandals Resorts' usage of state subsidies in Jamaica while hiring Jamaicans for only low-paying, menial jobs. 

Sandals Resorts took issue with the "compare and contrast" tone of the email, which highlighted the top dollar lifestyle of its executives while making the point that the average Jamaican lived in far less luxury. Additionally, the email pointed out that all top paying jobs went to foreigners. At this point, Sandals Resorts decided to play the race card and sue Google for libel in NY, citing precedent:

Sandals alleged the e-mail was false and defamatory in claiming that the company was racist. It said that an accusation of racism was inherently a basis for a libel claim, relying on the Appellate Division case of Herlihy v. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 214 AD2d 250 (1995). In that case, a former MOMA employee claimed that she was falsely accused of making anti-Semitic remarks and then fired. The court ruled that the allegation of anti-Semitism was an example of "slander per se" and denied the museum summary judgment.

Their next move was to go after Google, rather than the end user who actually crafted the email, which would be par for the course. Google = $$$! asjft3092@gmail.com? Not so much. And then came the attempted land grab (internetically-speaking):

Sandals asked the court to order Google to turn over 'all information concerning the Google account de-signated asjft3092@gmail.com, including but not limited to all e-mail, instant messages, text messages, buddy lists, address books, contact lists, account histories, account settings, profiles, mail boxes, folder structure, detailed billing, user activity records (log on and log off times), user identification records, phone number access records, ISP access records, and all information provided by the user at the time the account was created."

Whoa. That's a lot of information. And all of this is needed to deal with one email that makes the suggestion that Sandals Resorts is benefitting unfairly from a combination of state subsidies and cheap local labor? Fortunately, the presiding Justice headed them off:

In March 2010, NY Supreme Court Justice Alice Schlesinger denied the petition, ruling that the e-mail "does not contain assertions of fact, nor would a reasonable person construe that it does."

Justice Schlesinger also noted that the e-mail's numerous links to outside sources invited readers to draw their own conclusions and suggest "that the account holder's words are meant to provoke either thought or discussion and are therefore protected speech.

Finally, the judge said the company offered no evidence that it was harmed by the e-mail.

Further smackdown was supplied by Justice Saxe:

"Considering the e-mail in question here as a whole, we find that it is an exercise in rhetoric, seeking to raise questions in the mind of the reader regarding the role of Jamaican nationals in the Sandals resorts located in Jamaica," Justice Saxe wrote for the court.

He noted that the e-mail was "replete with rhetorical questions, asked either in relation to a link to an article about Sandals' companies or executives or in relation to a link to a photograph from the resorts' on-line public relations materials. Its apparent purpose is not to characterize Sandals Resorts as racist. It is to call the reader's attention to the writer's belief that the native people of Jamaica, specifically the taxpayers, are providing financial support for the resorts on their island, but are not reaping commensurate financial rewards for that investment."

All of this would seem self-apparent, but I suppose if you're looking to, a) insulate yourself from criticism, and b) profit from the experience, all common sense goes out the window faster than your remaining reputation. The legal system worked as it should, protecting free speech and, more importantly, setting additional precendent for the open exchange of ideas on the internet:

The decision, written by Justice David B. Saxe, highlights the "freewheeling" nature of online communications, pointing out that readers generally give statements in private e-mails, blogs and other online media less credence than statements in traditional media, and are less likely to understand them as statements of fact. Courts, the judge wrote, must adjust their standards for libel accordingly.

If nothing else, we know for a fact that "traditional media" would certainly agree that the untamed internet deserves "less credence," but other than that, Saxe is dead on: online communication is nothing if not "freewheeling." And anyone who's waded in the comment threads here at Techdirt would certainly agree with this:

The opinion approvingly quotes law review articles that made the case that online communications "are often the repository of a wide range of casual, emotive, and imprecise speech..."

So, chalk up one for the little guy. To the flame wars! (Possibly already in progress.)

 

 

Filed Under: defamation, email, libel
Companies: google, sandals

Proposal For UK Libel Reform Fixes Many Problems, Leaves Plenty Of Others

from the it's-a-start dept

For years, we've covered the ridiculous libel laws in the UK that create a massive chilling of certain forms of speech. Thankfully, there's been a push to reform the law over the past couple years, and a draft bill has finally been introduced which appears to solve a lot of the problems with UK libel law, including limiting who it covers (to cut off crazy libel tourism cases) and reinforcing and clarifying "truth" and "fair comment" as defense, while adding an important new defense: "public interest."

That all sounds good, but it's not perfect. As Arthur Bright notes at the link above, the law still places the burden on the defendant. This is a bizarre facet of UK libel law. Whereas, in the US, the plaintiff first has to prove defamation, in the UK, it's more or less assumed to be true, and the defendant has to offer up one of the defenses in response.

The one thing that still irks about the new bill, at least from an American perspective, is that it still places the burden of a truth defense on the defendant. It still seems unfair and inefficient to put the burden of proving a statement's truth on the defendant when the plaintiff presumably has much easier access to everything they need to disprove the claim. Perhaps, with the changes the bill makes to strengthen 'fair comment' and tighten jurisdiction, the backwardness of the truth defense will not be as much of an issue. But I still worry about situations where a limited-resource defendant faces a super-wealthy corporate plaintiff - why should the poor village blogger have to prove the truth of a statement that the rich City executive ought to be able to disprove with minimal effort?

Hopefully this particular issue can be fixed in later drafts. On the whole, though, it's good to see the UK moving in the right direction on this.

Filed Under: defamation, libel, reform, uk

UK 'Superinjunction' Bans Anyone From Identifying Plaintiff In Libel Case

from the mr-z,-who-are-you? dept

The UK's ongoing attack on free speech continues, with a judge issuing a "superinjunction" against anyone in the UK identifying who "Mr Z" is in a libel case. This is apparently the first time such a superinjunction has been used in a libel case. Apparently, Mr Z is upset at some relatives who are accusing him of "misappropriating money from the trust fund and of a sex offence," both of which the mysterious Mr. Z insists are not true. Apparently the allegations have been published on a blog somewhere, but UK publications are forbidden from even giving people enough information to find that. Of course, all of this makes me wonder how effective any of this can be. It's really only a matter of time until people figure out who he is, and all this "super" secrecy is probably only increasing interest in what sounds like a pretty boring family feud otherwise.

Filed Under: free speech, injunction, libel, uk