Skittles Photographer Actually Sues Trump Campaign Over Infringement

from the can-i-introduce-you-to-fair-use? dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about how David Kittos was threatening the Trump campaign with a copyright infringement lawsuit after Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out a really dumb image involving a bowl of Skittles and a ridiculous statement about refugees. There was some irony there, in that Kittos himself was a refugee from Turkish occupation in Cyprus and escaped to the UK. His photo is still up on Flickr, and does say that it's "all rights reserved." At the time, Kittos only hinted at a lawsuit, but also said "I don't know if I have the patience" to follow through on a lawsuit. We did notice that a week or so later, Twitter had removed the image after receiving a DMCA takedown notice from Kittos. So that was at least some indication that Kittos may have found some lawyers to help him. And now those lawyers have actually sued the Trump campaign for copyright infringement. You can read the whole lawsuit, if you'd like. He's suing the Trump campaign, along with Donald Trump Sr. & Jr. and Mike Pence personally.

Some interesting points about the lawsuit. Kittos did register the image... but not until after all this went down. The Copyright Office lists the registration date as October 3rd of this year: That's why the lawsuit asks for "actual damages" rather than statutory damages (you can only ask for statutory damages if the work was registered prior to infringement). But good luck showing any actual damages.

The bigger issue, though, is that this is almost certainly a bogus copyright infringement case. The Trump campaign has a pretty strong fair use argument, helped along by Kittos himself originally admitting that "I have never put this image up for sale" and "I was just experimenting with something called off-camera flash." There goes prong four of the fair use test, the "effect on the market," when the plaintiff has already admitted there never was a market. Also, the lawsuit itself makes it pretty clear that the lawsuit isn't really about copyright infringement, but about Kittos being upset about the message of the Trump meme.

I get that. I mean, I agree that the tweet is stupid and ignorant. But that's not the role of copyright. And yet, throughout the lawsuit, Kittos' lawyer keeps pointing to the "offensive" nature of the content as the reason that it's infringement. But that does not matter at all for a copyright infringement claim.

The unauthorized use of the Photograph is reprehensibly offensive to Plaintiff as he is a refugee of the Republic of Cyprus who was forced to flee his home at the age of six years old.

That's an interesting news hook, but it has nothing to do with copyright.

Also, given that this is someone trying to silence a political campaign, it seems fairly obvious that this is actually a SLAPP lawsuit, rather than a legitimate copyright lawsuit. Of course, that may explain why the lawsuit was brought in Illinois (remember, Kittos is in the UK, and the Trump campaign is certainly not based in Illinois). Illinois has an anti-SLAPP law, but it's been interpreted narrowly, and it's unclear if it would be allowed here -- though it's possible. The key case, Sandholm v. Kuecker, does include a test on "the plaintiff's intent in bringing the lawsuit." If it's to stifle speech or participation in government, then the anti-SLAPP law may apply. So Kittos may actually end up in trouble himself for filing this lawsuit. Notably, if the Trump campaign argues that this is a SLAPP suit and it wins, Kittos himself may be responsible for Trump's legal fees.

In other words, while I can understand why Kittos may have filed this lawsuit, it seems like someone may have given him some bad advice, and it may cost him.

Of course, he may be hoping that the Trump campaign just pays him off to go away. After all, the lawsuit mentions another copyright lawsuit filed against the campaign earlier this year, over a bald eagle photo -- and in that one, the Trump campaign settled the case, though no details were given on how it was settled.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, censorship, copyright, david kittos, donald trump, donald trump jr., fair use, illinois

Documents Show Chicago PD Secretly Using Forfeiture Funds To Buy Surveillance Equipment

from the no-accountability,-no-oversight dept

The Chicago Reader has put together a massive, must-read investigation into the Chicago Police Department's secret budget. The Chicago PD has -- for years now -- used the spoils of its asset forfeiture program to obtain surveillance equipment like Stingrays. This discretionary spending is done off the city's books, allowing the CPD to avoid anything that might prevent it from acquiring surveillance tech -- like meddling city legislators… or the public itself.

Since 2009, the year CPD began keeping electronic records of its forfeiture accounts, the department has brought in nearly $72 million in cash and assets through civil forfeiture, keeping nearly $47 million for itself and sending on almost $18 million to the Cook County state's attorney's office and almost $7.2 million to the Illinois State Police, according to our analysis of CPD records.

The Chicago Police Department doesn't disclose its forfeiture income or expenditures to the public, and doesn't account for it in its official budget. Instead, CPD's Bureau of Organized Crime, the division tasked with drug- and gang-related investigations, oversees the forfeiture fund in what amounts to a secret budget—an off-the-books stream of income used to supplement the bureau's public budget.

The Reader found that CPD uses civil forfeiture funds to finance many of the day-to-day operations of its narcotics unit and to secretly purchase controversial surveillance equipment without public scrutiny or City Council oversight.

It sounds like a lot of money -- $72 million in civil forfeiture funds -- and it is. But it's not like this money comes from a few large busts that have seriously affected the city's drug trade. That may be the rationale for the PD's convictionless seizing of property and cash (just like "terrorism" is often cited when acquiring surveillance tech ultimately destined for plain vanilla law enforcement use). But in reality, the forfeiture's rarely do anything more than financially cripple a large number of individuals who have little to anything to do with drug trafficking. The Chicago Reader reports that the median seizure in Illinois is only $530 -- hardly an amount one associates with criminal empires. In fact, the normal cash seizure probably sounds more like the following than a breathtaking dismantling of a local drug-running crew.

Ellie Mae Swansey, a 72-year-old retiree living on a fixed income, had her 2001 PT Cruiser seized two years ago when Chicago police arrested her son for drug manufacturing. The costs of simply beginning the long, circuitous, extremely-frustrating battle to reclaim her vehicle were prohibitive.

In order to have a chance at getting their property returned, claimants must put down a bond toward their asset when first submitting the official paperwork. This means that Swansey had to pay $140 (10 percent of her car's value) just to start the process. Then, to appear in court, she had to pay an additional $177 fee.

To Swansey, who lives on a $655-per-month social security check, these costs are substantial. Successful claimants will have 90 percent of their bond returned; unsuccessful claimants get nothing back.

The extensive investigation, compiled from dozens of FOIA request (more on than in a bit), notes that 90% of the seized funds spent by the CPD went to expected, above-board expenses: vehicles, cellphones, etc. But the rest of it went other places, obscured by redactions and withheld documents. Payments to cellphone forensics companies like CellBrite were uncovered, as were purchases of a license plate reader installed near the CPD's infamous Homan Square detention center black site, and $417,000-worth of cell tower spoofers.

The Chicago PD will continue to roll over retirees like Swansey because the laws governing forfeiture in Illinois have completely corrupted the incentives. It's not about law enforcement or crime prevention. It's about autonomy, power, and a steady flow of spendable cash.

When a government agency is allowed to handle the forfeiture proceeds it brings in—as is the case with both CPD and the Cook County state's attorney's office—it controls both "the sword and the purse," like an army that is also its own taxing authority. This is according to Lee McGrath, legislative counsel for the Institute for Justice, which seeks to reform civil asset forfeiture laws across the country.

And for what? What has been the end result of this massive amount of supposedly drug-focused seizures and spending?

[T]he prices of many drugs have decreased and purity has increased since the [drug] war began.

The second part of this story is just as interesting. It details how the Chicago Reader managed to get its hands on this stash of documents. It began with a FOIA request for Stingray documents from the Chicago PD. In between the redactions, the PD accidentally gave up its quasi-"black budget" account numbers.

On October 13, 2014, Christopher Kennedy, from CPD's Gang Investigations Division, wrote to Nicholas Roti, then chief of the department's Bureau of Organized Crime:

"Because this equipment will be used for [REDACTED] investigations in to [sic] [word missing] [I] recommend that it be paid for with both 1505 and 1505ML funds in equal amounts," he wrote.

Several requests later, Lucy Parson Lab (government transparency activists) and the Chicago Reader confirmed that these accounts were tied to asset forfeiture. Moving on from there, however, required some outside assistance. The Reader was going to be asking for a lot of documents and it would have been easy for the Chicago PD to deny such a request from a single entity as "unduly burdensome."

But several public records requesters, each using their own name? Not as easy.

To get over this hurdle, Lucy Parsons Labs launched a collaboration with MuckRock, a FOIA and transparency website, asking ordinary users to send FOIA requests on our behalf.

Lucy Parsons Labs drafted a sample FOIA request for users to download and submit. We also managed the responses from CPD—MuckRock's platform automatically followed up with CPD when the department was late responding to a request. Once checks came back from CPD, Lucy Parsons members collected the data in a centralized location and classified each purchase as being either part of routine police activities or as part of broader surveillance efforts. Eleven of our 13 community requesters used the MuckRock FOIA platform to submit and manage their requests.

This is how you beat a system predisposed to telling you "no." A "burdensome" request split 20 ways is no longer a burden. Sure, the Chicago PD might have experienced a bit more of a crunch fulfilling these, but it couldn't use the law to deny releasing documents it almost certainly would have preferred to keep under wraps.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, chicago, chicago police department, illinois, spying, surveillance

New Law In Illinois Restricts Stingray Use, Requires Court Orders For Deployment

from the the-warrant-that-dare-not-speak-its-name dept

Roughly eight years after information about law enforcement use of Stingray devices began slowly making its way into the public sphere, positive changes are being made. While the government has often argued it can be the "Third Party" in "Third Party Doctrine" by inserting itself warrantlessly between people's cell phones and their carriers' towers, its assertions are being met with increased judicial skepticism.

Two judges -- one state, one federal -- have reached the same conclusion in recent months: using a cell tower spoofer to locate suspects by dragging information out of their phones is a search under the Fourth Amendment. Warrants are required.

A few state legislatures have gotten into the act as well, proposing laws that create a warrant requirement for Stingray deployment. Illinois is the latest to do so (and the law actually passed), creating a new set of guidelines for law enforcement Stingray device use, including limits on data retention. It doesn't go quite so far as to mandate warrant acquisition, but it does force law enforcement to specify the equipment used in their applications, which also serves to create a paper trail that can be examined by defendants and members of the public.

This is the new quasi-warrant requirement recently signed off on by the governor.

Provides that an application for a court order to use a cell site simulator device, including an emergency application under the Freedom From Location Surveillance Act, must include a description of the nature and capabilities of the cell site simulator device to be used and the manner and method of its deployment, including whether the cell site simulator device will obtain data from non-target communications devices. Provides that an application for a court order to use a cell site simulator device, including an emergency application under the Freedom From Location Surveillance Act, must also include a description of the procedures that will be followed to protect the privacy of non-targets of the investigation, including the immediate deletion of data obtained from non-target communications devices.

The presentation of probable cause basically makes it a warrant requirement, even if the word "warrant" appears nowhere in the legislation.

The other positive here is that very strict controls on the use and retention of non-hit data are being instituted as well.

Provides that if the cell site simulator device is used to locate or track a known communications device, all non-target data must be deleted as soon as reasonably practicable, but no later than once every 24 hours. Provides that if the cell site simulator device is used to identify an unknown communications device, all non-target data must be deleted as soon as reasonably practicable, but no later than within 72 hours of the time that the unknown communications device is identified, absent a court order preserving the non-target data and directing that it be filed under seal with the court.

An additional nice touch is that requests and orders aren't considered "sealed" by default and that any seal request granted only lasts six months, and extension requests must be accompanied by a certification indicating the documents are part of an ongoing investigation or a "showing of exceptional circumstances." The last one is a little worrying as it could be used to maintain seals indefinitely if the court is inclined to believe law enforcement claims about "exposing law enforcement means/methods."

This show of "support" from local law enforcement indicates the law isn't as far-reaching as privacy activists might have hoped, but it isn't exactly just a bundle of concessions to LEO interests either.

The Illinois State Police has taken a neutral position on the law and the Chicago Police Department did not take a position.

Expect this trend to continue. More courts and legislators are going to realize that tracking a person's location by forcing their cell phone to connect with law enforcement technology is in no way analogous to gathering phone records with a pen register order or subpoenaing historical cell site data from third-party carriers.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, court orders, illinois, imsi catcher, stingray, third party doctrine, warrants

Police Claim They Arrested Man Who Burnt American Flag Because Of Threats He Received

from the huh? dept

Hey, guys, how was your 4th of July? Good? Lots of hot dogs and brats? Nobody firecrackered their nuts off or anything? Maybe just drank a little too much? Whatever your 4th of July experience, it sure wasn't as bad as this guy's.

Meet Bryton Mellott. Bryton's just a guy from Urbana, IL. A guy with a Facebook page that he uses to share stuff with friends, post hilarious memes, and post a picture of himself burning the American flag on the 4th of July, the anniversary of when President Washington personally haymaker-punched the King of England right in the face (I think), thereby setting all some Americans free of our British overseers.

As you can imagine, lots of people didn't like Bryton's picture. Some called the police about it for reasons we will get into in a moment. Others threatened him with violence and death. Still others threatened him with violence and death at his place of work. A few meager folks stuck up for him. You know, Facebook.

And at the end of the day, Bryton was arrested by Urbana police. Per the department's own press release.

On the morning of 7/4/16, the Urbana police department began receiving calls concerning a Facebook post that portrayed Bryton Mellott, a citizen of Urbana, burning an American flag. The images and narrative in the post caused some to call and request police action against Mellott and others to call and express concern for the safety of Mellott and those around him. Officers viewed the post and saw that there were a rapidly growing number of social media responses. Many threatened violence against Mellott and his place of employment, which fielded a large volume of calls regarding the post.

Given the volume of responses and specificity of threat against his place of employment (a location where an act of violence would likely cause harm to others), prompted police involvement in this case. After investigating the incident and speaking to both Mellott and his employer [Walmart -EV], Mellott was placed under arrest for flag desecration. The police report lists Mellott as an offender of both flag desecration and disorderly conduct as well as a victim of disorderly conduct. After consulting with a member of the States Attorney’s Office, Mellott was released from custody and given a notice to appear in court. Mellott’s release was due to questions about the constitutionality of the 2013 Illinois flag desecration law.

The Urbana Police department recognizes that this is a case where the right of free speech comes into conflict with the safety of uninvolved citizens. The actions taken in this case have been to try to assure the safety of the public and Mr. Mellott. The Urbana Police urge the public to express themselves in a peaceful way and to not retaliate against unpopular speech.

There is just so much wrong in that press release that it's hard to know where to begin. Let's start with the flag desecration bit first. The end of the PR piece says that Bryton was released because there are questions about the constitutionality of Illinois' flag desecration law, which makes it illegal to burn the American flag. Yet there are zero questions about it, actually. The Supreme Court was quite clear in rulings in the 80s and 90s that laws like the one in Illinois, which was enacted in 2013, are flat out unconstitutional. The burning of the flag can make you mad and sick, but it's speech, and it's worth protecting. That additional bit about consulting with the States Attorney's office wasn't so much a consultation as it was that office telling police to let him go and then refusing to charge him because they couldn't.

The State’s Attorney’s Office is declining to file charges against (Bryton) Mellott as the act of burning a flag is protected free speech according to the US Supreme Court decision, Texas v. Johnson, 491 US 397 (1989).

Now, to the disorderly conduct portion of this. That charge as well is completely nonsensical. If the burning of the flag is free and valid speech, the uproar that occurred on social media, including the threats of violence, can in no way be made the fault of the free and legal speech. Bryton didn't make any threats. He didn't act disorderly in any way. He was purely a victim here.

And the court has made clear since 1949 that the government can’t punish someone for “disorderly conduct” simply because his speech offends people and leads some of them to threaten violent retaliation. The police must protect the speaker (even though such protection understandably involves cost and risk for the police), rather than criminally punish him for his speech, except perhaps in some extremely rare cases that involve brewing riots on the street — a narrow category into which this speech doesn’t fall.

Which brings us to the police's use of those threats as part of its excuse for involvement and the eventual arrest of Bryton to begin with. Keep in mind, whatever you think of it, that what Bryton did was legal. For others to threaten him and his place of work with violence, and to then use those threats to arrest Bryton is one of the most blatant examples of victim-blaming I can think of. The summary here should make this clear: a man, on the 4th of July, engaged in free speech, had threats made against him, and then those threats were the excuse used to arrest that man. Nowhere does the department's comments state that any other arrests have been made, such as the arrests of those who actually committed a real crime by making violent threats.

Being an advocate for free speech means protecting speech you don't like. I can't think of a more pure example of the opposite of that than this story.

Filed Under: bryton mellott, disorderly conduct, flag burning, free speech, illinois, july 4th, urbana

Illinois Court Says State's Cyberstalking Law Is Unconstitutional

from the also,-its-analogstalking-law dept

One of several problems with hastily-enacted laws meant to deal with advances in technology is that they often skip a step or several when being written. In many cases, the step skipped is an important one: the consideration of intent. By crafting laws that cater to subjective views of a situation -- whether it's meant to address cyberbullying or other forms of online harassment -- the laws blow past, sometimes intentionally, the requirement that there be malicious intent behind the targeted actions.

This has led to courts striking down newly-enacted laws as unconstitutional because they have skipped this step. Without this requirement in place, the laws curb free speech by enacting new limits on First Amendment expression based almost solely on subjective reading of the allegedly "criminal" content.

The Illinois Appeals Court is the latest to find a cyberstalking/harassment law invalid. The problem here is, again, the lack of a mens rea requirement. (h/t Orin Kerr)

The stalking case that triggered this review [PDF] deals with a former intern at a Christian radio station who apparently couldn't take "no" for an answer, or just genuinely had no idea how to obtain a definitive answer on his current job status. It all depends on who you ask. But as the law was written, the only person who needed to be asked was the complainant.

Defendant was charged by indictment with two counts of stalking and two counts of cyberstalking. In particular, the indictments collectively alleged that defendant: (1) called Sonya Blakey on the telephone; (2) sent her emails; (3) stood outside of her place of business; (4) entered her place of business; and (5) made multiple posts on his Facebook page threatening Blakey’s coworkers and expressing his desire to engage in sexual acts with Blakey. The indictments further alleged that defendant “knew or should have known” that his conduct “would cause a reasonable person to suffer emotional distress” and “fear for her safety.”

The indictment makes the defendant [Walter Relerford] sound more than a bit dangerous. The actual events that triggered this prosecution, however, are not nearly as evil-sounding. Blakey testified that multiple emails were sent not just to her, but other employees at the station -- all of them inquiring about the possibility of working there again after being turned down for an open intern position. She also testified that the incident in which the defendant "stood outside her place of business" involved nothing more than him waving up at her from ground level -- at a complex where multiple businesses, including several restaurants, were located.

The defendant's unexpected visit to the business was just that. Blakey may have subjectively experienced shock or fear, but the defendant left peaceably when escorted from the building and made no movements or statements suggesting he posed any threat to Blakey.

The Facebook posts made by the defendant were a bit more disturbing, containing thinly-veiled threats related to Blakey and the station's refusal to give him a job. There were also comments of a sexual nature made. Also included were other things entirely unrelated to anything -- like a group of "Chinese people" talking about "killing everyone at the station" and the insistence that "the entire Michigan State football team from 1993" be immediately "buried" if he did not have "Sonya [Blakey's] vagina in his mouth" by the end of the week.

These posts were definitely more disturbing than anything Relerford had done prior. But they weren't tagged with Sonya Blakey's name (making them visible to her) and no attempt was made by Relerford to ensure Blakey saw them. Instead, a friend of Blakey's saw the posts and emailed them to her.

Blakey admitted during testimony that Relerford had never once threatened her directly. Instead, everything was based on how she felt about the interactions. And the way the law is crafted allows a single subjective viewpoint to steer prosecution… which is exactly what the court finds unconstitutional about the law.

The laws (both the regular stalking and cyberstalking version) had survived challenges before. But under the Supreme Court's Elonis decision, they no longer withstand Constitutional scrutiny.

As noted above, defendant was sentenced for violating subsection (a)(2) of the general stalking statute. That section criminalizes a wide range of conduct, including communicating to or about a person. But, like the statute at issue in Elonis, “communicating something is not what makes *** conduct ‘wrongful’ ” under subsection (a)(2). (Emphasis in original.) Id. at ___, 135 S. Ct. at 2011. Instead, an individual’s conduct is criminal under section (a)(2) if, and only if, the defendant “knows or should know” that it would cause “reasonable person” to “suffer *** emotional distress.” 720 ILCS 5/12-7.3(a)(2) (West 2012). Subsection (a)(2) contains no requirement that the individual actually intend to inflict emotional suffering on a person. Thus, as currently drafted, subsection (a)(2) bypasses “ ‘the conventional requirement for criminal conduct–awareness of some wrongdoing’ ” in favor of a reasonable person standard of criminality.

Which leads to this determination about the state's older stalking law…

Accordingly, we hold that subsection (a)(2) of the general stalking statute, of which defendant was convicted and sentenced, lacks a mens rea requirement and is therefore facially unconstitutional under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment.

As well as its cyber version:

Subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) of the cyberstalking statute are virtually identical to subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) of the general stalking statute. The principal difference is that the cyberstalking statute specifies that the defendant’s course of conduct involved electronic communications. It necessarily follows then, that subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) of the cyberstalking statute, which also lack a mens rea requirement, are facially unconstitutional under the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment for the same reason that subsections (a)(1) and (a)(2) of the general stalking statute are unconstitutional.

The court doesn't instruct the legislature to fix the state's stalking laws, but it obviously can't leave the statutes the way they are and hope to prosecute anybody under them.

Filed Under: cyberstalking, harassment, illinois, malicious intent, mens rea, stalking

Illinois Police Department Pulls Plug On Body Cameras Because Accountability Is 'A Bit Burdensome'

from the unconditional-surrender-to-administrative-complaints dept

Police body cameras aren't the cure-all for bad policing. However, they are an important addition to any force, providing not only a means for accountability (albeit an imperfect one) but also documentation of day-to-day police work. They can help weed out those who shouldn't be cops as well as protect officers from bogus complaints.

It's not enough to just have the cameras, though. Effort must be made to keep them in working order (and to prevent intentional damage/disabling). The footage must also be preserved and provided to the public when requested. This does mean there's additional workload and expenses to be considered, but the potential benefits of increased documentation should outweigh the drawbacks.

Not so, apparently, for the Minooka Police Department in Illinois. The agency has decided to end its body camera program because accountability and transparency are just too much work.

Minooka Police Chief Justin Meyer said Friday the issue was not with the functionality of the cameras, but that it became a burden for staff to fill the many requests for video footage.

How much of a burden?

"I was happy [with the body cameras]," Meyer said. "It just became a bit burdensome for our administrative staff."

That's all it takes to let cops off the accountability hook: "a bit" of a burden. King Camera has been overthrown and the public's access to information is first against the wall.

Chief Meyer might want to hire a spokesperson because he's not exactly doing a great job explaining how burdensome the cameras were.

Meyer described a hypothetical example of the extra work it created for department staff.

"You could have four officers on a call for a domestic incident," Meyer said. "If they are on scene for an hour -- whether there's an arrest or not -- that's four hours of video that has to be uploaded."

Meyer could possibly be referring to redaction efforts, which could be time-consuming. He couldn't possibly be referring to the "burden" of uploading film because that's, well, non-existent.

The cameras could record up to nine hours of continuous footage with 16 GB of storage. They were plugged into a USB port at the department after a shift to collect the footage and recharge the battery.

Because the state doesn't mandate the use of body cameras, the Minooka PD -- which was the first in its county to deploy the technology -- may be the leading edge of a new wave of abandonment, both of body cameras and the accountability that goes with them. All because of an increased workload deemed by the abandoning agency as "a bit burdensome." When the going gets tough, the tough say, "Fuck it," apparently.

Policing is adversity defined. I can't muster up much sympathy for a law enforcement agency that calls it quits the moment it faces a logistical hurdle. To me, this abandonment says the department's heart was never in it. Meyer may say he "liked" the cameras, but he sure didn't put up much of a fight when someone in the office complained about the extra work. This is an agency that was looking for an excuse to ditch the cameras and took the first "offer" that came along: a bit of a burden.

Filed Under: accountability, body cameras, illinois, justin meyer, minooka, police

Illinois Attorney Discipline Board Finally Moves Against Prenda Mastermind John Steele

from the going-down dept

People have been wondering for more than two years how it was possible that Team Prenda was still allowed to practice law. With both John Steele and Paul Hansmeier having moved on to shaking down small businesses by abusing the ADA, while still getting regularly smacked around in court, it seemed amazing that they were still practicing law. After all, it was in May of 2013 that Judge Otis Wright referred Team Prenda to their associated state bars (along with the feds and the IRS). And nothing seemed to be happening -- though, as Ken White noted, long ago, the wheels of justice "turn slowly, but make no mistake, the wheels turn."

And it appears they've finally come around on John Steele. The Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission has just filed a humdinger of a complaint against John Steele. It's worth a read, but we'll go through some highlights below. Let's just say that the IARDC may have taken a long time to get this done, but there appears to be a good reason for that. Pretty much everything is in there -- and it must have taken quite an effort to pull it all together. It goes through the history, with Hansmeier and Steele starting a copyright trolling business, and then pretending to hand it off to Paul Duffy* but still actually running the copyright trolling business they pretended they'd left behind.

There are seven counts against Steele, and if you've been following the Prenda saga, none of them will surprise you. The first count is for "Dishonest Conduct and Fraud on the Court," involving everything from Alan Cooper's fraudulent signature in the AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13 cases, to pretending those cases were not connected. The complaint goes through a rather detailed blow-by-blow account of all of Steele and Hansmeier's questionable activities. And it concludes that all of the following were misconduct by Steele:

bringing a proceeding without a basis in law and fact for doing so that is not frivolous, by conduct including filing lawsuits without supporting facts, under the names of fictional entities, and misusing the identity of Alan Cooper, for purposes of exacting settlements, in violation of Rule 3.1 of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;

knowingly disobeying an obligation under the rules of a tribunal by conduct including failing to abide by Judge Wright’s order quashing discovery, and failing to appear as ordered at the OSC hearing, in violation of Rule 3.4(c) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;

in a pretrial procedure making a frivolous discovery request(s), by conduct including filing the motions for early discovery on behalf of shell corporations in violation of Rule 3.4(d) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;

in representing a client, using means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass or burden a third person, or using methods of obtaining evidence that violate the legal rights of such a person, by conduct including sending the settlement shakedown letters in violation of Rule 4.4 of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;

conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, by conduct including filing lawsuits without supporting facts, under the names of fictional entities, misusing the identity of Alan Cooper as a principal of Ingenuity 13 and AF holdings, for purposes of exacting settlements, in violation of Rule 8.4(c); and

conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, by conduct including failing to respond to reasonable inquiries posed by the tribunal regarding lawsuits Respondents initiated, in violation of Rule 8.4(d) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct.

So, yeah. And that's just the first count. I love the fact that the ARDC flat out calls them "settlement shakedown letters." No beating around the bush here.

The second count involves the lawsuit that Alan Cooper filed against John Steele and Prenda for forging his signature and getting Cooper wrapped up in Steele's shakedown business. It turns out that Steele "settled" the case by paying Cooper $35,000. However, he, nor Duffy, ever wrapped up the fact that the lawsuit was also against Prenda Law. Apparently just last month, the court found that Prenda was in default and should pay Cooper another $5,000 for humiliation and $250,000 for punitive damages. Steele appears to have ignored basically all of that. Oops.

Count number three involves Guava v. Spencer Merkel case, in which Team Prenda was once again smacked around and ordered to pay a pretty big set of attorneys' fees. If you don't recall, this particular case had some "special" features. It started with a fairly sketchy CFAA claim rather than a copyright claim (this was tap dancing, in which Steele pretended that people had "hacked" into the computer to download the videos that he himself had apparently put up). There were also claims that team Prenda would find the opposing lawyer who was actually working with them, leading one judge to flat out ask if the two sides "were in bed together." And that story was given a lot more credence when Spencer Merkel admitted that he'd agreed to "take a dive" for Team Prenda in exchange for getting off easy in Prenda's accusations against him. After running through the detailed history there, it lists the same basic "misconduct" list from the first charge, but for the Guava case.

Count number four is about the Lightspeed v. Anthony Smith case (the one where Team Prenda was just last week ordered to pay another $94,000). Once again, the IARDC walks through all the details... and charts out the misconduct list again.

Count number five is still about the same Lightspeed case, but this time related to "obstructing discovery and dishonest conduct." As you may recall, Steele directly reached out to falsely tell parties that subpoenas had been quashed, even though they had not been. These were subpoenas looking into whether or not Steele was lying in pleading poverty to the court to try to get out of paying yet another ruling against him. Or, hell, let's just let the IARDC tell it:

On February 19, 2014, Judge Herndon entered an order denying Respondent’s motion to quash the subpoenas Smith issued in case number 12-CV-00889. Respondent learned of the order shortly after it was entered.

On March 3, 2014, two weeks after Judge Herndon had denied Respondent’s motion to quash, at Respondent’s direction Paul Duffy sent a file-stamped copy of the motion to quash to JP Morgan.

Paul Duffy’s actions, in sending the file-stamped motion to quash to JP Morgan after it had already been denied, were intended to mislead JP Morgan officials into believing that they did not have to respond to Smith’s subpoena because it was subject to a motion to quash.

As of April 16, 2014, there was no stay in place in 12-CV-00889. On that date, Respondent Steele sent an e-mail to officials at Sabadell informing them that a stay was in place in case number 12-CV-00889. Respondent Steele’s statement was false and Respondent Steele knew it was false because he knew that a stay was not in place when he made that statement in his e-mail, and his statement that a stay was in place was intended to mislead Sabadell officials into thinking that they did not have to comply with the subpoena Sabadell had received.

The misconduct here included:

making a false statement of fact to a tribunal, by conduct including claiming an inability to pay the sanction awards imposed against them, in violation of Rule 3.3(a)(1) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;

knowingly disobeying an obligation under the rules of a tribunal by conduct including failing to comply with reasonable discovery requests, in violation of Rule 3.4(c) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct;

conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation, by conduct including obstructing discovery and misleading the court in an effort to avoid paying sanction awards imposed against them, in violation of Rule 8.4(c); and

conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice, by conduct including obstructing discovery and misleading the court in an effort to avoid paying sanction awards imposed against them, in violation of Rule 8.4(d) of the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct.

Count six is about more of the same in another Guava case -- one of the ones involving what appeared to be another Alan Cooper situation with the ever changing person "Allan Mooney"/"Alan Mooney"/"Alan Mony." This was in one of the St. Clair County CFAA cases, that sought to hide that it was really a copyright case. Again, the IARDC finds all sorts of misconduct.

Finally, the seventh count involves that time when Steele (and Duffy and Prenda) sued Alan Cooper and his lawyer, Paul Godfread, (and a bunch of internet commenters) for defamation. As you may remember, Steele quickly dismissed his own direct lawsuit against them (perhaps once he realized that he had not followed the proper procedures in Florida for filing a defamation case), though the case technically filed by Prenda lived on -- and was finally tossed out a few months ago.

But, as you may recall, there were some shenanigans there as well, where the original Prenda suit was filed in Illinois state court, which Cooper and Godfread removed to federal court, correctly noting that the plaintiffs were in Illinois and they were in Minnesota (which creates diversity, which allows the case to be removed). Except, Team Prenda then lied to the court, said the original complaint had not been served, and then filed an amended complaint that randomly added Paul Hansmeier's Minnesota law firm, so that there would no longer be diversity (diversity is only if there is no overlap in states between plaintiffs and defendants). Not only was this a pretty blatant (and bullshit -- since none of the already questionable statements that the suit claimed were defamatory about Hansmeier's law firm) attempt to try to get around having the case removed to federal court, it also involved lying to the court to file that amended complaint. Then there were more games, where Duffy tried to get the case sent back to the state court again, playing some more tricky games (this post is getting long enough so you can read the full story to get the details).

And, yup, the IARDC was paying attention to all of that too.

In the end, it's difficult to see how Steele gets out of this in a manner that will ever let him practice law again. There's a lot in there. The IARDC filing is pretty damn thorough, though it does miss a few of Steele's other adventures -- such as his infamous comedy routine in a Florida court where he was not allowed to practice law (but appeared to be doing so anyway). Also missing: the evidence suggesting that Steele himself was uploading all the videos he'd later claim were infringing. But, you know, there's plenty in there already.

One wonders if something similar will show up for Hansmeier in Minnesota at some time soon. And if the federal investigations will eventually become public as well...

* As a side note, Duffy, the third wheel with Hansmeier and Steele, who was the only official partner of Prenda Law, passed away last week, which explains why he's discussed throughout, but is not listed as a respondent himself.

Filed Under: discipline, iardc, illinois, illinois bar, john steele, paul duffy, paul hansmeier
Companies: prenda, prenda law

Police Chief Unable To Simply Do Nothing Over Reported Teen Sexting, Brings Child Porn Charges Against Four Minors

from the the-law-is-the-law,-dammit! dept

Good, old-fashioned "sexting" has netted more teens some child pornography charges. Despite the teens involved claiming the photographed behavior was consensual, Joliet's (IL) police chief still believes the only way to address a situation he and the laws he enforces aren't built to handle, is to handle it as poorly as possible. (via Ars Technica)

Joliet Police Chief Brian Benton said posting the video online made already risky behavior criminal.

“It’s a criminal offense, first of all, to post that type of material online, especially for underage,” Benton said.

For underage? Or by underage? (To use Benton's clumsy phrasing…) Because while everything recorded involved teens between the ages of 14-16, it was also distributed by these same teens. What happened here was only technically "child porn" and it involved no exploitation.

Still, Benton seems to feel the only way to prevent teens from doing something regrettable that might affect them "for years to come" is to treat this all-too-common (and apparently very normal) situation in a way that ensures any teen involved in sexting will be saddled with criminal charges that will affect them for years to come.

“The child pornography offense that was charged is in place for a reason, because we don’t want to accept that type of behavior as a society,” Benton said. “It’s making a strong statement, and I think it’s important to do so, to send a message to others that kids shouldn’t be involved in this type of behavior, and hopefully this will serve as a deterrent.”

No, it's in place to prevent the nonconsensual sexual exploitation of children. It is not in place to charge teens for consensual, normal behavior.

But, whatever. Now these teens who participated in activity that isn't explicitly illegal have been hit with charges for something that is very definitely illegal and that will likely affect them adversely until they hit the age of 21, if not for longer. It seems that if Chief Benton can't make the actual sexual acts illegal, he'll do all he can to criminalize depictions of the actual events, ignoring the logical dissonance of charging children for creating child porn.

Fun fact: these charges could possibly result in the forfeiture of property owned by the teens' parents.

In addition, any person convicted under this Section is subject to the property forfeiture provisions set forth in Article 124B of the Code of Criminal Procedure of 1963.

Except for the parent who turned in all the teens…

(5) With respect to a property interest in existence at the time the illegal conduct giving rise to the forfeiture took place, he or she either:

(A) did not know of the conduct giving rise to the forfeiture; or

(B) upon learning of the conduct giving rise to the forfeiture, did all that reasonably could be expected under the circumstances to terminate that use of the property.

[...]

(b) For purposes of paragraph (5) of subsection (a), ways in which a person may show that he or she did all that reasonably could be expected include demonstrating that he or she, to the extent permitted by law, did either of the following:

(1) Gave timely notice to an appropriate law enforcement agency of information that led the person to know that the conduct giving rise to a forfeiture would occur or had occurred.

(2) In a timely fashion revoked or made a good faith attempt to revoke permission for those engaging in the conduct to use the property or took reasonable actions in consultation with a law enforcement agency to discourage or prevent the illegal use of the property.

If the local PD is creative enough to charge teenagers for producing and starring in their own child porn, it might be willing to seize the property "involved" in this consensual activity.

Filed Under: brian benton, child porn, illinois, joliet, police, sexting, teenagers

John Steele Looking To Join Former Prenda Lawyer Paul Hansmeier In ADA Lawsuit Shakedown Business

from the once-a-parasite... dept

For more than a year now, Paul Hansmeier has attempted to offset the losses generated by the flagging Prenda Law brand with class action lawsuits predicated on supposed ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) violations. Hansmeier isn't suddenly a do-gooding social warrior seeking equitable treatment for disabled Americans. He's just shifted the focus of his modus operandi. Hansmeier sues and sues and sues, offering out-of-court settlements to the defendants. This is money Hansmeier shouldn't theoretically be able to demand, but he's found a loophole that works for him.

In most cases, federal and state laws governing disability access don’t provide punitive relief. They can only be used to get property owners to correct shortcomings and to recover the plaintiff’s reasonable legal expenses. However, Hansmeier has been making claims under a Minnesota law that the property owners are committing a bias offense, which is a misdemeanor. In correspondence seeking a settlement with Peterson, he wrote that the law exposes defendants to a fine of $500 per incident, as well as punitive damages.

Using this, Hansmeier has demanded anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000 from the businesses he's sued. The end result has been some companies paying up rather than fighting back, while others have decided to cease doing business entirely. The 84-year-old owner of an antique shop targeted by a Hansmeier suit has closed her business as a result of his litigious actions. At the point it shut down, it was making around "$50 a day." Now, the business is completely inaccessible -- both to the disabled and non-disabled alike.

Like copyright trolling, the hit rate may be low but the margin is comfortably high. Only a small percentage of those sued need to pay up to ensure profitability. Hansmeier has managed to extract a few settlements at this point, which will only encourage him to continue exploiting a good law for negative ends. The biggest hurdle he faces now is his own terrible reputation.

[T]he chief judge of Hennepin County District Court has ordered that a half dozen of Hansmeier’s disability cases be reassigned to a single judge to ensure that they’re handled uniformly.

“ … the serial nature of these cases … raises the specter of litigation abuse, and Mr. Hansmeier’s history reinforces this concern,” Chief Judge Peter Cahill wrote.

The Minnesota attorney general’s office recently referred complaints about Hansmeier to the board that disciplines attorneys for ethical violations, even as he continues to press for cash settlements with small business owners.

The lure of easy money has now attracted another one of Prenda's principals: John Steele.

DarthSkeptic tweeted out two bits of information that point to Steele moving from one shakedown business to another.

On December 30, 2014, John Steele incorporated the "Accessibility Law Group, LLC" in the state of Illinois (screenshot below as the Illinois Secretary of State's business search provides no permalink to search results). The address of the "business" traces back to virtual offices offered by DaVinci Virtual Office Solutions, which would suggest Steele plans to pursue businesses for ADA violations without actually having to set up (physical) shop in Illinois.


He's also renewed his Illinois law license.


Given Steele's past, one should probably expect a flurry of filings in the near future, pursuing low-risk targets with low-to-medium settlement offers, much like Hansmeier's "work" in Minnesota. The paperwork can be filed from anywhere with work farmed out to local lawyers willing to do the groundwork in exchange for a percentage of collected settlements.

Steele's new hunting grounds favor his chosen business model. Time Magazine pointed out in a 2008 article about ADA lawsuit abuse that Illinois (along with California, Hawaii and Florida) is one of the easiest states to file (and collect on) frivolous lawsuits. The American Tort Reform Foundation has also called out Illinois' flawed legal system in the past, naming it one of the nation's foremost "judicial hellholes." One of the issues specifically listed is the willingness of the state to entertain lawsuits filed by non-residents -- something that works in Steele's favor if he doesn't actually reside in Illinois. Prenda Law was nominally a Chicago operation, but also included work done from Florida and (see Hansmeier) Minnesota.

Once a troll, always a troll, it seems. Prenda Law may no longer be an entity, but the lawyers behind it are back in the settlement business. Sure, ADA violations may be more publicly palatable than chasing porn downloaders, but underneath it all, it's still the same shady business that has the potential to wreak the same sort of financial havoc on its victims.

Filed Under: ada, copyright trolling, illinois, john steele, lawsuits, minnesota, paul hansmeier, shakedowns, trolling
Companies: accessibility law group, prenda, prenda law

Illinois Legislature Passes Recording Ban To Protect Public Servants - Not The Public

from the the-fix-that-maintained-the-status-quo dept

Illinois' awful "eavesdropping" law was mostly known for being abused by cops to prosecute citizens who recorded them. This strayed pretty far from the spirit of the law (you know, actual eavesdropping). Courts, including federal courts, declared this interpretation of the law unconstitutional in various decisions and in March of this year, the state Supreme Court overturned the law completely.

Legislators have now pushed through a new version of the eavesdropping/wiretapping law -- one hopefully more compliant with the First Amendment. But those hopes will need to be tempered. The new bill, now resting on the governor's desk, doesn't do much to prevent law enforcement and other public officials from using the law as a shield against recordings.

The first indicator that this bill isn't meant to fix what needed to be fixed lies in its genesis.

[I]t was introduced on Tuesday, Dec. 2, as an amendment to an existing bill on a completely different subject. The amendment removed all of the bill’s previous content and replaced it with the new ban on recording. The House passed it the following day, and the Senate passed it the day after that. So the people who would have cared most about this bill probably didn’t notice it in time to object.

Note that Illinois Policy's writers (Jacob Huebert and Bryan Jackson-Green) refer to the new bill as a "recording ban." They aren't kidding. The language leaves key stipulations open to interpretation.

Under the new bill, a citizen could rarely be sure whether recording any given conversation without permission is legal. The bill would make it a felony to surreptitiously record any “private conversation,” which it defines as any “oral communication between 2 or more persons,” where at least one person involved had a “reasonable expectation” of privacy.

As we know, public officials performing official duties aren't afforded an expectation of privacy. But what happens when an officer enters a home or business? Once out of public areas, do officials obtain an expectation of privacy? What about phone calls to and from public officials? Is the fact that it occurs on a "private" line enough to make any recordings a criminal offense? The bill simply doesn't say, apparently leaving this important distinction up to various courts to decide.

The bill further acts as deterrent against recording public officials by handing out inequitable penalties for violations.

The bill would also discourage people from recording conversations with police by making unlawfully recording a conversation with police – or an attorney general, assistant attorney general, state’s attorney, assistant state’s attorney or judge – a class 3 felony, which carries a sentence of two to four years in prison. Meanwhile, the bill makes illegal recording of a private citizen a class 4 felony, which carries a lower sentencing range of one to three years in prison.

Citizens have long known that laws work differently for the public than they do for their public servants. This legislation goes the extra distance to spell it out in black and white. According to the wording, public officials' privacy is worth more than private citizens' privacy.

Unfortunately, the legislation may pass constitutional muster because the wording can be interpreted to be protective of First Amendment activities -- even as its lack of specificity encourages interpretation to the contrary.

And there's another law enforcement bonus hidden within the bill as well, as the ACLU points out.

Compared to the last version of the Illinois eavesdropping statute, the new statute significantly expands the circumstances when police and informants may record and intercept private conversations and phone calls without all-party consent or a warrant. We know of no evidence that the prior version of the statute, which required police to seek judicial approval, was any impediment to law enforcement in these instances. We are concerned about the expanded number of cases where no judicial officer will provide a check on police.

If this bill goes through -- and there's good reason to believe it will, what with all that cherished "bipartisan support" behind it -- police officers will still be able to use the vague wording of the law in their favor. The lack of clarity invites law enforcement to take their chances on the wheel o' justice and see how the courts interpret the new statute -- a process that goes in motion long after someone's recording has been halted and charges have been filed.

Filed Under: eavesdropping, illinois, law enforcement, recording police