170 Years Of German Publishers Demanding Special Copyrights For The Press Because Of New Technology

from the crying-wolf dept

While much of the focus on the debate over the EU Copyright Directive has focused on the upload filters of Article 13, we should be equally worried about the snippet taxes of Article 11, which journalists have already made clear will be used to enrich publishers at the expense of actual journalism (that is, if it leads to any money at all -- since attempts to pass basically the same law in both Germany and Spain failed to produce the expected revenue windfall).

Former Icelandic Parliament member Asta Helgadottir recently put together quite an amazing Twitter thread detailing 170 years of German news publishers demanding special extra copyrights just for their industry -- each time insisting that without it, new technologies would kill journalism. You can also read the whole thing on a single page at Threader, but here's a (lightly edited) snippet:

1850: German Press publishers want #copyright of news because the newly arrived technology of the telegram is ruining their business model. It is rejected.

1886: German Press Publishers want news to be covered by copyright in the Berne convention. It is rejected, and copyright exception for news is established.

1908: German Press Publishers want to limit the possibility of reproduction of news by #copyright in the Berlin meeting for the Berne convention. It is rejected, as copyright is intended for inherently creative production.

1908: The Berlin conference thus reiterates their 1886 distinction of creative production and non-creative information and news with regards to #copyright protection.

1925: The conference of industrial property in the Hague rejects a proposal to make news industrial property, citing the decision of the Berne convention.

Seventy-five years of trying to make some intellectual property protection of news had failed. Trying to cover news by #copyright seemed to be hopeless.

1920s: The wireless technology threatens the established German Press Publishers. The fact that any owner of a wireless could listen to the news! Blasphemy.

1920s: "News Theft" explodes in Germany. The big press publishers are astonished by the fact that people are not willing to pay a hefty fee to buy their printed material.

1927: The Germans lobby for a resolution within League of Nations giving unpublished news #copyright protection, governmental news in the public domain, but published news were up to each national authority.

1928: The German ministry propose a law to protect news of the day and miscellaneous information with intellectual property at home. "vermischte Nachrichten tatsächlichen Inhalts und Tagesneuigkeiten"

1928: The emergence of the radio was one of the biggest reasons in the German's new News law as it undermined the news industry.

1928-1933: The debate of the new German press law continues but is never realized because the ascension of the Nazi government and new press control laws made it redundant.

It goes on from there into modern times, and the story is always the same. German publishers demanding special extra copyrights on factual reporting, and whining over and over again about new technology upsetting its business model and threatening the "future of journalism" or whatever. And every single time they were wrong. They didn't get the special copyrights and journalism survived (and in some cases thrived).

Given this background, why is it that EU bureaucrats are now suddenly taking those very same German publishers at their word when they insist that the internet is destroying their business, and they need these special copyrights (with the friendly name of "neighboring rights") that serve no purpose other than as a wealth transfer from internet companies to legacy publishers who have failed to innovate?

Filed Under: article 11, copyright, germany, journalism, neighboring rights, press

Apple's Internal Memo Warning Employees Not To Leak To The Press Leaks To The Press

from the of-course-it-did dept

Whatever the actual numbers, it seems like some hefty percentage of technology news revolves around leaks of one kind or another. Whether it concerns government, corporate, or legal proceedings information leaking to the public, it happens enough that at this point the operating posture of any organization should probably be to expect leaks, rather than flailing at modernity and trying to stop them. Hell, if the White House can't keep what seems like literally anything under wraps, what hope does the average business have?

Apple, of course, is not an average company. And, yet, when the company put out an internal memo warning its employees not to do the leaking, that memo almost immediately leaked to the press.

On Friday, Bloomberg News published what it described as an "internal blog" post in full. The memo warned that Apple "employees, contractors, or suppliers—do get caught, and they’re getting caught faster than ever."

The post also reportedly noted that, "in some cases," leakers "face jail time and massive fines for network intrusion and theft of trade secrets both classified as federal crimes," adding that, in 2017, "Apple caught 29 leakers, and of those, 12 were arrested."

Memos like this set off a delightfully oppressive mood within the organizations that send them. Part of the reason for that is that the practice of leaking is so widespread so as to make the selective persecution of any leaker seem callous and unfair. Add to that the simple fact that well-timed strategic leaks are practically marketing SOP in many larger organizations and this seems doubly so. And, finally, I cannot be the only one struck by how low Apple's catch-rate feels within the memo itself. 29 leakers caught in a year? That has to be some unimpressive fraction of the actual leakers that exist.

Anyone who might want to argue the points above needs to make that argument in the context of a reality in which this scare-memo itself leaked to the press. That this occurred only buttresses the argument that battling all leaks all the time is a losing battle. And if that's the case, then the selective enforcement of anti-leaking policies will only come off as both confusing and capricious.

Not to mention a giant waste of time and money, compared with incentivizing employees to leak only when its beneficial to the company.

Filed Under: journalism, leaks, press
Companies: apple

Michigan Lawmaker Flees Twitter After Reports Highlight She Helped AT&T Push Anti-Competition Broadband Law

from the the-best-laws-money-can-buy dept

Last week we noted how Freshman Michigan Representative Michele Hoitenga has been pushing a broadband competition-killing bill she clearly neither wrote nor understands. The industry-backed bill, HB 5099 (pdf), would ban Michigan towns and cities from using taxpayer funds to build or operate community broadband networks, and would hamstring these communities' abilities to strike public/private partnerships. The bill is just the latest example of broadband industry protectionist laws ISPs ghost write, then shovel unobstructed through the corrupt state legislative process.

ISPs want to have their cake and to eat it too; they don't want to upgrade or deploy broadband into rural or lower income areas, but they don't want others to either. Why? Because these communities might highlight how there's creative, collaborative alternatives to the duopoly status quo we all despise. And they certainly don't want added outside pressure disrupting the good thing (read: duopoly regulatory capture resulting in no competition and higher rates) they've enjoyed for the better part of a generation.

While companies like AT&T could deter towns and cities from looking for creative alternatives by offering better, cheaper service, it's much less expensive to throw money at lawmakers who, with the help of groups like ALEC, craft and pass laws protecting their regional mono/duopolies. All while pretending that their only real motivation is to protect the taxpayer, of course.

And while this process has played out in dozens of states repeatedly over the last fifteen years (more than twenty states have let ISPs write similar state laws), Hoitenga's lack of experience provided a closer look at the often-grotesque process. As we noted last week, Hoitenga doesn't appear to even remotely understand how the broadband industry works, from her belief that Michigan residents had 37 different ISPs to choose from, to her argument that letting giant ISPs dictate what locals can do in their own communities somehow...helps the little guy.

As the press began to politely highlight how Hoitenga should probably actually understand the industry she's legislating and the bill she's supporting, the lawmaker refused to comment -- and instead chose to flee Twitter:

For added protection, she blocked my account specifically from following her whatsoever:

That should certainly fix the problem, right? While it's unclear which giant ISP wrote the bill Hoitenga couldn't bother to understand, AT&T has been particularly active on this front over the last decade and is the most likely culprit. And based on a quick look at campaign financing and lobbying disclosures, Hoitenga's fealty to the status quo appears to have come relatively cheap for the multi-billion dollar media, television and telecom conglomerate:

Campaign finance records reviewed by IBT show that two of her largest campaign contributors are AT&T Michigan and the Telecommunications Association of Michigan (TAM): AT&T gave her campaign $1,500 while TAM provided her with $3,500 — large amounts for a first term state representative. The Michigan Cable Telecommunications Association — a separate entity from TAM — gave Hoitenga’s campaign $1,000.

According to state lobbying records reviewed by IBT, Hoitenga met and dined with TAM lobbyists during the first half of the year. Michigan’s lobbying disclosures are filed every six months, so it is currently unknown if TAM lobbyists has met with Hoitenga since June. The $142.82 spent to take Hoitenga out for a meal appears to be the only food and beverage expense TAM has disclosed in conjunction with its lobbying since 2001 , as far back as online lobbying records go.

Again, why bother to offer better and cheaper broadband service when you can quite literally buy protectionist state law for a few thousand dollars and some duck a l'orange?

Update: While Hoitenga has since restored public access to her Twitter account, I remain blocked. She has subsequently tried to claim on Facebook that the accounts she blocked were issuing threats against her and her family. For the record I asked Hoitenga one, entirely civil question.

Filed Under: competition, michele hoitenga, michigan, muni broadband, press
Companies: twitter

Why Protecting The Free Press Requires Protecting Trump's Tweets

from the protecting-the-speech-you-disagree-with dept

Sunday morning I made the mistake of checking Twitter first thing upon waking up. As if just a quick check of Twitter would ever be possible during this administration... It definitely wasn't this past weekend, because waiting for me in my Twitter stream was Trump's tweet of the meme he found on Reddit showing him physically beating the crap out of a personified CNN.

But that's not what waylaid me. What gave me pause were all the people demanding it be reported to Twitter for violating its terms of service. The fact that so many people thought that was a good idea worries me, because the expectation that when bad speech happens someone will make it go away is not a healthy one. My concern inspired a tweet storm, which has now been turned into this post.

I don't write any of this to defend the tweet: it was odious, unpresidential, and betrays an animus towards the press that is terrifying to see in any government official – and especially the Chief Executive of the United States of America. But inappropriate, disgraceful, and disturbing though it is, it was still just speech, and calls to suppress speech are always alarming regardless of who is asking for it to be suppressed or why.

Some have tried to defend these calls by arguing that suppressing speech is ok when it is not the government doing the suppressing. But the reason official censorship is problematic is because it drives away the dissenting voices democracy depends on hearing. Which is not to say that all ideas are worth hearing or critical to self-government; the point is that protecting opposing voices in general is what allows the meritorious ones to be able to speak out against the powerful. There is no way to split the baby so that only some minority expression gets protected: either all of it must be, or none of it will be. If only some of it is, then the person who has the power to decide which will be protected and which will not has the power to decide badly.

Consider how Trump himself would use that power. Given, as we see in his tweet, how much he wants to marginalize voices that speak against him, we need to make sure this protection remains as strong as possible, even if it means that he, too, gets the benefit of it. There simply is no way to punish one man's speech, no matter how troubling it may be, without opening the door to better speech similarly being suppressed.

Naturally as a private platform Twitter may, of course, choose to delete this or any other Trump tweet (or any tweet or Twitter account at all) for any reason. We've argued before that private platforms have the right to police their services however they choose. But we have also seen how when speech is eliminated from a forum, the forum is often much poorer for it. Deciding to suppress speech is not something we should be too quick to encourage, or demand. Not even when the speech is provocative and threatening, because so much important, valid, and necessary speech can so easily be labeled that way. As Justice Holmes noted, "Every idea is an incitement." In other words, it's easy to justify suppressing all sorts of speech, including valid and important speech, if any viewpoint aggressively at odds with any other can be eliminated because of the challenge it presents. Courts have therefore found that speech, even speech promoting the use of force or lawlessness, may only be censored when "such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action." Given that even a KKK rally was found not to meet this description, these requirements for likely imminence of harm are steep hurdles that Trump's tweet are unlikely to clear.

The truth may well be, as many fear, that Trump would actually like people to beat up journalists. It may also be true that he has some bad actors among his followers who are eager to do so. But even if people do assault journalists, it won't be because of this tweet. It will be because Trump, as president, supports the idea. He'll support it whether or not this tweet is deleted. After all, it's not as though deleting the tweet will make him change his view. And it's that view that's the real problem to focus on here.

Because Trump has far more powerful means at his disposal to act upon his antipathy towards the media than his Twitter account affords. In fact, better that he should tweet his drivel rather than act on this malevolence in a way that actually does do direct violence to our free press. Especially because, in an administration so lacking in transparency, his tweets at least help let us know that this animus lurks within. Armed with this knowledge we can now be better positioned to defend those critical interests his presidency so threatens. Painful though it is to see his awful tweets, ignorance on this point would in no way have been bliss.

Filed Under: donald trump, free speech, freedom of the press, press, terms of service

Barrett Brown Re-Arrested For Giving Media Interviews Without Permission

from the hey,-wait-a-second... dept

The weird, sickening persecution of Barrett Brown continues. Whether or not you like the guy (and every time we post about him, we hear from people who provide reasons why they dislike him), the way he's been treated by our justice system is despicable. If you don't recall, Brown is an award winning journalist, who certainly went deep with Anonymous and other online groups. Eventually that resulted in him being arrested and harassed by prosecutors for sharing a link. When the infamous Stratfor hacks were released, he shared a link to the files to get people to sift through them. Because some of the files included swiped credit card numbers, he was charged with "trafficking" in stolen credit cards. Oddly, right before trial -- realizing how insane it was to charge him over this -- the feds dropped the charges around linking, but pushed forward on other charges because he hid a laptop in a cabinet and (stupidly...) got angry at the FBI when they came to investigate. The odd part is that following a plea deal, the judge sentenced him to an astounding 63 months in jail -- and cited the sharing of the link (again, those charges were dropped, but it sometimes appeared the judge didn't realize that) to explain why.

But the odder part throughout all of this was just how vindictive and petty everyone in the system were towards Brown -- and specifically towards his interactions with the press. The feds sought to stop the media from reporting on Brown's case and got a judge to block Brown or his lawyers from talking to the media. And once he was in prison, the feds cut off his email.

All this weird petty shit, just to stop him from talking to the media.

Late last year, he was released from prison (earlier than expected) and has been complying with all the terms of his release... except, apparently, officials disagreed with that... because he was conducting interview with the media, according to D Magazine, where Brown has been working since his release. The Intercept, which employed Brown as a columnist while he was in prison, has more details, claiming that his check-in officer suddenly claimed that he needed permission before he could conduct media interviews -- something he had not been told at all.

According to his mother, who spoke with Brown by phone after his arrest, Brown believes the reason for his re-arrest was a failure to obtain “permission” to give interviews to media organizations. Several weeks ago, Brown was told by his check-in officer that he needed to fill out permission forms before giving interviews.

Since his release, Brown has given numerous interviews, on camera and by phone. But according to his mother, Brown said that the Bureau of Prisons never informed him about a paperwork requirement. When he followed up with his check-in officer, he was given a different form: a liability form for media entering prisons.

Just last week, Brown was interviewed for two days by VICE, and his PBS interview was set for Friday.

Leiderman said he had not been presented with a formal justification for the arrest but was told that it had “to do with failing to abide by BOP restrictions on interviews.”

That's both astounding and frightening at the same time, and seems like a fairly blatant kick in the face to the First Amendment. There appears to be no other reason for his arrest other than his speech in the form of conducting media interviews (often critical of criminal justice system). Nothing about this makes sense, other than out of pure vindictiveness. And, of course, if the idea was to shut him up about this, it seems quite likely to backfire massively. Not only will Brown continue to be able to talk about on this, but it's drawing much more attention to the issue from many others in the press, wondering what kind of world we live in when you can be arrested for agreeing to do media interviews.

Filed Under: arrested, barrett brown, first amendment, free speech, giving interviews, media, press

Why Does It Still Take Press Attention For Comcast To Fix Obvious Screw Ups?

from the dysfunction-junction dept

Just about every year, like clockwork, Comcast will breathlessly insist that it has finally turned the corner when it comes to the company's historically abysmal customer service. In 2014, Comcast even went so far as to make a big deal about the fact it had hired a new "customer experience VP" who, the company promised, would finally get to the bottom of why Comcast has been ranked among the worst companies in any industry in America in terms of customer service and support. The end result: Comcast is still among the worst companies in America in terms of customer service and support.

And, time and time again, Comcast will engage in some fairly obvious but incredible screw up that only gets fixed once the media gets involved. Case in point: Ars Technica tells the tale this week of a condo association in Sarasota, Florida that was just at the tail end of a 10 year bulk service contract with Comcast to provide cable service to the community. Once the contract ended, the association went ahead and cancelled service. But, Comcast being Comcast, the company kept billing the association $680 a month for several months, resulting in an "outstanding balance" of more than $2000.

As always, actually getting a refund from Comcast wound up being a Sisyphean feat.

When contacted, Comcast first claimed the association sent the cancellation center to the "wrong location." That's something the association denies, noting they sent the request to a Comcast office in Boca Raton that handles paperwork related to bulk contracts in the region (Comcast just mishandled the request). Subsequent efforts over the next few months included filing complaints with the FCC, filing complaints with the Florida government, and writing to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. The association also tried to obtain mediation through the Citizen Dispute Settlement Program in Florida; a request Comcast never responded to.

Ultimately, like we've seen countless times before, Comcast only jumped to action once the media got involved:

Riggs Landing canceled the automatic bank payments, refused to pay for further months, and accused Comcast of illegally charging them twice for the same service, which Comcast denied. Riggs Landing and Comcast were at a stalemate for a few months, until Wiener contacted Ars in early September.

“It just amazes me that for $2,000 plus, which has to be petty cash for them, that they would put up such resistance and alienate customers,” Wiener told Ars. Comcast is the United States' largest cable company and broadband provider.

Finally, after Ars contacted Comcast, the company agreed in mid-September to honor the April 1 cancellation date and provide a refund. Riggs Landing received the refund check of $2,034.31 on October 21.

It's just the same pattern over and over again. Comcast screws up, and instead of just admitting error and nipping the problem in the bud, the company doubles down -- putting the already incredibly annoyed customer through a gauntlet of dysfunction, compounding the public disdain for the company. Only once the threat of broad public exposure of its incompetence surfaces can Comcast be bothered to actually take a closer look at what happened.

The problem is there's no end in sight for this kind of market idiocy. Cable giants are consolidating at an incredible rate. And the nation's DSL providers are effectively refusing to upgrade huge swaths of their DSL networks to instead focus on getting into the content and media business. Add in an incoming regulatory regime that doesn't think broadband monopolies are real, and you have a recipe for a stronger cable monopoly, less competition, and less incentive than ever to fix this ongoing parade of dysfunction.

Filed Under: attention, customer service, press
Companies: comcast

HIV Dating App Company Threatens Press With HIV Infection For Reporting On Personal Info Leak

from the high-five dept

It's not uncommon to see threats towards the press occur when someone has been embarrassed. Whether it's an idiotic presidential campaign mad over a rape allegation or an attorney general pissed off at reporters who are attempting to, you know, report, these things happen. Perhaps even more common are threats against the press when they report on security exploits, such as when Sony demanded the end of the publication of documents the press got after one of the many, many times Sony has been hacked.

But I've never seen a company threaten to infect a member of the press with HIV before. This strange tale starts with an app called Hzone, which is a dating application for singles that are HIV positive. And, hey, why not? The HIV-infected need love, too. But running a site like that would seem to come with a particularly dire need for security, which should not result in the user database for the app being publicly exposed to the internet, as it was a few weeks ago.

Today's story is strange, but true. It's brought to you by DataBreaches.net and security researcher Chris Vickery. Vickery discovered that the Hzone application was leaking user data, and properly disclosed the security issue to the company. However, those initial disclosures were met with silence, so Vickery enlisted the help of DataBreaches.net.

So, as too often seems to happen with these cases, a researcher found a security flaw and brought it to the company's attention, only to be completely ignored. Then the researcher goes to a press outlet, DataBreaches.net in this case. Even as Vickery continued to let the company know about the leak, the database remained exposed. And this is a database, I feel compelled to remind you, filled with the personal information of HIV infected persons. The issue wasn't fixed until mid-December, some three weeks or more since the issue was initially reported. At about that same time, DataBreaches informed Hzone that it would be reporting on the leak.

And that's when this tale takes a strange and disgusting turn.

Finally, when DataBreaches.net informed Hzone that the details of the security issues would be written about, the company responded by threatening the website's admin (Dissent) with infection.

"Why do you want to do this? What's your purpose? We are just a business for HIV people. If you want money from us, I believe you will be disappointed. And, I believe your illegal and stupid behavior will be notified by our HIV users and you and your concerns will be revenged by all of us. I suppose you and your family members don't want to get HIV from us? If you do, go ahead."

Ah, the old "We'll just infect you and your family with HIV, haha!" tactic to silence reporters. This is a company that, again, caters directly to the community of the HIV infected, exposed that community's personal information, and then used HIV infection as a cheap threat on a reporter simply for reporting on the leak. Why would anyone want anything to do with these people any longer? And, while barely apologizing, Hzone appears to be more interested in doing CYA than true security.

Hzone later apologized for the threat, but it still took them some time to fix their flawed database. The company accused DataBreaches.net and Vickery of altering data, which led to speculation that the company didn't fully understand how to secure user information. An example of this is one email where the company states that only a single IP address accessed the exposed information, which is false considering Vickery used multiple computers and IP addresses.

On top of that, Hzone responded to a question by DataBreaches as to whether or not the company bothered to inform its users that their personal information had been compromised.

"No, we didn't notify them. If you will not publish them out, nobody else would do that, right? And I believe you will not publish them out, right?"

Oops.

Filed Under: apps, hiv, leaks, press

Donald Trump's Clueless Lawyer Threatens Press, Says It's Ok To Rape Your Spouse

from the a-graduate-of-thomas-cooley-law-school dept

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the absolute ridiculousness of Donald Trump's "lawsuit" against Univision, which made some bizarre claims about the First Amendment and defamation that clearly did not apply. While there may be a legitimate contractual dispute hidden somewhere in all that mess, there was so much fluff that it made you wonder who is actually advising the entertainer (pretending to be a politician) on legal issues. Apparently, it's some guy named Michael Cohen, who isn't just out of his depth on stuff, but he appears to be actively making things worse. In an astounding article over at The Daily Beast, which was initially over claims of "rape" by Donald Trump's ex-wife Ivana during their divorce proceedings, Cohen not only claimed that you can't rape a spouse, but also threatened to ruin The Daily Beast if they published an article. Lawyering by bullshit threats, apparently.

Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, defended his boss, saying, “You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody. And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse.”

“It is true,” Cohen added. “You cannot rape your spouse. And there’s very clear case law.”

This is, of course, wrong -- both legally and morally. In NY State, the law got rid of the "marital exemption" to rape laws in 1984 and federal law made it clear that spousal rape is a real crime not long after that. Even if that wasn't the case, is that really a defense? "Oh it's not rape because they're married?" Who thinks that's an okay excuse: "Well, technically, it's not rape." Yikes.

Cohen has now sort of, but not really, "apologized" for what he claims was an "inarticulate comment."

"As an attorney, husband and father there are many injustices that offend me but nothing more than charges of rape or racism. They hit me at my core. Rarely am I surprised by the press, but the gall of this particular reporter to make such a reprehensible and false allegation against Mr. Trump truly stunned me. In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment - which I do not believe -- and which I apologize for entirely," Cohen said in a statement to CNN.

Except that it wasn't inarticulate. It was wrong and, many would argue, morally reprehensible.

And notice that he's still blaming the reporter for asking the question. And that brings us to the second crazy bit here: the threats against the reporters. The reporters -- Tim Mak and Brandy Zadrozny -- didn't back down. In fact, they not only published the story but included the rather unhinged threats from Cohen:

“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up… for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet… you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added.

Cohen appears to come from a very different generation of legal advice -- one in which bogus threats designed to shut people up would actually work, rather than today, when they just provide a great story. Once again, though, this should serve as a reminder for why we need a federal anti-SLAPP law. Cohen has made it abundantly clear that he has no qualms in using bogus lawsuits to try to stifle public discussion of important matters concerning someone who is clearly a public persona and who is even (technically) running for President.

The fact that Cohen's "apology" for the spouse raping comment still pins the blame on the reporters suggests someone who still doesn't understand what he's talking about. A recent "profile" of Cohen includes him describing his own style as being a "pit bull.":

A 2011 ABC News profile reported that within The Trump Organization he’s called the boss’s “pit bull.”

“If you do something wrong, I’m going to come at you, grab you by the neck and I’m not going to let you go until I’m finished,” Cohen, now 48, told the TV network.

That story also notes that while he may file lawsuits, his threats aren't entirely accurate:

To wit: When New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a fraud suit against Trump’s for-profit college in 2013, Cohen threatened Trump’s vengeance: “The damage to the attorney general is going to be very significant,” Cohen told The New Yorker. “So significant that he will possibly have to resign.” (Schneiderman has not resigned. The case is ongoing.)

It might make you wonder where Cohen actually got a law degree. And... it turns out that it's from the infamous Thomas M. Cooley law school. We've written about Cooley a bunch of times. It's a bottom tier law school, considered so bad that US News used to list it as "unranked" because it wouldn't provide the necessary info. It now lists the school as "Rank Not Published" which US News notes is "for the schools that are in the bottom 25 percent of the rankings."

In response to this, Cooley came up with its own ranking system, saying it disagreed with US News' methodology. Magically, Cooley came in second in its own ranking system, second only behind Harvard Law. So what kind of methodology did Cooley's own ranking system include? Well, they took out anything having to do with "quality" since they deemed those to be too subjective, and then used a bunch of stuff about how big the library is, including "total library square footage" and "library seating capacity." Apparently, the Thomas Cooley law school has a huge library.

The school has also become infamous for suing critics, so Cohen seems to have taken those lessons to heart. A few years ago it sort of "merged" with Western Michigan University, and used that as an opportunity to change its name to avoid some of the bagggage of the Thomas M. Cooley brand. It now promotes itself as the "Western Michigan University -- Cooley Law School" and who does it promote as a distinguished graduate on its own site? You guessed it. One Michael Cohen of the Trump organization: Thomas Cooley law school continues its traditions, apparently.

Filed Under: donald trump, first amendment, free speech, ivana trump, michael cohen, press, rape, threats
Companies: thomas m cooley law school

Police In Ferguson Sign Court Agreement Promising Not To Interfere With Media... Then Go Threaten And Arrest Media

from the because-who-cares dept

We've been writing about the efforts by the police in Ferguson, Missouri to intimidate and arrest reporters trying to cover the protests and the police (over)reaction there. What's now come out is that, last Friday, the police actually signed a court agreement promising not to interfere with the media:

Parties acknowledge and agree that the media and members of the public have a right to record public events without abridgement unless it obstructs the activity or threatens the safety of others, or physically interferes with the ability of law enforcement officers to perform their duties.

This was based on a lawsuit brought by Mustafa Hussein, the reporter for radio station KARG (Argus Radio) who got some attention last night after a police officer yelled at him to "get the fuck out of here or you're going to get shelled with this" while pointing some sort of weapon at him: Note that the agreement was signed by Hussein and parties representing St. Louis County, the City of Ferguson and the Missouri Highway Patrol... on Friday the 15th. The threat to Hussein came on Sunday... the 17th.

And those kinds of activities are continuing today. Here's an Instagram video of a Getty photographer, Scott Olson, being arrested. Olson, if you don't know, is the guy who has photographed many of the most iconic images of what's happening in Ferguson, including this astounding shot. Here are a few more Olson images, courtesy of Getty's recent embedding program:

#453505316 / gettyimages.com

#453768692 / gettyimages.com

#453769244 / gettyimages.com

#453582860 / gettyimages.com

#453769068 / gettyimages.com

And the police arrested him. Yeah, you can see how they thought he was a "danger"... to them trying to control the narrative of what's happening.

And here's a video of police threatening CNN's Don Lemon -- which I've now seen, but for reasons that I don't understand, the video seems to disappear at times (as does the embed code).

No matter what, it seems pretty clear that police are continuing to stamp on the rights of just about everyone, including those with cameras and microphones (so you can just imagine how they're handling those without such things). The fact that there's a signed court agreement promising not to do this doesn't seem to matter to anyone.

Filed Under: ferguson, free speech, journalists, media, missouri, press, scott olson