Chuck Yeager Sues Airbus For Mentioning That Chuck Yeager Broke The Sound Barrier

from the yeager-bomb dept

When it comes to intellectual property, the culture of ownership has grown so large that it threatens to consume itself. Still, while we have an overly permissive USPTO and European trademark offices that facilitate this insane notion that all language is meant to be owned, there are still, blessedly, some rules. One of those rules is that, on the topic of trademark and publicity rights, people and companies are allowed to state facts. It is not infringing on anyone's rights to state such facts. That is all the more the case when the facts in question are historical facts.

Someone might want to fill in famed Air Force pilot Chuck Yeager on all of the above, as he's decided to sue Airbus over marketing material that mentions his signature historical achievement.

In a complaint filed on Wednesday, the 96-year-old Yeager objected to a June 2017 promotional piece on Airbus' website, touting its plan to make the Airbus Racer a fast and cost-effective way to fly.

The piece quoted Guillaume Faury, chief executive of Airbus Helicopters, as saying: "Seventy years ago, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier," and Airbus was now "trying to break the cost barrier. It cannot be 'speed at any cost.'"

Yeager accused Airbus of trademark infringement and taking away his right of publicity through "fraudulent" conduct, where it deceived the public into believing he endorsed it.

This is almost certainly nonsense. Having a marketing/PR piece on the Airbus website that simply quotes an Airbus executive stating the fact that Yeager broke the sound barrier is definitely not trademark infringement, is almost certainly not a violation of publicity rights, and doesn't strike me as indicating any kind of endorsement by Yeager himself. It's just stating a fact.

The complaint itself is astounding for how incredibly weak it appears to be. The lawyer is Lincoln Bandlow, who you may recall as a somewhat notorious copyright troll who recently left his big prestigious law firm after a judge sanctioned him for some of his actions in the various copyright trolling cases was involved in. Bandlow's career seems to have taken a dip, as the former lawyer for John McCain is now apparently in a position of filing obviously questionable lawsuits because someone mentioned a fact. This is a far cry from when he positioned himself as a supporter of free speech in fighting back against a lawsuit filed against John McCain. In that case Bandlow argued that it was ridiculous to argue John McCain's use of a Jackson Browne song was considered an endorsement under publicity rights law. Yet here, he's laughably insisting that merely mentioning a historical fact "Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier," is a publicity rights violation? How low has Bandlow sunk?

The case is also odd in other ways. It presents the fact that Airbus once refused Yeager's ridiculous demand for $1 million to use his name in press releases as some sort of evidence against Airbus. But all that really suggests is that after Airbus laughed off Yeager's ridiculous cash grab, it later found a way to mention him in a manner that was completely within its 1st Amendment rights -- quoting a factual statement. The old Lincoln Bandlow, the one who claimed to support the 1st Amendment, would have applauded that.

Stating a historical fact, even if it's in marketing material, is still stating a historical fact. Chuck Yeager may be an American hero, but that doesn't mean anyone has to pay him for mentioning his name and his accomplishments. Indeed, it wouldn't be surprising to see Airbus file an anti-SLAPP complaint against Yeager, meaning that in the end Yeager may end up having to pay Airbus' legal fees.

Filed Under: chuck yeager, facts, free speech, lincoln bandlow, publicity rights, sound barrier, trademark
Companies: airbus

Lawsuit Settlement Over Detainment Of A Journalist Will Force Denver Police Department To Admit The First Amendment Exists

from the being-deliberately-wrong-is-just-playing-the-odds dept

Last summer, Denver police officers decided the First Amendment didn't exist in the city, at least not while they were in the process of helping a naked black man get some medical attention by handcuffing him in the middle of the sidewalk.

Denver PD officers Adam Paulsen and James Brooks noticed journalist Susan Greene filming the incident and decided she needed some law enforcement herself. So they approached her and told her to stop filming by citing an inapplicable law. For whatever reason, they also told her to "act like a lady." Greene was handcuffed and placed in a squad car for 12 minutes before a less-stupid cop contacted these officers and told them to release her.

The whole incident was captured by officers' body cameras, including the repeated suggestion the journalist wasn't "acting like a lady" by contesting the officers' decision to cuff her and put her in the nearest squad car.

Here was the bullshit the cops used to try to shut Greene down:

As Greene detailed in a post the next day, and as the body-cam footage confirms, she approached the scene and was immediately blocked by Officer James Brooks.

He continues to block her as she tries to keep shooting, at one point raising the camera high above Brooks’s head.

Brooks is quickly joined by Officer Adam Paulsen, and the two advise her that she can not take photographs because doing so violates the HIPAA rights of the nearly naked man they have cuffed. HIPAA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act outlines an individual’s rights to medical privacy.

To be clear, HIPAA isn't violated when officers perform an ultra-weird medical consultation in the middle of public street -- one that involves a strategically-draped towel and a pair of handcuffs. If this man was ultimately taken in for a medical/mental examination and those records were handed over to the reporter, that would be a HIPAA violation. Shooting footage of public servants on a public street performing their public duties doesn't violate the privacy of anyone, medical or otherwise.

The officers also claimed she was interfering with the non-arrest the officers claimed they were not making, apparently oblivious of the fact that they had approached the journalist, rather than the other way around. They also trotted out the "stop resisting" canard to pre-exonerate themselves for their aggressive handling of a person armed with a camera.

Throughout the entire thing -- at least all the way up till the settlement the city is planning to pay Susan Greene -- Denver PD brass acted with useless decorum. Shortly after the incident went public, Police Chief Paul Pazen said people were way too focused on officers ignoring the First Amendment, rather than expressing their concern for the naked person his officers had handcuffed in the middle of the sidewalk.

“It doesn’t appear that you’re asking any questions with regards to how an individual is treated who’s in crisis,” he said at one point in the interview. “That’s really what we all should be focusing in on.”

“In a situation like this, we should look at the whole picture, not just certain segments that could point one person in a bad light.”

Actually, it was two people, chief. And they put themselves in a "bad light" with their actions. The public shouldn't be deterred from asking why police officers are violating Constitutional rights, even if there are other issues at play.

More disheartening was the complaint process, in which one of the officer's supervisors pretty much said filing a complaint would be a waste of everyone's time.

I called Denver Police Department’s District 6 and spoke with Sgt. Shawn Saunders, who supervises Officer Brooks. He said he’d look into the incident and make sure the halo camera footage and other evidence are preserved for review. He gave me the option of filing a formal complaint against Officer Brooks. I told him I’d consider it, but that I don’t have a lot of confidence in Denver’s disciplinary system, which I’ve seen slap officers on the wrists for misconduct far more serious than this, only to have the Career Service Board side with the police union and overturn even the most meager disciplinary measures.

To that, Saunders offered a response that was at once striking yet maddening in its candor.

Yeah, he told me. “I don’t have a lot of confidence in it, either.”

Part of the system works. But it will still be citizens paying for it. Susan Greene is about to receive a payout from the city of Denver.

Denver’s Police Department has agreed to a $50,000 settlement with Colorado Independent Editor Susan Greene, whose First Amendment rights officers violated when they wrongfully handcuffed and detained her for photographing police last summer.

The officers who handcuffed and detained her were also punished… by losing two days of pay each.

Finally, the Denver PD will be forced to refresh itself on the contours of Constitutional protections -- basic stuff these officers were certainly aware of before they decided government might beats First Amendment rights.

As part of the settlement, Denver agrees to significantly strengthen First Amendment and sensitivity trainings for police through at least 2024. The department also will update its policies on police bias and search and seizure of recording devices.

We know officers aren't expected to know the intricacies of the laws they enforce. In fact, they're barely expected to know anything about the multiple statutes they use to detain and arrest people. But we should expect them to know just enough about Constitutional protections to realize they can't handcuff a person just for filming them. The thing is, they very likely do know this. Some officers just choose to ignore this knowledge because they think they might get away with it. They didn't here, and now citizens will be footing the bill for these officers and their unwillingness to respect the rights of the people they're supposed to protect.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, adam paulsen, filming police, free speech, james brooks, journalist, susan greene

Hotel Owner Files Libel Suit Against Reviewer For Calling Nazis Nazis, Gets Support From Austrian Court

from the weird-flex dept

Turns out the truth is no defense to accusations of libel… at least not in Austria. And not when someone's reputation needs to be protected from [rereads article] substantially true statements. The standard for defamation in Austria comes nowhere close to what we're used to in the United States. The bar is low for the plaintiff and a bunch of insanity for the defendant who said true things and still got dinged for it. (h/t Techdirt reader Rose Crowell)

Here's the background, as detailed by Philip Oltermann for The Guardian:

A German man is being sued by the owners of a four-star hotel in Austria after posting online reviews in which he criticised them for decorating their lobby with a portrait of a “Nazi grandpa” in a uniform adorned with a swastika.

The man, named in court documents as Thomas K, and his wife visited the hotel in the village of Gerlos in the Tyrolean Alps last August. After check-in, they noticed two framed pictures on a wall near the hotel’s entrance, hung above a flower arrangement. One showed a young man wearing a uniform with an eagle and swastika badge, the other an older man.

Using a pseudonym, K posted reviews on Booking.com and TripAdvisor about a week after his visit, one in German and one in English, under the subject header: “At the entrance they display a picture of a Nazi grandpa.”

The review went on to question the wisdom of posting photos of people in Nazi uniforms at a hotel entrance, suggesting it might be the owners' way of sending some sort of message about their biases or sympathies.

The hotel owners were not pleased to be subtly equated to the photos they had placed at the hotel entrance, so they tracked down the reviewer using the phone number provided to Booking.com and sued him for defamation.

First, the owners claimed that the pictures of the men in "Nazi" uniforms were actually just pictures of relatives who were members of the Wehrmacht, not the Nazi party. So, they were just in the army controlled by Nazis, not actually card-carrying Nazis, which seems to be splitting hairs just a bit much when the photos showed a person in a Nazi uniform. They also claimed these were the only photos they had of these relatives, so I guess the guest should have been more understanding.

That was one of the libel claims -- one made in a country where it's apparently possible to defame the dead. Except it wasn't actually libel. It was a fact.

After researching the identity of the two men in the photographs at the German National Archives in Berlin, K was able to prove that both of the men had in fact joined the Nazi party, in 1941 and 1943 respectively. The hotel’s owners said they had not been aware of their relatives’ membership.

Right, so that's settled then. They were Nazis. The reviewer called them Nazis. It's no longer a question of libel. Except that somehow it still is.

The court presiding over the case issued an injunction. Not because of the Nazis being called Nazis but because of something the court decided the reviewer said, even though there's really nothing in the review but a statement of (apparently unprotected) opinion.

The Innsbruck court nonetheless took the unusual step in July of granting the hotel a preliminary injunction against K, arguing that his review had also implied that the hotel owner shared or sympathised with National Socialist ideas.

But this is what the reviewer actually said:

This made us wonder what the hotel owners are trying to tell us with this image. This incident speaks volumes about the current state of affairs in this region of Austria.

That's speculation. It's not flattering speculation but it isn't -- or at least it shouldn't be -- libel. But that's the initial conclusion the court has reached. Why? Because in Austria, the owners' interest in "protecting their reputation" is more important than hotel guests expressing their opinions.

I'm not sure what the Austrian expression for "fucked up" is, but that's what this is: libel that never happened based on factual assertions that somehow have managed to keep a disgruntled reviewer tied up in court.

Filed Under: austria, defamation, hotels, libel, nazis, reviews, truth

After Being Sued, Mississippi Rewrites Its Unconstitutional Ban On The Use Of Meat Words By Vegan Food Producers

from the try-it-again,-but-without-all-the-favoritism dept

Mississippi legislators -- apparently guided by "threatened" cattle farmers -- decided to rewrite its product-labeling laws. It enacted a statute forbidding producers of non-meat products from using meat-associated terms to describe their products. This unconstitutional requirement was put in place to supposedly reduce customer confusion, but the labels targeted made it clear their products -- hamburgers, hot dogs, etc. -- contained zero meat.

"Vegan hot dogs" was no longer acceptable. Neither was the ubiquitous term "veggie burger." The law required plant-based products to disassociate themselves completely from the meat products they were emulating. Very few people have been tricked into buying veggie products when they meant to purchase beef. But consumers looking to replace meat products with veggie alternatives might find it a bit more difficult to figure out what products they're replacing when the descriptive terms aren't all that descriptive.

The state was sued by Upton's Naturals Co. and the Plant Based Food Association. Represented by the Institute for Justice, the plaintiffs sought an injunction blocking the law's enforcement and a declaration that the law itself was unconstitutional.

It appears the state has decided to craft a new statute -- one that doesn't violate the First Amendment -- rather than continue to fight this in court. Scott Shackford has the details at Reason.

Today the Institute of Justice announced what appears to be a successful end to the fight. The Mississippi Department of Agriculture has withdrawn the regulations it proposed to enforce the law and introduced a new set of regulations. Under the new proposal, it's still wrong for a plant-based food product to be labeled as "meat" or a "meat food product," but there will be exceptions for products that include an appropriate qualifying term on the label, such as "plant-based," "meatless," "vegetarian," or "vegan."

The proposed change [PDF] still needs to be adopted and put into force, but this will allow Upton's and others to continue selling their plant-based products without having to alter their packaging or labeling. What the new law would require is something these companies already do:

112.01 Labeling Requirements

1. A plant-based food product label shall not be false or misleading.

2. A plant-based food product shall not be labeled as a “meat” or “meat food product” as defined by Miss. Code Ann. §§75-33-3(1)(b) and 75-35-3(g). For purposes of this section, a plant-based food product will not be considered to be labeled as a “meat” or “meat food product” if one or more of the following terms, or a comparable qualifier, is prominently displayed on the front of the package: “meat free,” “meatless,” “plant-based,” “veggie-based,” “made from plants,” “vegetarian,” or “vegan.”

Governments can regulate speech to a limited extent. But the exceptions must be very narrowly-crafted and serve a "compelling" government interest. Pushing one set of competitors out of the market with ridiculous, unconstitutional speech restrictions isn't the sort of things a government should do, especially if it has to violate the Constitution to do it.

Filed Under: fake meat, free speech, labeling, meat, mississippi, vega foods, vegan meat, vegetarian meat

Student Sues College After Being Told Not To Exercise His First Amendment Rights Without The School's Permission

from the students-shouldn't-be-seen-or-heard dept

Another public university is getting sued over its unconstitutional speech policies. While schools can place some restrictions on students' speech, they can't just carve out blanket exceptions that allow them to treat the First Amendment as a privilege it might extend to students if they've filled out all the proper paperwork.

Jones County Junior College student Mike Brown managed to First Amendment his way right into a conversation with the campus police chief. At this school, you have to ask permission before you can speak to other students, apparently. Here's the write-up from FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), which is representing Brown in his lawsuit against the college.

In April, Brown and two other individuals held up a sign designed to poll students on the legalization of recreational marijuana. But Jones College administrators quickly summoned campus police because the group hadn’t filled out the proper paperwork — which requires administrative approval and a minimum three-day waiting period before “gathering for any purpose” anywhere on campus.

Brown and another student were taken to the police chief’s office while their friend, a non-student, was escorted to his car and told to leave immediately and not return, or he’d face arrest. Back in the chief’s office, the police chief told Brown he should have known better than to blatantly exercise his free speech rights on campus without administrative approval.

Ah, to be young and living in the Land of the Free, being told by law enforcement that your protected speech needs to be approved ahead of time by a public institution's administrators. Here's the policy that Jones JC has written -- the one being challenged in court. According to this, on-campus speech has a three-day waiting period.

Any student parade, serenade, demonstration, rally, and/or other meeting or gathering for any purpose, conducted on the campus of the institution must be scheduled with the President or Vice President of Student Affairs at least 72 hours in advance of the event. (Forms available in Student Affairs) Names of the responsible leaders of the groups must be submitted to the institution at the time of scheduling.

While schools can place a few restrictions on speech to ensure classes aren't interrupted and campus traffic isn't impeded, they cannot simply create blanket prohibitions that require student speech to be pre-approved. As the lawsuit points out, the campus is large and contains many areas where students could gather without disrupting the school day.

JCJC’s property is made up of several hundred acres and its Ellisville campus has many open, publicly accessible areas, outdoor green spaces, sidewalks, and pedestrian plazas and thoroughfares where student speech and expressive activity would not interfere with or disturb access to college buildings or sidewalks, impede vehicular or pedestrian traffic, or disrupt campus operations or the college’s educational functions. Yet, the entire campus is off-limits to any student expression without the prior approval of JCJC administrators at least three to five days ahead of time through an undefined scheduling process that grants JCJC unfettered and arbitrary discretion to prohibit student expression on the basis of content or viewpoint.

As an added bonus, the student handbook also prohibits "public profanity" on campus, which is about as ridiculous an imposition on free speech as requiring students to ask the school's permission to speak freely. That restriction comes into play in this complaint because a prior run-in with the campus' speech police (who were also literally police officers) involved a "free speech ball" being thrown around by a bunch of adults that administrators claimed was "covered with profanities" during its earlier foray into First Amendment violations.

The lawsuit asks for the court to give the students of JCJC back their First Amendment rights by declaring the school's speech policy unconstitutional. This step was taken because the college decided to ignore FIRE's earlier offering to help it write a more constitutional policy. Now, it gets to defend it in court and explain to judges why it feels it doesn't need to respect students' rights. That should be fun.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, free speech, mike brown
Companies: jones county junior college

The NY Times Got It Backwards: Section 230 Helps Limit The Spread Of Hate Speech Online

from the get-it-straight dept

A few weeks back, we wrote about the NY Times absolutely terrible front page of the Business Section headline that, incorrectly, blamed Section 230 for "hate speech" online, only to later have to edit the piece with a correction saying oh, actually, it's the 1st Amendment that allows "hate speech" to exist online. Leaving aside the problematic nature of determining what is, and what is not, hate speech -- and the fact that governments and autocrats around the globe regularly use "hate speech" laws to punish people they don't like (which is often the marginalized and oppressed) -- the entire claim that Section 230 "enables" hate speech to remain online literally gets the entire law backwards.

In a new piece, Carl Szabo, reminds people about the second part of Section 230, which is what says that websites aren't held liable for their moderation choices in trying to get rid of "offensive" content. Everyone focuses on part (c)(1) of the law, the famous "26 words" that note:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

But section (c)(2) is also important, and part of what makes it possible for companies to clean up the internet:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1)

That part was necessary to respond to (and directly overrule) the ruling in Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy, in which a colorful NY judge ruled that because Prodigy moderated its forums to keep them "family friendly," it was then legally liable for all the content it didn't moderate. The entire point of 230 was to create this balancing carrot and stick, in which companies would have incentive both to allow third parties to post content but also to make their own decisions and experiment with how to moderate.

As Szabo notes, it's this part of (c)(2) that has kept the internet from getting overwhelmed by spam, garbage and hate speech.

Section 230(c)(2) enables Gmail to block spam without being sued by the spammers. It lets Facebook remove hate speech without being sued by the haters. And it allows Twitter to terminate extremist accounts without fear of being hauled into court. Section 230(c)(2) is what separates our mainstream social media platforms from the cesspools at the edge of the web.

[....]

While some vile user content is posted on mainstream websites, what is often unreported is how much of this content is removed. In just six months, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube took action on 11 million accounts for terrorist or hate speech. They moderated against 55 million accounts for pornographic content. And took action against 15 million accounts to protect children.

All of these actions to moderate harmful content were empowered by Section 230(c)(2).

What isn't mentioned is that, somewhat oddly, the courts have mostly ignored (c)(2). Even in cases where you'd think the actions of various internet platforms are protected under (c)(2), nearly every court notes that (c)(1)'s liability protections also cover the moderation aspect. To me, that's always been a bit weird, and a little unfortunate. It gets people way too focused on (c)(1), without realizing that part of the genius in the law is the way it balances incentives with the combination of (c)(1) and (c)(2).

Either way, for those who keep arguing that Section 230 is why we have too much garbage online, the only proper response is that they're wrong. Section 230 also encourages platforms to clean up the internet. And many take that role quite seriously (sometimes too seriously). But it has resulted in widespread experimentation on content moderation that is powerful and useful. Taking away Section 230's protections, or limiting them, will make it that much more difficult.

Filed Under: content moderation, free speech, hate speech, section 230

Months After Christchurch Shooting, The Australian Government Is Issuing Site-Blocking Orders Targeting Footage Of The Incident

from the oh-right-we-were-supposed-to-be-doing-something dept

Following the Christchurch shooting in New Zealand, governments sprang into action to declare the internet to be the real villain. It wasn't. And isn't. But that didn't stop a strange series of policies from being enacted.

The New Zealand censorship board declared footage of the shooting -- captured by the shooter himself -- illegal. Once it had made it illegal to share or possess, it went after those who did, resulting in at least one person being sent to prison for making the footage available online.

The Australian government followed suit. It declared the footage illegal, putting pressure on social media companies and service providers to take down uploaded copies "expeditiously." This term wasn't defined in the rushed legislation. Nor were companies given any guidance on what amount of time was considered "reasonable" to react to reports of uploaded footage in order to avoid $168,000 (per incident) fines. Presumably the Australian government would know reasonableness when it saw it and fine accordingly.

Companies did what they were vaguely instructed to do. So did Australian internet service providers. The Guardian reports blocking efforts began immediately, with ISPs targeting any site where the footage was hosted. To date, these efforts have resulted in the blocking of 43 websites. It appears ISPs are maintaining their own blocklists, since the government hadn't bothered to hand down any guidance on its recently-passed "abhorrent content" law.

Months after the fact, the Australian government is finally codifying the block orders it's issuing.

To avoid legal complications the prime minister, Scott Morrison, asked the e-safety commissioner and the internet providers to develop a protocol for the e-safety commissioner to order the websites to block access to the offending sites.

The order issued on Sunday covers just eight websites, after several stopped hosting the material, or ceased operating, such as 8chan.

To have these blocks lifted, sites have to take down the material. But the review process lags behind the takedowns. Block orders are only reviewed every six months by the e-safety commissioner's office.

There are obviously speech concerns that aren't being addressed by this process or the legislation that prompted these site-blocking efforts. The footage and the shooter's manifesto are undeniably newsworthy. They are also of interest to researchers and any number of law enforcement agencies. Unilaterally declaring these illegal turns these parties into criminals. The law doesn't appear to contain any exceptions for journalists, researchers, or anyone else who may have a legitimate reason to possess or share this content.

The Australian government is fine with this because the e-safety commissioner has unilaterally declared this content to be so bad there can be no legitimate reason for anyone to have it in their possession.

“The slippery slope argument I keep seeing [is] this is not obscene content or objectionable content [but] it’s clearly illegal. I don’t see any public interest in making this kind of material that is designed to humiliate and to incite further terrorist acts and hatred.”

Well, okay. I guess as long as a government official can't see any public interest, there must be no public interest concerns. These blocking orders may be targeting specific content that's fairly distinctive, but the e-safety commissioner's statement ignores the breadth of the law, which targets far more than these two pieces of content.

The Sharing of Abhorrent Violent Material bill creates new offences for content service providers and hosting services that fail to notify the Australian federal police about or fail to expeditiously remove videos depicting “abhorrent violent conduct”. That conduct is defined as videos depicting terrorist acts, murders, attempted murders, torture, rape or kidnap.

There goes a whole lot of newsworthy content, including content that may have investigative or evidentiary value. The vagueness of the law encourages proactive efforts from social media companies, which is going to result in a lot of false positives, as well as the memory-holing of content that's arguably of public interest, no matter how "abhorrent" that content may be.

Filed Under: australia, censorship, free speech, site blocking

YouTube Lets Indonesian Government Block Satirical Video That Criticizes The Indonesian Government

from the you're-not-helping dept

Recent protests in West Papua have made things uncomfortable for the Indonesian government. The protests were triggered by recordings of Indonesian military personnel taunting Papuans and calling them racial slurs. The Indonesian government responded to the protests by shutting down internet access and seeking to arrest a prominent West Papua civil rights lawyer for allegedly spreading "fake news."

West Papua was formerly its own nation but it was handed over to the Indonesian government in 1969 following a "free choice" voting process that saw about 1,000 "delegates" chosen by the Indonesian military override the will of the country's residents, making it officially a province under the Indonesian government's control. That's obviously not working out well for Papuans.

If you're wondering how West Papua has arrived at this flash point, this hilarious/disturbing video produced by The Juice Media explains the whole thing. And it explains the Australian government's complicity in the Indonesian government's subjugation of the West Papuan people. (NSFW language throughout. Here's an annotated script if you'd rather read about it.)

That explains where the nation is at now, and why its people want to be free of their Indonesian overlords. It also explains why no one nearby is riding to their rescue, since it's clear the Australian government would rather maintain its ties with the regime presiding over West Papua than try to help clear a path to independence.

That also explains why The Juice Media was recently informed this video can no longer be viewed in Indonesia. It appears the government has filed a legal complaint targeting the video embedded above, resulting in it being blocked in Indonesia.

For whatever reason, The Juice Media is completely unable to challenge this decision by YouTube. A screenshot of the account's dashboard doesn't even show the complaint, nor does anything sent to the account by YouTube explain what law was broken or which government entity filed the complaint.

The problem with YouTube complying with local laws is that many local laws are written solely for the purpose of making censorship easier. Allowing the Indonesian government to target content it doesn't like to keep its citizens from learning more about its abuses just ensures more abuses will occur. The cycle will continue until someone decides the spread of information is more important than staying in the good graces of authoritarians.

Filed Under: australia, censorship, free speech, honest ads, indonesia, satire, streisand effect, west papua
Companies: the juice media, youtube

Court Tosses $100 Million Defamation Suit Brought By Former Trump Spokesman Over Reporting On Court Documents

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

A federal court has dismissed a defamation lawsuit brought against the Splinter website by a former Trump staffer. Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman, sued after Splinter published an article that included allegations made by another Trump staffer Miller had an affair with. The allegations being sued over weren't your normal allegations. These allegations were made in court by A.J. Delgado, Miller's affair partner who later had Miller's child.

Whether or not the allegations made by Delgado were true is irrelevant. Miller may have been correct his reputation had been damaged by the publication of these court documents (but $100 million-worth?), but the fact remains they were court documents. Filing a defamation lawsuit over reporting on court documents is per se stupid.

The thing about allegations made in court is that, while they can be defamatory, they cannot be sued over. Miller understood at least this much, it appears, because he didn't sue the staffer he had an affair with. He instead sued Splinter, which published an article containing the court document with the allegations in it. Miller may have thought he had found a softer target. But he was wrong, as the federal court points out.

Reporting on court documents is protected under New York law. Splinter invoked this law to defend its reporting. The court agrees the law applies. Because it does, it has no reason to examine any other of Miller's claims. From the decision [PDF]:

Under New York’s fair report privilege, codified in section 74 of its Civil Rights Law, “A civil action cannot be maintained against any person, firm, or corporation, for the publication of a fair and true report of any judicial proceeding . . . .” N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 74 (alteration and emphasis added). The purpose of the statutory privilege is to protect reports of judicial proceedings “made in the public interest.”

Because Splinter was honest about how it obtained this document and, crucially, included the document itself in its post so readers could draw their own conclusions about the contained allegations, the court finds it fulfilled the requirements of the state law on court document reporting.

With the summary judgment standard in mind, review of the record shows the Article: (a) states the allegations come from an “explosive new court filing” in the “ongoing custody battle” between Plaintiff and Delgado (Article 2); (b) describes the “acrimony” between Plaintiff and Delgado (id. 4); (c) describes how Delgado obtained the information (see id.); (d) quotes the victim’s alleged reaction to the journalist, exactly as it is quoted in the Supplement (see id. (quoting Jane Doe stating: “Yes, that happened to me — how did you know? Who told you?” (internal quotation marks omitted)), see also Supplement 9 (same)); and significantly (e) embeds a full copy of the Supplement, so readers can review the Supplement without leaving the webpage (see Defs.’ SOF ¶ 91). Considering these undisputed facts, the Article is a substantially accurate report on the Supplement under New York law.

Always post documents. It's amazing how many reporters treat court records as privileged information, limiting readers to the journalist's interpretation of a ruling or filing. More generally, suing over reporting on court documents is a bad idea. If you can't sue people for what they say about you in court, it would seem to follow that suing for reporting on what people said about you in court is a non-starter.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, aj delgado, court records, defamation, fair reporting, jason miller, splinter news

Devin Nunes Drops One Ridiculous Lawsuit, Only To File Another One

from the featuring-rico! dept

A month ago we wrote about Devin Nunes' third lawsuit against his critics over their speech, and noted that he was promising in the press that more lawsuits were coming. We noted that the latest lawsuit was slightly odd in that he actually filed it in California, rather than Virginia (as with his first two lawsuits), and in California he could face real anti-SLAPP penalties (i.e., paying the other side's legal fees). Perhaps that's why that lawsuit was not actually filed by Nunes himself, but rather his campaign. If it got tossed out via anti-SLAPP, then suckers who donated to his campaign would foot the bill, rather than Nunes directly himself. Either way, we'll likely never find out because as suddenly as that case was filed, it's now been dismissed by Nunes. Amusingly, Nunes' lawyer is claiming victory:

“We gathered further evidence which supports the plaintiff’s overriding concerns that dark money is being used to influence our elections,” Kapetan said. “Given the new evidence recently discovered, the Nunes campaign committee voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit and the allegations underlining the lawsuit will be incorporated in a (racketeering) lawsuit filed in Virginia today.”

And that brings us to the new lawsuit that Nunes filed on Wednesday. It's a $10 million racketeering (RICO) case against Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson along with the Campaign for Accountability. You may recall them from such past news as the infamous "Steele Dossier." Nunes has spent months insisting (incorrectly) that the Steele Dossier is some evidence of some massive overreach by US law enforcement or the intelligence community (leaving aside that under the previous administration Nunes was one of the most vocal cheerleaders for increased surveillance powers of the intelligence community) to spy on Americans. Yet when those powers may have been used (well within the law) to do surveillance on his friends, suddenly he's clutching pearls?

Anyway, the new lawsuit is a real piece of work. It's alleging racketeering by GPS Fusion and the Campaign for Accountability. As Ken "Popehat" White famously notes, IT'S NOT RICO, DAMMIT, and this case is no exception.

The Defendants are persons associated in fact (a RICO enterprise) who engage in interstate commerce by the use of one or more instrumentalities, including, but not limited to, the Internet, computers, telephones, mails and facsimile. In 2018, the Defendants received income derived, directly or indirectly, from a pattern of racketeering activity and have used or invested such income, directly or indirectly, in the establishment or operation of an enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate commerce. Through a pattern of racketeering activity, involving acts of wire fraud in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. § 1343 and acts of obstruction of justice in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 1503(a), 1512(b), 1512(d) and 1513(e), the Defendants have maintained, directly or indirectly, an interest in or control of an enterprise which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate commerce. While associated with such enterprise, the Defendants conducted or participated, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity. Between 2018 and the present, the Defendants have engaged in activity that is prohibited by Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(a), 1962(b), and 1962(c).

The Defendants’ ongoing and continuous racketeering activities are part of a joint and systematic effort to intimidate, harass, threaten, influence, interfere with, impede, and ultimately to derail Plaintiff’s congressional investigation into Russian intermeddling in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. In furtherance of their conspiracy, the Defendants, acting in concert and with others, filed fraudulent and retaliatory “ethics” complaints against Plaintiff that were solely designed to harass and intimidate Plaintiff, to undermine his Russia investigation, and to protect Simpson, Fusion GPS and others from criminal referrals.

Plaintiff was injured in his business, property and reputation by Defendants’ racketeering activity and tortious misconduct. Plaintiff brings this action (a) to recover money damages for injuries caused by the Defendants’ racketeering activity, (b) for disgorgement of the ill-gotten gains and fruits of Defendants’ unlawful enterprise, (c) to impose reasonable restrictions on Defendants’ future activities, including Defendants’ use of fraudulent opposition research and fraudulent “ethics” complaints to intimidate members of Congress and other law enforcement officers in the performance of their official duties, (d) to enjoin the Defendants from committing wire fraud and from obstructing justice, and (e) to order the dissolution or reorganization of Fusion GPS and the CfA so as to prevent or restrain the Defendants from committing fraud, lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), Department of Justice (“DOJ”), Congress and Senate, obstructing justice, and violating Title 18 U.S.C. § 1962 in the future.

The details are basically that Nunes thinks that political research against him and corresponding ethics complaints are racketeering. That is not how any of this works. Indeed, if opposition research and filing ethics complaints is racketeering, basically every politician might be guilty of racketeering.

As noted by Nunes' lawyer, it is true that this new lawsuit includes some overlap with the California lawsuit that was just dropped -- mainly about his anger at some of his critics filing perfectly legal FOIA requests for Nunes' wife's emails (Nunes' real complaint here seems to be with how FOIA works for state employees, but to him it's all RICO):

Upon information and belief, Fusion GPS and/or CfA directed Seeley to make a request under the California Public Records Act (“PRA”) for emails received by Plaintiff’s wife, Elizabeth, an elementary school teacher. Seeley’s request targeting Plaintiff’s wife ended up costing the Tulare County Office of Education thousands of dollars in unnecessary cost and expense. Seeley published Elizabeth Nunes’ emails online and included the names and email addresses of numerous school administrators and teachers, resulting in extensive harassment of these innocent, hard-working citizens of Tulare County, including hateful accusations that they teach bigotry and racism. [https://www.scribd.com/user/399236302/Michael-Seeley]. In fact, the school was so concerned about security problems resulting from this situation that it adopted enhanced security measures.

As we stated when the original lawsuit was filed, you can certainly understand why this is annoying and frustrating, but it's a perfectly legal use of FOIA until the laws are changed.

Like the previous lawsuits, this one has little likelihood of going anywhere. Doing opposition research and filing ethics complaints with Congress is not racketeering in any sense of the law. But, of course, once again we have a lawsuit in Virginia over protected speech activity. It's too bad Virginia has a relatively weak anti-SLAPP law.

Filed Under: anti-slapp, devin nunes, glenn simpson, rackeering, rico, slapp, steele dossier, virginia
Companies: campaign for accountability, gps fusion