US Subpoenaed All Visitor Logs From Online News Publication; Falsely Said Site Couldn't Tell Anyone

from the the-abuse-of-secrecy dept

We've seen it over and over again: when the government can hide behind the veil of secrecy, it can abuse its power. That's why we're supposed to have checks and balances on power, but all too often governments figure out ways to get around that. The latest example is that US attorneys issued a subpoena to the person hosting the news website Indymedia, demanding a logfile of all visitors from a particular day and ordered the woman not to reveal the existence of the subpoena itself. Indymedia doesn't keep its logfiles, so it simply had nothing to turn over, and after realizing this, the government withdrew the request. However, the requirement to stay silent about it still was there, and the woman asked the EFF for help. With the EFF involved, the government finally backed down and admitted that there was absolutely no legal basis for demanding that the woman not talk about the subpoena, and "chose not to go to court" over the matter, despite threatening to at an earlier time.

This is hardly the first time we've heard about the government using (and abusing) procedures like national security letters to not just demand all sorts of info, but also demand that the recipient not tell anyone about it. Every once in a while we're able to hear about these situations because a group like the EFF or the ACLU pushed back and were able to get the US government to back down, but that's likely only a fraction of the situations where this has happened. In many others, we likely don't even know at all, because the recipient gave in, either because they didn't realize their legal rights, or because it just wasn't worth the fight. But when the government thinks that it can demand certain data and cloak the demand behind a related demand for secrecy, it makes it way too easy for the government to abuse the process. It basically guarantees no oversight, so why not ask for way more than the law requires, knowing that most people won't push back and no one will ever find out about it?

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Trying To Sue Someone Who Criticizes You Isn't The Best Way To Boost Your Reputation

from the apparently-the-streisand-effect-isn't-known-in-the-michigan-vc-community dept

And here we go again. Less than a year after a venture capital firm tried to sue the VC ratings site, TheFunded.com, another VC firm, EDF Ventures in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has sent a subpoena to the site to try to identify a critical commenter.

This is, of course, the exact wrong response.

First off, TheFunded doesn't keep records of who its anonymous commenters are, so the subpoena won't help much. But, much more importantly, in filing the subpoena, EDF has now broadcast to the world this anonymous review on TheFunded.com:

Worked with these people on several deals and they are to be avoided unless you are desparate. Beaus Laskey, the only honest straightforward person in the bunch, has left the firm.

That's pretty clearly the opinion of one anonymous commenter, and most readers of TheFunded.com would take it as such -- an anonymous ranting from someone who had a bad experience. Look at the listings on TheFunded.com and you'll see that almost every VC firm has a few such comments from an angry entrepreneur. People looking over the site understand that and take that into account. It's hard to see what's actually libelous about the statement, as it's pretty clearly just this guy's opinion.

But, of course, beyond drawing a LOT more attention to this one silly angry post than it ever would have received otherwise, EDF has also shown the world how it handles a little bit of criticism. If entrepreneurs didn't have a reason to avoid the firm before (even after reading the reviews on TheFunded.com), I'd imagined this thin-skinned guaranteed-to-backfire response that shows little understanding of how to respond to internet criticism will probably convince many other entrepreneurs to stay away. Which, of course, is exactly the opposite of what the firm probably wants.

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Lawyer Seriously Slapped Down For SLAPP Attempt Against Librarian Blogger

from the ouch dept

We've covered the concept of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits plenty of times before. These are bogus lawsuits filed to try to bully a critic into shutting up. In one such case, involving an incredibly broad subpoena against a librarian blogger compiling information on the potential link between mercury and autism, a magistrate judge has seriously smacked down the lawyer who filed the subpoena. The blogger had merely published on her blog information about the fees the lawyer in question had received. In response, the lawyer subpoenaed a ridiculous amount of information from her: "all documents pertaining to the setup, financing, running, research, maintaining" of the blog, "including communications with representatives of the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry, advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, political action groups, profit or non-profit entities, journals, editorial boards, scientific boards, academic boards, medical licensing boards, any 'religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations,' and any other 'concerned individuals.'"

The judge quashed the subpoena quickly, but has now hit back really hard on the lawyer, Clifford Shoemaker, for filing it in the first place:

Shoemaker has not offered a shred of evidence to support his speculations. He has, he says, had his suspicions aroused because she has so much information. Clearly he is unfamiliar with the extent of the information which a highly-competent librarian like Ms. Seidel can, and did, accumulate. If Shoemaker wanted to know if Ms. Seidel was in part supported by or provided information by Bayer, he could have inquired of Bayer or limited the Seidel subpoena to that information. Instead he issued the subpoena calling for production of documents and a deposition on the day before he stipulated to dismiss the underlying suit with prejudice. His failure to withdraw the subpoena when he clearly knew that suit was over is telling about his motives. His efforts to vilify and demean Ms. Seidel are unwarranted and unseemly....

I find that Clifford Shoemaker violated Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1) and Rule 45(c)(1).... The 11(b)(1) violation may also violate Virginia's Rules of Professional Conduct .... Clifford J. Shoemaker’s action is an abuse of legal process, a waste of judicial resources and an unnecessary waste of the time and expense to the purported deponent.

The Clerk of Court is directed to forward a certified copy of this order, the motion to quash, the show cause order, and the response of Shoemaker and Seidel to the appropriate professional conduct committee of the Virginia State Bar in order that it may be made aware of Clifford J. Shoemaker's conduct and so that those authorities may take whatever action they deem appropriate.

As a sanction from this court, Clifford J. Shoemaker is ordered to attend within three months, a continuing legal education program on ethics and on the discovery rules in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He is ordered to file a certification of completion of the programs.

Now that's a smackdown.

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New Jersey Says ISPs Need A Subpoena To Give Up Subscriber Info

from the it-really-needed-a-decision? dept

A bunch of folks have sent in the link about the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that ISPs need a valid subpoena to hand over private info on your account to anyone -- including the police. While people are rightfully cheering this on as an excellent decision, what's troubling is the idea that anyone has felt otherwise. ISPs (and other service providers) shouldn't be handing out your private data without a valid legal reason no matter what -- and that should not have required a legal decision to make clear.

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New York City Subpoenas TXTmob For All Text Messages Sent At Republican Convention

from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept

Over the last few years, with the growing recognition of the concept of "flash mobs" or "smart mobs" it's no surprise that various tools have been created to help manage large crowds of diverse individuals who converge for a single purpose. One of those was a project called TXTmob, which was widely used in 2004 by people protesting the Republican National Convention in New York City. Lots of folks used the service to send out group messages to others participating, and to quickly organize and disperse as necessary. As you may recall, there were some confrontations between protesters and the police, resulting in a bunch of arrests. Many of those arrested claim that the arrests were unfair, and have sued the city. As part of its defense, lawyers for New York City have now sent a broad subpoena to the guy who created and ran TXTmob demanding, among other things, many of the text messages sent via the service, including the identities of the senders and recipients. Needless to say, this seems like an overly broad request -- and Tad Hirsch, the MIT PhD. student who set up the service, claims that much of that information no longer exists. Even if it did exist, it seems to be overstepping privacy bounds to demand that Hirsch hand over such information, especially without any specifics included. The whole thing smacks of using subpoenas to intimidate people.

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Don't Click On This Link Unless You Don't Mind A Grand Jury Knowing What You Read

from the privacy?-schmivacy dept

Apparently two executives from Village Voice Media (publishers of The Village Voice and other independent newspapers) were arrested yesterday for revealing grand jury information that was supposed to be private. Specifically, they had published an article in one of its publications, the Phoenix New Times, accusing a grand jury of unconstitutional behavior in issuing a subpoena for all sorts of information about the Phoenix New Times and its readership. Now, before you click on the link to the article, it's worth noting that the subpoena in question demands that the newspaper hand over incredibly detailed log information on every visitor to that website since January 2004. This is because someone is upset about four articles dealing with a local sheriff. Yet, though the supposed problem is with the four articles, the subpoena demands information on every visitor to the site, including such things as their IP address, which articles they read, any information obtained by cookies, the referral links that got them to the website, their type of browser and their type of operating system. In other words, all the info typically found in a log file -- but it's unclear why this information could possibly be necessary in a complaint about 4 specific articles. Update: As pointed out in the comments, just as we were writing up this story, the original lawsuit was dropped and the special prosecutor was fired.

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