Yesterday we wrote about coal company Murray Energy and its CEO, Bob Murray, actually following through and suing John Oliver -- something that Murray's lawyers had threatened to do when Oliver and his team had reached out to Murray for a piece Oliver was doing on coal. The result of being threatened was that Oliver spent nearly half of the 24 minute segment on Murray, carefully detailing some of Murray's history and positions. If you missed it, watch it again here:

Anyway, when we wrote about the case yesterday, we noted that we had to do it based solely on the reporting of the Daily Beast, as they broke the story and -- for reasons I still don't understand -- refused to post the actual complaint. However, now we've obtained the full complaint and can dig in on how incredibly silly it is. It appears to be a quintessential SLAPP lawsuit, where the entire point is not to bring a legitimate cause of action, but to chill free speech that criticizes Bob Murray. As Ken "Popehat" White notes, it's "lawsuit as theater" and "an unapologetic political screed" -- that is, apparently designed to rile people up, rather than to present a reasonable legal argument.

Let's dig in. It certainly starts out on a high note with the rhetoric:

On June 18, 2017, Defendants executed a meticulously planned attempt to assassinate the character and reputation of Mr. Robert E. Murray and his companies, including Murray Energy Corporation and those in West Virginia, on a world stage. They did so for their personal financial gain by knowingly broadcasting false, injurious, and defamatory comments to HBO's approximately 134 million paying subscribers, while also knowing that their malicious broadcast would be repeated to countless more individuals through various outlets (including other media owned by certain Defendants.

I've now watched the video four times and I fail to see anywhere that it goes after "those in West Virginia." Indeed, it's actually quite sympathetic to the plight of miners and former miners in the area who have run into problems or lost their jobs. The only people that it holds out as problematic... are the CEOs of various mining companies and the President of the United States. And even if Murray's reputation is mocked in the piece, as long as there aren't false statements of fact, presented with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for the truth, it's all perfectly legal. Making Bob Murray look foolish or mean isn't illegal, as long as it's based on statements of opinion or those backed up with evidence.

But, Murray's lawyers appear to suggest that because Murray is in poor health, that somehow makes this entirely different. It's... an odd sympathy play in a lawsuit:

They did this to a man who needs a lung transplant, a man who does not expect to live to see the end of this case. They attacked him in a forum in which he had no opportunity to defend himself, and so he has brought this suit to try to set the record straight.

The health stuff is pure "theater" as Ken noted. The "no opportunity to defend" himself is weird, because I thought Republicans like Murray were completely 100% against a "fairness doctrine" that required equal time for political opponents (which is the right position to take). But, even beyond that, the idea that Murray had no choice but to file a lawsuit to defend himself or to set the record straight is laughable. As Oliver's report clearly showed, Murray is regularly on TV and could easily get a message onto the various TV news programs that have him on as a guest. And, either way (again) that's got absolutely nothing to do with defamation law and how it works.

The sob story continues:

Worse yet, Defendants employed techniques designed solely to harass and embarrass Plaintiffs, including Mr. Murray, a seventy-seven year old citizen in ill health and dependent on an oxygen tank for survival, who, despite the foregoing, continuously devotes his life, including by working seven days each week, to save the jobs and better the lives of the thousands of coal miners that he employs in West Virginia and elsewhere. Defendants childishly demeaned and disparaged Mr. Murray and his companies, made jokes about Mr. Murray's age, health, and appearance, made light of a tragic mining incident, broadcasted false statements, and incited television and internet viewers to do harm to Mr. Murray and his companies, all before a worldwide audience--including the thousands of people that work for and do business with Mr. Murray and his companies in West Virginia. In fact, medical doctors have informed Mr. Murray that he should stop working because the stress is shortening his life. Mr. Murray must, however, continue working because of all those individuals who rely on him. But nothing has ever stressed him more than this vicious and untruthful attack.

Bravo! Quite a performance there. This seems clearly targeted towards pulling at the heartstrings of folks in West Virginia, but, again seems to have little to nothing to do with the actual law. Again, Murray's health is not an issue here -- and if this has caused him more stress than anything else in his life ever, then Mr. Murray has led an incredibly low stress life. Is he really saying that a late night British comedian on a premium channel has caused him more stress than the time that one of his mines collapsed and killed a group of his employees? If so... that's... weird. Separately, making fun of someone's age, health or appearance (and I don't recall any actual jokes about his age or health...) is, again, not defamation. It's sort of protected by the First Amendment. The only thing that could be defamation is "false statements" and notice how the lawsuit seems to be playing up everything else, rather than that?

When you start to dig into the actual meat of the lawsuit... there's almost nothing there. It complains that Oliver's staff may have contacted Murray Energy under false pretenses, saying that they "were under the false impression that Defendants would use this supplied information to accurately and responsibly broadcast the facts and circumstances regarding the topics," but that, again, makes little difference to the question of defamation. Just because a news company doesn't present your version of the events exactly as you want it presented, doesn't make it defamation. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The lawsuit does provide plenty of additional bits of information concerning the Crandall Canyon mine collapse and how Murray reacted to it. And all of that is perhaps interesting, but again, none of it requires Oliver to portray the story in the way that Murray Energy likes. And, again, if you go back and review the actual story that Oliver did, he does not contradict any of the factual claims laid out by Murray's lawyers. Rather, he highlights the stories of miners or families of miners who were impacted by the collapse and were not happy with how Murray responded. The crux of the argument on Murray's side is "but we tried real hard." And, great. But highlighting how others felt about the effort and actions is not defamation. It's presenting other viewpoints.

The only possible "factual" point where there could be some controversy is over whether or not the mine collapsed due to an earthquake, as Murray has insisted since the day of the collapse itself. Oliver pointed to the US government report on the incident put together by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), a part of the US Department of Labor. That report concluded: "The August 6 catastrophic accident was the result of an inadequate mine design," and, on top of it: "MSHA found no evidence that a naturally occurring earthquake caused the collapse on August 6."

In the lawsuit, Murray's evidence that this is false seems to focus on semantics and making fun of the MSHA inspectors (you know they're making fun of them because it puts "experts" in quote marks):

The Federal Mine Safety and Health Administration's report regarding the collapse (the "MSHA Report") contained multiple concessions that a sudden change in stresses due to a "slip along a joint" or "joint slip in the overburden," which is very similar to the United States Geological Survey's definition of an "earthquake" (i.e., "both sudden slip on a fault, and the resulting ground shaking and radiated seismic energy caused by the slip"), "could have been a factor in triggering the collapse" and was one of the "likely candidates" for triggering the collapse, but MSHA and its "experts" chose not to analyze the seismic data of the triggering event and instead focused on the secondary collapse, which was a disservice to the lost miners, their families and the truth.

Studies have shown that the Mine collapse was a seismic event originating in the Joe's Valley Fault Zone. More specifically, these studies indicated that the triggering event for the seismic disturbance, which was not consistent with normal mining-induced seismicity resulting in the collapse, occurred on a subsidiary fault parallel to the Joe's Valley Fault. This is a more technical manner of stating that the collapse was caused by what many would characterize as an earthquake.

So that first paragraph is nonsense. It's not "actual malice" if you have clear evidence to back up your statements, and the official MSHA report sure seems like pretty good evidence to support that Oliver and his team believed what Oliver said was true. The fact that Murray doesn't like the MSHA "experts" doesn't magically make using their report "defamation." Second, notice that all of the talk about the earthquake comes with qualifying language: "very similar to... definition of an 'earthquake'", "what many would characterize as an earthquake." Even beyond the other stuff, this further undermines any defamation claim over the one sort of "fact" the lawsuit focuses on: if there's a dispute over whether or not what happened was truly an earthquake, then choosing a side in that dispute is not defamation. It's an opinion. That's protected.

Mr. Murray and his companies warned Defendants to cease and desist from a broadcast of defamatory comments or any misguided attempt at humor regarding the tragic mine collapse and loss of life, which Plaintiffs believed would be cruel and heartless.

So, uh, earlier in the complaint, Murray's lawyers argue that they believed that when Oliver and his team reached out they were ordinary journalists, claiming that they reached out "under the guise of responsible and ethical journalism." And, yet, here they admit that that they knew that he's a comedian who regularly satirizes people and companies, thus they didn't want to see a humorous take on the situation. Also, there's no law against "misguided" humor (and, uh, many folks found the humor to be quite on target). Finally, there is nothing in defamation law about it being illegal for you to have "cruel and heartless" comedy. And, in actuality, Oliver's piece was neither cruel, nor heartless. Many would likely argue that it was incredibly sympathetic and empathetic to the plight of struggling coal miners, who are facing a radical transformation of their industry.

The complaint, once again, then hits on the idea that because Oliver's story didn't represent the collapse the way Bob Murray wanted it portrayed, that's defamation. That's... not how it works. It's not how any of this works.

In the ensuing broadcast, Defendants deliberately omitted the facts Plaintiffs provided regarding the Crandall Canyon Mine incident. There was no mention of the efforts Mr. Murray personally made to save the trapped miners. Defendant Oliver did not tell his audience that Mr. Murray arrived at the Crandall Canyon Mine in Utah within four hours of the collapse. Nor did Defendant Oliver say anything about the twenty-eight straight days Mr. Murray then spent on that mountain overseeing the massive rescue efforts, and administering to the families. Nor did he mention that Mr. Murray personally led the rescue efforts when rescue workers were injured and killed in a subsequent event ten days after the initial seismic event, in fact pulling rescue workers from the debris and attending to their injuries with his own hands and administering to them.

That's nice and all... but it's totally meaningless. Not reporting those things is not defamation. Murray has every right to then put out a statement, or go on TV, or get another reporter to tell these stories. But in a lawsuit? Just because the story is about Bob Murray doesn't mean that Bob Murray gets editorial control. That's not how it works, Bob.

Then it gets even more bizarre:

Instead, presumably to boost ratings, line their pockets with profits, and advance the show's anti-coal agenda, Defendant Oliver intentionally, falsely, and outrageously conveyed that Mr. Murray has no evidence to support his statements that an earthquake caused the tragedy that took the lives of Murray Energy miners during the course of their work for the organization.

Rather than fairly characterizing the evidence that he had in his possession on the subject, Defendant Oliver instead quoted an out-of-context snippet from a single report stating that there was "no evidence that a naturally occurring earthquake caused the collapse." Because Defendant Oliver omitted any mention of the other reports he was aware of that evidence that an earthquake caused the collapse, as Mr. Murray correctly stated following the collapse, Defendant Oliver's presentation intentionally and falsely implied that there is no such evidence.

Yeah. So, about that. The above just isn't true. Watch the video again. Oliver directly says that Murray relies on other evidence to support the earthquake claim ("to this day, Murray says the evidence proves that he was correct.") Then Oliver notes (correctly and accurately) that the government report says otherwise: "that was decidedly not the conclusion of the government's investigation." So, for Murray's lawyers to argue that Oliver ignored the evidence on the other side is... simply not accurate. Oliver notes that Murray points to evidence on his side, but he then points to the government's conclusions. Yes, Oliver makes it clear he believes the government's report, but, um, it's the US government. You're not going to win a defamation lawsuit by arguing that relying on the conclusions of a federal government investigation is defamation, just because you have "other evidence" that you claim disagrees with the government's evidence.

Worse still, as discussed, Defendant Oliver's Senior News Producer, Defendant Wilson, obtained from Plaintiffs detailed information evidencing an earthquake or earthquake-like event did trigger and cause the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse.

Note the immediate caveats of an "earthquake-like event." Again, this undermines the argument that saying a government report concluded it wasn't an earthquake is somehow defamation.

They also did this despite knowing that determinations of causation are vastly complex and can take years before a reliable conclusion can be reached.

So, uh, yeah. About that. This is true, but remember, part of the joke here, from Oliver, was that Murray declared definitively in a press conference the day of the collapse that it was clearly an earthquake that caused this and not the company itself. So, if Murray's own lawyers are now admitting that this is vastly complex and "can take years," it sort of reinforces the key point that Oliver was making, that Murray himself immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was an earthquake and not his fault, when that was not at all clearly know. This filing seems to do more to undermine Murray than Oliver.

Defendants also aired a clip of congressional testimony of a relative of a former employee of Murray Energy that appeared to be dissatisfied with Mr. Murray's handling of the Crandall Canyon Mine collapse, when upon information and belief the statements of that employee were not his own, but were instead scripted by adverse counsel in a lawsuit against Murray Energy and given to the employee to further the agenda of such counsel and their clients.

Right, so this is similar to the whole dismissing the MSHA report by calling its experts "experts." Oliver accurately reported what this relative said. Who wrote it is immaterial. If what that relative said was defamatory, then Murray could go after that relative. But there's no defamation in Oliver playing a clip of Congressional testimony. Again, that's not how it works.

There's a lot more in the lawsuit, which you can read below, but it pretty much all falls into the same issues as the parts described above. It's no surprise that, looking over the website of Murray's lawyers, they don't list defamation as a specialty, but tend to focus on personal injury. There's a lot of complaining and theatricality, but very little of substance, and nothing that I can see that comes anywhere close to defamation. And that makes this a pretty clear SLAPP suit, designed to chill the speech not just of Oliver and HBO, but of any other reporters looking to cover Bob Murray and Murray Energy. This is the nature of chilling effects created by SLAPP suits. They try to punish people for actually speaking out and sharing their opinion while scaring off others from doing the same.

Once again: this is an example of why we need much stronger anti-SLAPP laws at the state and federal level. Laws that require plaintiffs to pay up for filing bogus SLAPP suits, as a deterrent. And, again, one hopes that now that he's facing such a lawsuit (which, as I've said from personal experience is no fun at all, no matter how sure you are that you're in the right), John Oliver will become as outspoken in favor of anti-SLAPP laws as he's been about other important issues.

Here on Techdirt we've written much about the way Western pharma companies fight for their "right" to charge unaffordable prices for medicines in emerging and developing economies. In particular, they routinely take governments and local generic suppliers to court in an attempt to shore up highly-profitable monopolies on life-saving drugs. But to be fair, it's not only poorer people who are dying as a result of Big Pharma's desire to maximize profits: Western drug companies are equally happy to charge even higher prices in richer countries -- notably in the US. That's old news. But there is a pharmaceutical saga unfolding that manages to combine all the worst aspects of this kind of behavior, and to throw in a few new ones.

It concerns something really exciting and important: a vaccine that shows great promise against the devastating Zika virus, which can cause microcephaly, blindness, deafness, and calcification of the brain in children whose mothers were infected during their pregnancy. If effective, such a vaccine could be a tremendous boon not just for developing countries, but for Western ones too, since the Zika virus has already begun to spread in the US, and Europe. The vaccine was developed at the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research, and the Department of the Army funded its development. Great news, you might think: the US public paid for it, so it's only right that it should have low-cost access to it. Moreover, as an act of compassion -- and to burnish its international image -- the US could allow other countries to produce it cheaply too. But an article in The Nation reports that the US Army has other ideas:

the Army is planning to grant exclusive rights to this potentially groundbreaking medicine -- along with as much as $173 million in funding from the Department of Health and Human Services -- to the French pharmaceutical corporation Sanofi Pasteur. Sanofi manufactures a number of vaccines, but it's also faced repeated allegations of overcharges and fraud. Should the vaccine prove effective, Sanofi would be free to charge whatever it wants for it in the United States. Ultimately, the vaccine could end up being unaffordable for those most vulnerable to Zika, and for cash-strapped states.

The Knowledge Ecology Institute (KEI), led by Jamie Love, made a reasonable suggestion to ensure that those most at need would have access to the drug at a reasonable price. KEI asked that, if Sanofi does get an exclusive deal, it should be obliged to make the vaccine available at an affordable price. The Army said it lacked the ability to enforce price controls, but it would ask those nice people at Sanofi to commit to affordable pricing on a voluntary basis. According to The Nation, those nice people at Sanofi refused. Speaking of nice people at Sanofi, the article notes the following:

Sanofi's record also includes a number of controversies related to its pricing practices, from a $190 million fine to settle charges that it defrauded Medicare and other government programs, to a $109 million fine to settle charges that it illegally provided product kickbacks to doctors. In 2014, a whistle-blower alleged the company engaged in another kickback scheme and the destruction of legal evidence. KEI maintains a comprehensive list of Sanofi's fraud fines, including the latest: a $19.9 million settlement, reached this April, for overcharging the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

When there is an entire Web page dedicated to listing Sanofi's problems going back to 2009, you really have to wonder why the US Army is so keen to give the company a monopoly on this promising new treatment. The usual argument for the sky-high prices of drugs is that firms must be rewarded for taking on the financial risk of drug development, otherwise they won't proceed, and the world would be the poorer. Except, of course, in this case that risk was entirely borne by the US public, which paid for the early stage development of the vaccine with their taxes. So Sanofi risked nothing, but now looks likely to reap the benefits by being allowed to price the vaccine out of the reach of the people who most need it. You might think there ought to be a law against this kind of behavior. It turns out that there is:

KEI's Jamie Love pointed out that under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, it is already illegal to grant exclusive rights to a federally owned invention unless the license holder agrees to make it available at reasonable pricing. But that provision has rarely, if ever, been enforced.

Now would be a really great time to start enforcing that law.

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Wall Street is finally starting to realize there's a storm brewing on the horizon for the nation's biggest cable companies. Cable stocks took a notable dip this week after MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett downgraded the entire cable sector because of worries surrounding cord cutting and streaming video competition. Moffett, who not that long ago used to mock cord cutters for being irrelevant basement dwellers, has seen the light -- more recently noting that 2016's 1.7% decline in traditional cable TV viewers was the biggest cord cutting acceleration on record.

And in a lengthy research note to investors this week, the analyst warned that the cable industry's approach to cord cutting (raising rates and offering horrible customer service while hoping it all works out) simply isn't going to cut it given the competitive threats to come:

"Broadband growth will inevitably slow, and it will likely do so at precisely the same time that video growth rates also come under pressure from OTT substitution," Moffett said in his Tuesday-morning note. "And while cable operators have the pricing power to offset these headwinds via their broadband business, we believe it is likely that investors will (appropriately) apply a somewhat lower terminal growth rate assumption to a business that is achieving its growth through pricing rather than unit growth."

Wall Street and the cable sector's optimism in the face of a massive sector (r)evolution is running out of oxygen, Moffett insists:

"The cable stocks have climbed a wall of worry to get here," Moffett wrote to clients. “But as any mountain climber knows, the higher you go, the thinner the air."

It's an interesting position for Moffett to take, given the fact that for years the analyst breathlessly supported broadband usage caps and overage fees as a fail-safe solution to this problem, once going so far as to declare usage caps "the next generation of communications." Arbitrary and utterly unnecessary usage caps are one trick Comcast has been using to hamstring streaming competitors, while raising prices on broadband to counter any potential TV revenue loss.

For the moment, Comcast has been cushioned from the cord cutting threat by its growing monopoly over fixed-line broadband service. Companies like AT&T and Verizon have shifted their attentions to media and advertising, and other major telcos like Windstream, Frontier, and CenturyLink lack the courage, money or incentive to upgrade their aging DSL lines at any real scale. So in many markets, customers looking for next-gen broadband speeds only have one option: cable. And when they show up, they're forced to sign up for TV services they may not want.

You'd think that a growing broadband monopoly, usage caps, and the government's decision to gut most meaningful oversight of one of the least-competitive sectors in America would have Wall Street stock jocks pretty damn excited. The fact that many of them are still very worried about the cord cutting threat to come -- despite Comcast's immense position of power -- tells you precisely what kind of threat we're looking at.

The history of Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange is a tortured one, to be sure. Once the darling of the left for exposing important misdeeds by the American government, the site then became a tool for the right in the last Presidential election with the publishing of emails stolen in a hack of the DNC. From there, some have accused Wikileaks of being an arm of Moscow's intelligence efforts, while the America government has made noise about prosecuting the site and Assange under the Espionage Act. Still others support the site for its efforts in exposing the secrets governments wish to keep hidden from the citizens to whom they are beholden.

Through it all, Assange and Wikileaks have remained firm in their mission to expose information and secrets that were previously kept from the public. Except, it seems, when that information has to do with Wikileaks itself. According to the makers of a documentary about Wikileaks entitled Risk, on the topic of Wikileaks, Wikileaks is chiefly interested not in open journalism and unvarnished truth, but rather on its own image. And apparently the site is willing to wield legal threats and lawyers in a way that is almost absurdly hypocritical.

We are the producers of Risk , a documentary film about Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. We unequivocally defend WikiLeaks’ journalistic right to publish true and newsworthy information...We were disturbed, however, to learn that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks sent cease and desist letters to our distributors demanding they stop the release of Risk: “We therefore demand that you immediately cease the use and distribution of all images of the Named Participants and that you desist from this or any other infringement of the rights of the Named Participants in the future.”

From there, the filmmakers go into what lengths they went to work directly with Wikileaks and Assange on the film starting back in 2011. Assange himself provided content to be used in the film and even signed a licensing agreement to use Wikileaks footage for it. Some people involved with Wikileaks requested not to be in the film and the filmmakers complied. People from the site and their lawyers have been shown screenings of the film before every regional release, including as recently as April of this year. There is no claim made thus far that any of the content of the film is false.

So, what is the weighty harm over which Wikileaks is firing off C&Ds? Its image and the image of Assange.

Since 2016, Assange and his lawyers have repeatedly demanded that we remove scenes from the film in which Assange speaks about the two women who made sexual assault allegations against him in 2010 and Sweden’s investigation which has since been discontinued. WikiLeaks’ comments have consistently been about image management, including: demands to remove scenes from the film where Assange discusses sexual assault allegations against him; requests to remove images of alcohol bottles in the embassy because Ecuador is a Catholic country and it looks bad; requests to include mentions of WikiLeaks in the 2016 U.S. presidential debates; and, requests to add more scenes with attorney Amal Clooney because she makes WikiLeaks look good.

The opinion that Assange is an egomaniac has been floating around for some time. With actions like these, there seems to be some evidence of that. But that charge aside, what should be abundantly clear is that the ideals of the site appear to have fallen by the wayside when it comes to a simple documentary that has refused to cinematically stroke Wikileaks to the degree it wishes. That's not a good look for a site that survives on people's belief that it is committed to open and honest information.

In fact, this looks to be the sort of thing that the Wikileaks from years gone by would have dug into and exposed.

Facial recognition software is getting to the point where there are some very interesting things that can be done with it in everyday life. That includes really bad ideas like enabling the police to run record checks on everyone who passes in front of their body-worn cameras. But it also means that businesses can start applying the technology in novel ways. Here's what is happening on a trial basis in some German supermarkets and post offices, as reported by Deutsche Welle:

There's a camera and a screen set up by the check-out. A visual sensor scans the faces of waiting customers who have looked directly at the camera and detects whether they're male or female and how old they are.

Marketing company Echion is running the cameras and screens. The brands that advertise with them have clearly delineated target groups. If the visual sensor detects that enough people who fall into a company's target demographic are looking at the screen, an ad by this company will start playing.

Being shown ads that are likely to be more relevant to you is probably no bad thing. But once cameras are in place, it would be natural for shops to start using them for other more complex tasks, like spotting known shoplifters:

faces of individuals caught on camera are converted into a biometric template and cross-referenced with a database for a possible match with past shoplifters or known criminals. Some stores in the US give shoplifting suspects the option of allowing themselves to be photographed, rather than arrested. All this had been made possible by the arrival of networked, high-resolution security cameras and rapidly advancing analytical capabilities.

That's from a story in the Guardian last year, so it's likely that the technology has moved on considerably since then. It's easy to think of more troubling extensions to the idea of scanning shoppers: for example, linking up to other databases of troublemakers and ne'er-do-wells, or to selfies derived from social networks.

As well as obvious privacy issues, explored in the Deutsche Welle report, a more general concern is the normalization this latest application of facial scanning might produce. Once cameras coupled with facial recognition software are routinely installed in everyday settings like supermarkets -- with appropriate warnings -- perhaps we will begin to accept them as the norm, and barely notice their silent spread to other locations and situations.

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The Miami-Dade Police Department has decided to drop its wide-area surveillance plan in the face of public backlash. The MDPD tried to slip it past residents and the county government by claiming the acquisition of a secret spy plane was too important to be done properly.

Documents submitted by the commission, first reported by New Times last Thursday, showed that MDPD has already applied for a $500,000 Department of Justice grant to begin testing the program. The department claimed the deadline to apply for the grants had allegedly been too pressing to wait to notify the public, and so County Mayor Carlos Gimenez's office applied for the DOJ money without first getting public approval.

A classic case of asking forgiveness rather than permission, coupled with a deliberate attempt to circumvent the part of the process that would have caused the most problems for the MDPD's surveillance plans: the public's comments.

Once the document was posted publicly, the backlash began, led by a number of rights groups including the ACLU and the Defending Rights and Dissent Foundation. The surveillance system sought is repurposed Iraq War tech: a high-powered camera system mounted on an airplane that proponents and opponents both describe as a "DVR for real life." Capable of capturing a 32-square-mile area, the cameras don't provide much in terms of close-up detail, but do allow law enforcement agencies to track people's movements over a several hour period, whether in real-time or by replaying recordings.

As the Miami New Times reports, the MDPD has offered no justification for this expansion of its surveillance powers. Apparently, the new surveillance tech was supposed to sell itself, what with most of the cost being offset by a $500,000 DOJ grant. Just as disturbing is the fact that so few county lawmakers questioned the acquisition, even after being made aware the MDPD had already applied for the grant without running it by them first.

Fortunately, the plan is now dead. The MDPD may still want its eye in the sky, but its top official has decided he won't go against the public's will... for now.

[A]fter New Times broke news of the plan two weeks ago, MDPD Director Juan Perez announced in an email to the American Civil Liberties Union today that he's scrapping the program.

"There is some good news on the horizon for you," Perez told ACLU Florida Director Howard Simon at 10:20 a.m., according to a copy Simon sent New Times. "I am scrapping the project, but would like to get your opinion on the matter."

The ACLU is obviously pleased with this decision, but still hasn't heard from the MDPD director whether this includes trashing its DOJ grant request, or whether this grant money might be still be used to purchase other surveillance gear the public won't know about until it's on the doorstep of approval.

The good news is the public's voice was heard, if a little after the fact. The invaluable reporting by the Miami New Times was instrumental in mobilizing opposition, something good journalism has a tendency to do. The real test of the MDPD's new outlook will be when the next opportunity to buy up surveillance gear with federal grants arrives. Hopefully, it will seek out public comment first, rather than only react when the backlash becomes too much to ignore.

With the ubiquity of social media presence in people's daily lives, the past few years has seen the rise of concern over people's privacy of their social media accounts, as well as concern over how content shared on those accounts could be used against the account holder. In America, this commonly breaks mostly into concerns about prospective employers reviewing social media accounts during the hiring process and how government reviews social media accounts for law enforcement purposes. While there are real concerns to be had in both cases, however, it's useful to be reminded that there are places where it is so much worse. Useful in that it's good to be reminded what privacy advocates are fighting to keep us from. Such as death.

In Pakistan, the government there has reached the unfortunate milestone of sentencing its first ever person to death over content he put on Facebook.

On Saturday, 30-year-old Taimoor Raza became the first person to receive a death sentence in a Pakistan anti-terrorism court for "using derogatory remarks ... in respect of the Holy Prophet" on social media.

Amnesty International's Pakistan campaigner, Nadia Rahman, said in a statement the conviction set a "dangerous precedent."

"No one one should be hauled before an anti-terrorism court or any other court solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief online," she said.

While the rules and laws of countries vary greatly, it should be an uncontroversial stance to state that no person should be sentenced to death over what amounts to speech and thought. Even those confused into thinking that supporting multiculturalism requires the absence of a moral stance on whether criticism of any particular faith ought to come with any punishment whatsoever must be capable of acknowledging that death sentences ought not be on the table for consideration. But, should someone want to argue that point, it should at least be understood that these kinds of laws pretty much have abuse of the law baked into them.

A 2016 report by Amnesty International found the laws are "open to abuse" and anyone who is accused is usually presumed to be guilty, leaving them open to mob retribution. There were 91 blasphemy cases concerning the Prophet or his companions registered between 2011 and 2015, the report said.

Specific blasphemy laws which punished perceived insults to Islam were introduced between 1980 and 1986, during a period of martial law under the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq. They were never removed once martial law ended.

The genesis of these laws should tell you all you need to know about their virtue, which is to say they have none. It also demonstrates the fear that regimes of this kind have in regards to the sort of wide-ranging communications tool that Facebook represents. This all comes down to controlling thought within the citizenry out of fear of a change in social opinion, which would deprive that regime of the power it wields so perniciously. With that in mind, actions taken by governments of this kind deserve the broadest and harshest condemnation, and damn well ought to weigh on foreign policy as well.

Put more simply, if governments, including America's, can't take a stand against death sentences over Facebook posts, it cedes the moral high ground to an astounding degree.

Under the guise of fighting sex trafficking, legislators have been offering up a slew of bills that will make things much worse for plenty of people not involved in this heinous crime. Elizabeth Nolan Brown, who is the go-to expert on all sorts of government abuse done in the name of sex-trafficked children, has tallied up the current stack of legislative paperwork floating around the halls of Congress. Spoiler alert: it's a lot.

So far this year, federal lawmakers have introduced more than 30 bills related to "sex trafficking," which many in government now define to mean all prostitution. This week alone brought three new efforts. And following the familiar pattern of the drug war, these measures mostly focus on giving federal law enforcement more "tools" to find, prosecute, and punish people for actions only tangentially, if at all, connected to causing harm.

Currently, the forerunner for "worst" is one that makes a mockery of federal wiretap statutes. The laws governing government eavesdropping have been modified over the years with an eye on protecting something even more sacrosanct than someone's home: someone's private conversations. Wiretaps are only supposed to be used for felonies -- dangerous, possibly life-threatening criminal activities. They're supposed to be issued only when law enforcement has exhausted all other options and subjected to strict oversight to prevent their abuse. (Note: what's supposed to happen and what actually happens are two very different things.)

What they're not supposed to be used for is small-time stuff -- misdemeanors and other low-level, non-dangerous crimes. But that's exactly what legislators are hoping to do: expand wiretap authority to cover the consensual exchange of money for services.

One such measure would expand state and local government authority "to seek wiretap warrants in sexual exploitation and prostitution cases" (emphasis mine) and mandate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institute of Justice conduct a "study on the long-term physical and psychological effects of the commercial sex trade." It would also give the Department of Homeland Security a mandate to develop protocols "for implementation across federal, state, and local law enforcement" on how to screen people "suspected of engaging in commercial sex acts" for the possibility that they have been trafficked. The screening process would also be applied to people suspected of working in violation of any labor regulations, including occupational licensing rules.

Combine this new authority with government officials' natural tendency to name-and-shame anyone involved with consensual sex work and you've got a whole can of wiretapped worms just waiting to be exploited for maximum public damage. Add to that the underlying assertion that sex work is some sort of illness that must be studied by the CDC and, presumably, "remedied" by even more ridiculous, harmful legislation.

And no one really wants to see the DHS getting involved in local vice cases. The DHS has already proven it knows almost nothing about securing the homeland. Asking it to dip into prostitution busts is basically asking for widespread rights violations, especially if this activity takes places in the so-called "Constitution-Free Zone," which covers areas where a large majority of the US population resides.

Also included: more federal targeting of customers and a potential to add "hate crime" sentencing enhancements to the crime of buying sex. Brown points out the bill orders the DOJ to view buying sex as a "form of gender-based violence."

And there's more, which hardly seems possible. Prostitutes could possibly be legally considered "criminal street gang members" under proposed legislation. And some bills would allow the government to start seizing personal property if fines are not paid.

The named target is sex trafficking and the supposed beneficiaries would be children, who are kidnapped and exploited all the damn time according to stats made up out of thin air. But the real targets will be the oldest profession, which includes plenty of un-exploited sex workers voluntarily providing services to paying customers. But the end result will be a spectacular amount of collateral damage -- and that's not just limited to customers having their conversations intercepted or being hit with hate crime enhancements. The proposed legislation would also wreak havoc on the internet.

Grassley's bill cobbles together a host of changes that give federal prosecuting agencies more power. Among other things, it would create a federal mandate to fight "sextortion" (without defining what this means); ask the quasi-governmental National Center for Missing and Exploited to assist the government in identifying "misleading domain names" and "misleading words or digital images on the Internet"; and more than quadruple annual appropriations for grants related to these activities.

Starting with this premise, those caught up in these supposed anti-sex trafficking efforts will find themselves in the position of proving a negative. If the government decides you're looking for child porn or exploited children (or offering either of these) but can't find images or terminology affirming this hunch, it can still go after you for being "misleading."

These bills may namecheck sex trafficking and carry the veneer of honest law enforcement work, but underneath every one of them lies the Puritanical notion that buying and selling sex is immoral and must be punished not by God, but by the government itself.

Editor's Note from Mike Masnick: Tim alerted me that he was writing on this subject, based on the article he found in the Deseret News, and I realized that we separately needed to reveal some stuff that happened earlier this year in relation to Tim's earlier reporting on this story. As Tim mentions in the story below, he first wrote about this case in 2014 (again, based on an article he found in the Deseret News) and then mentioned it obliquely in 2015 when discussing another lawsuit, and until now, had not written about it again. Back in February, one evening, I received a knock on my front door at home, with a process server handing me a subpoena. I was... confused. The subpoena was from a lawyer, Michelle Herrera, of the very large law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, on behalf of San Diego Comic Con. I was still confused. The subpoena demanded all sorts of information from us, including any "business relationship" we might have with the people who ran the Salt Lake City Comic Con (including whether or not they held any ownership stake in our company), any communications we had ever had with the organizers of Salt Lake City Comic Con and... incredibly... "all documents concerning SDCC or any SDCC Convention."

Yes, because three years ago we had written a story -- clearly based on coverage in the Deseret News -- San Diego Comic Con was demanding that we cough up every document we have that even mentions San Diego Comic Con, while similarly implying that merely having written about a legal dispute (something we do all the damn time), it meant that we were somehow in cahoots with the folks who run Salt Lake City Comic Con -- people neither Tim nor I (nor anyone else working here) have ever spoken to in any context for any reason. Such a request, beyond being overbroad and completely misguided, is also a nuisance and a burden. At best, it appeared to be a wild and unnecessary fishing expedition. At worst, it could certainly be seen as an attempt to stifle reporting that was critical of San Diego Comic Con's litigation strategy.

It also wasted our time and resources, while at least creating something of a chilling effect in making us think twice about whether it was even worth it to publish the article below, because who knows if it will lead to another knock on my door, and more time having to talk with lawyers and whatnot.

Either way, soon after receiving the subpoena, lawyer Ken "Popehat" White, filed our response, noting that we had no responsive documents for most of it, but also objecting to the overly broad nature of the request. The key part:

With respect to request 7, seeking “All documents concerning SDCC or any SDCC convention,” Witness responds that the request is overbroad, burdensome, harassing, not reasonably calculated to lead to production of admissible evidence, and seeks documents equally available to Plaintiff. Witness operates a popular blog, Techdirt.com, that has covered legal issues surrounding technology and internet culture since 1997. Plaintiff has served this subpoena because Witness has published two posts critical of Plaintiff’s case. The public posts Witness has published about SDCC or mentioning SDCC are equally available to Plaintiff at https://www.techdirt.com/blog/?tag=comic+con or https://www.techdirt.com/search-g.php?q=comicon. It would be extremely burdensome and expensive for Witness to review 20 years of records of reporting to determine if it has any document mentioning SDCC or any SDCC convention, whether or not those documents have any relationship to this case. Moreover, Plaintiff’s motive to seek such a wide range of documents unrelated to this case is clearly to harass and retaliate against Witness for critical coverage of Plaintiff’s case. Moreover, Witness objects pursuant to California Evidence Code § 1070 that the subpoena seeks unpublished information from a publisher. O'Grady v. Superior Court, 139 Cal. App.4th 1423 (Cal. Ct. App. 2006) [Section 1070 protects online news magazine]. Witness stands on its objections and will not produce documents in response to this request.

We filed that in response and never heard another peep from San Diego Comic Con. But, Tim found this latest bit of news and wished to report on it, and we felt it necessary to waste even more time putting together this bit of disclosure about SDCC's subpoena to us. No wonder the damn case is still going. Anyway... on to Tim's post:

Nearly three years ago, we wrote about a rather silly trademark dispute between the folks that run the San Diego Comic-Con and Don Farr Productions, organizers of the Salt Lake City Comic Con. The SDCC has a registered trademark for "comic-con" and suggested that iterations such as "comic con" infringed on that trademark. We pointed out at the time that there are all kinds of comic conventions using similar or identical terms, and many had done so for many years, resulting in the term "comic con" being rendered generic. Add to that the low likelihood that anyone would actually be confused into thinking these other conventions were the product of the SDCC and this whole episode seemed head-scratchingly silly.

Except it isn't silly for those targeted by these kinds of bullying trademark lawsuits. Despite the SDCC filing its suit in the summer of 2014, I want to take a moment to point out that this legal dispute is still going on and has finally reached the deposition phase.

Co-founders Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg will each face a full day of deposition Tuesday and Wednesday, leading up to a final settlement conference before a federal judge in San Diego on Thursday. Following that conference, the judge will decide whether the case will continue to advance toward a trial scheduled in October. While the organizers staunchly maintain they are in the right, Brandenburg says that after investing approximately $1 million in their defense, they are ready to focus exclusively on their event.

"I would just as soon use those creative juices to really level up (the event)," Brandenburg said. "I think we've done a great job putting on great events over the past two years in spite of this thing going on, but you know, just imagine what we could do if it wasn't."

This is the largely unheralded toll that is paid when these kinds of trademark disputes arise. Sure, there is the cost of legal fees to consider, and the annoyance of having to defend themselves in court as well. But there is a cost to the public as well, paid in terms of a lack of production that would otherwise exist by the accused. When individuals or companies that are not truly infringing upon a trademark get caught up in this sort of legal web, their customers suffer along with them.

What's truly irritating about all of this is how the SDCC appears to have decided to enforce this trademark at the flip of a switch, having spent years failing to do so. The Salt Lake City folks, meanwhile, remain rather sweet in their disposition by comparison.

Brandenburg emphasized that despite the prolonged litigation, he and Farr hold no ill will toward San Diego Comic-Con but continue to admire the iconic event. He speculated that the lawsuit represents a kind of "Custer's last stand" for San Diego Comic-Con, which has dabbled for years in taking action about other events using the name "comic con," ultimately latching onto the Salt Lake event after Brandenburg and Farr drove their branded Audi to the competing event in July 2014.

In the lawsuit, the San Diego convention claims legal ownership over the term "comic con" in its various forms, though similar events around the country — including the recently renamed "Stan Lee's Los Angeles Comic Con" — have used the name for years.

The San Diego Comic-Con remains a wildly successful event. By all accounts, it is one hell of a show, one that I personally have wanted to visit for some time. It reached that level of success despite years of other conventions using some form of the "comic con" term. What harm it may have suffered that would warrant three years worth of litigation, and all of the legal costs associated with that litigation, is absolutely beyond me.

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