Maybe Your Lawyers Shouldn’t Tell Reporters You Did Not Engage In ‘Conspiracy To Or Complicity In Murder’ When No One Was Claiming Otherwise
from the get-better-lawyers? dept
Sometimes my “I have not participated in any conspiracy to or complicity in murder” t-shirt raises a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.
Remember Rajat Khare? He’s the guy associated with Appin Technologies in India, and there’s a pattern of stories mentioning his name suddenly disappearing (or his name disappearing from them) after his various lawyers get involved. Could be a coincidence. Might not be.
We had written about Appin successfully getting an Indian court to order Reuters and Google to remove a story about Appin last year based on a preliminary court ruling. Then we received a bunch of emails from Appin demanding we remove our article. A few weeks ago, we (with help from EFF) told Appin that we were under no obligation to do so.
Reporter Andy Greenberg at Wired wrote about all of this the day we released our response. Now, a couple of weeks later, Wired has updated their story to note that Khare’s lawyers had contacted them two weeks after the story had gone up (despite Greenberg having reached out to Appin and receiving no response) to complain about not having been asked for comment, calling Wired’s story defamatory, and demanding a retraction.
There was something else too:
Neither Appin Training Centers nor Rajat Khare responded to WIRED’s request for comment. However, two weeks after this story was initially published, lawyers from the firm Clare Locke sent a letter to WIRED on Khare’s behalf, calling this story defamatory and demanding a retraction. WIRED stands by its reporting. The letter claimed that WIRED did not reach out to Khare for comment, which is false. It demanded that WIRED include a statement from Khare, which we’ve added as an update below. In addition, it denied that Khare had participated in any “conspiracy to or complicity in murder”—an allegation that was not made in this article.
So, noted.
Filed Under: andy greenberg, rajat khare, streisand effect, threats
Companies: appin
Comments on “Maybe Your Lawyers Shouldn’t Tell Reporters You Did Not Engage In ‘Conspiracy To Or Complicity In Murder’ When No One Was Claiming Otherwise”
At least, not without the approval of the Indian government and ESPECIALLY Modi’s approval.
After all, Appin has PRINCIPLES.
Yes, this is all sarcasm.
So, are the new hire for hire accusations a mistake of using cut and paste boiler plate from previous threat letters, or an attempt to poison articles by making new salacious ‘hit for hire’ accusations the focus?
Mike, I was wondering if you had participated in any conspiracy to or complicity in murder. Thanks for clearing that up.
I’ll just plead the Fifth on this one.
Re:
May I recommend a good Glenfiddich 12 year old single malt?
Re: Re:
I actually don’t drink. I’m more of a “chronic by the ounce” kinda guy.
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How do you survive then? Osmosis?
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So, you plead the Eighth?
Is that would you call an offensive defense?
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Damn it, *is that what you would call…
Provers 28:1
“The wicked flee when no man pursueth.”
Also, from Hamlet, with a slight edit:
“The [man] doth protest too much, methinks”
As the saying goes...
The guilty dog barks the loudest.
Quotes neverending
It has always seemed that a fear of judgment is the mark of guilt and the burden of insecurity.
Well… this gets interesting. I had previously just thought of Khare and Appin as being potentially involved in black hat hacking and international cyberespionage.
But the first thing that came to my mind after reading THAT denial was this:
https://www.nytimes.com/article/canada-india-nijjar.html
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And beyond the obvious murder angle there, this also suggests that it’s possible that Khare is working internationally on belhalf of the Modi government. Which further raises eyebrows about the Indian court cases currently in progress.
All of that is purely circumstantial of course; it’s based solely on statements made by Khare’s lawyers on his behalf.
Well I hadn't made that connection BEFORE they said it...
Nothing is more reassuring and better for your image than having your lawyers pro-actively tell people what crimes you aren’t committing.
It’s much like how everyone knows that the best way to get people to not think about a pink elephant is to tell them, explicitly, not to do that.
My appreciation for the cynical burn.