As you may know, we've been covering the story of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and his campaign against Google. A few years ago, we noted how bizarre it was that Hood and other state Attorneys General seemed to be blaming Google for all kinds of bad things online. It seemed to show a fundamental lack of understanding about how the internet (and the law!) worked. Of course, things became somewhat more "understandable" when emails leaked in the Sony Hack revealed that the MPAA had an entire "Project Goliath" designed around attacking Google, and the centerpiece of it was funding Jim Hood's investigation into Google, including handling most of the lawyering, writing up Hood's letters to Google and even the "civil investigative demand" (CID -- basically a subpoena) that he could send.

Hood lashed out angrily about all of this, even as the NY Times revealed that the metadata on the letter he sent Google showed that it was really written by top MPAA lawyers. Hood continued to angrily lash out, demonstrating how little he seemed to understand about the internet. He made claims that were simply untrue -- including pretending that Google would take users to Silk Road, the dark market hidden site that could never be found via a Google search. Hood also dared reporters to find any evidence of funding from Hollywood, and it didn't take us long to find direct campaign contributions to his PAC from the MPAA and others.

Given all of this, we filed a Mississippi Public Records request with his office, seeking his email communications with the MPAA, its top lawyers and with the Digital Citizens Alliance, an MPAA front-group that has released highly questionable studies on "piracy" and just so happened to have hired Hood's close friend Mike Moore to lobby Hood in Mississippi. Moore was the Mississippi Attorney General before Hood and helped Hood get into politics.

We've had to go back and forth with Hood's office a few times. First, his office noted that Google had actually filed a similar request, and wanted to know if we were working for Google in making the request. We had no idea Google made such a request and certainly were not working on behalf of Google in making our request -- but Hood's office helpfully forwarded us Google's request, which was actually a hell of a lot more detailed and comprehensive than our own. This actually is helpful in pointing to some other areas of interest to explore.

However, after some more back and forth, Hood's office first said that it would refuse to share the emails between Hood and the MPAA's lawyers as they "constitute attorney-client communications" or "attorney work product" and that finding the rest of the emails would... require an upfront payment of $2,103.10:

In response to your request for e-mails between this office and the Motion Picture Association of America or the Digital Citizens Alliance, we estimate it will take our IT department five hours to conduct searches for e-mails responsive to your request. The hourly figure for the lowest paid employee able and available to do this work is $30.62, for a total of $153.10.

The documents will then have to be reviewed to determine if they fall under the definition of "public records" as defined by Miss. Code Ann. §25-61-3(b), and if they are otherwise exempt from the Public Records Act. At this time, a rough estimate of the amount of time to review the requested records is thirty hours. At $65 per hour, the total, conservative estimate to review your request is $1,950. Pursuant to statute, these total estimated costs of $2,103.10 must be paid in advance. We will revise the estimate as necessary after the search is completed and we have a better idea of how many documents must be reviewed. Of course, if we are able to fulfill your request for less than the estimate, then we will refund the difference to you.

I had one further back and forth with the office, asking why these estimates seemed so high. In this day and age, how could it honestly take five hours to run a search on an email system? More importantly, how could it possibly take 30 hours of high priced time to review each document like that? I may not be a FOIA master like Jason Leopold, but I've never seen a response to a FOIA request like this. Normally, when a journalist is seeking records, it's fairly standard to exempt fees, but it seems clear that Jim Hood's office doesn't want these emails getting out, so it's not going to do that.

It also is already telegraphing the fact that it's likely not going to release any of the emails that actually matter, claiming that they are either "attorney work product" or "investigative reports." While Hood's office says there are "nearly 900 emails" responsive to my request, it expects most of them to be exempt from public records requests. Thus, all we'd end up doing is forking over $2,103.10 that we don't have to Jim Hood's office to use to further its own efforts. I have no interest in further funding Hood attempting to attack fundamentals of free speech and the internet, but this little bit of obstructionism certainly is suggestive of the way Hood's office operates, and its absolute fear of transparency.

It certainly makes you wonder why his office is so afraid to release those emails? The Sony Hack certainly revealed some questionable activities going on between Hood, the MPAA, its lawyers and the Digital Citizens Alliance. If Hood's work with the MPAA and its lawyers and partners were truly above board, and Hood were truly committed to transparency, you'd think his office would be eager to release the emails and clear up any misconception. Unfortunately, they'd rather demand thousands of dollars from a small blog. That says a lot.

If there's one thing the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) does well -- or at least, frequently -- it's shoot and kill Albuquerque residents. Its officers' obvious preference for excessive and/or deadly force attracted the notice of the DOJ, which issued a (mostly) scathing review that was tempered somewhat by the DOJ's appreciation of the inherent risks of the job, as well as all the hard work the city's officers do when not shooting Albuquerque residents.

On May 3rd of last year, Gail Martin called the APD to help her when her husband, Armand Martin, threatened her and her two children with a gun. This turned into a lengthy standoff which finally ended when APD officers shot Martin as he ran from the house. According to the police, Martin was holding two guns at the time.

The APD released a number of records, including footage captured before and after the shooting, but nothing containing the shooting itself. Local law firm Kennedy Kennedy & Ives, representing Gail Martin for a possible civil rights lawsuit, requested a copy of police recordings containing the actual shooting under New Mexico's Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA).

Over a month later, the APD responded. Sort of.

The Kennedy Kennedy & Ives Law Practice in the lawsuit said the department in mid-August released six CDs containing records on the May 3 shooting death of Armand Martin, a 50-year-old Air Force veteran, in response to the firm’s records request. But three of the CDs were password protected.

Now, this could have been a simple oversight, but if so, the problem would be solved already. Instead, it looks as though the APD is looking to keep the law firm from viewing the videos it requested.

The firm has tried to get the password from APD records, evidence and violent crimes personnel to no avail, according to the complaint…

Now the APD's being sued. The firm is seeking not only access to the password-protected videos, but also damages and legal fees. According to the firm, access to these videos is crucial to determining whether or not Gail Martin has a legitimate civil rights case. Without them, the firm is no better positioned to make this call than the general public, which has only seen the lead-in and aftermath of the shooting.

This isn't the APD's only legal battle related to its IPRA non-compliance. Late last year, KRQE of Albuquerque sued it for "serial violations" of the law. That's in addition to the one it filed over a 2012 incident, in which the PD stalled on its response to a journalist's public records request before releasing the requested footage at a press conference, basically stripping the reporter of her potential "scoop."


It's common knowledge that law enforcement agencies are less than helpful when it comes to releasing documentation of alleged wrongdoing. It's the one part they can't completely seal off when circling the wagons. This leads to weeks, months… even years of obfuscation. And this often leads to lawsuits, paid for by the same public it doesn't want to hold it accountable.

I've traveled to many different countries in my life and the only time I've ever had any trouble at all at a border crossing was flying into Canada for a conference one time. I was pulled out of the line and sent to a special side room where I was quizzed about the real reasons I was coming to Canada. They couldn't believe I was speaking at a conference, because I didn't have a paper invite, and had to dig through my emails to show them it in email (thankfully, I stored my emails locally and didn't need internet access). When I tell that story it shocks some people, as Canada has always had a reputation as a fairly easy border to cross -- especially for Americans.

But apparently the Canadians are stepping up their crazy antagonism at the border. The latest story involve Alain Philippon, a Canadian citizen who was returning from a trip to the Dominican Republic. Upon landing in Halifax he was ordered to cough up the password to his smartphone, and upon refusing, was charged with obstructing border officials:

A Quebec man charged with obstructing border officials by refusing to give up his smartphone password says he will fight the charge.

[....]

Philippon had arrived in Halifax on a flight from Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. He's been charged under section 153.1 (b) of the Customs Act for hindering or preventing border officers from performing their role under the act.

According to the CBSA, the minimum fine for the offence is $1,000, with a maximum fine of $25,000 and the possibility of a year in jail.

In the US, there have been a number of cases concerning searches of computers and electronic devices at the border, with an unfortunately large number saying that you really don't have privacy rights at the border. Of course, it's not universal, as at least one important court has ruled otherwise. Up in Canada, however, there apparently hasn't been much caselaw on this issue, so assuming Philippon fights this, it could make for a very interesting case.

Back in the summer of 2013, we wrote about yet another case of someone abusing the DMCA to censor content, rather than for any legitimate copyright purpose. The story was quite ridiculous, involving a group in the UK, called "Straight Pride UK." The group did an interview with a student named Oliver Hotham, who had emailed the group, noting he was a journalist with a list of questions. The guy behind "Straight Pride UK," Nick Steiner, responded to the questions with a document, which the group labeled as a "press release." Hotham posted his article, which, quite reasonably, made Straight Pride UK look ridiculous. In response, the group issued a DMCA takedown notice to Automattic, the company behind Wordpress.com, and the host of the article.

A couple months later, the legal team at Automattic decided it had had enough of these kinds of bogus takedowns and filed two lawsuits concerning bogus takedowns, including Nick Steiner's. As we've noted for years, the DMCA does have section 512(f) which allows for some punishment for bogus DMCA takedowns, but in practice, 512(f) has been almost entirely neutered by the courts. Yet here were cases of clear abuse.

So it's good to see that the court in the Hotham/Automattic/Steiner case has now ruled for Wordpress and awarded $25,084.00. Unfortunately, Steiner has more or less ignored the entire case, so it is really a default judgment. And, assuming Steiner never comes to the US, it may not ever truly impact him, and it's doubtful that he'll pay up. Still, at the very least, it's nice to see some sort of victory against bogus DMCA takedowns, given that it is so rare.

Techdirt has been writing about corporate sovereignty for nearly two years now. The public is beginning to wake up to the dangers it poses, which means that politicians, too, are suddenly discovering that they need to have an opinion on the subject. Over in the European Union, attention is focused on the S&D (Socialists and Democrats) Group in the European Parliament. Because of the way seats were won in the recent EU elections, it is the S&D group that will make or break TTIP/TAFTA; that makes its position on investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) crucial. This week, the S&D Group published a position paper that gives some insight into its thinking on this issue (pdf). Here's the opening statement:

The S&D Group opposes the inclusion of ISDS in Trade Agreements in which other options to enforce investment protection are available, whether domestic or international. In agreements with countries that have fully functioning legal systems and in which no risks of political interference in the judiciary or denial of justice have been identified, ISDS is not necessary.

That seems clear enough: "opposes the inclusion," "ISDS is not necessary." But of course, statements from political groups are never that simple. Later on, the paper says:

The S&D Group has already on numerous occasions expressed its serious reservations concerning ISDS. In particular in the case of TTIP, we have made it clear that we do not see a need for its inclusion and have called for it to be excluded when negotiations for the investment chapter start.

Here, the S&D Group does not "see a need for its inclusion" of ISDS in TTIP, which is a rather weaker statement. The paper concludes:

We have an interest in a good TTIP that becomes a gold standard agreement. We do not want to see this opportunity jeopardized by the inclusion of provisions on ISDS which are not acceptable to the S&D Group, a majority in the European Parliament, and the general public.

Now, that could mean two different things. Either:

We do not want to see this opportunity jeopardized by the inclusion of provisions on ISDS, since these will be unacceptable.

Or:

We do not want to see this opportunity jeopardized by the inclusion of provisions on ISDS if they take a form that is unacceptable.

The first is a categorical rejection of corporate sovereignty in TTIP, the second is a rejection of certain kinds of ISDS, but not the idea itself. Clearly, then, the difference is significant: in the first case, S&D would vote against TAFTA/TTIP if it contains ISDS, while in the second, it might tolerate corporate sovereignty if certain conditions are met, and vote in favor of TTIP. That second position could well become that of the European Parliament itself. That's because the "draft report on Parliament's recommendations to the Commission on the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership" (pdf), put together by the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade, includes the following paragraph on corporate sovereignty:

Given the EU's and the US developed legal systems, a state-to-state dispute settlement system and the use of national courts are the most appropriate tools to address investment disputes. Should ISDS provisions be included in the TTIP, it seems to be clear, that further reforms to the current model, are critical to avoid the problems that have arisen under the provisions in existing FTAs and BITs. Now that the results of the public consultation are available, a reflection processes is needed within and between the three European institutions on the needed reforms. Investors abroad have to be treated in a non-discriminatory fashion and should have a fair opportunity to seek and achieve redress of grievances. This can be attained in TTIP without the inclusion of ISDS provisions.

This notes that ISDS is not needed in TTIP, but does not go so far as to reject it outright, and even speaks of what needs to be done "should ISDS provisions be included."

Clearly, then, the politicians are hedging here. They have noted -- how could they not? -- the huge rejection of ISDS by the public in the consultation carried out last year, and the 1.5 million signatures on the European petition against TTIP. But they are obviously unwilling to reject ISDS outright, not least because some MEPs, notably those from the conservative parties in the European Parliament, are largely behind TTIP, and do not want it jeopardized because of a statement that any form of ISDS is unacceptable.

What this means in practice, as in the US, is that the politicians will continue to try to gauge the public mood as they re-calibrate their responses. The latest statement by the S&D Group is part of that complex dance: an important rejection of corporate sovereignty, but by no means a definitive one.

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Last month, we wrote about a great discussion between Edward Snowden and Bruce Schneier that explored how offensive and defensive operations by national intelligence agencies had changed as they moved online, becoming much more intertwined. A new Snowden leak published by The Intercept confirms that the situation is even more complex, because adversaries can learn from digital attacks directed against them to create even better weapons, which they then use to counterattack:

The NSA is specifically concerned that Iran's cyberweapons will become increasingly potent and sophisticated by virtue of learning from the attacks that have been launched against that country. "Iran’s destructive cyber attack against Saudi Aramco in August 2012, during which data was destroyed on tens of thousands of computers, was the first such attack NSA has observed from this adversary," the NSA document states. "Iran, having been a victim of a similar cyber attack against its own oil industry in April 2012, has demonstrated a clear ability to learn from the capabilities and actions of others."

That's because, unlike traditional physical weapons used against enemy infrastructure, digital versions are not generally destroyed during an attack. One of their big advantages is that once they have infiltrated and infected a target system, they can continue to carry out surveillance or attacks over a long time period. But that also means they may eventually be discovered -- especially if they leak out -- allowing them to be studied and improved in a way generally not possible with traditional weapons. Those new versions can then be directed elsewhere, including against the original attacker.

So intelligence agencies find themselves in a difficult position. The more they carry out attacks using digital weapons, and the more sophisticated those tools, the greater the likelihood that adversaries will detect them, adapt them and then turn them back against the country that deployed them. It's probably too much to hope that this may cause such weapons to be used more sparingly....

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The scientific method has undoubtedly advanced the growth of knowledge, but with the enormous amount of data that can be collected now, it can be difficult to turn all that information into reliable and understandable facts. On the other hand, science is also pushing the boundaries of what can possibly be measured -- but can we still call it science if we're proposing unknowable multiverses and spatial dimensions that can never be explored? Almost anyone can publish their crazy ideas -- and sometimes those sketchy papers submitted to arxiv.org lead to successful work proving an infinite number of twin primes. Do the crackpots outnumber the "real" scientists? Does it matter?

• Advances in cosmology are pulling away from experimental verification. Some theorists argue that their theories to explain the universe may not be verifiable by observations -- and that it doesn't matter. They assert we're in a "post-empirical" period for understanding fundamental physics. [url]
• Verification of experimental results is a fundamental aspect of science, right? Providing more funding for researchers to perform replication experiments may be increasingly necessary to ensure our scientific knowledge isn't merely based on anecdotes (or bad experiments or biased analysis). [url]
• Will traditional scholarly journals have a future? There's a growing movement to decentralize the peer review and publication process that doesn't require a for-profit scholarly journal. Yay? [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Thanks to its ongoing FOIA lawsuit against the NSA, the EFF has managed to secure another set of documents detailing the legal rationalizations behind the intelligence agency's "collect it all" approach, as well as the FISA's courts approval of expanded surveillance powers in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The documents were supposed to be released in January, but the NSA ignored a direct court order and unceremoniously dumped them in the EFF's lap late in the evening of March 2nd.

The so-called "raw take" document dates back to July 2002 and shows the FISA court granting the NSA, FBI and CIA to continue increased surveillance powers and expanded information sharing.

This matter is before the Court on the motion of the United States, filed by James A. Baker, Counsel for Intelligence Policy and approved by the Attorney General of the United States, to modify the minimization procedures already approved and in use in the above captioned cases since January 1, 2001: to authorize the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to disseminate to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and to the National Security Agency (NSA) "raw data" (unminimized information) only where the raw data relates to international terrorism; to include communications of or concerning United States persons collected by the FBI in electronic surveillances and physical searches authorized by this Court under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and to allow the CIA and NSA to review, translate, analyze, minimize, use, retain and disseminate such information pursuant to supplementary minimization procedures approved by the Attorney General and filed with the Government's motion.

The documents cite several supporting documents and exhibits filed by the government. Unfortunately, none of those "attached" documents are actually attached, meaning it will take more legal wrangling to gain any more insight into the government's justification of expanded powers.

The other document is a September 2008 FISA court opinion that the EFF refers to as the "Rosetta Stone" of FISA-authorized surveillance.

This opinion… purportedly represents the FISC’s full assessment of the range of legal issues presented by NSA surveillance under Section 702 of the FAA—a provision of law authorizing the government to conduct warrantless surveillance within the United States of overseas targets. Importantly, the opinion likely discusses the constitutionality of the NSA’s upstream surveillance operations—currently, the only federal court decision on this topic. Despite this opinion's centrality to understanding FAA surveillance, it has remained secret for nearly 7 years.

The FISA court approved everything the government asked for and states its reasons for doing. Unfortunately, you'll (again) just have to take the FISA court's word that the government's arguments and supporting documents were satisfactory. Nearly everything involved in the crafting of this opinion was filed ex parte and reviewed in camera.

Supposedly, targeting of a person will "cease immediately" once they're determined to either be a US person or have entered the United States. Collections past this point are supposed to be purged. But there are exceptions.

If, in Order to protect against an immediate threat to national security, the NSA determines that it must take action, on a temporary basis, in apparent departure from these procedures and that it is not feasible to obtain a timely modification of these procedures from the Attorney General and [the DNI] NSA may take such action and will report that activity to [the Department of Justice and the Office of the DNI]. Under such circumstances, the Government will continue to adhere to all of the statutory limitations set forth in subsection 702(b) of [FISA].

The NSA then admits that it's not really in the business of thwarting immediate threats.

The government expects that this departure provision will be invoked only under "very extreme circumstances," and in fact is not likely to be used at all.

The court notes that nothing in the applicable statutes actually requires the NSA to prevent the targeting of US persons. All it demands is that the NSA not do it "intentionally." Hence, all sorts of incidental collection. Sure, there are minimization procedures in place, but there's also a lot of information sharing between agencies (FBI, CIA) that utilizes "raw" data and communications.

In this case, there are three sets of minimization procedures that have been adopted by the Attorney General: a set of procedures for each of the two agencies that will conduct acquisitions, the NSA and the FBI, and a third set of procedures for the CIA, which may receive from those agencies the raw data from acquisitions. Each of these sets of procedures closely resembles minimization procedures that have been found by judges of this Court to meet the definition of minimization procedures under section 1801(h) in the context of cases that have a significantly greater likelihood of acquiring communications to, from, or about United States persons.

It's the minimization procedures that introduce the most loopholes. The CIA's loopholes are the most expansive.

Any communication . . . acquired through the targeting of a person who at the time of targeting was reasonably believed to be a non-United States person located outside the United States but is in fact located inside the United States at the time such communication is acquired or was in fact a United States person at the time of the targeting shall be destroyed unless the Director of the [CIA] determines in writing that such communication is reasonably believed to contain: significant foreign intelligence information; evidence of a crime that has been, is being, or is about to be committed; or information retained for cryptanalytic, traffic analytic, or signal exploitation purposes.

As for the NSA, its minimization exceptions leave the door propped open for the retention of US persons' communications and data.

[T]he Director of NSA may also authorize retention upon a finding that "the communication contains information pertaining to a threat of serious harm to life or property" or "information necessary to understand or assess a communications security vulnerability."

The order also notes that additional expansions of surveillance power occurred on May 2007, under the heading of "raw take."

[T]he procedures adopted by this Court in In re Electronic Surveillance and Physical Search of International Terrorist Groups. Their Agents, and Related Targets, Order, No. [REDACTED] (May 2002), as extended and modified by orders of this Court, most recently on December 6, 2007…

Interestingly, just as FISA Judge Mary McLaughlin was finding a bunch of government ex parte submissions wholly credible and the agency's Section 702 program no threat to the Fourth Amendment, the government was fighting with FISA Judge Walton for the survival of a less intrusive program (the bulk phone records collection)... and losing.

McLaughlin found the minimization and targeting practices the agency instituted to be a sufficient deterrent to abuse. Meanwhile, Reggie Walton was finding plenty of abuse and obfuscation in his dealings with the NSA. By early 2009, he was threatening to shut down the program for "frequent and systemic violations" of minimization procedures. One FISA judge took the government's claim that internal procedures would prevent abuse at face value -- for a program that gathered content and communications. Almost simultaneously, Judge Walton was discovering the NSA's internal procedures weren't preventing anything.

This is as close to a "whole picture" as we have on the government's arguments for its internet backbone communications collection, at least at this point. And most of the arguments are missing. What we have is a judge stating that she believes the government when it says words like "oversight," "minimization" and "reasonable belief." Not exactly heartening, considering its past abuse of similar minimization procedures with its bulk records program.

In the interest of full disclosure, I hope there is a special place in Hell reserved for the Macy's people. A decade ago, the department store giant waltzed into my hometown of Chicago and gobbled up the State Street institution known as Marshall Field's, forever changing how Christmas is experienced by young people in this city of mine. Now, making matters worse, it appears that Macy's is attempting to retain some kind of ownership over the brands its buy-ups dissolved, contrary to the rules about trademark abandonment.

When Macy’s Inc. swallowed up a slew of department stores across the land — from Marshall Field’s to Filene’s, Abraham & Straus to Jordan Marsh — it rebranded many of them, turning the formerly regional chains into Macy’s stores. But in a new lawsuit brought by the company that echoes a suit from 2011 that was slated to come to trial soon, Macy’s says the California company behind the resurrection of Hydrox and Astro Pops is infringing on trademarks it held for many of those recognizable brand names.

Macy’s alleges that Strategic Marks infringed on its trademarks once again when it began selling T-shirts and candy under those 12 additional brands last month. In 2010, Strategic Marks had applied to register for trademarks for some of those names to be on clothing sold online and potentially in pop-up stores in the future, “using typestyles which are intentionally identical to those used by Macy’s,” the suit says.

Strategic Marks vehemently disagrees in a countersuit, pointing out that after Macy's bought up all those brands, it then rebranded them as Macy's stores and abandoned the use of the original names. Under the Lanham Act, the failure to use a trademark for at least three years constitutes abandonment, leaving others free to use them as they see fit. Which is exactly what Strategic Marks did in selling nostalgic apparel using the brand-names. Ellia Kassoff, founder of Strategic Marks, is once again asserting abandonment, as he did when Macy's first filed against him in 2011.

“They weren’t using these trademarks,” he told Consumerist back then, claiming, “We have proof they weren’t using these trademarks… Macy’s went to the Trademark Office and said, ‘No, no! These are ours! These are ours! We started it! This has our heritage! It’s our heritage!’ And the Trademark Office said, ‘Sorry, but you’re not using it. You haven’t used it in years.’”

Should that prove to be true, the Macy's suit is meritless and smacks of a company seeking to dissolve brands through buyouts and then attempting to control the use of those dissolved brands after they've been buried in the graveyard. Large companies buying out local corporations is an unfortunate but legal reality, but detaining those beloved brands even after they've been put to death isn't just silly, it's cruelly authoritarian. On top of that, given that Macy's went to some length specifically to re-brand the old names into the Macy's fold, it's difficult to understand where customer confusion over nostalgic apparel is going to come in.

The trial date for both suits is set for March, where hopefully the dead brands will be set free.

I'm a little surprised to say that we have yet another Streisand Effect story involving NHL hockey players. The previous post had to do with a rookie hockey player who tried to trademark a nickname with some negative connotations to it in order to control how that nickname was being used. This one is a little bit different and, honestly, it sounds like the start to really bad joke: two hockey players and actress Elisha Cuthbert want an apology and cash from a sports station that aired a joke tweet about a love triangle between the three of them during the trade deadline coverage.

That's the joke tweet. It was part of a rolling tweet embed that sports stations do all the time, instructing viewers to use a particular hashtag and then pulling those tweets and putting them on the air. This particular tweet, concerning the Toronto Mapleleafs' Joffrey Lupul, Dion Phaneuf, and Phaneuf's wife, who happens to be Elisha Cuthbert, probably would have made it past any automated filters the station, TSN, had set up. After all, there's no obvious vulgar words or anything like that. So, whether such filters exist or not, the tweet pops up on air.

And the three subjects of the joke are pissed.

"On behalf of our clients Dion Phaneuf, his wife Elisha Cuthbert and Joffrey Lupul, we have sent a letter to TSN demanding that TSN issue a formal apology and pay a significant amount of damages to each of our clients for broadcasting a false and defamatory tweet during their trade deadline show yesterday. We are sending a similar letter to the author of the tweet, Mr. Anthony Adragna.

It is bad enough that there are people who spend their time using social media to publish such false and malicious stories, but it is made much worse when a reputable media outlet like TSN gives broad circulation and credibility to these false stories by republishing them as TSN did. If TSN and Mr. Adragna do not immediately comply with the demands set out in our letters, we have instructions from our clients to immediately commence a lawsuit against them. Our clients will not be discussing this matter with the media. Any questions should be directed to the undersigned."

So, a couple of things here. First, it's questionable how much validity a lawsuit against either party would be. The tweet itself is obviously a joke to anyone who bothers to read the wording of it, which makes a defamation case problematic. TSN has alreay issued an apology to the three of them and they clearly had no intention of defaming anyone at all.

But, finally, and most importantly, what the hell, you three? It was a flash of a joke tweet that was on a Toronto TV station for, like, a couple of seconds. But because you three freaked out about it and got the lawyers involved, there's been national media attention on the very thing you wanted to erase from our collective consciousness to begin with. Talk about Streisanding your way towards the opposite goal.