You be the Judge

[greedy__malone]

Looks like BRAV wants to be the next one to lose a suit against message board posters.

BRAVADA Continues its Rapid Growth with an Expected 200% Quarter Over Quarter Revenue Growth in Q4 2011

BRAVADA International (www.OnlyLeggings.com) (Pink Sheets:BRAV) announced today that it is continuing its rapid growth with an expected 200% revenue growth quarter over quarter for Q4 2011. This marks another impressive quarter for BRAVADA International Ltd. and the company expects to continue this trend into 2012 with its third World of Leggings™ store currently in the planning stages, the anticipated launch of WorldofLeggings.com in early 2012 and continued expansion of its online leggings superstore, OnlyLeggings.com. BRAVADA has had an incredible year of revenue growth despite a negative outlook on the strength of the consumer and the US economy. BRAVADA does not foresee any strengthening in the economy for 2012 however it expects revenue growth of between 200% - 300% for fiscal year 2012. BRAVADA shall provide a release date of its full year 2011 annual report in the coming weeks.

With continued growth in revenues, free cash flow from operations completely funded the transformation and inventory population of its Robertson Blvd. World of Leggings location which is producing very impressive and heightened sales numbers as compared to its former BRAVADA Women’s Athletica store. In addition, BRAVADA continued to clean up its balance sheet and settled a dispute with the Green Leaves Group back in November with the issuance of 30,000,000 shares. BRAVADA also believes that Q4 2011 will mark the first quarter that it will be profitable on a pro forma basis (normalized earnings that exclude onetime charges).

As well, BRAVADA would like to inform shareholders that it expects to engage in several civil legal actions against a number of individuals who have consistently engaged in libel against the Company and its management. There are currently nine+ individuals that BRAVADA has been monitoring and they include individuals whose screen names are as follows; Taki, Stratey, Divest70, CheersforDA and Y U Axing Me. Due to the severity of their negative and libelous remarks, BRAVADA fully intends on taking civil action against these individuals (as well as others) and recover any and all financial damages, both direct and indirect, that have resulted from the loss of repute from their overtly damaging commentary. This shall be done at a time of BRAVADA’s choosing and shall be swift and thorough in its application and execution.

“We are continuing to increase and develop very significant cash flow resources with our continued growth”, replied Danny Alex, CEO of BRAVADA. “Shareholders have placed their own personal money at risk and preserving and growing their investment in BRAVADA is a fiduciary duty that I do not take lightly. We have navigated a very brutal economy to create a company that has a very exciting future and is growing at an incredible rate. I will continue to do all that I can to have this trend continue for shareholders and defend the integrity and reputation of BRAVADA, its shareholders and management through civil legal action against any and all individuals who engage in libel.”

About BRAVADA International Ltd

BRAVADA owns BRAVADA Women’s Athletica, World of Leggings, BravadaWomen.com and OnlyLeggings.com. World of Leggings is a real world leggings superstore that specializes in all styles of leggings, tights and bodysuits. OnlyLeggings.com is an online leggings superstore for leggings such as women’s leggings, faux leather leggings, cotton leggings and high waisted leggings.

www.BravadaWomen.com

www.OnlyLeggings.com

www.Bravada.com

This news release may contain statements about future expectations, plans, prospects or performance of BRAVADA International Ltd that constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor Provisions within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by phrases such as BRAVADA or its management "believes," "intends," "expects," "anticipates," "foresees," "forecasts," "estimates" or other words or phrases of similar import. Similarly, statements herein that describe the Company's business strategy, outlook, objectives, plans, intentions or goals also are forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. `

[Stock]

Thank you.

[IH Geek [Dave]]

From my point of view, kudos to the judge, the EFF and all concerned parties for getting it right and dealing with Righthaven. Further kudos to the judge for ordering Righthaven to show cause as to why they should not be sanctioned for making misrepresentations to the court.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the defendants that settled or lost in litigation now that this judge has made a finding as to their misrepresentations.

Aside, all of the defendants could have avoided this by filing a DMCA Agent notice with the US Copyright office, which costs around $135.

[Stock]

Dave, any comment from iHub POV?

Righthaven Copyright Troll Lawsuit Dismissed as Sham

Court Finds Righthaven Had No Authority to Bring Claims Against Political Forum

June 14th, 2011
https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2011/06/14

San Francisco - In a decision with likely wide-ranging impact, a judge in Las Vegas today dismissed as a sham an infringement case filed by copyright troll Righthaven LLC. The judge ruled that Righthaven did not have the legal authorization to bring a copyright lawsuit against the political forum Democratic Underground, because it had never owned the copyright in the first place. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Fenwick & West LLP, and Las Vegas attorney Chad Bowers are defending Democratic Underground.

"We are pleased that the Court saw through Righthaven's sham assignment of the copyright and dismissed its improper claim," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Today's decision shows that Righthaven's copyright litigation business model is fatally flawed, and we expect the decision to have wide effect on the over 270 other cases Righthaven has brought."

Righthaven sued Democratic Underground last fall over an excerpt of a Las Vegas Review Journal news story that a user posted on the forum, claiming that the newspaper had transferred copyright to Righthaven before it filed the suit. However, a document unearthed in this litigation showed that the copyright assignment was a sham and that Righthaven was merely agreeing to undertake the newspaper's case at its own expense in exchange for a cut of the recovery.

"In dismissing Righthaven's claim in its entirety, Chief Judge Hunt's ruling decisively rejected the Righthaven business model of conveying rights to sue, alone, as a means to enforce copyrights," said Laurence Pulgram, head of copyright litigation at Fenwick & West in San Francisco. "The ruling speaks for itself. The court rejected Righthaven's claim that it owned sufficient rights in the copyright, stating that claim was 'flagrantly false--to the point that the claim is disingenuous if not outright deceitful.'"

Judge Hunt also noted that "Righthaven has made multiple inaccurate and likely dishonest statements to the Court" and rejected Righthaven's efforts to fix things after the fact with a May 9, 2011, amendment to the original assignment agreement. The judge expressed "doubt that these seemingly cosmetic adjustments change the nature and practical effect" of the invalid assignment.

As part of his ruling today, the judge ordered Righthaven to show why it should not be sanctioned for misrepresentations to the court. The Court permitted Democratic Underground's counterclaim to continue against Stephens Media -- the publisher of the Review Journal -- allowing Democratic Underground to show that it did nothing wrong in allowing a user to post a five-sentence excerpt of a 50-sentence article.

"This kind of copyright trolling from Righthaven and Stephens Media has undermined free and open discussion on the Internet, scaring people out of sharing information and discussing the news of the day," said Opsahl. "We hope this is the beginning of the end of this shameful litigation campaign."

"To Righthaven and Stephens Media, the Court has issued a stinging rebuke," added Pulgram. "For those desiring to resist the bullying of claims brought by pseudo-claimants of copyright interests, the ruling today represents a dramatic and far reaching victory."

For the judge's full order:
https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/righthaven_v_dem/order6-14-11.pdf

Contact:

Kurt Opsahl
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[e-mail]

Related Issues: Copyright Trolls, Free Speech, Intellectual Property

Related Cases: Righthaven v. Democratic Underground

https://www.eff.org/press/archives/2011/06/14

[TEFFY]

ANWM, Is the ceo of anwm related to any anwm posters on the board sir? I know we all pride ourselves on honesty.


One question i have, why did the anwm ceo not go to the mine with his Uncle?

[greedy__malone]

Some interesting info:

http://adserv.stocksite.com/images/pubdocs/iHub_v_MMG_Complaint.pdf
http://adserv.stocksite.com/images/pubdocs/iHub_v_MMG_Exhibits.pdf

[greedy__malone]

LIGATT update.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/31/ligatt_security_subpoena_quashed/


Quashes 'extremely troubling' subpoenas

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco

A judge in Georgia has scolded a controversial security figure for improperly subpoenaing Yahoo! and Twitter in an attempt to get user names and passwords belonging to some 25 researchers.

Gregory D. Evans, CEO of Ligatt Security and the self-proclaimed "World's No. 1 Hacker", sought the the highly personal information in a lawsuit he brought last year accusing the researchers of bashing his company's penny stock. Over the past year, shares have fallen from about $2.80 to $0.0004, public information shows. Most of that precipitous drop happened prior to claims that surfaced in June that huge chunks of an e-book purportedly written by Evans were lifted from other hacking manuals without the original authors' permission.

The suit named Chris John Riley, Ben Rothke, and other security professionals who publicly claimed their works were plagiarized. Shortly after it was filed, attorneys for Evans subpoenaed Yahoo! and Twitter for information that included the defendants' usernames, passwords, emails sent and received, and blog postings. Last week, the judge hearing the case squashed the subpoenas and said they violated several provisions of Georgia law.

“The court finds it extremely troubling that plaintiffs issued and served subpoenas to which plaintiffs' counsel had no access for such a long period of time,” Karen E. Beyers, superior court judge for Georgia's Gwinnett County wrote. Under the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, she said, Randolph Morris and the 24 other people named in the suit were entitled to copies.

She also uncovered other legal deficiencies, including their inclusion of the wrong case number and failure to notify plaintiffs that two subpoenas had been filed rather than just one. What's more, Beyers said the subpoenas were “overbroad” because they sought passwords and emails.

“This is exceedingly overbroad, and is also wholly inconsistent with the representations of plaintiffs' counsel regarding the scope of the subpoenas,” she wrote.

Beyers went on to dismiss Morris from the lawsuit because she found the California resident had no ties to Georgia. She scheduled a hearing for March 1 to decide how much Evans should pay in sanctions for the improper subpoenas.

Shortly after filing his lawsuit in July, Evans cast himself as the aggrieved party.

“We are sure that once this total investigation is over we will find that not only were these people bashers, but they were also day traders and market makers,” Evans was quoted in a press release. “We are prepared to go after them due to the fact that they took part in manipulating the stock,” says Evans.

Evans has regularly appeared as a security expert on Fox News, Bloomberg TV, and CNN.

[STOCKCHARTER]

I see you just talk to yourself what a joke!

[noquit]

ABOUT TIME TOO, NOW THEY HAVE SOME REAL TEETH FOR ENFORCEMENT.
http://www.tradersmagazine.com/news/sec-dodd-frank-securities-exchange-act-investment-advisers-stoneridge-106247-1.html

[noquit]

Greedy..........you've been way too quiet lately. What's wrong ?

[greedy__malone]

FTC proposes 'Do Not Track' tool for Web surfers

By The Associated Press
12.02.10
WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are proposing to create a "Do Not Track" tool for the Internet so that consumers could prevent marketers from tracking their Web browsing habits and other online behavior in order to target advertising.

The proposal, inspired by the government's existing "Do Not Call" registry for telemarketers, is among the recommendations outlined in a privacy report released yesterday by the Federal Trade Commission. The report lays out a broad framework for protecting consumer privacy both online and offline as personal data collection becomes ubiquitous, often without consumers' knowledge.

The FTC hopes the report will guide the marketing industry as it develops self-regulatory principles to define acceptable corporate behavior. The FTC also is trying to influence policymakers as they draft new rules to protect privacy. The agency has limited authority to write those rules itself, so new regulations would likely require congressional action.

Safeguarding consumer privacy, the agency says, is critical since marketers are increasingly analyzing the websites that consumers visit, the links they click, their Internet searches, their online and offline purchases, the physical locations of their wireless devices and all sorts of personal information they disclose on social networking sites.

So far, the marketing industry has not done nearly enough to make sure people understand what personal information is being collected, or to provide them adequate control over that data collection, said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.

The agency envisions a Do Not Track tool as one important way to let consumers opt out of much of the tracking marketers do to help them serve more relevant ads, a practice the industry calls behavioral advertising. The tool would most likely take the form of a Web browser setting that informs websites when tracking and serving targeted advertising are off limits, even as the Web surfer jumps from site to site.

The concept is loosely based on the FTC's National Do Not Call Registry, which was launched in 2003 and has been widely credited for allowing Americans to eat their suppers in peace. More than 190 million people have listed their phones on the registry, which prohibits calls from telemarketers. Violating the registry subjects telemarketers to civil penalties up to $16,000 per violation.

Leibowitz, who first floated the idea of Do Not Track last summer, said that although the technology has not yet been widely deployed for consumers, browser companies are experimenting with it. And lawmakers do appear interested. Bobby Rush, chairman of the House Commerce subcommittee that deals with consumer protection issues, is scheduled to hold a hearing today on potential Do Not Track legislation.

Still, the industry remains wary. For one thing, said Mike Zaneis, senior vice president and general counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, allowing consumers to turn off all online tracking could have unintended consequences since tracking is used to deliver all sorts of personalized Web content — from sports scores to stock prices — and not just online ads. He added that while the concept of extending Do Not Call to the Internet sounds appealing, the analogy has limits since it is much easier to put a phone number on a Do Not Call list than it is to limit tracking on the many separate networks that make up the Internet.

On the whole, however, Zaneis said he was pleased with the FTC report since it does encourage industry self-regulation. A number of leading advertising trade groups, including IAB, recently launched a program that places an icon inside the online ads of participating advertising companies. Clicking on the icon takes consumers to a Web page that provides information about data collection practices and gives people the opportunity to opt out of behavioral advertising conducted by those companies.

The new FTC report comes at time of mounting concern about Internet privacy in both Washington and Europe.

The National Information and Telecommunications Administration, part of the Commerce Department, is also preparing a report on the issue. And the Obama administration's Office of Science Technology Policy has created a new group to develop broad principles on online privacy to guide legislative action and regulatory policy.

Meanwhile, last month the European Union said it planned to update its privacy regulations to give consumers more control over online tracking.

[greedy__malone]

Court refuses to dismiss libel claim involving Britney Spears

By The Associated Press
11.24.10
LOS ANGELES — A California appeals court rejected a bid yesterday by Britney Spears’ mother to have a defamation claim by the singer’s former manager and confidante thrown out.

A three-member panel of the 2nd District Court of Appeal refused to rule that plaintiff Sam Lutfi had such a tarnished image that he could not sue for defamation.

Spears’ mother, Lynne Spears, had asked the justices to become the first California court to adopt a “libel-proof doctrine” that a person cannot sue for defamation if their reputation is so bad that it cannot be further damaged by potentially false statements.

Lutfi sued Lynne Spears and her daughter for libel and defamation in February 2009, claiming he had been falsely accused of controlling the singer and grinding pills into her food during a turbulent period.

The lawsuit cited numerous passages from Lynne Spears’ book, Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World, in which she described him as a “Svengali” and “predator.”

Lynne Spears had asked a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to throw out several of Lutfi’s claims for damages, stating the passages in the book were true and had been widely published. The judge refused, and the appeal was filed. It was the subject of oral arguments Nov. 18, during which Lutfi’s attorney noted the book remained widely available.

Many of the Lynne Spears’ claims had been contained in court filings that led a judge to establish a conservatorship involving the Grammy-winning singer in February 2008. At the time, Lutfi was expelled from Britney Spears’ inner circle.

The singer’s father won a three-year restraining order in 2009 after he said Lutfi violated an agreement not to contact his daughter.

The appeals court noted that Lynne Spears’ court statements regarding Lutfi’s actions and how they were reported by many news outlets made clear they were allegations.

“We find that Lutfi’s reputation was not so badly tarnished by the allegations in (Lynne) Spears’ court-filed declarations as to be immune from further damage,” the court opinion stated.

Lynne Spears’ attorney, Michael Adler, declined comment. Lutfi’s attorney, Joseph D. Schleimer, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Britney Spears remains under the court-ordered conservatorship, which has prevented her from being deposed or testifying in other court cases.

Lutfi’s defamation lawsuit will now return to Los Angeles Superior Court, where a status hearing is scheduled for Feb. 25.

[greedy__malone]

ATT SECURITY INTERNATIONAL INC VS JOHN DOE ET AL

07/09/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
08/17/2010 - stipulation - regarding def randolph morris answer deadline to plf complai - attorney for plaintiff
08/23/2010 - unscheduled document - notice of service of demand for anti slapp verification - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - answer - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - jury demand - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - motion to dismiss - for summary judgment and for atty fees - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - statement of material facts - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - affidavit - f beau howard - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - affidavit - randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - brief - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - motion for protective order - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - brief - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
10/12/2010 - notice of hearing - @11/09/10 1:30pm
10/21/2010 - notice of filing discovery - proposed protective order - attorney for defendant
10/21/2010 - motion - emergency mtn for prot order to quash secret subpoena - attorney for defendant
10/26/2010 - notice of hearing - 11/9/10 @ 1:30 pm in rm 1b
11/16/2010 - notice of hearing

[greedy__malone]

EFF Discusses the Future of Internet Privacy at UN Internet Governance Forum
News Update by Katitza Rodriguez
EFF recently participated in the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Vilnius, Lithuania, advocating for the respect of citizens' fundamental rights online. The IGF is an experimental and influential multi-stakeholder policy forum convened by the United Nations Secretary General in 2006, where civil society, industry, the technical community, and decision makers discuss key aspects of Internet governance issues on an equal footing. The informal nature of the IGF is designed to promote the full and frank exchange of ideas on important Internet policy issues without the knock-down-and-dragged-out conflicts that characterize other international fora where recommendations or binding treaties are made. This year, IGF brought together over 1,400 participants from around the world. Videos and transcripts of all the official meetings are now online and make for interesting viewing.

EFF participated in several panels and co-organized a workshop on The Future of Privacy together with the Internet Society. The speakers included representatives from the US Federal Trade Commission, the Spanish Data Protection Authority, the Council of Europe Consultative Committee of Convention 108, Oracle Corporation, the European Data Protection Supervisor, AT&T, Google, the Internet Society, and EFF. All of them expressed their views on existing laws and international frameworks on privacy, and helped to identify some of the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

In the workshop, EFF focused on several key areas where governments will be able to play a vital role in protecting their citizens' privacy both now and increasingly so in the future, including setting the right standards for government access to citizens’ private communications and related communications records. Here are a few of the points we highlighted:

• The law should protect the privacy of your data stored for you by a provider in the same way that it protects your data stored by you on your home or in your office. In an age where countless millions are trusting web-based email services such as Microsoft’s Hotmail to store years worth of private correspondence, and cloud services such as Google Docs to store their most private documents, it is time for privacy law to treat online storage as an extension of your own home or office. Privacy law has typically provided strong protections against government intrusion into information that you store offline personally. It should also provide strong safeguards for the data you store for a similar purpose with an online third party provider.

• The law should include better protections for your traffic data. Typically, the contents of communications are strongly protected by privacy law whereas non-content transactional data, traffic data, or “meta-data” is typically given much less protection, even though it can be just as revealing. Monitoring of other data that is arguably transactional and not content -- such as the location of your cell phone, clickstream data revealing the web sites you visit, and search logs indicating what you searched for using Google or another search engine -- is just as invasive as reading your email or listening to your phone calls.

EFF called on government officials to focus their analysis on the invasiveness of the surveillance techniques at issue, rather than deciding the appropriate level of privacy protection based on where the data is stored, or whether it is characterized as content or traffic data. Communications are communications, whether telephone conversations or e-mail messages. The mere fact that Internet communications leave more detailed traces should not entail less privacy protection vis-à-vis governments. We believe that mandatory data retention regimes that compels ISPs and telcos to retain innocent citizens' Internet traffic data should be repealed.

The panel also discussed the revision of the EU Data Protection Directive, the Council of Europe's Privacy Convention 108—the first legally binding international privacy instrument, the harmonization and interoperability of privacy regimes in different countries, as well as the insights of the technical community. The comprehensive report produced jointly by EFF and ISOC contains more detailed information about the workshop participants' presentations and fascinating exchange of views on these subjects.

The IGF has provided a very useful venue for discussing these important global issues with key government and non-governmental stakeholders, but whether it will continue to do so in the future is currently unclear. At the end of this year, the United Nations' General Assembly will decide if it should extend the IGF's initial five-year mandate. The UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) is currently carrying out an open consultation on the ways in which to improve the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). A road map of the future CSTD work on IGF is now posted here. Stay tuned to Deeplinks for news and our thoughts on these breaking developments.

[greedy__malone]

High court won't hear free-speech challenge to grand jury subpoenas

By The Associated Press,
First Amendment Center Online staff
11.16.10
WICHITA, Kan. — The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday rebuffed a subpoena challenge mounted by an outspoken advocate for chronic pain patients who is under a grand jury investigation for possible conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The high court didn’t comment on its refusal to take up the appeal by Siobhan Reynolds. Reynolds sought to quash grand jury subpoenas and overturn a contempt citation issued against her and her organization, the Pain Relief Network, stemming from her refusal to turn over subpoenaed e-mails and other documents.

Her subpoena challenge climbed secretly to the Supreme Court, which last month agreed to make a redacted version of her appeal available while it decided whether to take the case.

Reynolds’ subpoena challenge received widespread attention after The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press tried unsuccessfully to intervene in the case.

Lucy Dalglish, the committee’s executive director, said her biggest disappointment with yesterday’s ruling was that the case would have been an opportunity for the Supreme Court to revisit its 1972 ruling in a First Amendment case, Branzburg v. Hayes, and decide what standard of review was appropriate for subpoenas that have the appearance of being issued out of retaliation.

“The U.S. Supreme Court hates subpoena cases, just hates them,” Dalglish said. “There is a very strong belief out there, and it is hard to overcome it because a lot of judges are former prosecutors, ... that prosecutors should be given great leeway in determining what they want to go after and this is just another case that demonstrates that.”

The U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas declined to comment on the Supreme Court ruling.

The Reporters Committee had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, urging the high court to “set a standard for determining when prosecutors act in less than ‘good faith’ in subpoenaing witnesses exercising their First Amendment rights.”

“Nearly 40 years ago in a case involving journalists, the U.S. Supreme Court said that while there was no First Amendment-based right to avoid subpoenas related to published news stories, journalists and others engaged in speech might be able to avoid testifying about their reporting if they can show the subpoena was not issued in good faith,” Dalglish was quoted as saying in a story posted last week on the Reporter Committee’s website. “Since Branzburg v. Hayes was decided, the Supreme Court has never laid out the standard they would use in making that determination, so this case would be an outstanding opportunity for them to do so.”

The libertarian groups Institute for Justice and Reason Foundation also supported Reynolds’ case, arguing that the subpoenas against her were nothing more than government retaliation because they were issued by federal prosecutors who had previously tried and failed to obtain a gag order against the woman.

“Here the Assistant U.S. Attorney sought the subpoenas in question after the district court denied the government’s motion to gag. This sequence of facts strongly suggests that the government has issued these subpoenas in direct retaliation for (Reynolds’) political advocacy,” the groups said in a friend-of-the-court brief filed last December with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 10th Circuit sealed the groups’ brief, but the Associated Press obtained a copy after it was anonymously uploaded to the public document-sharing website Scribd last month.

Reynolds came to the attention of prosecutors when she championed the defense of Dr. Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, who were convicted earlier this year of a moneymaking conspiracy linked to 68 overdose deaths at a Kansas clinic. Schneider was sentenced to 30 years in prison; his wife received 33 years.

Reynolds believes a federal crackdown on prescription painkillers has left chronic pain patients needlessly suffering. The subpoenas were issued just weeks after she paid for a highway billboard sign proclaiming: “Dr. Schneider never killed anyone.”

Grand jury investigations are by nature confidential. But the ancillary contempt proceedings against Reynolds also were mostly secret. An initial court hearing in Topeka in which she was found in contempt of court was only partially open and the court docket on her case — which includes court rulings, court dates and other information — was sealed at the district court and 10th Circuit.

“What I strenuously objected to was the notion that something like this can make it all the way to the Supreme Court in secret,” Dalglish said. “That just strikes me as wrong.”

David Sellers, a spokesman for the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, has said grand jury confidentiality is a key component of the nation’s criminal justice system. More than 9,000 grand jury sessions were convened in federal courts last year, including 65 in the District of Kansas, he said.

In its brief filed with the Supreme Court, the Reporters Committee had argued that prosecutors shouldn’t be allowed to use grand jury proceedings to silence critics.

“The government should not be able to frighten citizens into refraining from exercising their First Amendment rights of expression, advocacy and association by threatening them with compulsory process — at least not without first satisfying a heightened standard of scrutiny,” the brief said. “To do otherwise would allow a content-based regulation on speech to survive without withstanding the proper constitutional test, a notion that directly contravenes this Court’s well-established First Amendment jurisprudence regarding content-based regulations.”

Reynolds’ attorney, Robert Corn-Revere of Washington, D.C., expressed disappointment with the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up Reynolds’ appeal but also acknowledged that most appeal petitions are denied.

“It is true that it is very difficult to have any expectation that a petition be heard because the odds are so stacked against it, but I guess I thought the issue was so fundamental to what this country was supposed to be about that the justices would see fit to defend the primacy of political dissent,” Corn-Revere said. “They didn’t.”

[greedy__malone]

Minn. court rejects free-speech challenge to aided-suicide case

By The Associated Press
11.10.10
MINNEAPOLIS — A former Minnesota nurse who prosecutors say sought out depressed people in Internet chat rooms and encouraged two of them to kill themselves won’t get his case dismissed on free-speech grounds, a judge ruled yesterday.

William Melchert-Dinkel, 48, of Faribault, is charged with two counts of aiding suicide, for allegedly advising and encouraging an English man and a Canadian woman to take their own lives.

His attorney had asked that the case be dismissed, saying Melchert-Dinkel had no direct participation in any suicides, and that his e-mail and Internet conversations involved protected speech. Rice County District Judge Thomas Neuville disagreed, saying in a 21-page ruling that speech that aids the suicide of another is not protected by the First Amendment.

The judge said Minnesota law doesn’t prevent people from “expressing opinions or discussing suicide,” but it does make it a crime to participate in a narrow and precise type of speech — speech that “intentionally and directly advises, encourages or aids a specific person to end their own life.”

“Thus, speech that directly encourages and imminently incites the act of suicide ... falls outside the protection of the First Amendment,” Neuville wrote.

According to Rice County Attorney Paul Beaumaster, Melchert-Dinkel was obsessed with suicide and hanging, and cruised the Internet for potential victims. When he found them, he posed as a female nurse, feigned compassion and offered step-by-step instructions on how they could kill themselves. Melchert-Dinkel also entered phony suicide pacts, Beaumaster has said.

Melchert-Dinkel was charged in April with two counts of aiding suicide in the 2005 hanging death of Mark Drybrough, 32, of Conventry, England, and the 2008 drowning of Nadia Kajouji, 18, of Brampton, Ontario.

Beaumaster said in earlier court documents that Melchert-Dinkel admitted participating in online chats with at least 15 to 20 people about suicide and entering into fake suicide pacts with about 10 people, five of whom Melchert-Dinkel believed killed themselves. Melchert-Dinkel allegedly told police he did it for the “thrill of the chase.”

The prosecutor said yesterday that he was pleased with the judge’s ruling and was preparing for trial. The next court hearing is set for Nov. 19. A plea is expected to be formally entered then.

Melchert-Dinkel’s attorney, Terry Watkins, said he hadn’t read the judge’s ruling and had no immediate comment on it. He said nothing had changed about the case and that he was anticipating that his client would plead not guilty.

Watkins had earlier asked that Melchert-Dinkel’s statements to police be thrown out, but he has since withdrawn that request. Watkins also had asked that the case be dismissed because of a lack of probable cause and because the state’s aiding-suicide law is unconstitutionally vague.

Neuville denied those requests as well.

Neuville wrote that prosecutors offered sufficient evidence to prove the charges, including copies of e-mails sent to Drybrough and conversations Melchert-Dinkel had with Kajouji in Internet chat rooms.

According to prosecutors, investigators found e-mails in which Melchert-Dinkel gave Drybrough explicit details on how to hang himself, stating “just a sturdy knot is very much all one needs.”

Internet chats with Kajouji suggest he posed as a compassionate, suicidal woman who promised she would die shortly after Kajouji. In one conversation, he allegedly told her hanging would be better than jumping, and: “im just tryin to help you do what is best for you not me.”

Neuville wrote the evidence shows Melchert-Dinkel may have intentionally encouraged both people to kill themselves: by forming a pact to commit suicide with Kajouji, and by telling Drybrough that he wanted to die badly himself but would put off his own suicide so he could be there for Drybrough.

Neuville also wrote that Minnesota law is not vague on the issue. He said words like “advise,” “encourage,” or “assist” are common and that an ordinary person would know what conduct is prohibited.

[greedy__malone]

Heartland students show impressive grasp of First Amendment
Inside the First Amendment

By Gene Policinski
First Amendment Center vice president/executive director
10.31.10
OK, so at some disputed level, neither candidate for the U.S. Senate in Delaware recently stood out in terms of basic knowledge of what the First Amendment actually says.

Then there are the results a few weeks ago from another State of the First Amendment survey by the First Amendment Center, which again show very few Americans — this year, just six in 100 — can name the five freedoms contained in the amendment’s 45 words.

Given all that, it’s good to be reminded that some in this nation do know what is in the 219-year-old amendment — because they study it.

Take the eighth-grade classes at Lebanon (Ind.) Middle School, where veteran teacher Donald Polston and his classes explore the text of, meaning of, and current controversies around our basic freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.

In a recent First Amendment Center visit there, in speaking to six classes through the day, we explored issues as diverse as school uniforms and dress codes, national campaign-finance laws, protests at military funerals and the hotly debated issue of proposed mosques in New York City, Tennessee and elsewhere.

Each of the classes began with a simple question: What are the five freedoms in the First Amendment? Each time the answers came back quickly, and from many students. That alone was refreshing — even exhilarating. And then came the students’ questions.

What about freedom of expression when school dress codes or uniforms are mandated?

Should people be able to protest at funerals under the banner of free speech, or should authorities be able to stop such intrusive demonstrations under privacy laws?

And why should corporations be able to spend money in direct support or opposition to political candidates when we know that big money can taint politics?

Though you might not find students such as those in Don Polston’s U.S. history classes in every school system, they and their school were good “heartland” representatives of much of the nation. Some came from families with relatives serving in the military. One had lost a family member in combat. A quick sampling showed that most kept up with the news, with a high percentage getting news online. Lebanon is a smaller town, with distinctly rural tones, but just 30 minutes from metropolitan Indianapolis. And between the Web and occasional trips like the one teacher Polston just led to Washington, D.C., these early teens were as aware of the larger world as many older counterparts.

As you might expect, there were disagreements – as apparently there are on the U.S. Supreme Court — about free-speech protection for demonstrations at military funerals. But uniformly, the students thought it was rude and offensive, regardless of the message, to intrude on such moments of private grief.

And yes, they would apply the rights of assembly and petition in discussing and perhaps protesting the particulars of school dress codes — from limits on certain types of clothing to an outright ban on caps.

Interestingly, these students had already test-driven their rights and responsibilities in challenging the familiar ban on chewing gum: By combining a student-government request to administrators to allow gum-chewing on the condition of an extended test of whether that would add to in-school litter problems (it didn’t), they used the rights of free speech, assembly and petition to make a change in their school world.

Would that those thousands who gathered for the D.C. rallies seeking change sponsored by Glenn Beck, and just days ago by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, have such positive effects in our world. Or even just have returned home knowing there are five freedoms in the First Amendment: religion, speech, press, assembly and petition.

Don Polston’s academic website closes with this thought: “Our greatest heroes are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.” When it comes to First Amendment heroes, we ought to include Mr. Polston and his students.

Gene Policinski is vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, 1207 18th Ave. S., Nashville, Tenn., 37212. Web: www.firstamendmentcenter.org. E-mail: [e-mail].

[greedy__malone]

LIGATT SECURITY INTERNATIONAL INC VS JOHN DOE ET AL

07/09/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
07/13/2010 - gen civil case filing info form - attorney for plaintiff
08/17/2010 - stipulation - regarding def randolph morris answer deadline to plf complai - attorney for plaintiff
08/23/2010 - unscheduled document - notice of service of demand for anti slapp verification - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - answer - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - jury demand - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - motion to dismiss - for summary judgment and for atty fees - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - statement of material facts - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - affidavit - f beau howard - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - affidavit - randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - brief - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - motion for protective order - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
08/27/2010 - brief - john doe 16 a/k/a randolph morris - attorney for defendant
10/12/2010 - notice of hearing - @11/09/10 1:30pm
10/21/2010 - notice of filing discovery - proposed protective order - attorney for defendant
10/21/2010 - motion - emergency mtn for prot order to quash secret subpoena - attorney for defendant
10/26/2010 - notice of hearing - 11/9/10 @ 1:30 pm in rm 1b

[greedy__malone]

Judge sides with newspaper in 1st test of Kan. shield law

By The Associated Press
10.28.10
WICHITA, Kan. — A Sedgwick County judge has ruled that The Wichita Eagle does not have to disclose confidential sources, in a ruling believed to be the first test of a new shield law for reporters in Kansas.

Judge William Woolley said the new law prohibits journalists from being compelled to provide unpublished information that could be obtained elsewhere. The law took effect July 1.

The Eagle reported that the Oct. 26 ruling came in a civil lawsuit filed against a Wichita inflatable-amusement company by the mother of 5-year-old Matthew Branham. The boy died in March after falling from an inflatable ride at Pure Entertainment in Wichita.

She sought the names of two former workers who told reporter Suzanne Perez Tobias they were taught to "launch" children from the ride.

"It's the first challenge I know of for the shield law," said Lyndon Vix, the newspaper's attorney. "It's certainly the first for The Eagle and in Sedgwick County. I think it showed the law works, at least as far as it requires reasonable efforts to be made to acquire the information through alternative means."

The request could be renewed after the plaintiff makes reasonable efforts to obtain the information in other ways, the judge said.

[greedy__malone]

NPR's federal funding questioned after analyst fired

By The Associated Press,
First Amendment Center Online staff
10.22.10
WASHINGTON — Conservatives and some liberals say NPR went too far in firing longtime news analyst Juan Williams for saying he gets nervous on planes when he sees people in Muslim dress, and at least one U.S. senator said he would propose cutting federal funding to the network.

Muslim groups were outraged, saying that Williams' remarks Oct. 18 on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor" endorsed the idea that all Muslims should be viewed with suspicion. Some opinions Williams expressed on shows by his other employer, Fox News, over the years had already strained his relationship with NPR to the point that the public radio network asked him to stop using its name when he appeared on O'Reilly's show.

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said yesterday about the firing that controversial opinions should not come from NPR reporters or news analysts. Still, NPR was soundly criticized for axing Williams' contract for stating a personal feeling in an interview in which he also said it was important to distinguish moderate Muslims from extremists and to protect civil rights.

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said. "But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

In response to the firing, South Carolina Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint planned to introduce legislation to end federal funding for NPR, his spokesman Wesley Denton confirmed last night. Denton said the senator would expand upon his proposal in a statement on Friday.

Federal grants provide less than 2% — or $3.3 million — of NPR's $166 million annual budget. It is funded primarily by its affiliates, corporate sponsors and major donors. State and local governments also provide some funds. Federal funding of public media has long been questioned by some in Congress.

Schiller said Williams had veered from journalistic ethics several times before the Oct. 18 comments. She said whatever feelings Williams has about Muslims should be between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist — take your pick." In a post later on NPR's website — where comments were heavily against Williams' firing — she apologized for making the "thoughtless" psychiatrist remark.

On his broadcast yesterday, O'Reilly blasted NPR for what he called "a disgraceful decision" and called on Schiller to resign.

"Ms. Schiller is a pinhead," said O'Reilly.

NPR had no comment about his remarks, said spokeswoman Anna Christopher.

Williams appeared shaken during his appearance on the show, and when shown Schiller's videotaped comments about him talking to a psychiatrist, asked incredulously: "Now I'm mentally unstable?"

He and O'Reilly both said they believed Williams was fired from NPR because of his association with Fox News. The network later announced it had re-signed Williams, who has been with Fox since 1997, to a multiyear deal that would give him an expanded role — and that Williams would host O'Reilly's show tonight.

"You know what? I didn't fit into their box," Williams said of NPR.

In a memo to her staff and affiliate stations, Schiller said Williams' comments violated NPR's code of ethics, which says journalists should not participate in media "that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis."

Williams stood by his remarks yesterday. He told Fox News his statement was not bigoted, as he said NPR news executive Ellen Weiss implied Oct. 20 when she fired him by phone.

"I said, 'You mean I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball-to-eyeball, person-to-person, have a conversation? I've been there more than 10 years,'" Williams said. He said Weiss responded that "there's nothing you can say that would change my mind."

Williams made the comments at issue while discussing whether O'Reilly was wrong to have said "Muslims killed us on 9/11" during an appearance last week on ABC's "The View." O'Reilly's comment prompted co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to walk off the set, but Goldberg defended Williams yesterday.

"The point he was trying to say is, 'I get nervous,' and that's OK," Goldberg said. "Firing him for saying that, I think, is kind of ridiculous."

Republicans denounced NPR's decision. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Fox News that Congress should investigate NPR for censorship and consider cutting off its public funding.

"Juan Williams: Going Rogue," former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said yesterday in a Twitter message. "NPR should receive NO fed tax dollars if it operates as intolerant, private radio. Mr. President, what say you?"

In June, Colorado Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn introduced legislation to cut funding for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting after fiscal year 2012. The bill is in committee. The corporation is the primary channel for federal funds distributed to public media, including NPR.

Before Williams was fired, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said a news organization would not tolerate such commentary from a journalist about other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups. Early this month, CNN fired anchor Rick Sanchez for comments that included questioning whether Jews should be considered a minority.

"NPR should address the fact that one of its news analysts seems to believe that all airline passengers who are perceived to be Muslim can legitimately be viewed as security threats," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said.

Society of Professional Journalists President Hagit Limor said yesterday that although the group supported Williams' right to free speech, "Based on our code of ethics, which advises avoiding stereotyping for any reason ... we understand the rationale that may be behind NPR's decision."

Williams said today that he believed NPR had been looking for a reason to fire him and used his Muslim comments as an excuse to do so. On ABC's "Good Morning America," he said NPR had wanted to fire him for some time because it disapproved of his appearances on Fox News shows.

"I think they were looking for a reason to get rid of me," he said today. "They were uncomfortable with the idea that I was talking to the likes of Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity." Hannity hosts another Fox show.

Also on "Good Morning America," Williams said Schiller made a personal attack against him because she had a weak argument to justify his firing.

"I think it's a very weak case," he said. "And so ultimately I think what she had to do then is to make it an ad hominem or personal attack."

NPR Ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard, writing today on NPR's website, said that although she agreed with his firing, "I think NPR owed him a chance to explain himself.

"I’m not privy to the why this announcement was so hastily made," Shepard wrote. "NPR could have waited until his contract ran out, or possibly suspended him pending a review. Either way, a more deliberative approach might have enabled NPR to avoid what has turned into a public relations nightmare.

"Even though NPR handled this situation badly, the fact remains that NPR must uphold its journalistic standards, which, after all, provide the basis that earned public radio's reputation for quality."

On Oct. 18, the Open Society Foundations, run by left-wing billionaire George Soros, announced a $1.8 million grant to NPR to hire more journalists to cover state governments nationwide.

Williams was a longtime reporter, columnist and editorial writer at The Washington Post. He has written extensively on the civil rights movement, including a book on the African-American religious experience and a biography of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black justice.

[greedy__malone]

The Time to Act is Now: Defend Free Speech on the Internet
In 2006, America Online censored e-mails that referenced a blog entry questioning the company’s e-mail fee system.

In 2007, AT&T cut out lyrics critical of the Bush administration during its live feed of a Pearl Jam concert. That same year, Verizon Wireless decided that text messages from pro-abortion-rights group NARAL to its supporters were too “controversial,” so it cut off access to the group’s text messaging program.

Preserving network neutrality means preventing these violations of free speech. An ACLU report released yesterday suggests that broadband carriers be held to the same “common carrier” rules that have long been applied to telephone networks, railroads and public highways. “Freedom of expression isn’t worth much if the forums where people actually make use of it are not themselves free,” the report points out.

The Internet has always thrived as an open space of exchange and innovation, but broadband carriers are fighting for the right to monitor, censor, and control Internet content by insisting that they continue to be classified as providers of “information services.”

Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, “information service” providers are not subject to the same common carrier rules as those providing “telecommunications services.” While “telecommunications service” providers transmit information between users without interfering with content as the law defines them, “information service” providers are more like publishers. The telephone company can’t interrupt a phone call if it doesn’t like what’s being said — but because the FCC has classified broadband as an information service, there is nothing to prevent them from doing exactly that on the Internet.

Broadband carriers already have the technological ability to read information as it is being sent, and filter it as they choose. They can change the speed and reliability of service, and they can block customers from using certain applications they don’t like. They have the capacity, and have shown a willingness to use it.

The FCC tried to take action to prevent abuses like those mentioned above — but an April 2010 court decision (PDF) found that the FCC did not have power to enforce network neutrality against information services. The obvious solution is for the FCC to reclassify broadband connectivity services as telecommunications services, as it should have done in the first place.

While President Obama has affirmed his support of network neutrality, saying “The Internet is perhaps the most open network in history, and we have to keep it that way,” the FCC, amid heavy corporate lobbying, is hesitating to do what’s necessary to restore its authority to block broadband providers from discriminating against whom travels its networks and with what load.

Now is the time to act: Two upcoming FCC meetings on November 15 and December 30 could determine the fate of the internet. Contact FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, and tell him to reclassify telecommunications carriers and provide strong network neutrality protections.

The internet is for everyone. Don't let the telecoms decide otherwise.

[greedy__malone]

Researcher, human rights group not protected by reporters' privilege

By The Associated Press,
First Amendment Center Online staff
10.19.10
WICHITA, Kan. — A federal judge has rejected arguments by a human rights group and a former researcher who claim notes and the identities of informants used for a book on the Rwandan genocide are protected from disclosure by the First Amendment and reporters’ privilege.

Attorneys for Human Rights Watch and author Timothy Longman said yesterday they had not decided on their next move. The international human rights organization has sought unsuccessfully since April to quash subpoenas issued to it and Longman, who has written a book on the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed an estimated 500,000 to 800,000 people.

The subpoenas come in the case of Lazare Kobagaya, who is charged with fraud and unlawfully obtaining U.S. citizenship in 2006 by claiming he lived in Burundi from 1993 to 1995. Federal prosecutors allege he actually was in Rwanda in 1994 and participated in the slaughter of hundreds.

Prosecutors say his case is the first in the United States requiring proof of genocide. He faces deportation if convicted. Trial is set for April.

U.S. District Judge Monti Belot refused on Oct. 15 to overrule a magistrate judge’s decision requiring Human Rights Watch and Longman, the former director of the group’s Rwandan field office, to disclose documents subpoenaed by Kobagaya’s defense team. The judge also restricted further distribution of the documents.

Belot wrote in his decision that he was “not unmindful or insensitive” to concerns that release of the documents could endanger persons who spoke to Longman, but found the concerns to be overstated and speculative.

Longman, now director of Boston University’s African Studies Center, had been the government’s paid expert witness in Kobagaya’s case until he withdrew during the dustup over the subpoenas.

“In this case the government invited someone who had been a consultant very long ago to be an expert witness and didn’t explain to him that by putting himself forward as an expert witness any and all materials upon which he based his expert opinions could be subpoenaed. ... Dr. Longman didn’t seek independent legal advice and the government didn’t brief him on what the consequences of his agreeing to testify would be,” Dinah PoKempner, general counsel for Human Rights Watch, said yesterday.

Longman declined to comment yesterday.

Longman and Human Rights Watch had objected to the magistrate judge’s finding that their rights under the reporters’ privilege were “waived when Longman agreed to become a paid expert for the government and the privilege was not revived when Longman withdrew as the government’s expert.”

But Belot wrote that neither Longman nor Human Rights Watch had been able to cite a case “involving a claim of privilege by a person appearing voluntarily at trial as an expert witness for one of the parties, much less a case holding or even suggesting that a witness may revive the privilege merely by withdrawing as a witness, expert or otherwise.”

Devereux Chatillon, one of the attorneys representing Longman and Human Rights Watch, said Belot’s ruling was based on “the particular and unusual facts of this case” and would not be considered a legal precedent for other First Amendment cases.

“Human Rights Watch is covered by the newsgatherers’ privilege on which it relies to gather important information about human rights and what is happening to human rights in various places around the world,” Chatillon said. The privilege protects reporters from having to reveal sources and other information uncovered during newsgathering.

The subpoena issued to Human Rights Watch seeks research done for a 1999 report, “Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda,” including a chapter on Nyakizu, Rwanda, where some of Kobagaya’s alleged crimes occurred.

PoKempner said persons who gave confidential interviews could be exposed even though none of them mentioned Kobagaya, making the interviews very tenuous to his defense.

“We really do care about the defendant,” PoKempner said. “I hope Mr. Kobagaya gets the fairest trial possible that the United States can offer.”

Kobagaya’s defense attorney, Kurt Kerns, could not be immediately reached for comment on this latest ruling. But Kerns has said in the past that Human Right Watch’s concerns are misplaced, saying he has no interest in putting anyone at risk but wants to ensure his client gets a fair trial.

[greedy__malone]

Thanks for the update scion.

[scion]

10/01/2010 34 MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Judge Norman K. Moon on 10/1/2010. (mab)

Doc 34 PDF file
http://viewer.zoho.com/docs/ksdUo

[greedy__malone]

Justices struggle with funeral-protest case

By The Associated Press
10.06.10

Transcript of oral arguments

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices today pondered the vexing question of whether the father of a dead Marine should win his lawsuit against a Kansas church that picketed his son's funeral.

The complexity and weightiness of the First Amendment issue were palpable in the courtroom as justices heard arguments in the case of Albert Snyder. His son died in Iraq in 2006, and members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., protested the funeral to make their point that U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are punishment for Americans' immorality, including tolerance of homosexuality and abortion.

During oral argument this morning in Snyder v. Phelps, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the question was whether the First Amendment must tolerate "exploiting this bereaved family." There was no clear indication of how the justices might answer that question.

Snyder is asking the Court to reinstate a $5 million verdict against the Westboro members who held signs outside the funeral of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, including ones that read "Thank God for Dead Soldiers, "You're Going to Hell" and "God Hates the USA." The Marine was killed in a Humvee accident in 2006.

The church also posted a poem on its website that attacked Snyder and his ex-wife for the way they brought up Matthew.

Justice Stephen Breyer said the Internet aspect of the case troubled him because the church was saying something "very obnoxious" about private individuals.

"To what extent can they put that on the Internet?" Breyer asked. "I don't know what the rules ought to be."

The case pits Snyder's right to grieve privately against the church members' right to say what they want, no matter how offensive.

Westboro members, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps, have picketed many military funerals.

They welcome the attention the protests have brought, mocking their critics and vowing not to change their ways whatever the outcome at the Supreme Court.

"No American should ever be required to apologize for following his or her conscience," said Margie Phelps, a daughter of Fred Phelps and the lawyer who argued the case for the church.

Westboro church members turned out in advance of the argument this morning, to march in front of the Court with placards of the type they've been carrying to military funerals. One young boy held up a sign that reads, "God Hates You."

A line of people trying to get into the Court stretched around the corner of the majestic building.

Snyder won an $11 million verdict against the church for intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims. A judge reduced the award to $5 million before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., threw out the verdict altogether, citing the church's First Amendment rights.

For Snyder, the case is not about free speech but harassment. "I had one chance to bury my son and it was taken from me," Snyder said.

Forty-eight states, 42 U .S. senators and several veterans groups have sided with Snyder, asking the Court to shield families attending funerals from the Phelpses' "psychological terrorism."

While distancing themselves from the church's message, media organizations, including the Associated Press, have called on the Court to side with the Phelpses because of concerns that a victory for Snyder could erode speech rights.

[greedy__malone]

Free-speech cases top Supreme Court's agenda

By The Associated Press
10.04.10
WASHINGTON — First Amendment cases top the Supreme Court's docket as it begins a new term today with a new justice and three women on the bench for the first time.

On a busy opening day, the justices turned away today a number of First Amendment-related appeals in which parties sought to have their cases heard before the nation's highest court:


The Court won't make the super-secret National Security Agency divulge whether it has records of the warrantless wiretapping it did of lawyers representing Guantanamo Bay inmates. The justices refused to hear an appeal from detainee lawyer Thomas B. Wilner in Wilner v. National Security Agency, 09-1192. Wilner and other detainee lawyers filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the NSA asking whether it had warrantless wiretapping records about them. But the NSA won't say whether it does or does not, insisting that revealing this information would endanger national security. Federal courts have agreed with the NSA, saying that FOIA does not require disclosure of sensitive national-security information.


The justices refused to reconsider whether a New Jersey school district can constitutionally ban celebratory religious music. The Court refused to hear an appeal from Michael Stratechuk. He sued in 2004, saying the South Orange-Maplewood school district's ban violated the First Amendment's religious-freedom provision. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld the ban, however. The 3rd Circuit said public school administrators can determine which songs are appropriate according to constitutional guidelines to create a secular "inclusive environment." The case is Stratechuk v. Board of Education, 09-1184.


The Court rejected an appeal from an online cigarette marketer who claimed his company was immune from Idaho laws regulating tobacco sales. The justices let stand an Idaho Supreme Court ruling against Scott B. Maybee, who sold millions of cigarettes to Idaho smokers through Smartsmoker.com and Ordersmokesdirect.com. The state claimed in a lawsuit that Maybee, a Native American from New York, was violating state laws requiring cigarette peddlers to register with the state and pay a fee to the state. The laws were passed in the wake of the national tobacco settlement in 1998. Maybee claimed Idaho laws didn't apply because he was protected by federal interstate and Indian-commerce laws. The case is Maybee v. Idaho, 09-1471.


The Supreme Court won't decide who really owns the initials "SC" when it comes to college sports: the University of Southern California or the University of South Carolina. The high court refused to hear an appeal from South Carolina, which wanted to trademark a baseball cap logo with the initials "SC." The USC Trojans already have a trademark on a version of "SC" and say the Gamecocks' symbol looks too much like theirs. The California school says it has sold tens of millions of dollars worth of apparel with "SC" on it, while South Carolina did not seek to start using those initials on baseball caps until 1997. Courts have rejected South Carolina's trademark. The case is University of South Carolina v. University of Southern California, 09-1270.

During this term, the Court will look at such First Amendment cases as provocative anti-gay protests at military funerals (Snyder v. Phelps) and a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children (Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants Association). These cases worry free-speech advocates, who fear the court could limit First Amendment freedoms.

The funeral-protest lawsuit, involving signs praising American war deaths, "is one of those cases that tests our commitment to the First Amendment," said Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Another case, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, involves a different aspect of the First Amendment, the government's relationship to religion. The justices will decide whether Arizona's income-tax-credit scholarship program, in essence, directs state money to religious schools in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.

Under Chief Justice John Roberts, marking his fifth anniversary on the Court, and since the replacement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court has been more sympathetic to arguments that blur the line between government and religion, as long as one religion is not favored over another.

Justice Elena Kagan, confirmed in August, is the one new face on the Court. John Paul Stevens has retired.

Getting a read on Kagan in her first year may be even harder because her former job as President Barack Obama's solicitor general already has forced her to take herself out of 24 of the 51 cases the Court has so far agreed to hear. The solicitor general is the top lawyer who argues the government's cases before the high court.

The first case from which she is withdrawing will be argued today, and Kagan will slip out of the courtroom before Roberts invites the lawyers to begin their argument.

Kagan's absences create the potential for the eight remaining justices to split 4-4 in some cases. That outcome leaves in place the decision reached by the most recent court to have the case, but leaves unsettled the issue the high court was set to resolve.

[greedy__malone]

Group fights firm that's suing news-sharing Internet users

By The Associated Press
10.03.10
LAS VEGAS — A San Francisco group that defends online free speech is taking on a Las Vegas company it says is shaking down news-sharing Internet users through more than 140 copyright-infringement lawsuits filed this year.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s counterclaim represents the first significant challenge to Righthaven LLC’s unprecedented campaign to police the sharing of news content on blogs, political sites and personal Web pages.

At stake is what constitutes fair use — when and how it is appropriate to share content in an age where newsmakers increasingly encourage readers to share stories on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other social-networking sites.

The EFF argues that the lawsuits limit free speech and bully defendants into costly settlements by threatening $150,000 in damages and the transfer of domain names. The foundation represents Democratic Underground LLC, which Righthaven sued in August for posting parts of a Las Vegas Review-Journal article on a message board.

Many of the cases involve stories originally published by the Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest newspaper and the flagship of Stephens Media LLC.

“This case is a particularly abusive instance of a broad and aggressive strategy by Stephens Media, working in conjunction with its ‘little friend’ Righthaven as its front and sham representative, to seek windfall recoveries of statutory damages and to exact nuisance settlements by challenging a fair use of an excerpt of an article that Stephens Media makes freely available on the Internet,” says the counterclaim filed in Las Vegas federal court this week.

Righthaven’s chief executive officer, Steve Gibson, called EFF’s claims “inflammatory.”

“That’s just ridiculous, and the reason it is ridiculous is that I don’t think there has been any defendant that we’ve called to shake them down for a settlement,” he said.

Dozens of the lawsuits have been settled privately, and Righthaven and Stephens Media declined to disclose the terms. The EFF says the settlements have averaged about $5,000.

Movie and music producers have previously targeted individuals who illegally share copyright content. What makes Righthaven’s business model unique is that it buys copyrights from news companies like Stephens Media and then aggressively files lawsuits without first giving defendants a chance to remove the content in question.

Allen Lichtenstein, a lawyer for the Nevada American Civil Liberties Union, said the lawsuits unnecessarily pursue the full force of copyright law. He is representing Lisa Linowes, a New Hampshire blogger who was sued after posting a story about wind energy from Stephens Media’s Ely Times. Lichtenstein said Linowes would have immediately removed the post if Righthaven had sent a cease-and-desist order.

Other defendants include the Nevada Democratic Party, the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle.

Mark Hinueber, vice president and general counsel for Stephens Media, declined to comment on EFF’s counterclaim. He has said the lawsuits help protect the company’s content by discouraging would-be offenders.

But Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney for the EFF, said Righthaven’s goal is to drum up cash from people who can’t afford to fight the lawsuits. Some of the cases involve people who cited and linked to the original source.

“This is a copyright troll,” Opsahl said. “They are trying to exploit a loophole in the copyright system ... for conduct that has not really caused any harm at all.”

Opsahl said the lawsuits themselves cause harm by stifling open communication.

“Linking to articles and excerpting from them is part of the lifeblood of the online community,” he said. “They are not trying to hurt the Review-Journal. In fact, many of them are excited about the coverage.”

Gibson said readers do not have the right to reprint content simply because a news site encourages them to post links on social-networking sites.

“You can’t say, ‘Because I believe I am doing the party I am infringing on a benefit I am entitled to do it,’” Gibson said.

The lawsuits are being closely watched by news companies that are struggling to protect their content as more people rely on the Web for news and ad revenue in printed newspapers dwindles.

Righthaven’s practice of suing without first providing offenders an opportunity to remove the content has been widely debated.

“The news media has just not done stuff like this before,” said Eric E. Johnson, a University of North Dakota law professor who focuses on copyright infringement and intellectual property issues. “The news media has this sense of public responsibility and a deep sense of ethics and the public trust ... this seems like a straightforward effort to make money. It’s mean.”

[Stock]

U.S. Courts Should be Reserved for U.S. Cases

Tuesday, September 28, 2010 3:26 pm
http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/today-in-legal-reform/37-ilr-spotlight/143-us-courts-should-be-reserved-for-us-cases.html

To most people, the notion that a country’s legal system should only decide cases regarding actions occurring in that country is common sense. After all, when an American tourist visiting Great Britain gets in trouble with the law, their case is handled by British courts, not American courts. Conversely, when a British tourist gets in trouble in the U.S., their case is handled by U.S, not British, courts.

The Supreme Court apparently agreed with this principle when it recently ruled that the same standard should apply in securities litigation. In the case of Morrison vs. National Australia Bank, the court ruled that lawsuits against foreign companies regarding activity on foreign stock exchanges should not be allowed in U.S. courts. In its ruling, the court highlighted the longstanding principle of American law “that legislation of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”

Despite the seemingly common sense nature of the ruling, securities plaintiffs’ lawyers are outraged. They have already filed scores of frivolous securities lawsuits against U.S. companies and were hoping to bring similarly costly lawsuits against foreign companies in U.S. courts.

Their efforts cannot be allowed to succeed. Permitting foreign securities lawsuits in U.S. courts would discourage foreign investment and further damage the U.S.’s already poor global reputation for excessive litigation. It might also lead to other countries allowing lawsuits in their courts regarding activity by U.S. companies in the U.S.

Congress and the public should ignore the self-serving outrage of the plaintiffs’ bar. The Supreme Court ruling was consistent with U.S. legal principles and common sense. Lawsuits regarding foreign activity should be heard in foreign, not U.S., courts.

For more information, visit Lawsuits Go Global.
http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/tort-import/f-cubed.html

http://www.instituteforlegalreform.com/today-in-legal-reform/37-ilr-spotlight/143-us-courts-should-be-reserved-for-us-cases.html

[greedy__malone]

Rights groups denounce arrest of Thai webmaster

BANGKOK — Human rights and free speech groups protested Saturday the arrest of a Thai webmaster as she returned from an Internet freedom conference on charges of insulting the monarchy and violating the Computer Crime Act.

Chiranuch Premchaiporn, who manages the Prachatai news website, was stopped Friday by immigration police at Bangkok's international airport and shown an arrest warrant issued by police in the northeastern province of Khon Kaen. She had just attended a conference in Hungary dealing with online free expression.

She was released on bail shortly after midnight after being driven by police to Khon Kaen, 275 miles (445 kilometers) away, where the complaint against her was filed.

Chiranuch was arrested last year on similar charges, and both cases involve offending messages posted by readers more than a year ago on her site's web board, for which she has been held responsible. She has not yet been tried, but faces up to 50 years in prison on the old charges.

"We call for Chiranuch's immediate release and the withdrawal of the charges against her so that we do not have to witness another attempt to exploit the Computer Crimes Act to silence the regime's critics," the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said in an e-mailed statement. "Prachatai is a reliable source of news and information that has managed in recent months to keep the public informed about what is going on in Thailand."

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and human rights group Amnesty International both called for Chiranuch's immediate and unconditional release.

"The government should stop using anti-crown charges to suppress legitimate criticism," said Shawn Crispin, CPJ's representative in Southeast Asia.

Chiranuch said she was still hopeful for freedom of expression on the Internet in Thailand. "The arrest just showed some flaws or weaknesses that existed in the judicial process," she told The Associated Press.

Thailand's freedom of speech reputation has taken a battering in recent years, as the government has tried to suppress political opposition that has sometimes turned violent. Its standing in the Press Freedom Index issued by Reporters Without Borders slipped to 130 last year from 65 in 2002, when the ratings were initiated.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said the arrest "comes amid an intensifying crackdown on Thai media." The government has shut down a satellite television news station, community radio stations, print publications and websites aligned with the anti-government advocates, it said.

Prachatai, which was established by several respected journalists, senators and press freedom activists, describes itself as an independent, nonprofit, daily Web newspaper that provides information "during an era of serious curbs on the freedom and independence of Thai news media."

Thailand's lese majeste law mandates a jail term of three to 15 years for "whoever defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir to the throne or the regent." The 2007 Computer Crime Act carries a penalty of up to five years' imprisonment and a fine of 100,000 baht ($3,260).

The act bars the circulation of material deemed detrimental to national security or that causes public panic, and authorities have used it to block thousands of websites deemed insulting to the monarchy.

Prachatai reported Saturday that Chiranuch was freed after posting 200,000 baht ($6,525) bail. She must report back to police in Khon Kaen on Oct. 24.

The complaint against her was filed by Sunimit Jirasuk, a businessman in Khon Kaen, in April 2008.

[greedy__malone]

Nebraska high court backs sender of angry e-mails

By The Associated Press
09.25.10
LINCOLN, Neb. — The Nebraska Supreme Court supports the sender of profanity-laced e-mails, saying the First Amendment protects his angry words.

Darren J. Drahota was convicted of disturbing the peace and fined $250 for e-mails he sent in 2006 to former political science professor Bill Avery. Avery was running for a Nebraska Legislature seat, which he won, and Drahota was a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The messages accused Avery of treason, among other things.

In June last year, the state Court of Appeals upheld the conviction and sentence.

In a ruling issued yesterday, the Nebraska Supreme Court disagreed with the lower courts, saying the messages had constitutional protections. The high court reversed Drahota's conviction and ordered that the case be dismissed.

[greedy__malone]

Censorship of the Internet Takes Center Stage in "Online Infringement" Bill
Legislative Analysis by Richard Esguerra
Senator Patrick Leahy yesterday introduced the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act" (COICA). This flawed bill would allow the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to break the Internet one domain at a time — by requiring domain registrars/registries, ISPs, DNS providers, and others to block Internet users from reaching certain websites. The bill would also create two Internet blacklists. The first is a list of all the websites hit with a censorship court order from the Attorney General. The second, more worrying, blacklist is a list of domain names that the Department of Justice determines — without judicial review — are "dedicated to infringing activities." The bill only requires blocking for domains in the first list, but strongly suggests that domains on the second list should be blocked as well by providing legal immunity for Internet intermediaries and DNS operators who decide to block domains on the second blacklist as well. (It's easy to predict that there will be tremendous pressure for Internet intermediaries of all stripes to block these "deemed infringing" sites on the second blacklist.)

COICA is a fairly short bill, but it could have a longstanding and dangerous impact on freedom of speech, current Internet architecture, copyright doctrine, foreign policy, and beyond. In 2010, if there's anything we've learned about efforts to re-write copyright law to target "piracy" online, it's that they are likely to have unintended consequences.

This is a censorship bill that runs roughshod over freedom of speech on the Internet. Free speech is vitally important to democracy, which is why the government is restricted from suppressing speech except in very specific, narrowly-tailored situations. But this bill is the polar opposite of narrow — not only in the broad way that it tries to define a site "dedicated to infringing activities," but also in the solution that it tries to impose — a block on a whole domain, and not just the infringing part of the site.

We note that the DMCA already gives copyright owners legal tools to remove infringing material piece-by-piece, and to obtain injunctions requiring ISPs to block certain offshore infringing websites. The misuse of the existing DMCA provisions have had a tremendously damaging impact on fair use and free expression. By comparison, COICA streamlines and vastly expands this; it would allow the AG to shoot down a whole domain including all the blog posts, images, backups, and files underneath it. In other words, it's not just possible but probable that a great deal of legitimate, protected speech will be taken down in the name of copyright enforcement.

It is designed to undermine basic Internet infrastructure. When a user enters "eff.org" into their web browser, what responds is a domain name system server that tells the users' browser where EFF's website is located on the Internet. This bill would have the Attorney General prevent the players in that domain name system (possibly including your ISP) from telling you the truth about a website's location.

And it's not clear what a user would see in this situation — would it look like a "404 message," that simply says a site or page could not be found, without explaining why? Would users receive some kind of notice clarifying that the site they were seeking was made inaccessible at the behest of the government? Generally speaking, the bill forces all the Internet "middlemen" to act as if a part of the Internet doesn't exist, even though that page may otherwise be completely available and accessible.

COICA sends the world the message that the United States approves of unilateral Internet censorship. Which governments deny their citizens access to parts of the Internet? For now, it is mostly totalitarian, profoundly anti-democratic regimes that keep their citizens from seeing the whole Internet. With this bill, the United States risks telling countries throughout the world, "Unilateral censorship of websites that the government doesn't like is okay — and this is how you do it."

The bill's imbalances threaten to complicate existing laws and policies. The bill includes poorly drafted definitions that threaten fair use online, endanger innovative backup services, and raises questions about how these new obligations on Internet intermediaries are intended to fit with existing US secondary liability rules and the DMCA copyright safe harbor regime. Moreover, it seems easy to get on the blacklist — the bill sets up a seemingly streamlined procedure for adding domains (including a McCarthy-like procedure of public snitching) — but in contrast, it seems difficult to get off the list, with a cumbersome process to have a blacklisted domain removed.

And what do we get in exchange? Not much, if the goal is to actually limit unauthorized copying online. The bill gives the government power to play an endless game of whack-a-mole, blocking one domain after another, but even a relatively unsophisticated technologist can begin to imagine the workarounds: a return to encrypted peer-to-peer, modified /etc/hosts files (that don't rely on the domain name system for finding things on the Internet), and other tools, which will emerge and ensure that committed pirates have a way to route around the bill's damage to the DNS system.

To us, COICA looks like another misguided gift to a shortsighted industry whose first instinct with respect to the Internet is to try to break it. There are still many questions to be answered, but one thing is for sure — this bill allows the government to suppress truthful speech and could block access to a wealth of non-infringing speech, and the end result will do little to protect artists or mollify the industries that profit from them. Stay tuned for more analysis, information, and steps you can take to fight Internet censorship

[greedy__malone]

SEC head defends public-records exemption

By The Associated Press
09.18.10
WASHINGTON — The head of the Securities and Exchange Commission said this week that the public shouldn't be able to see details of the SEC's policing of financial firms because such access could make the agency's job more difficult.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro told a House panel Sept. 16 that the agency needed the exemption for some cases because firms won't provide information voluntarily if they know it could be viewed by anyone, including competitors.

Lawmakers want to close a loophole in the new financial overhaul law that allows the SEC an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act. Those records are related to its monitoring of firms such as hedge funds and investment advisers.

Legislation is moving through Congress and is backed by open-government advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Society of Professional Journalists and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill unanimously on Sept. 16. The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing to examine the exemption, and is likely to follow the Senate panel's lead.

"I am convinced that [the exemption] went too far," Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House panel, told Schapiro at the hearing. "It is clear that legislation is required."

The exemption allows the SEC to hold back a range of data it collects from financial firms during its inspections. In most cases, financial firms provide the information voluntarily.

Proponents of closing the exemption say the public should have a right to review the data because firms could be making risky moves. They cite the case of Bernard Madoff, who is serving a life sentence in federal prison for conducting a multi-billion dollar Ponzi scheme, as a reason for making the data public.

But Schapiro said firms were concerned that competitors could exploit the public-records laws to review proprietary information, such as their investment strategies or trading formulas. That would lead many firms to stop volunteering the information, thereby possibly damaging the SEC's ability "to obtain in a timely manner the sensitive or confidential information needed for comprehensive examinations" of firms, Schapiro said.

The FOIA law is aimed at promoting openness and transparency in government. It requires that government records be released to anyone who asks, unless they fall under one of nine exceptions to the law. The financial overhaul law enacted in July broadened the SEC's ability to invoke those exceptions.

Lawmakers from both parties are concerned about exempting the SEC from oversight just as it flexes new powers it gained under the landmark overhaul. The law gives the SEC new authority to oversee hedge funds, derivatives and other aspects of the financial industry.

The proposed fix to the FOIA exemption would be the first change to the financial regulatory law.

Schapiro tried to assuage lawmakers' concerns by saying she had directed her staff to apply the exemption in limited cases. But Angela Canterbury, director of public policy at the Project on Government Oversight, said, "We do not believe that internal SEC guidance is sufficient to allay the risks to the public interest."

An audit commissioned by the SEC inspector general, released a year ago, found that the agency had inadequate or incorrect FOIA procedures for determining whether responsive documents exist and how exemptions from disclosure are applied. The report found that the agency was more inclined to withhold information from public view than to share it when requested. The SEC's rate of compliance with FOIA rules was "significantly lower" than average for federal agencies, it said.

The inspector general made 10 recommendations in the report. Schapiro noted in her testimony that the agency had carried out nine of them since then.

[greedy__malone]

John Doe Strikes Back: New Developments in the US Copyright Group ("Hurt Locker") Cases
Commentary by Corynne McSherry
After months of dragnet litigation and intimidation, some of the thousands of “John Doe” Defendants targeted in mass copyright lawsuits filed in the District of Columbia are fighting back in earnest.

The lawsuits are the brainchild of a Washington, D.C., law firm calling itself the "U.S. Copyright Group" (USCG). USCG investigators have identified IP addresses they allege are associated with the unauthorized uploading and downloading of independent films, including "Far Cry" and "The Hurt Locker." Using those addresses, USCG has filed several "John Doe" lawsuits in D.C., implicating well over 14,000 individuals, and has issued subpoenas to ISPs seeking the identities of the subscribers associated with those IP addresses.

Last week, a group of over 40 Doe Defendants targeted in two of the cases filed an omnibus motion to quash a subpoena seeking their identities and to dismiss the cases against them. The Defendants are represented by Carey Lening, Christina DiEdoardo, Tuna Mecit and Bradford Patrick. Echoing arguments EFF raised in an earlier amicus brief, the Defendants explain that USCG has improperly joined together thousands of defendants and has sued those defendants in the wrong court. In addition, Defendants argue that USCG’s gamesmanship violates the normal procedures for large-scale litigation against people located across the country (the Multi-District Litigation rules), resulting in additional costs and burden to the Defendants. Numerous other Does have moved to quash and/or dismiss as individuals as well.

In addition, the judge in one of the cases has issued orders requiring USCG to justify suing two of the Does in the District of Columbia, as the Defendants claim to have no contacts with the District.

EFF believes USCG's litigation tactics violate basic due process rights, and we’ve been working hard both to call the court’s attention to those violations and help the Does get access to the resources they need to defend their rights. Kudos to the attorneys who have signed on to defend these Does, and to the Defendants themselves for demanding that USCG play by the rules.

[greedy__malone]

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 21647 / September 14, 2010
FINAL JUDGMENT OF PERMANENT INJUNCTION AND OTHER RELIEF ENTERED AGAINST DEFENDANT ROSS E. BARALL
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Wall Street Communications, Inc., et al., Civil Action No. 8:09-CV-1046-JSM-TGW (M.D. Fla.)
The Commission announced that on August 23, 2010, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida entered a final judgment of permanent injunction and other relief against Defendant Ross E. Barall. The final judgment enjoins Barall from violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In addition to injunctive relief, the final judgment bars Barall from participating in the offering of any penny stock and orders him to pay disgorgement in the amount of 9,580.00, plus prejudgment interest of $356.09 and imposes a civil penalty of $60,000. Barall consented to entry of the final judgment without admitting or denying any of the allegations in the complaint.

The Court also approved the stipulation of dismissal as to the claims against Defendant Howard A. Scala due to his death and because there is no estate open on his behalf, and approved the Commission's notice of voluntary dismissal as to the claims for disgorgement and civil penalty against Defendant Wall Street Communications, Inc. Previously, on September 8, 2009, the Court entered an order of permanent injunction and other relief against Wall Street by default.

The Commission began this action by filing its complaint on June 5, 2009, against Wall Street, Scala, Barall, and another defendant, charging them with securities fraud in connection with a series of stock manipulation schemes and a fraudulent, unregistered distribution of stock.

For additional information, see Litigation Release No. 21070 (June 5, 2009), and Release 21299 (November 16, 2009).




http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21647.htm

[greedy__malone]

EFF Welcomes New Attorneys to Transparency Team
Announcement by Rebecca Jeschke
EFF is pleased to announce two new additions to our FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project: staff attorney Jennifer Lynch and Open Government Legal Fellow Mark Rumold. Our FLAG Project uses the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other tools to uncover and expose important government information, protect individual liberties, and hold government agencies accountable.

Jennifer is already well-known in cyberlaw circles. Before joining EFF, Jennifer was the Clinical Teaching Fellow with the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law. At the Samuelson Clinic, Jennifer specialized in privacy and intellectual property issues, including privacy and the smart electrical grid, digital books, open source and biotech, fair use in educational materials, and government use of social media in criminal investigations. Before the Clinic, Jennifer practiced with Bingham McCutchen in San Francisco, where she focused on commercial litigation and represented several California prisoners in a large civil rights case against state prison wardens.

Mark recently received his law degree from University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and his legal interests include the First Amendment, information privacy, and the ways technology can improve how we structure government. He worked previously as an judicial extern for the Honorable Susan Illston of the United States District Court, Northern District of California and also as a law clerk for As You Sow, a group that works to increase corporate accountability. Welcome Mark and Jennifer

[greedy__malone]

Beyond "Censored": What Craigslist's "Adult Services" Decision Means for Free Speech
Commentary by Matt Zimmerman
On Saturday, after years of pressure from law enforcement officials, Internet classified ad web site Craigslist bowed to demands to remove its "Adult Services" section which critics charged encouraged prostitution and other sex-related crimes. Or at least it appears that it did. Without explanation, following the latest in a series of open letters from state attorneys general decrying the third party content permitted on the site, Craigslist replaced the "Adult Services" link that formerly appeared on the front page of the site with a white-on-black "censored" bar. Whether this move will substantially affect the rate of illegal prostitution across the country remains to be seen. Many, even some of Craigslist's critics, appear to have their doubts. If nothing else, however, this latest turn in the AGs v. Craigslist saga underscores the misguided nature of the AGs' tactics as well as the fundamental disagreement that we (and Congress) have with the AGs' vision of how the Internet should operate.

Through this now years-long struggle, Craigslist's legal position has been and remains absolutely, unequivocally correct: the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (or CDA) grants providers of "interactive computer services" an absolute shield against state criminal law liability stemming from material posted by third parties. Put simply, the law ensures that the virtual soapbox is not liable for what the speaker says: merely creating a forum in which users post ads that may violate state law plainly does not lead to liability for a web site operator.

The federal statutory immunity upon which Craigslist relies is not some clever loophole. Rather, the intermediary immunity provided by the CDA represents a conscious policy decision by Congress to protect individuals and companies who would otherwise be vulnerable targets to litigants who want to silence speech to which they object, illegal or not. We agree with Congress that a federal policy of holding lawbreakers liable for their own illegal behavior instead of holding intermediaries responsible for the illegal acts of others is the right one, both as a matter of fairness as well as an effective strategy by which speech and innovation can be encouraged and rewarded.

This clear protection plays an essential role in how the Internet functions today, protecting every interactive web site operator -- from Facebook to Craigslist to the average solo blog operator -- from potentially crippling legal bills and liability stemming from comments or other material posted to web sites by third parties. Moreover, if they were obligated to pre-screen their users' content, wide swaths of First Amendment-protected speech would inevitably be sacrificed as web site operators, suddenly transformed into conservative content reviewers, permitted only the speech that they could be sure would not trigger lawsuits (or intimidating visits from the attorney general). The ability to encourage speech of all sorts without fear of legal reprisal is a feature of the CDA 230 world, not a shortcoming, one that encourages the publication of a diverse range of viewpoints and not just those of rich and cautious media companies who can afford the financial risk of publication.

As the chief law enforcement officers of their respective states, the attorneys general certainly know that their legal threats are completely meritless. Yet these and other law enforcement officers have shown little regard for what the law actually requires and have instead embarked on a vigorous campaign to strong-arm a company into submission based on bogus legal threats that nonetheless play well to many of their constituents. This strategy might amount to good politics, especially in an election year, but it continues to show remarkable disdain for the bedrock legal principles that have largely served the Internet well over the past 15 years.

It didn't have to be this way. Over the past two years, Craigslist repeatedly offered to go far above and beyond their legal obligations to work with law enforcement officials, offering to manually screen ads, require working phone and credit card numbers from ad posters (thereby creating digital footprints by which lawbreakers could be tracked), and help identify missing persons. Not surprisingly, however, having offered to do more than the law required but less than the AGs demanded, the AGs kept coming back for more, some flatly stating that the essential protections offered by CDA 230 should be repealed.

At least two lessons can be drawn from this latest skirmish in the battle between Craigslist and its critics. First, there sadly appears to be little upside to working with many of these law enforcement officials to resolve such important Internet policy disagreements. At each step of this public debate, the AGs have inevitably rewarded completely voluntary, non-mandatory offers of cooperation from Craigslist with further demands and insults. What possible motivation will other companies have to work with law enforcement to address similar concerns in the future?

Second, and more importantly, supporters of the First Amendment should loudly voice their opposition to this type of misguided rhetoric from elected officials. While Craigslist may have "voluntarily" shuttered its Adult Services section, they did so under constant threat from government officials who continually promised meritless lawsuits and even criminal prosecution if their target did not comply. No one (including Craigslist) disputes that sex trafficking is a reprehensible practice that should be vigorously opposed. The dispute lies in whether law enforcement officials should be permitted to bully and dragoon private web site operators into becoming de facto censors. Many, including EFF, profoundly disagree with the prospect of such a reimagined Internet, and the AGs at minimum owe it to the public to be honest about the First Amendment impact of what they are proposing.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/09/craigslist-beyond-censored

[greedy__malone]

EFF Asks Court to Protect Craigslist from Defamation Suit
Case Could Discourage Websites from Responding to Help Requests
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of public interest groups and law professors have asked a California appeals court to protect craigslist from a lawsuit that could spur websites to be less helpful in responding to complaints about user behavior.

In Scott P. v. craigslist, Inc., the plaintiff complained about a series of craigslist ads he said were written by impersonators. While craigslist removed the ads within minutes of his phone calls, the plaintiff sued, contending that craigslist broke a promise to "take care of it" when the impersonators posted additional ads. In cases like these, federal law -- specifically Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act -- shields Internet forums like craigslist from liability. Section 230 was designed to encourage parties to pursue action against those who created the questionable content instead of the platform that hosted it. But the California Superior Court has ruled that this case can continue because of the plaintiff's allegations that craigslist said it would help.

Craigslist filed a writ petition with the Court of Appeal for the State of California Wednesday, arguing that the trial court should have dismissed the case because of Section 230's protections for forum hosts. In an amicus letter filed today in support of craigslist, EFF argues that the lower court reasoning could create a hole in Section 230, discouraging forum owners from helping users.

"Section 230 was a deliberate effort by Congress to encourage service providers to find innovative ways to self-regulate," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Yet craigslist is facing the prospect of extended litigation because it tried to do just that. Allowing this litigation to continue could result in websites being less helpful to users with complaints."

Additionally troublesome is the specter of further lawsuits, which could convince other Internet innovators not to host user content at all.

"Congress created Section 230 to allow for online interactivity without a flood of lawsuits. But this case could undermine the immunity that the law created," said Opsahl. "If litigation can survive merely because a plaintiff asserts that the site made a vague promise, sites may decide that allowing comments or user generated content is not worth the legal exposure. Then we'll lose the vibrant online environment that Section 230 helped create in the first place."

Joining EFF in the letter to court were the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Citizen Media Law Project, and law professors Eric Goldman, David S. Levine, David G. Post, and Jason Schultz. Separately, a group of Internet companies, including Yahoo!, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google and Linkedin filed another amicus brief in support of craigslist.

For the full amicus letter:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/craigslist_v_sup/EFFletter9210.pdf

For more on this case:
http://www.eff.org/cases/craigslist-v-superior-court-california

Contact:

Kurt Opsahl
Senior Staff Attorney
Electronic Frontier Foundation
[e-mail]

[greedy__malone]

New Jersey Catholic Church Has No Legal Right to Unmask Internet Critic, Groups Tell Court

Public Citizen, ACLU Urge Judge to Make Church Prove Its Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Countering a New Jersey church’s unjustified pursuit of an anonymous e-mailer’s identity, Public Citizen and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ) asked a court this week to rescind a legal order filed by the church and to protect the e-mailer’s privacy.

The two groups filed a brief in the Superior Court of New Jersey in Morris County this week, arguing that the church’s request for the source of an e-mail blaming poor management at Our Lady of the Magnificat School for declining student enrollment violated the First Amendment.

“Established law says that Internet critics cannot be unmasked unless several procedural and substantive protections are met,” said Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy. “The requirement that legal and factual merit must be shown before the identity of Internet speakers can be discovered has been the law in New Jersey for nearly a decade.”

After several parents of children at the Our Lady of the Magnificat School, located in Kinnelon, received an e-mail in February accusing the school of poor management and speculating about student enrollment, the church brought concerns to court in June over slander and potential damage to its reputation.

The court ordered Cablevision, the Internet service provider, to produce documents identifying the critic. Cablevision notified the critic, who contacted Public Citizen and the ACLU-NJ for assistance.

As ruled in a case that Levy argued a decade ago before New Jersey’s Appellate Division, certain criteria must be met for a court to allow the search for an anonymous online commenter’s identity to proceed. First, the online commenter must receive notification in order to secure a legal defense. Second, a legal showing must prove the material in question is in fact defamatory. Third, a factual showing must prove the case against the critic is strong. The church in this case has met none of those criteria, Levy said.

“The Constitution allows everyone to express an opinion on matters that concern them without worrying about undue retaliation,” said ACLU-NJ Deputy Legal Director Jeanne LoCicero. “Our tradition of anonymous speech reaches back to the publication of the Federalist Papers. No one has the right to intimidate people into silence by threatening to unmask the anonymity they’re entitled to.”

The groups are asking the court to vacate its order to Cablevision. They are working with local attorney Richard L. Ravin of Hartman & Winnicki, P.C.

http://www.citizen.org/documents/In_re_OLM_Brief_Supp_Motion_Reconsideration.pdf

[greedy__malone]

Sotomayor: Free speech vs. security likely to come before Court

By The Associated Press
08.27.10
DENVER — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said yesterday that the nation's high court likely would be asked again to weigh issues of national security versus free speech because of the recently leaked classified war documents posted on the WikiLeaks website.

Sotomayor told high school and college students at the University of Denver that she couldn't answer a student query about the security questions and free speech because "that question is very likely to come before me."

The release of the WikiLeaks documents, which included names of Afghans working with American forces, has been blasted by the Pentagon. It said the publication of those documents put lives at risk, while WikiLeaks insisted the website provides a public service for whistleblowers.

Sotomayor said yesterday that the "incident, and others, are going to provoke legislation that's already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before (the Supreme Court)."

She added that the balance between national security and free speech is "a constant struggle in this society, between our security needs and our First Amendment rights, and one that has existed throughout our history."

Sotomayor compared the current question to the debate over allowing publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon study about the Vietnam War. The New York Times published those in 1971 after the Supreme Court declined to block publication over the objections of the Pentagon.

"That was not beginning of that question, but an issue that keeps arising from generation to generation, of how far we will permit government restriction on freedom of speech in favor of protection of the country," Sotomayor said. "There's no black-and-white line."

Sotomayor also declined to take a position on Arizona's illegal immigration law, but said the question of illegal immigration would be decided by legislation, not the courts.

"I haven't really examined the Arizona law in detail ... so I haven't formed an opinion yet, and I wouldn't until I heard the case," Sotomayor told a Latino boy who asked the question.

Sotomayor didn't predict whether the Arizona law would end up before the Supreme Court. Parts of Arizona's law are pending in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco after the Department of Justice sued.

Sotomayor told students that if they were interested in changing society, they need to look to the legislative branch, not the courts.

"Waiting for the courts to resolve these issues is not what all of you should be doing," Sotomayor said, adding that they have to "work hard at either passing laws that you think do the right thing, or changing those laws which you think do the wrong thing."

Sotomayor discussed her personal experiences as a top arbiter of the law, saying she has been "living a fantasy" since being appointed to the Court last year but that the job requires sacrifice.

She said her greatest sacrifice was "taking this job when I know I'm on the tail end of my mother's life." She said her mother was hospitalized two days ago in Florida, "and I'm not there."

Sotomayor spoke to the students before her appearance at a judicial conference in Colorado Springs this weekend. Some 800 judges are expected at the 10th Circuit conference; Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was scheduled to speak there.

A student asked about Sotomayor's experience living in her hometown, the Bronx borough of New York City, then attending Princeton University in New Jersey. The justice joked that students at the Ivy League school had read books she'd never even heard of. She also took a swipe at Ulysses by James Joyce.

"I started to read it, and I almost fell asleep," Sotomayor said.

[greedy__malone]

10-4 thanks Dave.

[IH Geek [Dave]]

That has nothing to do with iHub. ADVFN has their own boards in the UK.

[greedy__malone]

Nighthawk and Nostra Terra on Monday used the courts to force the two biggest bulletin boards, iii and ADVFN, to reveal the identities of the anonymous users.

Wonder if Dave can shed some light on this?

[Stock]

AIM oil companies take action over bulletin board 'lies'

A wave of Aim-listed oil and gas companies will this week take action against internet users "motivated by money" posting "untrue and malicious" messages on investment bulletin boards.

By Rupert Neate and Rowena Mason
Published: 6:00AM BST 10 Aug 2010

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7935231/AIM-oil-companies-take-action-over-bulletin-board-lies.html
---


Nighthawk and Nostra Terra on Monday used the courts to force the two biggest bulletin boards, iii and ADVFN, to reveal the identities of the anonymous users
---

The Daily Telegraph understands that a string of small oil and gas explorers will follow Nighthawk Energy and Nostra Terra Oil and Gas (NTOG) in taking legal action against message board users, who they claim are trying to drive down the share price in order to profit from short-selling.

According to sources, the chief executives of a host of energy groups have met to discuss the "extremely damaging" comments about the companies and their management teams.

Nighthawk and Nostra Terra on Monday used the courts to force the two biggest bulletin boards, iii and ADVFN, to reveal the identities of the anonymous users.

The City of London Police are investigating allegations of market abuse in relation to the matter.

The companies allege that a "hardcore" of bulletin board users have created dozens of fake 'avatars' to spread scurrilous and untrue gossip, which has now been taken down from the websites. A blog entitled "Say no to NTOG" was also recently removed from the internet.

Matt Lofgren, chief executive of NTOG, said he was personally targeted with untrue suggestions that he appeared in court on charges of drink driving – when in fact he only has a speeding ticket.

"That wasn't even one of the worst," he said. "We think there are multiple users with multiple names trying to create the image of a big group. I believe that their motivation is simply money.

"We're not going to stand for people spreading lies. I'm all for freedom of speech but some people have abused that."

David Bramhill, chief executive of Nighthawk, said the company was very likely to take pursue claims against the worst offending bulletin board users.

"This isn't about muzzling investors that want to have a go at the company, or who want to complain that they've lost money, or boast that they've made money," Mr Bramhill said.

"That's free speech and they're welcome to it. This is about calculated lies."

A spokesman for ADVFN said it is "often" forced to reveal the identities of its anonymous bloggers following court orders.

[greedy__malone]

ACLU claims Ill. eavesdropping law violates free speech

By The Associated Press
08.23.10

CHICAGO — Last fall, the Perteet brothers and their roommate decided to take a break from studying and headed to a McDonald's in DeKalb on a late-night food run.

Their trip was interrupted when a police officer pulled them to the side after they got their food. Fanon Perteet, feeling uneasy, got his phone video camera ready so he could record the exchange, which stemmed from the officer suspecting the roommate of driving drunk.

Little did Fanon know, audio recording in public areas without consent is a felony under the Illinois Eavesdropping Act. He was arrested and his brother, Adrian, was too moments later for taping Fanon's arrest.

The siblings are among several people charged with violating the state's eavesdropping law who are mentioned in a lawsuit the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois filed last week. The ACLU is suing the state for charging citizens with breaking the eavesdropping law.

The organization says recordings such as the ones made by the Fanon brothers are a way for individuals and groups to share information about the police with the public — a First Amendment right. The lawsuit names Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who enforces the law, as the defendant

Alvarez said at an Aug. 20 news conference unrelated to the lawsuit that the eavesdropping law was written for everyone.

"It doesn't just protect police officers, it protects all of you and every citizen of the state of Illinois," she said.

Only a few other states have laws preventing individuals from audio recording the police — Massachusetts and Oregon, where only secret audio recording of police is illegal, according to the ACLU of Illinois.

"I grew up on the West Side of Chicago, and I went this long without having anything on my record," said Adrian Perteet, now 21, a student at Northern Illinois University. "It's kind of funny to come here to school, somewhere I feel safe and yet catch a felony charge."

ACLU lawyer Adam Schwartz said group members monitor law enforcement and want to be able to record police activity without fear of arrest when they attend demonstrations and protests.

"We're not trying to get inside a police station house where the public isn't invited," Schwartz said. "We're talking about standing on a street corner and making these recordings."

Even though citizens can't make recordings, the police can. Squad cars often have video or audio-recording equipment to protect officers and the community.

"People are getting prosecuted for essentially oversight of the police," Schwartz said.

Chicago-Kent Professor Harold Krent, an expert in constitutional law, said while the pursuit of police transparency is important, the ACLU has "a long shot" at winning the case. The law can't be contested, so challenging one aspect of its enforcement is difficult because the ACLU must prove it's being enforced selectively, Krent said.

"That's a tough legal argument to make," he said.

Chicago Police Department Spokesman Roderick Drew said in a statement that any action that interferes with police "puts everyone involved at risk."

The ACLU's Schwartz hopes other Illinois state's attorneys will stop prosecutions of those who audio record police if the organization wins the Cook County case.

The Perteet brothers pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge. Adrian Perteet said instead of fighting the charge, he and Fanon, now 23, settled because they didn't want to face felonies.

"I think what the ACLU is doing is good," Adrian Perteet said. "We need more organizations and groups to speak out for people."

[greedy__malone]

Mich. House takes aim at SLAPP suits

By The Associated Press
08.21.10

LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan House has approved a bill supporters say protects people from retaliatory lawsuits for certain free-speech activities, including what they post on social-networking sites.

The bill passed 68-34 yesterday in the Democratic-run House and advances to the Republican-led Senate.

Supporters say it would bar businesses from suing to harass or intimidate people who criticize them. The bill includes protections for postings on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Courts would dismiss the suits if the comments were covered by free-speech or petition rights.

The legislation prohibiting strategic lawsuits against public participation or "SLAPP" lawsuits is H.B. 5036.

Some lawmakers who oppose the bill say it could have unintended consequences. Similar laws in other states have been criticized for blocking access to the courts.

[greedy__malone]

Federal court strikes down Mo. funeral-protest laws

By The Associated Press
08.17.10

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A federal judge ruled yesterday that Missouri laws restricting protests near funerals are unconstitutional.

Missouri legislators passed two laws in 2006 in response to protests at U.S. service members' funerals by the Westboro Baptist Church. The Topeka, Kan., church contends the deaths are God's punishment for the U.S. tolerating homosexuality.

U.S. District Judge Fernando Gaitan ruled in Phelps-Roper v. Koster that the laws violate the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.

The primary state law had barred protests near any church, cemetery or funeral establishment from an hour before until an hour after any funeral ceremony, procession or memorial service. The secondary measure specifically stated protesters must stay back at least 300 feet from ceremonies and processions. Both provisions levied the same penalty: up to six months in jail and a $500 fine for a first offense and up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine for repeat offenders.

Gaitan concluded Missouri officials did not demonstrate the protest restrictions served a significant government interest nor that they had been narrowly tailored to prevent the harm of interruptions of funeral services. The judge wrote he was sympathetic to the argument that people attending a funeral deserve some protection, but he noted that the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had already rejected that argument.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Westboro church member Shirley Phelps-Roper. Last year, Missouri officials were barred from enforcing the protest restrictions while the lawsuit was pending. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed that decision but the U.S. Supreme Court refused without comment to consider the case.

Koster also plans to appeal Gaitan's latest ruling, said spokeswoman Nanci Gonder.

Gonder said Gaitan's hands were tied by a federal appeals court ruling that there was no compelling government interest in protecting people from unwanted speech outside their homes. She said the attorney general's office would ask the appeals court to "reconsider the abhorrent acts" church members "routinely inflict upon our servicemen and women."

ACLU attorney Tony Rothert said yesterday that Missouri's restrictions created too large a zone in public areas where speech was restricted and made even non-disruptive speech illegal.

"Just not liking speech isn't enough reason," Rothert said.

Rothert added that the ban was aimed at the Kansas church but could have affected others. For example, he said it could have made it illegal to picket anywhere a funeral procession happened to drive past.

Numerous states have passed laws restricting protests at funerals; Phelps-Roper also challenged a similar law in Ohio. Missouri's law was sponsored by two St. Joseph lawmakers after Westboro members protested outside the 2005 funeral of a soldier from their legislative districts. State lawmakers said they approved two laws so there was a fallback in case one was challenged in court.

According to court documents, members of the Kansas church say they have protested at more than 500 at funerals.