Last week I sent out the Popehat Signal asking for pro bono help from a Maryland attorney in support of a political blogger who was seeking to preserve his anonymity in a SLAPP suit.

Many people kindly retweeted it and blogged it and passed it along, and several stand-up attorneys inquired to see if they might be able to help. Eventually we found the right match. Now, more can be told.

The blogger is "Aaron Worthing," who currently blogs at Allergic to Bull. You can read about the case at his blog, and read about the motion he has just filed here. I will refrain from discussing the specifics; discover them for yourselves. Suffice it to say that I find the plaintiff in the SLAPP suit quite evil.

Aaron was caught in a ridiculous Catch-22: he was capable of drafting an opposition to the plaintiff's motion seeking to unmask him, but he could not file it without unmasking himself. The dilemma was solved when Elizabeth Kingsley of Harmon, Curran, Spielberg + Eisenberg, LLP in Washington, D.C. answered the Popehat Signal and stepped in for the limited purpose, as I understand it, of petitioning the court to allow Aaron Worthing to file his papers seeking to preserve his anonymity without breaching that anonymity. (Aaron drafted, and is responsible for, the substantive motion to quash subpoenas linked above.) Aaron may post more specifics about that soon. [Edit: here is his post about resolving the Catch-22.]

Beth specializes in representing non-profits and political campaigns, but quickly offered to step in here, to Aaron's gratitude and satisfaction. Beth and Harmon Curran acted in the best tradition of attorney pro bono work. As I've frequently argued, such generosity and civic spirit is essential to protecting freedom of expression in America from threats of all sorts. Beth has my admiration and thanks for helping, as does her firm.

So. What can you do for free speech?

By the way, Aaron is to the right of me, and has written for blogs even more firmly to the right of me. We undoubtedly disagree vigorously about many subjects. I don't have the privilege of knowing Beth well enough to know her political stances, but it would not surprise me in the least if she differs from Aaron as well. But that doesn't matter. You know why.

[Ed. note: This post represents Derrick's latest attempt to explain American politics through Starcraft. It is not to be confused with his attempts to explain American politics through Dawn of War, or Patrick's attempt to explain it through World of Warcraft.)

It doesn't take a genius to know what the hell is going on with the [GOP] clain. One faction is (reluctantly) pleased enough with its prohibitive frontrunner, MidClassMitt. They feel that while he may be somewhat flawed as a person and as a player, he has the skills and drive to represent them and beat Obama. And god damn it, that's good enough. Another faction though, somewhat led by a small but loud group of disruptive assholes (who don't even post on [GOP]'s forums, choosing instead to congregate on the #GOP IRC channel and just bitch bitch bitch all day long), has been going fishing for anybody, anybody, who can provide a challenge (credible or not). But why? Who gives a shit? Clan Tag is Clan Tag right? INCORRECT.  

PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW

Continue Reading »

For some time, I've been thinking and writing about this question: is it "fair," and "right," that if I act like a sufficiently notable choad on the internet, I may become instantly famous for it, and the consequences of that fame may follow me and have profound social implications?

I keep coming back to two answers: (1) yes, and (2) to quote Clint, deserve's got nothing to do with it.

For the last hundred years, people who care about such things have been complaining about the anonymity of modern life. People who used to live in small towns live in big cities, and people are turned towards television and globalized, homogenized culture rather than towards their neighborhood. One consequence is the ability to treat people badly — even in serial fashion — with relative impunity. It used to be that you'd get the reputation as the town drunk or the town letch, or the village idiot, and that reputation would follow you until you move on to another town. But now many people don't even know their neighbors, let alone their whole "town."

With respect to certain bad behavior, the internet can change that — it can transform you into the resident of an insular town of 300 million people. This week notable jackass Paul Christoforo is finding that out. Try Googling his name to see what I mean.

Some people worry that the result is unduly harsh or unfair — that anyone can become a pariah because of "one mistake." I'm all for the concept of mercy, but I think that concern is misguided for a number of reasons. First and most importantly, the internet is manic and has a short attention span. You have to do something truly epic to go viral. One angry email won't do it unless it is so extreme that it reflects a disturbed mind. If you "just have a bad day," you'll slip into obscurity quickly. It takes talent, or sustained effort, to become internet famous. Consider the case of Jose Martinez of Brandlink Communications. Like Christoforo, he acted like an ass, and won a day or two, tops, of internet fame — but now he's slipping inexorably into deserved oblivion. And he's still employed. And it's only been six months, but if you say Hermon Raju, people will say "who?"

No, the sort of people who become instant-internet-famous are the ones who double down when called out on their bad behavior. In other words, it's not enough that you "have a bad day" — you have to refuse to acknowledge that you're having a bad day.

Finally, some argue that internet infamy can be "out of proportion" to the offense. Perhaps. But isn't that the call of every person who reads about your actions? People don't win instant internet notoriety based on third-hard accounts of conduct. They win it because they do something on video, or in writing, that's notable. If what they did really isn't that bad — if it's truly been blown out of proportion — then can't future readers determine that for themselves? There's more than a whiff of paternalism to the "blown out of proportion" concern — it seems to suggest that we ought not write about someone's misdeeds because future readers can't be trusted to assess their significance themselves. I disagree. Paul Christoforo's future employers, employees, associates, and friends are perfectly capable of reading up on the situation and making up their own minds.

Therefore, though I acknowledge the persistence of human frailty — most especially my own — I don't think that there is something inherently bad about occasional instances of that frailty becoming famous.

Moreover, there are good things about the prospect of internet infamy. It empowers individuals to respond to maltreatment. It provides the prospect of consequences to bullies. It deters bad behavior among those capable of being deterred. It allows investigations that may prevent new victims of bad behavior.

That said, though I support investigating and writing about bad behavior, I absolutely oppose harassing phone calls, harassment of relatives of bad actors, or other tactics designed to terrify rather than to illuminate. I encourage and approve of using internet methodology to track people down and expose them for doing such things.

Speaking of illuminating, let's discuss Paul Christoforo's latest "apology."

Christoforo has offered a string of what he views as "apologies" and what I view as proffered justifications for bad behavior. They are illuminating. Consider first his apology to Mike of Penny Arcade:

I just wanted to apologize for the way our emails progressed I didn’t know how big your site was and I really didn’t believe you ran Pax , So for what’s its worth I am very sorry.

This is not an apology for being a dick; it's an apology for being a dick to someone with more power and a bigger soapbox than you. It's saying, in effect, "I'm sorry for mistaking you for someone I could get away with abusing."

Paul Christoforo's statement to the In-Game column at MSNBC is even worse. It's not clear whether Kyle Orland refrained from asking him tough questions (for instance, about the wholesale plagiarism on his website) or whether he just elected not to print the answers. But the column amounts to an evasive apologia, not an apology.

A chastened Christoforo is now looking for forgiveness from the Internet community he unwittingly antagonized, saying in an interview with msnbc.com's In-Game he was "caught on a bad day" and that he hopes they will "let sleeping dogs lie."

Here's the thing: it's clear that Christoforo wasn't just "caught on a bad day." He's acted like that to customers before. Plus, the issue isn't merely temperament, it's honesty. Christoforo's Ocean Marketing site is largely plagiarized. Moreover, he dishonestly assumed the identity of another marketer, Brandon Leidel, in a buffoonish attempt to defuse the situation.

Christoforo is still attempting defiance:

Yet despite all the drama, Christoforo said he hasn't lost any of his other accounts, aside from Avenger. "It hasn't affected my business yet," he said. "Clients have brought it up, but they've mainly laughed about it. I haven't lost any clients."

The "lol thanks for the free publicity" gambit is typical of sociopaths caught out.

Referring to the email thread that started the whole mess, Christoforo said that he didn't know who he was talking to in his initial, flippant response to Penny Arcade's Mike Krahulik.

"I didn't know who that guy at Penny Arcade was," he admitted. "If I had known, I would have treated the situation a little better. PAX is a great show. What he does is what I've been idolizing since I was a kid. It's admirable he's put that together. He has a lot of connections, ones I want too."

Once again, Christoforo makes it clear that only powerful people — people who can hurt him or help him — are people who deserve decent treatment. Christoforo is not a marketer who is remorseful for treating a customer badly. He's more like a career purse-snatcher who is remorseful (and terrified) because he snatched a purse from the elderly mother of a local mafioso.

Christoforo also said his response was driven in part by what he saw as the disrespectful tone of the messages that came before it.

Also typical of sociopaths and narcissists: a swollen sense of entitlement to respect, utterly uncoupled to any history of showing respect to others.

Regarding the litany of names Christoforo's e-mail called up as potential supporters — a list that included everyone from Epic Games' Cliff Bleszinski to the mayor of Boston — he said the tactic was meant to "impress, not to threaten" and didn't come through correctly because "you can't see tone of voice in email."

Another hallmark of sociopaths and narcissists: the "do you know who I am/who I know" syndrome. [Lawyer protip: if a prospective client insists on showing you pictures of himself or herself with famous people before discussing the case, the representation will be miserable.]

"[Legal action] is something I'm not interested in doing because the community would be more pissed at me," he said. "Regardless of money [possibly won in a settlement], it would really ruin my name. Am I saying I care more about my reputation than money? Yes."

Note the lack of awareness that if he tries legal action, we (the collective we, but also this blog) will stomp him like a cockroach. Note also the utter lack of insight — typical of narcissists — about the connection between his actions and his reputation.

"At the end of the day, I'm a human being, and it feels like the entire world was bullying me," he said. "I want people to like me, I don't want people to think I'm a bad person. … I made a mistake. … I hope I can make something positive out of it."

At the end of the day, Paul Christoforo is a human being. But so are his customers, who were the target of his scorn and ridicule. So were the industry figures whose support he falsely claimed and who won his abuse by disclaiming him. So was the marketing expert whose identity he appropriated. So were the writers whose content Ocean Marketing stole for its website. So are the people who hired him, whose business plan has been substantially complicated by his douchbaggery. Paul — in a manner typical of narcissists — would like you to focus on his humanity to the exclusion of theirs. No, Paul. No.

Paul likes the word "bully" — it's a popular one among people who feel that they should be able to act the way they want without social consequences. I leave it to the good judgment of the reader whether the bullies are the ones quoting Paul and pointing to his conduct, or Paul himself. I'll say only this: the more Paul talks, the worse he looks.

Edited December 29 to Add: Forbes, through its writer Daniel Nye Griffiths, has a new interview with Paul Christoforo up. I update to make two points about it.

First, Christoforo continues to be Christoforo, and has reached the point where he is impossible to satirize. Yesterday, attempting to make fun of Christoforo's concept of an apology, I wrote this:

Sorry, I never would have punched you in the face if I had known you were a black belt. Can you please stop spin-kicking me now?

Today, in the interview, Christoforo says this:

Basically, what Mike [Krahulik] did is this: If you were in a bar, drinking and hanging out with a bunch of people, and in that group of people was one guy that you didn’t know was a mixed martial arts champion. He knows he can kick the **** out of anyone in that bar, and you happen to pick a fight with him. He doesn’t tell you what he is, you take a swing at him and the next thing you know you have a broken jaw and you’re on the way to the hospital.

In short, it's not wrong to throw punches — it's wrong not to warn the guy prone to throwing punches that you are better at it than he is. That, right there, is a sociopath.

Second, I have to say this: I really hated the interview. I would go so far as to say that it offended me, because it came off as a softball, rehabilitation-on-the-interview-couch, friendly chat with a guy who is just awful. It seemed like something that a PR professional much more competent than Christoforo would have arranged. Griffiths didn't challenge any of Christoforo's statements — he didn't probe his "just a bad day" narrative with references to prior documented communications, or posing as another marketer, or plagiarism on his web site.

Daniel Nye Griffiths is the journalist; I'm not. In a correspondence on Twitter about the interview, he suggested that all of that contradictory information was already known and out there (including in his own prior post) and that the point of the interview wasn't to revisit it. He also suggested that his point was to let Christoforo hang himself — as he says, "[s]ometimes just letting people say things is a better way to convey an idea to readers than editorialising about it. QED." I find that unconvincing, or at least unappealing, here. Christoforo has already repeatedly offered the narrative he offered to Griffiths. Asking him questions about inconsistent facts — which has not been called upon to do before, apparently — would not be "editorializing." I submit that it would be interviewing. Christoforo has already hanged himself quite thoroughly; I fail to see the purpose of an interview that simply hands him more rope. In addition, I find the tone of the coda to Griffith's piece difficult to reconcile with the idea that he was simply letting Christoforo be Christoforo:

At heart, Christoforo clearly feels that he is more sinned against than sinning – and that he was suckered into taking a swing at Mike Krahulik without understanding the consequences. Personally, I suspect that Krahulik simply did not imagine that, in the context, he would not be immediately recognised.

In either case, it is certainly the case that it was terrible luck to be the person whose Internet argument caught the eye of a superfan. Whether the moral of that is always to behave as if your communications could be shared with an audience of millions, or to play the percentages and hope to avoid this kind of blow-up through sheer probability is probably a matter for the individual conscience.

Griffiths' work suggests he is perfectly capable of an interview that is tough but fair. Indeed, he felt free to challenge me, suggesting that my initial tweet on his column (suggesting he needed a handi-wipe and a breath mint after that interview) employed a homophobic metaphor. For what it's worth, I would have used the same metaphor with a female journalist, thus offending an entirely different segment of the audience: I meant to make the vivid point that the interview struck me as obsequious. But whether I'm a homophobic douchebag like Christoforo is not the point. The point is that through that chide, and through his Twitter correspondence with me, Griffiths was more inquisitive than he was in his interview with Christoforo.

But perhaps such things are a matter of taste. You can read Griffiths' debate with me on his account.

Cleaning off the office desk and doing small make-everything-stay-calm-until-next week tasks this morning, and listening to a superlative version of Handel's Messiah on my iPad speaker set. It's the McCreesh version, justifiably highly recommended by the Penguin Guide.

(Is there anything better than having some iTunes gift cards and paging through the Penguin Guide, choosing the optimal versions of stuff you want to add to your collection, appropriate beverage in hand? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.)

But challenges remain in listening in the presence of people who are not well versed in oratorios. Just as it is prudent, for maintaining good reputation, to ensure that passers-by hear the entire verse beginning in "All We Like Sheep," it is also sometimes necessary to explain to confused listeners that He gave His Back to the smiters, not to spiders. Nor, for that matter, did He give His back to the spiters, though I think technically the smiters were also spiters, and probably also spitters.

Best wishes to all. See you next week.

Have you seen the movie "84 Charring Cross Road"? You know, the slow-paced but touching story of how a book-lover played by Anne Bancroft and a bookseller played by Anthony Hopkins develop a meaningful and thoughtful relationship in the course of cross-Atlantic correspondence over the course of decades, illuminating the nature of friendship, the possibilities of written communications, and the power of shared love for great things?

Yeah, my relationship with Marc Stephens is exactly unlike that.

Continue Reading »

The communists believed in the creation of a New Soviet Man: a strain of human beings who would be altered memetically, not genetically (remember: Lysenko proved that genes don't control the phenotype of descendants – social conditioning of their ancestors does!) to be more docile slaves of the state: hard working, uncomplaining, willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of the party leadership The People &tm;.

(The digression where we talk about a socialist government funding, teaching and enforcing ideological conformity to a fictional theory that – wait for it! – gives government greater power over people is a fun one, but I don't really have the time to talk about AGW right now. [ ed: "oh, snap!" ])

Human nature is pretty darned fixed. People are the same around the world.

…which is not to say that beliefs and societies are the same around the world. They're not.

Continue Reading »

I've said it before, I'll say it again: only a fool looks for a lawyer on Google unless there is no other option. Rational people look for lawyers based on referrals from people they trust, or other reliable sources with a basis for knowledge.

But the nation is choked with lawyers, and not all of those lawyers generate enough satisfied clients to lead to referrals. Increasingly, just as we all rely on the internet for information and entertainment, lawyers rely on the internet to market, and clients rely on the internet (foolishly) to look for lawyers.

As a consequence, there is a thriving industry of people who will teach lawyers how to attract clients not by doing top-notch work and satisfying clients but by optimizing their web sites to achieve superior positions in search results. These "internet professionals" could be teaching people to sell porn or off-brand viagra or widgets or anything else — they offer search engine optimizing (often dubious), not practice optimizing.

The result is, to be blunt, crap, unless you are running a high-volume low-quality legal practice — a law mill. Hits based on search results — like hits based on buying overpriced listing services from dinosaurs like Martindale-Hubbel — are often an utter waste of time for both lawyer and potential client.

But many lawyers don't grasp that, and many marketeers are still eager to make money, and so the steady hum of demeaning marketing bullshit continues. Sometimes it leads to worst practices like lawyer comment spam. Other times it leads to more personal grotesque behavior.

Eric Turkewitz — one of the most important critics of bad legal marketing on the internet — has an excellent recent example. He updated a recent "why I blog" post with commentary about some truly jaw-dropping marketeer advice. He points us to this terrifyingly awful advice at Avvo's "Lawyernomics" blog by Aaron Kelly. I really don't expect Avvo to improve the quality of legal services in America — in fact, I expect them to degrade that quality — but even I was stunned by this.

Here's Aaaron's lawyer marketing premise:

“Content is King!”

Believe it or not, that three-letter phrase is the most important thing to remember about marketing your law firm online – because publishing quality web content can lead to higher search rankings, which usually translates into a longer client roster.

This starts out as bad advice, because it presumes that higher search rankings lead to more and higher quality clients. Once again, this isn't true, unless you run a mill churning out generic, low-complexity, low-quality work.

But it gets worse. So, so much worse.

Check out the best of the rest:

Web content should be SEO optimized, meaning each article or blog post should have a keyword focus. For example, if your practice focuses on bankruptcy law, all the Web content you publish should use keyword phrases related to bankruptcy law.

…

When it comes to web content speed and volume are important. As such, it’s important to temper your literary expectations and sacrifice some elegance in favor of volume.

…

Since a premium is placed on speed, many web content articles may not be as polished as print-journalism pieces, as there’s often very little time for editing or research. But on the upside, since web content takes less time, it often costs less than freelance print articles.

…

At this point you may be thinking, “there’s no way I can afford to have a writer provide tons of content for me!” Don’t worry, web content writer rates are usually a lot less than a traditional freelance writers’ rates. Moreover, there are several established content mills where you can purchase articles for pennies on the word.

…

Considering Google’s new-found love for quality web content, it’s important that everything you publish is at least of “good” quality.

Notice how I didn’t say “great.”

That’s right, not everything you publish has to be perfect; sometimes it can be “just good enough” so long as it’s readable and contains the right amount of keywords. Be sure, however, to publish at least two or three great pieces a week, as it improves your online credibility. Besides, you’re a law firm; do you really want sub-par content floating around online, under your moniker?

If you got whiplash with the abrupt change of direction in that last line, you are not alone.

Allow me to be blunt: unless you are running a high-volume low-quality law mill, this is a recipe for a crap sandwich. Yes, high-volume low-quality posts might lead to a higher volume of questionably-suitable clients — though my experience, linked above, is that search results yield twenty to thirty times more wasted time than clients. But even mildly sophisticated consumers will see your web content and think "this person publishes banal crap. Looks like a SEO-based approach. Next lawyer candidate, please." Opposing counsel of any sophistication will scorn you. Mildly sophisticated judges will roll their eyes at you. The only people who hire you based on this approach are people who don't know any better and are susceptible to the lowest forms of legal marketing. If you follow Aaron Kelly's advice, congratulations: you are the Monster Cable of lawyers.

Building a good client base is not something you can do by tweaking your keywords. It's a career-long effort based on building relationships, building credibility, doing good work for clients, getting good results, treating clients fairly, and answering their phone calls. Building a quality client base is not plug-and-play, and if you pay someone to tell you that it is, you're a damned fool with entitlement issues.

I'd like to get Aaron Kelly, and all the other marketeers pushing SEO out there, into a room and look them in the eye and ask them this question: if someone you loved had a serious legal problem, would you tell them to go pick a lawyer from the first page of a Google search result?

It's time for the Road to Popehat, the feature in which we check out the traffic logs, see what searches brought you here, and wonder whether mass forcible institutionalization would really be that bad in the long run.

So, Popehat was dark for almost a month. We wondered — during that time, did the searches get any more — normal?

Judge for yourself.

Casey federal charges imminent/will the feds charge casey for the murder of Caylee: Oh, Caylee's Mob. Will you ever stop being stupid?

Objectivist Thanksgiving: "Gravy is Gravy! Now excuse me, I'm going Galt on the dishes and watching some football."

TSA sexually assaults my mother: My heart sank when I realized this is probably a new Rule 34 thing.

images of Darth Vader with Chewbacca: STOP COMING HERE FOR YOUR FETISH PORN. STOP.

phenomenal foreskins: DAMMIT

what to do when a fat kid bullies you: This is totally the setup line for a joke.

what if superman and batman had a baby: Imagine "rock-a-bye baby" sung in Christian Bale's gin-and-cigarettes Batman voice. There. Now you're never getting that out of your head. You're welcome.

racist food products I'd prefer to think this is about environmental racism or lack of fresh food in poor neighborhoods or archaic nicknames for Brazil nuts, but I'm pretty sure this guy's food screams epithets at him.

what hope is there for the world: I really, really feel awful about a person asking that question winding up at Popehat.

Yesterday I shared with our readers the story of Marc Stephens, a bumptious non-lawyer whose fatuous threats dramatically magnified and multiplied the bad press of his putative client, the Burzynski Clinic.

This morning I awoke to a friendly note from Marc Stephens — using the same email address he has when threatening other bloggers, the same address I used to seek comment from him before posting. The note contained what I would characterize as a decent effort, given his apparent abilities, to intimidate me. He sent it to my Popehat address and to my real-world big-boy-pants Ken's-sekrit-identity law firm address. Here's what he had to say:

Hello Kenneth, or Ken @ Popehat,

Please confirm your information below. Please note that the case of Skeptics Society/JREF is under federal investigation for identity theft. I suggest you remove all articles on your website in relation to this email address and/or individuals immediately. Please confirm, at this email address, when you have removed the articles.

Are you associated, or a member of The Skeptic Society / James Randi Educational Foundation? We have noticed on your twitter account that you requested an individual to investigate this email account. All of your actions have been recorded.

If we do not hear from you, your information will be forwarded for further investigation, and a associate will contact you. Please confirm if you are Ken@popehat/Kenneth [SektritIdentity] immediately.

[Ken's sekrit work phone and IP address.]

Marc Stephens also included what appears to me a screen shot of some back and forth tweets from the Popehat Twitter account with another Twitter user.

I've decided to make my response public. Here it is.

Dear Marc Stephens:

Congratulations on figuring out my top-secret identity! Only about a dozen people — falling into the elect group of "those who have tried" — have ever managed to do that. I think the last one was a law student at Tulane who was too drunk to study for Real Property.

Anyway, please rest assured that I am totally all terrified here that you identified me. Really. I have goose bumps. I'd take a pic and post it but my iPhone is dead again.

I'd like to address some of your questions and comments, Marc.

Please note that the case of Skeptics Society/JREF is under federal investigation for identity theft.

Under federal investigation! Fascinating. That's all very foreign and scary-sounding and likely to deter me. I mean, it would be, except that I've practiced federal criminal law for seventeen years, one as a clerk for a federal judge, five as a federal prosecutor, and the rest as a federal defense attorney, not counting various internships. I'm actually kind of familiar with federal agencies and federal investigations. I've both run them and thwarted them. So, Marc, would you like to tell me the federal agency you're dealing with, and let me know the name of the case agent? I'd love to call them and answer any questions they have about the investigation.

Also, your reference to "identity theft" fascinates me, because previously it seems you've been complaining that everyone you're angry at is guilty of defamation and mean-scientist-fraud and stuff. I think the identity theft is new. Can you explain? Is it — could I hope — are you going with the "I've been caught being a total douche to dozens of strangers by email, and have fraudulently posed as an attorney, and now I've been publicly humiliated, so I'd like to get a mulligan here, so I'm going to go with 'oh noes my email was hacked and the hacker did nasty things?'" Would that be the same email account you're now using to email me? So I guess you regained control of it? Yeah, Marc, you've got to let me know how that works out, because I've frankly sent some regrettable emails in my life that I'd like to walk back, and I'm eager to hear if this approach works. The "when you get an email like that from me, a wizard did it" approach hasn't been working for me.

I suggest you remove all articles on your website in relation to this email address and/or individuals immediately. Please confirm, at this email address, when you have removed the articles.

Marc, kindly take this post — the link to which I will email to you — as a formal, legally binding, 100% certified style invitation to snort my taint.

Are you associated, or a member of The Skeptic Society / James Randi Educational Foundation? We have noticed on your twitter account that you requested an individual to investigate this email account. All of your actions have been recorded.

Well, Marc, I'm not sure the Skeptic Society or the Randi Education Foundation would let a former Presbyterian deacon in. Also, I'm not really a scientist. I'm just a humble lawyer and blogger. I'm a loner, Marc. A rebel. So, no.

Also, can you tell me who the "we" is in "we have noticed"? You're correct that I used Twitter to discuss, with another Twitter user, investigating your email account. Oh. Is that what you mean by identity theft? Are you using "theft" in the "casually peruse public records of" sense? Am I breaking some sort of federal law that I've never heard of in 17 years as a federal criminal lawyer by Googling your email address? Wow. I must have missed that one.

Also, when you say "all your actions have been recorded," could you elaborate? Because, I mean, my Twitter actions are still on Twitter. And my blog posts are still up here. Are you talking about nifty screenshots, like the one you sent me in your email? Screenshots rock. I've been trying to figure out how to post pics of my Skyrim character when he's put, like, twelve arrows into a Forsaken's head and the guy is still blundering around like a post-apocalyptic hedgehog. It's hilarious. But I might be straying a bit from my point. Did you record me on videotape? Or audio? Do you still use audio? Did you record me on 8-track? God I loved 8-track. I had a girlfriend in college who had 8-track in this ancient station wagon of hers and we would . . . you know, never mind. Anyway, if you have me recorded on 8-track, could I get a copy?

If we do not hear from you, your information will be forwarded for further investigation, and a associate will contact you.

There's "we" again. Honestly, Marc, you're starting to freak me out. How many of you are there? Is this the same "we" as above, or a different "we"? Also, is the associate part of the "we" or not? Are you talking about, like, a law firm associate? Because if you have a lawyer, Marc, I'd be totes happy to call him right now. Or do you mean an "associate" in the sense of "Wayne, who lets me sleep on his futon when I can't pick up enough shifts at Arby's?" Or is it more malevolent, like in mob movies: "my associate, [name with 'the' in the middle], will discuss this with you"? Or . . . wait a minute, Marc. Can . . . can anyone other than you see and hear this associate? Because if this associate is a giant goddam invisible rabbit, Marc, that's a deal-breaker. I hate rabbits, and a six-foot invisible rabbit would freak me right the fuck out. Are you siccing your invisible rabbit on me, Marc? Because if that's what you're saying, I think we have a problem here and there SHOULD be a federal investigation. Threatening people with giant rabbits through the electronic mails is almost certain a violation of several federal statutes, possibly including wire fraud depending on the existence or non-existence of the rabbit. But a sharp legal guy like you already knew that, right Marc? My God. You're already, like, three steps ahead of me.

Anyway, Marc, I notice that you haven't specified any factual statements in my post that you think are incorrect. Can you? I'd be happy to hear you out. Are you a lawyer, Marc? Is it your intention to convey to people that you are a lawyer? People want to know, Marc.

Must run, have to berate an associate;

Ken

Edited to add: If you liked this tale of an exchange with someone who tries to threaten skeptics, you might like this recent pro bono success.

Bloggers love it when themes collide — when a story reflects one of their pet topics intersecting with an entirely unrelated but equally important pet topic. It's like Sad Keanu or Rebecca Black getting into a fistfight with an ungrammatical kitten or one of those YA RLY owls.

That's why this story delights me. It's got everything we love at Popehat. It's got free speech, legal threats, SLAPP issues, junk science, bad marketing, and proves the familiar catchphrase "outsource your marketing, outsource your reputation and ethics." If someone in the story could just get their junk touched by the TSA and draw a disapproving comment from a blimp-riding Ron Paul, I think I would have either a stroke or an inappropriate orgasm.

So, without further ado, I'd like you to meet Marc Stephens, who wants you to think he is an attorney.

Continue Reading »

Remember Joseph Rakofsky?

He's the guy — technically a lawyer — who chose to represent a man accused of murder at trial even though he had never tried a case before. This led inevitably to a mistrial and to a judicial observation that Rakofsky's advocacy was below the standard one would expect of a defense lawyer at a murder trial. News organizations and bloggers commented unfavorably. Stung by criticism, Rakofsky sued a wide swath of media outlets and internet writers, asserting feckless theories of defamation. Some stood defiant; a cowardly few caved.

So, remember him? Well, anyway, he's back.

Eric Turkewitz reports that reports that Rakofsky — now representing himself — has filed a gigantic motion seeking a dog's breakfast of court orders. Rakofsky wants to amend his complaint to add 14 defendants, he wants an order deeming his complaint adequate in order to head off motions to dismiss (no, really), he wants his former lawyer sanctioned, and he may want a pony and a pat on the head. The motion is a freakish mess, of a quality I would normally associate with mid-range pro se work — not as bad as a homeless psychotic pro se, but not as good as a reasonably articulate and experienced pro se, like a tax protester or something.

Several people have noted that Rakofsky seeks to add a cause of action for "internet mobbing." Now, you might say that there is no such cause of action, whether under New York law or anywhere else. But Rakofsky is more clever than you. Rakofsky might take the lives of helpless men into his hands when he is manifestly not qualified to do so, but Rakofsky has a certain low craftiness. He knows that the din of insipid anti-bullying rhetoric is growing steadily louder, and that some people are willing to turn their concerns about bullied children into broad and unprincipled doctrines that allow anyone to lash out at critics. Rakofsky is encouraged in this mindset by the leaders of his state. New York state senators are advocating "cyberbullying" legislation, and are premising it on the assertion that we need to revisit our dusty old notions of freedom of speech and come around to the progressive viewpoint that expression is a privilege, not a right:

And yet, proponents of a more refined First Amendment argue that this freedom should be treated not as a right but as a privilege – a special entitlement granted by the state on a conditional basis that can be revoked if it is ever abused or maltreated. British Philosopher John Stuart Mill long argued that “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm from others.”76 His “harm principle” was articulated in an analogy by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), and still holds true today: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins,” or, a person’s right to free speech ends when it severely infringes upon the safety and well-being of another.

In the case of cyberbullying, the perceived protections of free speech are exactly what enable harmful speech and cruel behavior on the Internet. It is the notion that people can post anything they want, regardless of the harm it might cause another person that has perpetuated, if not created, this cyberbullying culture.

You might say that this is mere jibber-jabber by a politician, not anything supported by law. But jibber-jabber can be terribly powerful and seductive when brought to bear on behalf of the nation's children, whether temporal or emotional. Why, even professionals nominally devoted to the vigorous defense of constitutional rights can be seduced right into insipid advocacy of hysterical and unprincipled tort remedies.

So: don't blame Rakofsky. He's just got his finger on the pulse. But a dilemma remains: what is the nature of this newly invented tort of internet mobbing? What are its elements? Well, with the encouragement and help of Scott Greenfield, I think I have come up with a set of elements worthy of a jury instruction:

INTERNET MOBBING: ESSENTIAL FACTUAL ELEMENTS

[Plaintiff] asserts that [Defendants] have committed the tort of internet mobbing and hurt [Plaintiff's] feelings really quite badly. The law recognizes that this is a shame. To establish that [Defendants] have committed the tort of internet mobbing, [Plaintiff] must prove the following:

1. That [Defendant] joined a group of three or more persons [including co-bloggers, commenters, and sock puppets];

2. That some member of the group made some use of the internet;

3. That the use of the internet including writing something about [Plaintiff];

4. That something could be described in one or more of the following ways:
a. Mean,
b. Hurtful,
c. Cruel,
d. Uncomfortably true,
e. Emotionally distressing,
f. Bad for business and/or branding or Google rank,
g. Just not kind;

5. That deep and progressive thinkers believe that the right of [Plaintiff] to be free of any such comment outweighs the right of [Defendant] to speak;

6. That at least one other member of the group committed an overt act endorsing or acknowledging the writing through a link, tweet, cross-post, thumbs up, +1, or lol;

7. That [Plaintiff] is, in at least one person's view, special, and thus deserving of the protection of the legal system from criticism or dissent.

Glad to be of help. There's a whole internet of butthurt potential clients out there. Better get cracking.

All I know about the Vikings is that (1) my mother-in-law loves them and (2) Toby Gerhard went there, so they can't be all bad. But because my football-watching is mostly confined to cheering Stanford, I had never heard of Bernard Berrian, a wide receiver for the Vikings.

Matt Ulford, a Marine and who blogs under the handle Captain Caveman at the blog Kissing Suzy Kolber, had heard of him. More specifically Ulford had head that Berrian had gotten very slightly exercised at somebody on Twitter. There's really no point in getting mad at people on Twitter (with the exception of certain people who damn well know who they are and what they did). Getting into spats on Twitter does not show the sort of decorum and excellent judgment we have come to associate with professional football players.

Ulford saw an opportunity for satire. He wrote a rather funny post, in which he used photoshop to depict Berrian in a Twitter-based dispute with various figures including the Pope, the Dali Lama, and a puppy. Persons of ordinary intelligence would see, immediately, that the whole thing was a parody. I wish I could show it to you, but I can't.

Why?

Because Bernard Berrian, and his representative Lindsey Deierling (VP of Publicity at EAG Sports) are sniveling censorious douchebags. Deierling sent an email making legal threats, asserting that the parody was defamatory and damaging to Berrian's public image.

Ulford and the blog took the post down:

How did our First Amendment right to free speech and satire get quashed? Well, that’s easy: we don’t have the sort of legal funds that can handle a frivolous lawsuit, so we pulled the post instead of standing up for our constitutional rights and getting sued for the trouble.

Now even the Google cache has disappeared. I viewed it before it vanished — the photoshopped tweets were ridiculously obviously satirical and pretty funny. Therefore it was obviously protected by the First Amendment. Satire of public figures that cannot reasonably be taken as true cannot be the basis for a defamation claim. Yet censorious thugs like Berrian and Deierling can succeed in suppressing satire. That's because many jurisdictions do not have effective anti-SLAPP statutes, so that even an eventual victory can be prohibitively expensive.

What can we do about this?

1. We can do this right here: introduce the Berrians and Deierlings to the Streissand Effect. They need to know that for every post they censor through frivolous legal threats, ten more will pop up repeating the original content and identifying them as un-American tools.

2. We need to name and shame. Too often censorious threats are only associated with the celebrities on whose behalf they are made, rather than with their loathsome mouthpieces like Lindsey Deierling of EAG Sports. Name them. Point them out as the thuggish censors that they are. Write some of their other clients and ask: why would you be represented by a person like this?

3. As always, educate yourself about anti-SLAPP statutes in your jurisdiction, and support anti-SLAPP initiatives.

4. Consider donating to legal defense funds. If you're a lawyer, consider donating pro bono time to the victims of censorship.

Don't let the oversensitive thugs win.

Baseball is the national sport, but for those with an extra 2 or 3 IQ points above the mean this is displaced by the even more fun activity of confusing cause and effect.

For example, we are told that "the labor movement is the people who brought you the 40 hour workweek", but any objective review of facts shows us that as technology improved and the consumer surplus increased working people negotiated a goodly portion of this new surplus in the form of shorter working hours.

The labor movement – whether consciously or unconsciously – tried to position itself in front of a train that was already moving, and like a small kid marching in front of a parade, came to believe that all the bands, elephants and baton twirlers were following its lead.

(There is a tangential story here, about how the labor movement took a left off of main street onto Mao Zedong Blvd and then got ripshit that the bands, elephants and pretty girls didn't "continue" to follow it, but that's a post for some other time).

The 40 hour work week is not the only social movement driven by technology, broad social trends, and mass communication wherein cause and effect were reversed in the popular narrative.

Slavery was repealed in the West thanks to growing consumer surplus caused by technology, and growing awareness of the evils caused by cheap printing…( I argue that the former is far more important – it's a lot easier to oppose slavery when you can buy clothes made cheap by the cotton gin than when you have to choose between "blood clothing" and not eating for a few weeks in order to buy a new outfit). Again, in the popular imagination, cause and effect are reversed, and Abe Lincoln's invention of Total War (including mass enslavement of free men by the State, war crimes and atrocities) was the cause of emancipation, instead of uniquely bloody, bungled, and murderous implementation of a world wide technology-driven trend that managed to be peaceful and bloodless almost every place that the US Federal government was not involved.

And speaking of technology-driven emancipation, we arrive at the thesis statement for today's rant: the end of gun control is not politically or culturally driven, but was a historical inevitability that was written into the book of destiny by 1810, when Joseph Jacquard started using punched cards to control weaving patterns on his looms and when the practice of chucking rotary cutters into lathe headstocks was adopted en masse at water powered factories in Western Massachusetts in response to British attempts to confiscate American civilian-owned firearms.

OK, if I'm going to do an impression of James Burke, let me do it right. Hold a moment while I put on a thick set of glasses and hammer myself in the mouth with a mallet. …and…MMFGH! .. Ah, yes, now I look more like a product of British government-run dentistry. < spits teeth ; makes appointment for follow-up care with NHS sometime in late 2017 >

So, how does weaving in France tie in to British seizure of civilian owned weapons, BITNET, and the Homebrew Computer Club, and lead us to the death of gun control in the 21st century?

People ascribe the invention of punched cards to Herman Hollerith in the late 1800s, but in fact they dated back 150 years earlier, where they were created as an easier-to-file version of the ancient concept of the tally stick (Pliny the Elder documents these before the birth of Christ, but it turns out that we can push the date back 20,000 years before that).

So we've got people recording data on punched cards in the early 1700s, and a few decades after that we've got Basile Bouchon using them to half-assedly control textile mills in France, and a few decades after that Jacquard drastically improved the mechanism.

(Hint: the end of the week quiz will cover this specific point, and in your response to the essay question you could do worse than to note the parallel between 'using stored information to create physical items' in 17-aught-mumble and 20-aught-mumble).

So, we've established that information can be amplified into a nearly finished product by clever arrangements of spinning bits, moving bits, and stationary bits.

Let's take a quick digression into metal working.

Your average man on the street has a pretty good idea of how wood is worked: metal is harder than wood, therefore metal cuts wood.

…but how in heck is metal itself cut and worked? I've done a few small social experiments and it seems that, like the internals of a MRI machine and the operation of the Federal Reserve, these concepts are delegated strongly to a mental bin labeled "magic", and or "Jewish currency manipulation / mysticism". (This view is not 100 percent wrong).

Zaphod told us that the secret is to 'bang the rocks together', but Zaphod was a liberal arts major and probably should have stuck to opining on Womyn's studies issues and pomme frittes upselling. The real secret is heat treating. Bring some steel up to temperatures that you can reach in your basement with an oxy cutting rig that you can buy for less than the cost of taking your wife to dinner and a show then plunge it into cold water, and you've got a nearly diamond-hard object where the carbon atoms have been do-si-doh-ed into proper body-centered cubic alignment…and then throw it in a $20 toaster oven from Target and you can relieve some of the internal stresses and create a cutting tool that can slice through regular steel…and
cut through aluminum like Tipper Gore through the 1st amendment.

The point of all of this being that working metal is not magic, and if more of us saw our dads building mufflers from scratch instead of building bird houses from scratch, the mental block on home-building stuff from metal in modestly equipped shops wouldn't exist).

Advance the clock a century or two and move the Google Earth cursor a bit to the left and pretty soon we've got Wozniak and Jobs unloading the first breadboarded Apple computer out of the backseat of their car and taking it in to show their fellow geeks.

We all know the part where Gordon E. Moore descends from the catwalk over the stage supported by ropes held by a Greek chorus, waves his magic wand, and declares that the price of transistors will fall by half every 18 months.

(Little know fact: the Intel it-760 Quad Core has the processing power of 7.9 trillion punched cards, and can control six automated looms for every person on the planet.)

You see where we're going here: information not only wants to be free – it wants to control machine tools.

So how much does it cost to start cutting metal at home, using all the power of Jacquard, Jobs, and Moore?

If you want to do it right it's still not cheap.

…but if you're willing to go small, crappy, and scrappy, the options are there.

If you're content with laying down lines of extruded hot glue, the friends-and-family of the Bng-Bngers will sell you a device.

If you're a bit more roll-your own, you can cobble together you're own glue-extruding mess from instructions .

If glue is a bit too shoddy to build with and you want to turn work wood, people are rolling their own machines for about $1.5k.

If you want to take a step up to working metal, that's about $2k…or closer to $1k if you already have an old box sitting around that you can install Ubuntu on. (Side note: How did it get so cheap to build machine tools? By taking the labor out of the process and using automated metalworking machines to build automated metalworking machines.

If you really want to carve big metal, you can pick up a 2-ton, full-sized Bridgeport milling machine with a J head off of Craigslist for less than most folks spend on cable TV over the course of a year and follow instructions on how to CNC-ify it.

So, we've established that

• technology and productivity drive social trends
• data-driven control of tools is nothing new
• working with metal is pretty easy with cheap tools
• off-the-shelf CNC tools are cheap and getting cheaper

There's one step missing: proof that the average man on the street can actually use cheap CNC tools to build firearms.

Even with out a first amendment, samizdat would ensure that the data would be out there…but given that the legislature and the executive do have to respect our right to speak (even if it has to be reminded somewhat rudely by the courts and the people from time to time), it's relatively easy to find folks to talk to about home CNC production of firearms.

And remember that thing about information wanting to be free? In our glorious jetcar-free, but peer-to-peer-laden future, collecting and swapping is no longer just for baseball cards; it's also for plastic printing your own AR-15 magazines and lower receivers.

…or, if you prefer metal over plastic, download the plans for a a full AR-15 lower that you can crank out with your fresh-from-the-box $1k Sherline CNC milling machine and $15 worth of aluminum, then kit it out with $410 worth of barrel, shoulder stock, and such.

Due to forces of technology (CNC controlled machine tools, cheap computation, open source ethics, and social sharing of designs) gun control is utterly dead. It's a corpse, staggering along, not yet aware that it's been gut shot, it's blood pressure has dropped to zero, and its brain (such as it is) is about to die the True Death.

Try to outlaw gun powder and we'll move to railguns and big capacitors. Try to outlaw primers and we'll see plans for electronic ignitions up on wikileaks by the end of the day.

Go back a step and outlaw the sparkplugs and the capacitors and …yeah, it'll work as well as the restrictions on cold syrup have ENTIRELY shut down meth production.

Gun control will stagger on for a bit, but there's no putting some genies back in their bottles, and home printed firearms are one of those genies.

One hundred years from now everyone from Chinese peasants to American bankers (or do I have that backwards?) will have all the firearms and ammo they want, in the same way that 15 year old have all the hot monkey sex pr0n they want today.

It's called technology, and it's the universal solvent.