Slashdot Mirror

This summer, a bunch of friends (at a summer program) who were all really big readers wanted to share with each other their fave books. Thus was created the 4A booklist(fourth floor, building A)... I hung out with the girls a lot, and had made some recommendations to one of them, and she said "Just write them all down, and we'll put them on the booklist." This thing is pretty big, thanks to Jodie's love of sci-fi, SF, and fantasy. Somehow she distinguishes between the former two. Here's the site, run off my box.

Raytheon wanted to find out which of its employees were badmouthing the company in public via AOL, so they sued "John Doe," which means they filed a lawsuit which said, essentially, "We don't know who we're suing just yet, but by Ghod we're suing somebody." With the civil suit filed all nice and pretty, they typed up some subpoenas demanding the identities of the John Does, and carried them over to AOL, who turned over the true names behind the aliases.

Here's the absolute best part: as soon as Raytheon knew who the employees in question were, they dropped the lawsuit. Then they either fired or disciplined all the employees involved.

This is called a tactical lawsuit: it's one where you don't give any sort of damn what the suit's own outcome may be; you file it just to make sure there's a lawsuit in place so you can do things you ordinarily wouldn't be allowed to do. Here's how it works, fable2112: Say for example that I hate you and decide to kick your ass. If I ask servtech who you are, they will promptly tell me to go to hell, which is as it should be. Since that approach won't work, I'm going to file a lawsuit: I sue John Doe for inducing mental distress in a SlashDot article. Nevermind the suit is complete crap. Nevermind it will never see trial--a lawsuit is a lawsuit, and I can use it to start issuing subpoenas. I send a subpoena to servtech, demanding your name and billing address. Are they going to tell me to go to hell? Of course not! I've got a subpoena--a court order!--demanding to know who you are. So instead of fighting it, they turn over your billing information. Now that I know where you live, I can drop the bogus lawsuit and cheerfully proceed with the asskicking I've decided you deserve.

Is any of this bothering you yet? Keep in mind that up to the actual asskicking, everything I did was completely legal. The great big question here, whether it's about AOL or any other ISP, is how much cooperation should they have given me? The obvious answer is "none." The legally viable answer is somewhat more nebulous.

Just something to contemplate.

Disclaimer: I don't actually want to kick your ass.

--

Raytheon wanted to find out which of its employees were badmouthing the company in public via AOL, so they sued "John Doe," which means they filed a lawsuit which said, essentially, "We don't know who we're suing just yet, but by Ghod we're suing somebody." With the civil suit filed all nice and pretty, they typed up some subpoenas demanding the identities of the John Does, and carried them over to AOL, who turned over the true names behind the aliases.

Here's the absolute best part: as soon as Raytheon knew who the employees in question were, they dropped the lawsuit. Then they either fired or disciplined all the employees involved.

This is called a tactical lawsuit: it's one where you don't give any sort of damn what the suit's own outcome may be; you file it just to make sure there's a lawsuit in place so you can do things you ordinarily wouldn't be allowed to do. Here's how it works, fable2112: Say for example that I hate you and decide to kick your ass. If I ask servtech who you are, they will promptly tell me to go to hell, which is as it should be. Since that approach won't work, I'm going to file a lawsuit: I sue John Doe for inducing mental distress in a SlashDot article. Nevermind the suit is complete crap. Nevermind it will never see trial--a lawsuit is a lawsuit, and I can use it to start issuing subpoenas. I send a subpoena to servtech, demanding your name and billing address. Are they going to tell me to go to hell? Of course not! I've got a subpoena--a court order!--demanding to know who you are. So instead of fighting it, they turn over your billing information. Now that I know where you live, I can drop the bogus lawsuit and cheerfully proceed with the asskicking I've decided you deserve.

Is any of this bothering you yet? Keep in mind that up to the actual asskicking, everything I did was completely legal. The great big question here, whether it's about AOL or any other ISP, is how much cooperation should they have given me? The obvious answer is "none." The legally viable answer is somewhat more nebulous.

Just something to contemplate.

Disclaimer: I don't actually want to kick your ass.

--

check out my tapes page and be sure to let me know that you found me on /. :)