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Charter School Firm Attacks Online Criticism
Lane writes "News-Press.com reports that 'Charter Schools USA
is
threatening legal action against parents who use an Internet discussion
board to air grievances about Gateway Charter.'" This despite comments which the parents say are based on the public record, and posted anonymously.
But don't you have to identify what specifically you consider libelous and defamatory if you are going to take legal action? I Guess Darl McBride has some alumni running Charter Schools USA.
I would write a letter back saying I have complied and to please let me know if I missed anything.
Now, whenever somebody Googles for "Charter Schools USA", at least 9 of the top 10 search results will surely reference this questionable conduct. That's got to hurt their business in the long run.
I hope that parents will vote with their money and send their kids to school elsewhere.
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is there such thing as libel and slander anymore ? Seriously, fox news has perfected this type of character assassination by qualifying all their statements with "Rumour has it John Doe has been killing fetuses".. or "It's been said that jack frost hates the military and is a liberal!" or "Word around Capital Hill indicates democrats want to kill god" ... Easy as pie..
Nothing is slander anymore, it's just "Your opinion" Watch fox news sometime, they get away with saying crazy stuff all the time by using that legal technique.
But let's remember... that the tobacco companies sued Jeffrey Wigand for disclosing something they were doing wrong. Was it illegal what he did? Yes. Was it morally incorrect? NO WAY.
My words for the CSUSA: If someone so powerful like the tobacco companies couldn't keep a shameful secret hidden, what thinks you can? So sue them. Dig your own grave.
Seriously. The anoynmous posters could be teachers union employees assigned to slander CSUSA for all we know, and if that's what CSUSA suspects their lawsuit threat suddenly make a lot more sense. (In Michigan, the MEA union is nicknamed the "Michigan Mafia". They have a curiosuly low regard for free speech too.)
lawyers all feel safe in attacking it.
What needs to be done is to put up and then attack a site which the 'regime' does not atack as it is clearly a shill. You are not the subject of attack, but some one who suposedly is is getting clobbered.
As long as all the allegetions can be 'arguably' backed up, the proxy fight can continue unabated.
This gets the debate out of the 'close in' arena and gets into first ammendment rights.
Then you get press without involving the lawyers.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This is a example of the need for offshore ISPs where discussions can be held without harassment. It's an example of how the 'loser' countries of the 20th century can become the winners of the 21st. By being so low on the totem pole (a Pacific Northwest North American Tribal Nation's religious icon that has come to mean in American idiom to be insignificant in a hierarchy) that no one gives you any money so you have nothing to lose by providing a forum for people to air grievances.
An enterprising person in a (relatively) stable nowheresville sets up an uncensored ISP. Then charges micropayments for access. In return the ISP ignores all threats and warnings of civil actions from countries with overdeveloped legal systems. This could be in a country like Nigeria that is super-corrupt and has its own resource base, or UAE in the Gulf where there is so much wealth that they immune to any bullying. Or a place like Botswana that has stability and no money. Or maybe a microstate like Litchenstein that has traditionally provided these various discrete services to their powerful neighbors.
And again, you could fight this in court of law. You do have democracy, freedom of speech, tradition, and all that jazz on your side. But American courts run on money. It would be a lot cheaper in the long run just to hold the discussions on an offshore site in neutral territory. And it would send a strong message to lawyers that in the information age there is a new limit to the extent that they can use legal means to harass and intimidate people just for money.
Then you should not be sending cease and desist letters. At a minimun, you should have a good faith belief that all the elements of a legal wrong are present in your case. Ideally, you should have advice of counsel or a legal opinion in hand prior to sending a C&D letter.
There is room in the law for true disputes and differences of opinion. That's why there are courts in the first place. However, you must have a good faith basis for bringing a claim.
Most courts in the US have adopted (in civil suits) rules that are based on the Rules of Civil Procedure from federal courts. Rule 11 requires litigants *and their lawyers* to have a good faith basis for bringing suit by performing a reasonable investigation into the facts *and* the law. A federal judge will not hesitate to sanction a lawyer for bringing a frivolous suit (frivolous = not well founded in facts or law / no good faith basis for making the claim). State court judges (especially those who are elected) often are not as strict.
Here's a civics lesson - want to screw up your judicial system? Elect your judges. Want judges who make good decisions based soundly on the law and are more impartial? Appoint them for life without possibility of salary reduction (can be fired for misconduct). If you don't believe me on that one, check out the many law review articles on the subject. We don't need tort reform in this country - we need JUDICIAL reform.
Since a cease and desist letter can be sent without an action being illegal, it should not be assumed that all cease and desist letters indicate an issue that is 100% illegal.
True - but it should have a good faith basis. If the recipient has a doubt about the legality of their acts, they should seek their own legal advice or reevaluate their conduct to see if it is worth risking legal action.
So how could you be willfully breaking the law?
Because although "ignorance of the law is no excuse" - that is, you can be held liable for beaking a law you did not know existed - once you have specific notice of the law in question, you have an obligation to ensure that your actions conform to the law's requirements.
In many cases, exactly right.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
(What happened to me)
http://www.textfiles.com/uploads/incident.txt
------ Take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government.
A lot of what you say is dead on. As someone that is looking at starting a charter school (and I will stress, we are just the most preliminary stages), you are, by and large, right.
1. Any reduction in the cost of providing education is taken up by profit.
2. I don't know enough about this issue.
3. Yes, parents will by-and-large loose control. I don't think this is entirely a bad thing. If done right (and that's a REALLY big 'if') then you can largely eliminate the very costly problems that come from a few very vocal parents who insist that their child is perfect. Again, a BIG if, but not one to be overlooked or dismissed.
4. The basis for the charter school we are looking at is largely untested. Yes, we have done small scale testing that is VERY promising, but this concept has never been done on a large scale before.
If it works, we have a whole new way of looking at education that may just solve most of the major issues of education. And the best part is that these new methods and systems are reproducible at any school.
Will it work? I think it will, but the truth is we won't know until we try it. I can tell you this: At this point, opening a charter school is the only viable government funding source to test the concept with.
IANAL, but this is not such an open and shut case. These ignoramuses at CSUSA don't know what real criticism is, so I am going to show them.
These are CHARTER schools, which means that they perform an essential public service, education, with a special dispensation from the government. Their role is not strictly private. They are taking over a service that would normally be publically administered, and therefore open to the same type of broad criticism that public figures and institutions may be subject to. As such their openness to criticism is much greater than your average private business.
The public has an essential and compelling interest in promoting good education. This forum promotes that interest by fostering said discussion, a compelling and essential service. The interest of the corporation in protecting its image is far outweighed by the overwhelming interest of the public to have an open forum to discuss the public service the school provides. This charter school, it should also be noted is publically funded. Their CEO is a political pal of Jeb Bush. The President of the United States uses this organisation as a stage for his attacks on the public school system. CSUSA stinks of sacrificing childrens' futures in the name of political expediency. Like a diseased, filth-ridden sexual deviant, CSUSA sacrifices children in its perverse worship of Mammon. The Chairman and CEO, Jonathan K. Hage, is worse than John Wayne Gacy. (That last remark may be over the top, not in its accuracy, but merely in rhetorical appropriateness.)
The bottom line is that they are using strong-arm tactics to quell legitimate criticism and dissent. It stinks to high heaven and underscores an essential misunderstanding by their management to their public mission. They should have their charter pulled for this kind of legal thuggery.
It is my considered opinion that CSUSA is a rotten organisation with no business educating children. Their operation and their thuggish legal tactics are an affront to all civic-minded people.
This is pretty strong criticism and I stand by it. I find it hard that there was anything worse on the board in question. I can't stand bullies.
evanchik.net
Free speech, as far as I know, is that one is allowed to utter anything, anywhere. I do not understand why lies would not be protected under the same law as truths. Neither do I understand why defaming someone would undermine the protectedness of the statements made.
Otherwise, who is to draw the line between lies and uninformed statements, and the line between defaming and not defaming? And not least, why should lying or defaming be outlawed to begin with? Is not the point with free speech to be able to say anything, anywhere without worrying about legal consequences. After all, it is up to the listener to decide whether to believe the speaker.
Care to explain to me?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually not.
IANAL. There are two standards for libel in the US depending on who the plaintif is. Public figures and most corporations are subject to a very strict standard of proof, the plaintif has to prove that the defendant knew the claims were false or was reckless or careless as to whether they were true.
In this case the company is performing a public service and ALL discussion of the company is protected political speech. It is a comment on the state provision of education services, not just the corporation.
It is very difficult to see how the defendant could now the claims made were false in this particular instance. The refusal to specify the claims found objectionable and the demand to take down the entire forum point to supression of debate as the clear objective of the corporation.
If the US actually have a press corps that questioned the activities of Republicans or their cronies this would be front page news. As it is it will be either unreported or burried on the inside pages along with reports of DeLay's numerous corruptions.
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