Subpoena Sought For Browsed News Articles

The Xoxo Reader writes "A new filing in the Autoadmit Internet defamation lawsuit (previously discussed here on two occasions) reveals how the plaintiffs' lawyers have attempted to discover the identities of the defendants, who posted under pseudonyms on a message board without IP logging. The defendants had posted links and excerpts of several Web pages that mention the plaintiffs, including a Washington Post article, a college scholarship announcement, and a federal court opinion. Now the plaintiffs are asking those Web sites for logs of everybody who accessed those articles in the hours before the allegedly defamatory content was posted. (All the more reason to read the web through Google cache!) The plantiff's motion for expedited discovery includes copies of the lawyers' letters to hosting providers, ISPs, and others. It also includes replies from the recipients, many of whom point out that the lawyers' requests are technically impossible to fulfill. No matter; the plaintiffs are asking the court to issue subpoenas anyway. This thread contains a summary of the letters in the filing."

Comments

Cyberbullying at its worst

[the_humeister]

And the stupid and idiotic thing is? These attacks are being perpetrated by fucking law students! Although maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. You certainly, well I don't see this amoung medical students. I thought libel was illegal?

Re:Cyberbullying at its worst

[aussie_a]

The point is neither will happen if its said by internets trolls. If all that happened was someone said "I'm gunna rape ya" then that would be equatable with the parent's anecdote and nothing would come from it.

Subpoena for non-existent materials

[cdrguru]

The Illinois Toll Authority implemented the EZ-Pass system with a lot of fanfare about how no records were kept. They made a big point about how there were no privacy considerations for having a transponder (not RFID in the usual sense) in your car.

An enterprising divorce attorney then took it upon himself to subpoena records from the Toll Authority, in spite of their PR campaign and very public statements to the effect that such records simply did not exist. The attorney was awarded the records and I believe it was material the divorce proceeding.

Shortly after that, detailed records were made available in billing information to customers. I guess there wasn't any point in denying that the information existed any longer.

Everyone can be surprised by what can be found when a court orders it to be turned over.

Re:Subpoena for non-existent materials

[ScrewMaster]

The Illinois Tollway Authority is a bureaucracy of the worst stripe.

My presumption was, from the very beginning, that they were keeping such records. That's why I refused to get an I-Pass, because I don't like being tracked, just as a matter of general principle. I wasn't surprised to find out that I was right.

As a matter of fact, adoption rates for I-Pass transponders were not what they were hoping to get (maybe a lot of other people felt the same way I do, I don't know) so about a year ago they just decided to double the rates for people using the manual lanes. You know, to "encourage" them to buy an I-Pass. Basically a hearty "fuck you" to everyone on the toll roads: do what we want or we'll just stick it to you.

This happened not long before it came out that the Tollway had accumulated nearly a billion dollar surplus.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Google Cache doesn't help

[darkmeridian]

The plaintiffs' law firm, Keker & Van Nest LLP, counts Google as amongst its largest customers, and there appears to be a conflict of interest at play. The Autoadmit turds created a Googlepages website with a plaintiff's pictures. The federal jurisdiction was predicated on the copyright violation on this website. Yet KVN did not issue a subpoena to Google for the owners and operators of the Googlepages site in question. Such a subpoena would have been focused and likely to yield only the "bad guys." I would guess, and this is only a guess, that KVN knew which side its bread was buttered and didn't want to force a great client to have to do something "bad"--such as challenge a subpoena in this case. Instead, KVN wants subpoenas for all IPs that accessed various third-party and non-offensive websites because the Autoadmit turds happened to read that site on a certain date.

KVN should bite the bullet and subpoena Google.

4th Amandment [was Re:Cyberbullying at its worst]

[IWannaBeAnAC]

For instance, we believe that evidence obtained in contravention of the Fourth Amendment should be quashed. But if the evidence was the admission of the location the body of a murdered little girl by the perpetrator, one would truly consider allowing the evidence into consideration because we don't want this guy to get away with it.

This is something that has always confused me about American law. I've never lived in the USA, but I have lived in a few other places (Australia, several European countries), and I don't remember ever hearing about a controversy on whether a particular piece of evidence is 'admissible' or not, although that seems to be happening all the time in the USA. I don't know what the actual rules are, but as far as I know in other countries, in a criminal case (at least) pretty much any relevant information is admissible. But obviously, if it was obtained illegally then whoever was responsible would also find themselves in the dock, in the courtroom next door.

What would happen, for example, if in the aftermath of a well-publicized murder, someone robbed a house and in the process found a blood-soaked knife and turned it over to the police? Would it then be returned to the owner, no questions asked, on the grounds that under the 4th amendment the robber had no right to search the house and seize the weapon? Or does that apply only to police officers? The amendment itself doesn't mention any such restriction, but perhaps it is implicit? What happens if a police officer pays someone else to break in? AFAIK, in other places in this situation, it wouldn't matter too much to the murder case who exactly had seized the weapon (as long as the evidence trail was clear, etc), but obviously if it was a police officer acting illegally, he/she would be in very serious trouble.

By the way, just having looked at the text of the 4th amendment, "persons, houses, papers, and effects". It seems reasonable to me that 'papers' here should refer to pretty much any communications, including telegraph, phone, email, etc. But I'm not sure that it does? Can you clarify?

Re:4th Amandment [was Re:Cyberbullying at its wors

[bishop32x]

The reason you hear so many references is that it is a huge legal gray area in the US, mostly becuase of the 4th amendment, but also the 5th and 6th (freedom from self-incrimination, right to counsel) and the associated court cases.

For example, a police officer doesn't need a search warrant to seize something which is in plain sight, such as a joint of a table. But if that joint is concealed then if it were to be seized then it would be inadmissible.

Another example is that statements made to the police after arrest but before being read the Miranda rights (you have the right to remain silent...) cannot be admitted into court.

To make matters more complicated, excluded evidence (such as from an illegal search) can sometimes be admitted anyways for various reasons.

If you want more information try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusionary_rule and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree

Re:well, they can

[RingDev]

Libel is libel, whether written by a known author, or anonymously. Libel is a crime. There for, anonymous libel is a crime. So even if they had spread anonymous pamphlets or emails, it would still be libel and the perpetrator would still be criminally liable.

Seeing as how there was a crime, how is it wrong for this girl to do what she can to find out who it was and have her day in court? She has a lead, let her follow it. If the providers don't have the logs, sucks to be her, but if they do, they should cough them up for the subpoena.

-Rick