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Cisco, Troll Tracker Blogger Sued For Defamation
Joe Mullin writes "We've discussed Troll Tracker here before — the anonymous blogger who was outed last month as Rick Frenkel, a Cisco lawyer. Since then, two lawyers from the notoriously patent-friendly Eastern District of Texas have filed defamation suits against Frenkel and Cisco, and Frenkel's blog has been shuttered. One of the plaintiffs, a renowned patent judge's son, may have been hunting the anonymous blogger for months. This week Cisco announced new blogging guidelines in response to the Troll Tracker fiasco. The company acknowledged that 'a few Cisco employees used poor judgment' during secret-blog-time, but they're largely standing by their man. Cisco's new rules will prohibit only anonymous blogging by employees about issues for which 'they have responsibilities at Cisco.'"
Yes such a good thing, just what the world needs. And he's being sued. I can't for the life of me figure out how this sort of thing happens; it's in the CONSTITUTION for crying out loud that congress can't make laws restricting speech. And-- oh there's a law restricting speech. And another, and another. Makes me want to become a judge just so that I can mobilize the US marshals and incarcerate every single member of congress indefinitely for constitutional violations.
The only problem could be if the blogger was dealing with issues that concerned Cisco without listing his affiliation.
IANAL, so I'll ask those of you who are, is there anyway that whistle blower laws could protect Frenkel? He might not need protection from his employer, but he need protection because of who his employer is. He was in a good position to spot and point out foul play and he did just that. Now he is facing retaliation for doing so, isn't that what whistleblower laws are meant to protect?
We are all just people.
I think that any company that has patent and is not implementing them, or selling them or letting other use them for a fee ( or free ) within 2 years of the issuance of the patent, should loose their patent and it should become public domain. This would prevent people from being patent trolls. Basically use it or loose it, and using it to prevent people from implementing it or suing people who implement it does not count as using it.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
One thing that is important to point out, is that Cisco is treating Rick Frenkel extremely well. They aren't firing him, restricting him from blogging, or taking other knee jerk reactions. What they are doing is requiring that a Cisco employee put boiler plate on their sites.
Cisco itself has been trying to embrace web2.0 collaboration for a couple years now. In some instances like http://blogs.cisco.com/home/ they do really well, providing a conduit for actual engineers to comment on technology and the companies products. In other instances like second life, they have gone completely off target and missed the whole point (my personal rant, second life is NOT web2.0). The important thing to focus on, is that Cisco is consistently trying to encourage open communications of its employees with the general public, and should be apploauded for their attempts.
Disclaimer - I am NOT a Cisco employee, and these are my OPINIONS.
Colin McNamara - CCIE #18233 "The difficult we do immediately, the impossible just takes a little longer"
According to one of the links in the summary, the plaintiffs are usually represented by lawyer T. John "Johnny" Ward, Jr., and the cases are heard by his dad, Judge T. John Ward.
This reminds me of a bad Dukes of Hazard storyline.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
The blog is not "shuttered" per se, but viewable by invitation only. Hopefully, Frenkel will continue to write, but it might be hard with the lawsuit.