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Obama Taps a 5th Lawyer From the RIAA
risingfish writes "Looks like Obama did what many organizations have asked him not to do. In a disappointing move, he has tapped a fifth RIAA lawyer to a top spot in the Justice Department."
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So do politicians.
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If these guys are that good, then it is the RIAA's loss so that's good. Lawyer's are not usually paid to represent their own positions. They are hired by clients to represent theirs. A defense lawyer for a murderer isn't necessarily a murder or in favor of murder. The defense lawyer may even believe the client is guilty, but legal representation if still their right.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Before coming to Jenner & Block in 1997, Mr. Gershengorn served for two years in the U.S. Department of Justice, first as Special Assistant and Counsel to Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, and then as Assistant to Attorney General Janet Reno. At the Justice Department, Mr. Gershengorn worked on a variety of civil and civil rights matters, and also coordinated the Department's responses to the Judicial Conference of the United States, the American Bar Association, and other organizations on rules-related issues.
Full "bio" listing is here.
Big name firms took the RIAA/MPAA cases, so it's not surprising that many of these top lawyers are getting positions in the Justice Dept. While I'm completely against the RIAA/MPAA tactics, how many lawyers would turn down the payday they were throwing their way?
OJ was able to get off because he hired an incredibly talented set of lawyers.
It makes sense that those with a lot of money would hire the best lawyers. Now that Obama chooses the cream of the crop, suddenly these guys are somehow no good?
I'm sure these are excellent lawyers, but that won't make them "good".
Do you think these guys are suddenly going to change their tune after arguing against freedom for years? (Free as in information, not as in beer.)
Something else to note: These guys have been defending using extremely questionable methods to gather "evidence" for years. I'm sure that experience goes a long ways in the Justice dept. You think pulling an old lady who doesn't own a computer up on charges for sharing music over the Internet was bad... wait until they have the power of the NSA/CIA/FBI behind them.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
While their past actions in the employ of the RIAA might make them good lawyers, the complete disregard for both justice and the standard of law in this country pretty much makes them crappy appointments for the JUSTICE department.
we all have that past job we aren't proud of...
Yeah, I was a lawyer.
I have a very hard time believing that the best lawyers in this country all specialized in the same subset of the law, let alone were all hired by a single entity. While these folks certainly have studied other aspects of the law, and have had other clients, the bulk of their recent experience is all the same.
Even if all the lawyers Obama appointed used to work for the EFF & FSF I would still be concerned, because the DOJ needs a wide base of experience, not just IP law.
You don't like the fact *AA cronies now occupy the highest offices in the land? Instead of hitting iTunes and Netflix for your entertainment needs, close your wallet and head on over to The Pirate Bay. Change happens when people are pushed over the edge and many famous instances of civil disobedience proves it.
Also this guy used to be in the Justice department until the changing of the guard in 2001. I wonder if the RIAA was as worried about hiring a firm that employed a pro-civil-rights lawyer, as alarmists are now that he's back in the Justice department...
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
You think pulling an old lady who doesn't own a computer up on charges for sharing music over the Internet was bad... wait until they have the power of the NSA/CIA/FBI behind them.
Trust me, next time she will have a computer, and the files in question will be there!
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
You assume he did not have this stance before he got elected.
I seem to remember Hollywood and Obama going hand in hand,
gotta love a $28500 a plate for Barbra Streisand.
But I already knew this he was like this before hand, because I didn't fool myself.
I don't want to start a flame war, but again, if you think one party is evil and the other isn't, then you are probably naive.
I'm a liberal by political beliefs, but I am here to tell you that I have seen a disgusting media spin trying to tell you the past 8 years that all Republicans are evil, and all Democrats are perfect. I work for a newspaper, and I am saddened by the lack of any objective journalism is today's society.
How many cabinet members did Bush have with corruption issues? Bush was an idiot with hard-line values, but he wasn't evil.
The Clintons took money from mafia families and pardoned mafia members and large federal drug traffickers. Both Clintons took money from the Chinese government illegally. Both have shown a blatant disregard for the law.
You're saying Democrats aren't evil because they support welfare, but that view is extremely naive. Bush increased social spending programs, lowered the cost of medicare for senior citizens (which the Democrats fought him on until Ted Kennedy told Congress to drop the partisan bickering and try to do right by the citizens for once), and doubled foreign relief packages for impoverished nations (again which Dems in Washington fought him on because they didn't want Republicans to have an apparent political victory).
Furthermore, our current system of welfare is broken. I believe we need aid agencies, but welfare shouldn't be a lifestyle. That doesn't help anyone. We need massive welfare reform so that welfare becomes a transition program that addresses the issues that stop people from working (be it a lack of transportation, lack of affordable day care, drug addiction, lack of training, etc). Yet oddly enough, it only seems to be Republicans that try to push for said programs while Dems seem to advocate for constantly handing out blank checks.
And don't get me started on corporate welfare, which both parties are very guilty of as of late.
I am curious how and why you think only one party is evil. Again I think you are likely just woefully uninformed.
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Lawyers are not required by law to take cases except possibly as public defenders. You're right that we shouldn't paint lawyers who defend people with the same brush as their clients. However, when the client in question is filing the charges, when their lawyers are knowingly (or unknowingly and completely incompetently) introducing illegally-obtained evidence, etc., then yes, we should paint the lawyers with the same brush.
There's no grey area here. You either have a sense of morality or you don't. If you choose to represent somebody in suing a 66-year-old grandmother, an 83-year-old dead person, and a 12-year-old girl for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, then you have the morals of a jellyfish.
We're not talking about going after commercial music piracy---one corporation suing another corporation (or nearly so). We're talking about companies that maliciously use laws intended to prosecute commercial piracy against ordinary people, that frequently sue completely uninvolved people, that have gross disregard for the legal process, etc. The lawyers themselves either hired unlicensed investigators (in which case the lawyers behaved illegally) or accepted evidence from them without looking into the background of the investigators (in which case the lawyers are completely inept). Either way, introducing such evidence should be grounds for disbarment in and of itself, but instead of throwing these dirtbags out on the streets where they belong, Obama is hiring these leaches on society as the highest lawyers in our land....
There's a point at which someone shows such reckless disregard for the law, for right and wrong, and for humanity in general that we can no longer give them the benefit of the doubt. RIAA lawyers crossed that line many, many years ago and have been sinking progressively farther below that line with every passing day.... I'm appalled that Obama would choose people like this to head the DOJ. You cannot hire people who knowingly violate the law to win cases as our nation's highest lawyers. That's like hiring Hitler to head up the anti-defamation league. It just doesn't make sense, and it is this very sort of practice that causes sleazebags like Ted Stevens to be let off the hook due to prosecutorial misconduct. Unless Obama wants the same crap as the last administration, he needs to seriously rethink his hiring strategy.
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The goal should be to make things better. Swapping out Bush's poor choice of appointees for equally poor choices doesn't really get us any where.
At some point Obama and his supporters will have to stop using Bush to justify their own poor decisions. Yes, Bush made horrible decisions. Yes, Bush was an idiot. Yes, Bush was a bad president. That's why everybody hated him and why so many people were excited about Obama changing things - it was implied that he meant change for the better. So it's a bit disappointing to see Obama make poor choices and then have those choices justified with "But look what Bush did," or "It's okay because we're no worse off than with Bush." Pointing out that somebody else did something stupid doesn't make their own choices any less stupid.
Maybe not