Florida Man Sues WikiLeaks For Scaring Him

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Florida Man Sues WikiLeaks For Scaring Him

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday January 13, 2011 @04:03AM from the don't-watch-the-news dept.

Stoobalou writes "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been accused of 'treason' by a Florida man seeking damages for distress caused by the site's revelations about the US government. From the article: 'David Pitchford, a Florida trailer park resident, names Assange and WikiLeaks as defendants in a personal injury suit filed with the Florida Southern District Court in Miami. In the complaint filed on 6th January, Pitchford alleges that Assange's negligence has caused "hypertension," "depression" and "living in fear of being stricken by another heart attack and/or stroke" as a result of living "in fear of being on the brink of another nuclear [sic] WAR."' Just for good measure, it also alleges that Assange and WikiLeaks are guilty of 'terorism [sic], espionage and treason.'"

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What's next? by XxtraLarGe · 2011-01-13 04:05 · Score: 4, Funny

It will be hard for anything else to beat this for the dumbest thing I've seen on the internet today.

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Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
1. Re:What's next? by ehrichweiss · 2011-01-13 04:09 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  The kicker is when they describe the plaintiff: "a Florida trailer park resident"
  Who didn't see that one coming?
  
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  0x09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
2. Re:What's next? by ByOhTek · 2011-01-13 04:15 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  yeah. but not surprising. Yey trailer parks, the bring out the best of this wonderful country...
  Seriously, how the hell can it be treason if he isn't a US citizen (or otherwise legal resident)?
  
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3. Re:What's next? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-13 04:20 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Everybody owes fealty to the United States; because we are the best nation in the world. Some people just don't realize it yet, which is why we have to spend so much on our armed forces and prisons...
4. Re:What's next? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-13 04:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Are "fascism" and "ignorance" some kind of degenerate foreign-speak for "national unity" and "moral certainty" respectively?
5. Re:What's next? by Dunbal · 2011-01-13 04:41 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  She's as dumb and arrogant as the day is long
  And you say this in January, right after the winter solstice when in Alaska the days are short as hell...
  
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  Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
6. Re:What's next? by cortex3299 · 2011-01-13 04:49 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Isn't the day 24 hours long in Alaska ?
7. Re:What's next? by datapharmer · 2011-01-13 04:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Being a Florida resident I think you are mixing up the words "trailer" and "manufactured home". They are completely different.Trailers have wheels, and (at least at one point) could be moved from one location to another on them. Modular/manufactured homes can be as bad as a trailer or as nice as a mansion. They are often trucked in in prefab sections that are assembled together on-site. If you have any doubts which is which just drive past after a hurricane. If there is an empty lot with some aluminum debris it was most likely a trailer.
  
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8. Re:What's next? by X3J11 · 2011-01-13 04:54 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  It will be hard for anything else to beat this for the dumbest thing I've seen on the internet today.
  A CHALLENGER APPEARS!
  Canada bans Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing"
9. Re:What's next? by spamking · 2011-01-13 05:11 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Are you telling me there's not one condo available in all of Del Boca Vista?
10. Re:What's next? by XxtraLarGe · 2011-01-13 05:18 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Funny how Alan Dershowitz, no less, said Palin's use of the phrase was perfectly acceptable.
  It wasn't the best use of the phrase, but everybody is missing the point here. Some lunatic murders several people, and everyone points the finger at Sarah Palin. It's shameful political opportunism. I'd never vote for Palin for president, but the left must really be afraid of her if they are going to blame her for this.
  
  --
  Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
11. Re:What's next? by raddan · 2011-01-13 05:31 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  What's interesting is that, in modern parlance, "trailer park" has a pejorative quality to it, but this wasn't always the case. Steinbeck's Travels with Charley waxes poetic about the freedom mobile homes, even describing them as a necessity of modern life, given that jobs in the "modern era" (i.e., 1960's) were no longer as stable as they once were. I can see how we got to our present-day understanding of the term, but sometimes I think, wistfully, that Steinbeck's vision isn't such a bad one.
12. Re:What's next? by flaming+error · 2011-01-13 05:40 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  "Blood libel" makes perfect sense? I never heard the phrase before yesterday, and I couldn't make any sense of what it could mean when I read it.
  I had to look it up, and the most generic definition I found was from http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Blood_libel
  
  Blood libel - Definition
  Blood libels are allegations that a particular group kills people as a form of human sacrifice, and uses their blood in various rituals. The alleged victims are often children.
  I really can't fathom how she came up with that phrase.
  It is a fact that Palin put out a map with crosshairs over Gifford's district. It is a fact that Giffords spoke publicly about where that could lead.
  Palin brought gunsights to the fight. Now she's facing criticism. If she can't take it, she shouldn't start it.
13. Re:What's next? by Dishevel · 2011-01-13 06:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Target superimposed over congressional districts has been used by both parties for a long time now.
  You and everyone else already know this. Please quit.
  
  --
  Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
14. Re:What's next? by Dishevel · 2011-01-13 06:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Try here.
  
  --
  Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
15. Re:What's next? by Kozar_The_Malignant · 2011-01-13 06:59 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Having worked in Florida as an insurance adjuster after Hurricane Andrew, I can assure you that an empty lot with random aluminum debris is equally likely to have been a trailer park or and upscale manufactured home park. Neither of them can take a punch. Also, they burn like thermite bombs, but that's another story.
  
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  Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
16. Re:What's next? by BitZtream · 2011-01-13 08:32 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  As someone who lived in Florida, in a mobile home park ... right across the street from a plant that made 'manufactured homes' ... when a hurricane or in our case a tornado comes through, they both look exactly the same afterwords, randomly thrown around insulation and aluminum.
  They are the same thing, the difference is one they take the wheels off of and set it on the ground, the other they leave them there and set it on blocks. They both can go from trash to mansions, but they are still built like mobile homes and the end result is that anything you can easily truck down the road in preassembled pieces turns out is also light and weakly manufactured enough for high winds to rip it to shreds.
  If you sit a mobile home on the ground so the wind can't get under it, it'll hold up just as long as a 'manufactured home'. Likewise, put a 'manufactured home' on blocks off the ground with siding around it so the wind can pick it up and it'll die as fast as a 'mobile home'
  The only difference between the two is they leave the trailer on blocks, which at least means you can put the axels back on it and move it relatively easy.
  Their both still mobile homes, even if you want to pretend they aren't. Neither hold up much better than your typical RV/Travel Trailer and are far less mobile however far more spacious (generally).
  
  --
  Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Suing the wrong person by gman003 · 2011-01-13 04:06 · Score: 5, Insightful

Wouldn't it make more sense to sue the government for doing those things, instead of suing Wikileaks for talking about them?
1. Re:Suing the wrong person by circletimessquare · 2011-01-13 04:07 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  no. "shoot the messenger" is a time honored tradition in society. why stop now?
  
  --
  intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
2. Re:Suing the wrong person by Saishuuheiki · 2011-01-13 04:22 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  He should be suing Fox. I'm sure it was Fox News that inspired this fear of Wikileaks within him. Plus, they did all this after they convince him that if he steps outside of his trailer animals are going to attack him from all directions.
Predictable by paiute · 2011-01-13 04:06 · Score: 5, Funny

I knew this would happen when I heard that Walmart was putting in self-serve legal departments.

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Nuclear war by Sonny+Yatsen · 2011-01-13 04:07 · Score: 4, Funny

Luckily, nuclear war is a cure for depression, hypertension, heart attack and stroke.

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My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
1. Re:Nuclear war by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-13 04:24 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Probably not if you live in a Florida trailer park: Nuclear weapons and delivery systems are too pricey to waste on low value targets....
  
  It's one of the perks of living in a high-density area with a lot of strategic stuff nearby. Should the shit hit the fan, I'll go from "sipping a nice gin and tonic" to "gas and/or plasma phase" with such rapidity that my neural net will be destroyed faster than impulses can travel along the nerves. I will, quite literally, be dead before I know it.
  
  Out in the sticks, people will have to contend with violently expelling their gastrointestinal systems from both ends and fighting off the roving bands of supermutants.
Citizen by DarkArctic · 2011-01-13 04:07 · Score: 5, Insightful

Don't you have to be a citizen in order to be charged with treason?
1. Re:Citizen by SlippyToad · 2011-01-13 04:29 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Well, living in a trailer park in bumfuck FL he probably doesn't realize who Assange actually is, or where he is, or what he actually does.
  It sounds to me like someone put Pitchford up to this. And has the court thrown this complaint out with gales of derisive laughter yet? If not, may I volunteer to provide the laughter?
  
  --
  One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Summary fail... by Westley · 2011-01-13 04:07 · Score: 5, Informative

From the summary: "in fear of being on the brink of another nuclear [sic] WAR."'
From the article: "in fear of being on the brink of another nucliar [sic] WAR".
It would help if posters didn't correct spelling for words which are followed by [sic].
An obvious kook... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-13 04:16 · Score: 5, Interesting

But this guy is merely a risibly hyperbolic instance of a much broader, more common, and (in alarmingly many circles) respected position: Namely, that the person who reveals wrongdoing is somehow guiltier of that wrongdoing than the person who commits it.

I can't figure out if this view is a cancerous outgrowth of the morally monstrous "My country right or wrong" brigade(who are certainly louder and more numerous than there more honorable "May my country always be right and, when wrong, be set right" counterparts) or if it is a symptom of an even deeper flavor of cognitive limitation and/or ethical infantalism.

Below a certain age, and in some lower animals, "object permanence" is not well established. If they see an object enter a bag, they still lose track of it once it leaves their vision, and do not conclude that it must be residing in the bag, and can be found there. Above a certain age, and in smarter animals, this conclusion sticks. One is inclined to wonder if there is some moral variant of this, where some people, for who knows what reason, cannot apply "ethical action permanence" and conclude that, if Wikileaks took it out of the bag, and the government is the one who puts stuff in the bag, even though Wikileaks is holding the unethical object, it is merely the entity that took the object out of the bag where it had earlier been placed, not the entity that created the object.

In a way, I actually find the straight-up belligerent "USA! USA! Nuke ALL RAGHEADS!!!!" crowd to be more respectable. They are atavistic, barbarous scum, but they are refreshingly honest and straightforward about their bloodlust. The mealy-mouthed "respectable" apologists, on the other hand, are ethically no better; but spend their time dripping honeyed words and "nuance" to cover for the policies that they don't have the guts to endorse public-ally. It's like Fred Phelps: He is an awful human being, and merely by existing makes one wish there were a hell for him to inhabit; but he is all honesty. No equivocation, no focusing only on soft targets(anybody can picket an abortion clinic without much in the way of controversy, hitting military funerals takes serious guts...), no "Oh, we just stand for commonsense family values" circumlocution.
I'm a bit confused about the treason part.... by tinkerghost · 2011-01-13 04:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

how exactly does one commit treason against a country you have no affiliation with? Given that Assange is Australian, it'd be a pretty bizarre contortion of the law to conclude that he's committed treason against the US government. Espionage perhaps, but by definition: only Australia can charge him with treason.
1. Re:I'm a bit confused about the treason part.... by ShooterNeo · 2011-01-13 05:15 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Apparently they can. How else would they extradite him? If Federal prosecutors can convince a grand jury to indict Assange (not hard to do...the grand jury system is rigged heavily in favor of prosecutors) they can ask whichever country he is in to arrest and extradite him. Even if Assange has never stepped foot on U.S. soil.
  They just have to show he committed a crime against the U.S. over the internet...such as 'conspiracy to commit espionage'. After giving Manning 'protective solitary confinment' (aka coercive torture) for enough time, they'll get Manning to claim that Assange and him worked together to get those government documents. Manning will be offered a deal for a limited amount of prison time if he serves as a 'government witness' against Assange. Given the last 7 months have been hell on earth for Manning, turning such an offer down would be incredibly difficult. Even if there is no actual communication logs showing this, the mere testimony of Manning (under duress) is a "witness statement" that a grand jury can use.
  Once they get Assange dragged into U.S. custody, they can lock him up in jail for years while federal prosecutors file motions for extensions and things. Then, finally, they can give him a show trial where the jury is stacked with people who hate sex criminals. (even though Assange would not be accused of such crime, the jurors would think of him as a rapist).
  Even if he were acquitted (the case as I outlined it is very weak) he would be out hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal defense fees and years off his natural lifespan. The Federal government cannot be sued to reclaim either of these things unless Assange were able to show that the government KNEW he was innocent. (which if they have a coerced statement from Manning, above, the government doesn't have to pay)
  So in a nutshell : they can punish Assange severely for his actions even if they are never able to convict him of a crime. And imagine the mental anguish : Assange won't know for months or years during this process if he is going to be convicted and made to rot in prison for decades.
  This kind of thing happens day in and day out in the U.S. We make more people rot in confinement than the worst despotic regimes in history. And there are many effective ways to get around the protections offered by your 'rights', making them nearly meaningless in practice.
Re:why does where he lives matter? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2011-01-13 04:25 · Score: 3, Funny

Prejudice is just the drunk, mean, cousin of pattern recognition, which is just the folksy-handyman version of the scientific method....
Nuclear [sic] ? by karlandtanya · 2011-01-13 04:29 · Score: 3

As opposed to what? The correct spelling, which is nukular?

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"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
1. Re:Nuclear [sic] ? by flimflammer · 2011-01-13 04:53 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The submitter doesn't know how to properly use [sic]. The article spells it "nucliar". Submitter corrected it for some reason and added [sic] anyway.