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The Ongoing Case of Rakofsky vs. Internet
Chmcginn writes "Joseph Rakofsky, a New Jersey lawyer whose claim to internet fame is filing a lawsuit against the Washington Post and the American Bar Association for criticizing his performance at a Washington, DC murder trial, has amended his suit to include a number of bloggers and internet forum members — for criticizing the lawsuit. Which is a bigger threat to free speech — direct government action, or fear of lawsuits for frivolous defamation charges?"
. . . Joseph Rakofsky is an asshat.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Would posting Anonymously help?
I'd call him a loser and sub-human filth but I don't want me or Taco getting sued.
SLAPP.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Direct government action. A lawsuit from an individual, you have a chance of defending against. The government makes the rules, interprets the rules, and arbitrates the rules. The deck is pretty well stacked against you.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
The frivolous lawsuits are often tossed out of court relatively quickly, while the government takes forever, and often tortures and imprisons people. I'll take a bankruptcy over water boarding any day!
Just look at the situation in the UK - for example, this analysis from the Morton Report :
The result is that Britain is suffering from a severe case of 'libel chill', where publishers and newspapers are afraid to publish a story because the subject, usually a celebrity, might decide to sue.
Freedom of Speech is in many ways the most fundamental of all freedoms, because without it repressions of the other freedoms cannot be corrected.
He may not be doing it for the lulz, but the lulz are there to be had. Joseph Rakofsky, Idiot Lawyer, you win +1 internet. *Like*
Can I be sued for criticizing his lawsuit? Sir, I hereby criticize your lawsuit.
I have a feeling that his shit list is about to get a lot bigger.
in any society of human beings, free speech will always be threatened, for various arbitrary reasons, such as this asshole Joseph Rakofsky and his wounded ego
freedom, in any society, for all time, will always erode, and must always be fought for, and maintained. concepts like freedom are not things that are fought for once, and then that's it: freedom established! happy ever after is here! real life is a not fairy tale kingdom
no, freedom is constantly under attack, forever, and you, yes YOU have to keep fighting for it, or it will decay. depend upon someone else to fight for it, and if enough people do the same thing, it will also decay, since no one is actually fighting for freedom. so whose responsibility is freedom? YOURS. in a society where enough people think that, and you live in the best society on earth
aside to Ratfuckski:
grow up, scumbag: people say nasty things about people all the time. let it pass and move on. you only validate their opinion of you when you react to it. ignore it, and the insult loses power over you, and by extension, everyone else. even better, embrace it, make a joke, and laugh at yourself, and turn a negative into a positive impression about how smooth your are
but give an insult attention, and you validate someone's poor opinion of you. to the extent it becomes truth. after all, if it wasn't the truth that you suck as a lawyer, why would you react so vigorously to the accusation? you're a loser Ratfuckski. now sue me, scumbag
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Please, please, please.
It would give me a valid excuse to Toilet paper your house. Asshat.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
There's actually an interesting article here, but the link the summary just goes to a page explaining why he won't be expanding on his earlier, better post.
The government can fuck up a country. Lawsuits can easily be rejected.
Sorry, what was the question?
Duct tape is bigger threat to free speech
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
Seems to work pretty effectively for the Church of Scientology.
...doesn't mean you need to use it. A man with himself for a lawyer has a fool for a client. -www.awkwardengineer.com
Okay I'm not trolling for any kind of political points here. I'm actually trying to point out that ol' Joe here will not have any effect on free speech because not only has he set up a "me vs the world" mentality, the world agrees and won't bother listening. In terms of the grand scheme of American politics, American society and the world in general, no one has a scrap of motivation to join his side.
US Government intervention into free speech is an unlikely but serious thing to always think about. Joe affecting free speech ain't happening.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I wonder what that is? You mean the freedom to express an opinion about something or someone? I wish that were possible. This "free speech" stuff sounds great.
Proverbs 21:19
"The Onggoing Case..." was a better title
I'm part of the team that run banniNation.com which is a news aggregation site with a fairly similar model to slashhdot.
While we haven't been officially served, our site and business are listed in the original complaint along with the handle of a user who mentioned Mr. Rakofsky.
We've got an official statement of sort at http://www.bannination.com/s/lawsuit and there's a link from there to a very level headed discussion about it. This definitely doesn't just affect bloggers and has further implications around the right to anonymous speech and the liability of service providers.
What a moron. He sucks at his job, people point it out and he deciedes he will sue everyone who is picking on him. Poor little baby....Maybe if you stopped tyring to be an asshat and put a little of that effort into being a better lawyer you would do a good job. Maybe then your moronic self wouldn't end up in the paper/blogs for sucking at your job... Please sue me...i'll turn right back around and sue you.
In countries which have a dictator, he's the biggest threat to free speech, and pretty well everything else.
If one has an overweening government, like the Soviet Union did, they're the biggest threat.
Similarly if one has an oligarchy, as the U.S. did in the "gilded age", they'll do their best to silence you.
Countries which had their governments organized to provide for check and balances, and whose police powers were used to mitigate the rise of the oligarchs were the places where one legitimately had free speech.
Whenever an imbalance of power arises, though, one of the classic forms of corruption is for the powerful to use their powers to silence anyone who doesn't treat them with fawning respect.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Is there even a difference in direct government action, or fear of lawsuits for frivolous defamation charges these days?
Lawsuits = courts = judges (and/or tards that somehow pass for 'peers' without even having to pass an IQ test...i mean juries) = Government.
The Government is usually less likly to put the wank to you directly when it comes to free speech, but they sure as heck won't mind holding you down for some asshat (example Rakofsky) while he has his turn.
Besides, if Governments have a direct problem with you, its probably going to end up more with a black bag over your head.
The biggest threat to free speech is jackass pretending every time someone does something stupid they don't like, it's a systemic problem.
Okay, that's not actually a threat at all... but this non-story is so stupid it made my head spin. Did it really need to be posted?
...that we should all criticize his performance as a human being and see if he sues /..
OK, having read the one blog post about Rakofsky, I have just one question. After he gets pummelled in court, what is he going to do for a living now that he has made sure that just about everyone knows what an incompetent lawyer he is?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
An entire guild of lawyers? Now that takes some balls.
That takes balls or stupidity ... seriously, who sues the American Bar Association? That's like ... suing all of the lawyers, isn't it?
And, really, if I read the blog correctly ... it sounds that all this guy did was to voice an opinion (mirroring that of the trial judge) that this wet-behind-the-ears lawyer was out of his depth in this murder trial. And, ultimately did a very piss-poor job of it -- so much so the judge had to declare a mistrial.
From the sounds of it, he doesn't have a pot to piss in (or a hat to shit in).
Oh, and for Joseph Rakofsky ... Ha ha ... sue my ass punk, I'm not even in the US. Who is going to trust a lawyer with a Justin Bieber haircut?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Teach!
I saw him try a case once. His incompetence was startling.
You'd be better off with a random public defender.
There now, go ahead and sue me, cocksucker.
It's bound to happen. Rakofsky seems (in my opinion) to have no clue when it comes to free speech issues. That being the case, it seems only a matter of time before /. (and perhaps posters like me) are named as co-defendants in his (again, in my opinion) idiotic suit.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
"if you would shoot at the king, you had better kill the king." I expect that the ABA and Thomson Reuters will eviscerate this poor fool. He will be begging the court to dismiss them as defendants but they will stick it out the better to beat him with a stick.
Which is a bigger threat to free speech â" direct government action, or fear of lawsuits for frivolous defamation charges?
I would say a LACK of government direct action to stem frivolous defamation charges..
Insert
that he is a horse's ass ?!!?! all these terms about asses are so confusing. he might as well get mistaken for an asswipe in this confusion. someone needs to clear the confusion about termage and measure the ass situation, to any extent there is, if any.
Read radical news here
He needs the work. It's not like anyone else is likely to hire him.
Gently reply
Freedom of speech is a cornerstone element of freedom. There is no real freedom of speech in the UK, the monarchy can slap an injunction forbidding the publication of anything they please. In the US the freedom to libel someone is a little less clear. Typically editorials write opinions and not facts and most articles today print opinions. "The boy ran fast" is an opinion based on the perspective of the writer. "The boy ran 100 yards in 3 seconds" is a fact. "The boy ran faster than anyone else in recorded history" is a fact and "Something must have been wrong with the timer" is an opinion based on the knowledge that the previous world record in the 100 yard dash is about 9 seconds. Lawyers can't sue a person for expressing an opinion and saying a person "did badly" is an opinion. Here is where things get tricky. Saying the legal counsel is incompetent is not an opinion, it is either fact or libel, since incompetence is defined legally. Any reporter or blogger that does not know the difference between fact and opinion or libel is incompetent.
I find most people have no clue what the difference between a fact and an opinion are. If you want to find an opinion look for descriptive adjectives or adverbs. If you are describing something it is usually an opinion based on perspective. Facts are not usually descriptive. "The man wore a brown suit" may be a fact, or a perception based on a trick of light. "The man wore a cheap brown suit" is an opinion. "The man wore a suit that cost 38 dollars" is probably a fact, although it could also be a lie.
This is where all the twisting and warping of the notion of "rights" has lead us. I am not trying to criticise you personally, your post shows a person who thinks things through and has a good head on his shoulder. But you clearly, like many today, dont understand what a right is and is not.
You say you have a right to eat, but no right to eat someone elses food. But the fact that eating requires food (something produced by labour) means there cannot be a right to eat per se, nor a right to housing, to health care, etc The right to ones own property (the fruits of ones own labour) is a real right - you can have and enforce that right without violating anyone elses rights. But how can you have a right to eat if you dont make food? Only by enslaving someone who does, or stealing their property, which is hardly respecting other peoples rights.
However, if you produce something of value, and trade it to someone who needs it, for their food, then everyones rights are respected and everyone involved is made richer. The right to your own property, and the right to engage in commerce freely, are all that is involved. No "right to eat" needed.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
The US should change our civil justice system to be "loser pays" to reduce these frivolous lawsuits. People can sue whomever they wish, as long as they can afford to lose.
For example in India. If you annoying someone in India through internet media, the Indian police will act on it. It is called the IT Act of India Amended 2008. One example of its application is here: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/15/20100415201004150444035498c0a203/Ecole-Mondiale-staffer-arrested-for-defaming-exBombay-HC-judge.html
(to be read in conjunction with http://techdirt.com/articles/20100718/20510110255.shtml) and failed attempt to ban three school blogs (http://www.techgoss.com/Story/406S11-CERT-refused-to-ban-3-school-blogs.aspx) and finally a case Google Inc USA is fighting in the Delhi court related to the same school.