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Judge: Lawsuits Now Can Be Served Using Twitter (usnews.com)
Reader schwit1 writes: A Kuwaiti religious leader who allegedly raised money for jihadist rebels in Syria appears poised to become the first foreigner served a U.S. lawsuit via Twitter.
Hajjaj bin Fahd al-Ajmi has been a hard man to reach for a lawyer seeking compensation in a northern California federal court on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians who own property in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, resolving the impasse, found al-Ajmi has "an active Twitter account and continues to use it," offering the "method of service most likely to reach" him to satisfy the service of process requirement for the case to move forward.
Al-Ajmi is accused by both the U.S. government and the U.N. Security Council of funneling money to armed terrorists.
Hajjaj bin Fahd al-Ajmi has been a hard man to reach for a lawyer seeking compensation in a northern California federal court on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Assyrian Christians who own property in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler, resolving the impasse, found al-Ajmi has "an active Twitter account and continues to use it," offering the "method of service most likely to reach" him to satisfy the service of process requirement for the case to move forward.
Al-Ajmi is accused by both the U.S. government and the U.N. Security Council of funneling money to armed terrorists.
a u.s. court is hearing a case involving property rights in foreign countries? wtf. i get that they may have a valid complaint; but shit, this is just a little out-of-bounds... even by twisted u.s. government standards.
Lawsuit? Just shoot the asshole!
That's crazy. You can't verify that the person served actually received the document.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Blaming America is always good Karma — as if we invented Universal Jurisdiction. I presume, Belgium prosecuting Israelis for war crimes committed by Lebanese in a war, to which Belgium was never a party, was Ok with you?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Can a lawsuit be served using Slashdot also?
And you can validate that he's the one with the twitter account, and that he's the one that actually signed in.
Heck, one of the most popular twitter accounts used to be this one, and while it obviously has "fake" in the name, I'm fairly sure there are lots of fake ones out there. For all I know there could be somebody posing as me on twitter or facebook etc right now.
But hey, it's a crazy terrorist so let's just create some horrible laws or legal precedent. It's not like some jackass will abuse it but creating a impersonation twitter/FB account of somebody they don't like, serving them papers, and then getting a default judgement when they don't show.
The US government wants to be the only one arming terrorists... how selfish!
Sorry, couldn't resist...
Seriously, just because some judge has no idea how the Internet works, and that devices are not people, does not make twitter delivery of lawsuits count as "being served".
You have to serve them either in person or at their place of residence.
For all we know his twitter account is run by a follower, and not him.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There's these two features on Twitter:
Block
and
Mute
Just because you tweet at someone, doesn't mean:
a. they see it;
b. they haven't set DMs off from non-friends
Many public figures don't even enable DMs, and tend to Mute people that are abusive.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
a u.s. court is hearing a case involving property rights in foreign countries? wtf. i get that they may have a valid complaint; but shit, this is just a little out-of-bounds... even by twisted u.s. government standards.
And that's a point which people can argue in the court and (depending on the case) usually win on. The US Courts--especially the federal courts--are much more thoughtful about these things than most people give them credit for. Obviously terrorists will have a harder time, but the courts still follow the law--IIRC the DC Circuit released a terrorist on an ex post facto clause violation a few years back, for example.
People do really bad things in lots of places where the rule of law is effectively nil; activists and victims go after them in US courts where possible, but it is still only possible in rare cases. The Supreme Court has approximately your level of skepticism for jurisdiction over acts committed in foreign countries, but there are rare exceptions. As to property, a US court can't directly affect title to property in a foreign country, but it may have jurisdiction over a person who controls the property, or have an agreement with or understanding by the country in question whereby the country will honor certain actions or documents. (A will that has been probated in the US or a US divorce decree, for example, might be used in another country's court to transfer title to property).
Real lawyers write in C++
they warned the terrerizt on twitter ?
that'l teach him
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
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