Obama Administration Makes a Positive Move on Porn

The Department of Justice has agreed that bringing a New Jersey adult entertainment producer to trial in Montana, just because that is where an FBI agent was when he received the allegedly “obscene” materials is inconsistent with DOJ policy. (source). The usual raft of sleazeballs and nutbags are apoplectic.

I’m with Sergeant Crowley

Sergeant James Crowley, the Cambridge Police officer who arrested professor Harry Gates seems to have something in common with me. He has good taste in beer. At today’s “beer summit,” Obama ordered Bud Light, Gates drank Sam Adams Light. Fuckin diet beers. What a pair of pansies. Biden had a non-alcoholic Buckler. I can respect that. But Crowley got himself a Blue Moon.

Bud light. Jesus Christ. He’s the leader of the free world and he’s drinking urine in a bottle.

Bait Shop Owner Wins First Amendment Case in Flori-duh. Thank you ACLU

Tampa Bay Online reports:

A bait and tackle shop owner who sued the city of Clearwater over his fish mural has reached an agreement that will let him keep the artwork on his building, though the agreement still needs city council approval.

City spokeswoman Joelle Castelli said today that the city will pay the owner $55,000, he will drop the suit and the city will allow the painting to stay without citing the owner. (source)

Hopefully this will show other city councils that messing with our First Amendment rights can be costly. She’s a beautiful lady, that Constitution, but hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

The St. Petersburg Times, one of the last remaining newspapers to really give a shit about quality reporting, has an in-depth report here.

More Lawyers Behaving Badly

When will lawyers learn that they do not have a right to send a cease and desist letter AND to claim that it can’t be disclosed to third parties? Maybe when they listen to Jon Katz.

Horizon Group Management sues tenant for Twitter post about “moldy apartment”

Even this guy knows that Horizon's suit is a crock of shit

Amanda Bonnen had 20 followers on her Twitter account. On May 12, she tweeted, “… Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.” (Complaint at 7).

Fast forward to July 20, and Horizon Realty files a defamation suit based upon the tweet. According to Horizon’s complaint, it is “recognized as one of Chicago’s premiere apartment leasing and management companies because, [inter alia] it understands the importance of quality customer service…” (Complaint at 1).

Before Ms. Bonnen launched her caustic and hideous public attack, (by tweeting to 20 of her friends), Horizon “was a company of good name, fame, and reputation and was deservedly held in high esteem by and among renters, potential renters and the general public.” (Complaint at 3).

Now Horizon Realty is just known as a company that filed a defamation suit against a renter based on a tweet to 20 friends. But wait… there’s more….

According to the Wall Street Journal, Horizon claims that it discovered the tweet “while conducting due diligence on a residential landlord and tenant ordinance lawsuit filed by Ms. Bonnen.” (source) Horizon’s Jeffrey Michael is quoted as saying “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.”

In other words, this “organization” got sued by Bonnen and decided to swipe back at her with a frivolous defamation suit. Nothing says “we’re guilty” like a SLAPP suit. I’m not saying that Horizon did what Bonnen accused her of. In fact, I don’t know much about that suit, and I don’t rightly care. But, the defamation suit is clearly frivolous and clearly nothing more than retaliation for Bonnen’s initial landlord-tenant lawsuit.

To make things worse, Horizon has issued a press release telling its side of the story. Apparently nobody ever informed Horizon that the first step in getting out of a hole is to stop digging. While they make pretty strong statements denying the existence of mold in Ms. Bonnen’s apartment, they just don’t seem to understand that nobody cares about the alleged mold issue except Ms. Bonnen. The thing destroying Horizon’s reputation now is their blatantly frivolous anti-free-speech lawsuit.

CopyBlogger really hit the nail on the head:

Horizon Realty might be the most loveable, fair, decent and true company in the world. Right now, their name recognition has about as much appeal as Saddam Hussein. With mold.

Whether fair or not, Horizon has made a worldwide name for itself virtually instantly, connecting its brand with callous disregard for its tenants, or worse.

(Yes, there is such a thing as bad publicity. This is what it looks like.) (source)

I’m just gonna go ahead and presume that Horizon’s lawyers told them that filing this complaint was an act of abject stupidity that even Jack Thompson would mock. I simply refuse to believe that any attorney would tell their client that this was a good idea. This lawsuit scores a perfect five Floridas on the moron scale. Prior to filing the lawsuit, 20 of Bonnen’s friends had potentially read the comment. After filing the suit, the story became national news. I can’t wait to see Ms. Bonnen’s response.

Even Opie on Family guy could pwn the bejesus out of this abjectly frivolous bullshit claim.

New 11th Circuit ACPA Case

Southern Grouts & Mortars, Inc. v. 3M Company, No 08-15850 (11th Cir. July 23, 2009). I would write about it, but my good friend Darren Spielman already did at defendmydomain.com – here.

Flori-duh Strikes Again

Some of you may know that I have an absolute disgust for the state of flori-duh. Some of you also know that as of Sunday, I no longer live in that festering shithole. Here is one of the million reasons why I hate that place: The Fort Myers Beach city council fired the city manager because he married a porn actress.

For those of you who have never been to Fort Myers Beach: Picture a white trash penal colony. Lots of jean shorts. Mullets. And not too many teeth. Fort Myers Beach, come for the cousin-fucking peckerwoods. Stay for the vomit.

Voyeurism is Not a Gender Issue

Tatiana Von Tauber

By Tatiana von Tauber

Voyeurism can be a good thing – between couples in fantasy play no doubt but when taken into reality it is hideous. And while it’s surely women who fall victim, such as sportscaster Erin Andrews, it annoys me when it’s a crime marked with a feminist twist, as in this article.

Clearly men on average get off on female nudity more often than women get off on male nudity and I can’t think of one situation where a female was caught sneaking lesbian sex in a public bathroom or peeping through a hotel room at a naked guy – oh, but wait I do remember something.

When I was a kid my neighbor was a 6th grader and she taught me this cool trick of turning out the lights at night when her mom was working late and peeping at the apartment window across from her living room. In that apartment lived a young guy, probably in college and she’d get a kick out of the fact that he wore his tight jeans without underwear.

Yes, this example is of a kid’s curiosity but you know, the peephole thing lasted for years for her and habits form early. Voyeurism never did it for me. Not then, not now and that’s primarily because I felt awful for invading another’s privacy. Now, in fantasy play – well, that’s a different story.

Unfortunately it is primarily men who get caught in the act but for me the point isn’t that a man knowingly watched a woman. It’s that one human being invaded the privacy of another human being. Basically, the crime is in the privacy matter, not the gender. And while I also know there is a lot of sexism in America, much less the world, I have to wonder if men sometimes roll their eyes and think, “Oh brother, here we go again”.

I’ve known a few men in my time who were abused and harassed by a woman and it’s an uncomfortable position to be in. Besides being a pussy in front of other guys, there’s a sense of personal shame from the standpoint of having little possibility of being taken seriously for such honesty simply because it is thought of as such weakness. Just as women have pressure of fighting off the stereotype for their feminine “inferiority”, men have pressure ridding their masculine “superiority”. Not all women are weak and not all men are strong. There are women who take advantage of the sexist card and those women make it harder for everyone – specifically those men who never inflicted any harassment or abuse but were accused anyway.

It’s very unfortunate and upsetting that Andrews’ privacy was invaded but the gender issue shouldn’t be the focus. It further stamps attention on a crime from a default inferior position (the female is the victim again); meaning, if we focus on the negative, that’s all we see and it spews greater anger. Focusing on the crux of the matter – the loss privacy, thus personal freedom – is a more balanced and equal position.

Welcome “Animal Rights” Nuts!

I’m a big animal lover. I hate anyone who hurts animals for amusement.

But, there is a wing of the animal rights movement that is populated by tinfoil hat shitheads. They discovered this post: United States v. Stevens – Protecting Animals no Justification for First Amendment Amputation.

I welcome them as readers.

However, I’ve decided that for every stupid fucking comment by some moronic vegetarian that gets posted there, I am going to do something. Heh.

This weekend, I am going to a restaurant that is famous for its Foie Gras. I love Foie Gras, but I haven’t eaten it in a long time, as I do recognize the cruelty that is required in order to make it. But, I figure fuck it, they made it anyhow, right?

So, for every dumb assed whiny comment I get on that post, I am going to order one helping of Foie Gras. After that dinner, if the comments continue, I’m going to order veal at every single lunch from now until the PETA morons find something else to do. Yum.

Cammarata Case Suffers Compound Fracture

If Cammarata's case ever had legs, they look like this now.

In April of this year, Kevin Cammarata, a failed adult website operator brought a lawsuit against RedTube.com and a number of companies that advertised on the site. His complaint was that RedTube offered porn for free, in the form of movie trailers, and that it then tried to “upsell” its customers to premium services. Cammarata said that he couldn’t compete with that business model, therefore RedTube and (even more strangely) its advertisers should pay him $40 million. Among its advertisers, BangBros.com, Brazzers.com, and Fling.com, were named as defendants for merely buying advertising space on RedTube.com. (Complaint here)

Cammarata’s attorney, Jay Spillane made some bizarre comments about the case, when he first filed it. “Tube sites have done injury to the business,” Spillane said. “We feel RedTube and other sites like them are crowding out competition when it comes to the online adult business.” (source)

XBiz strangely reported that the case “may have legs.” (source)

If the case ever had legs, those legs appear to have suffered the equivalent of a tibia-fibula compound fracture. Yesterday, the Honorable Maureen Duffy-Lewis dismissed the case under California’s Anti-SLAPP statute, Cal. Code Civ. Proc. 425.16. The court found that at least the advertisers’ activity was in furtherance of First Amendment protected rights, i.e., the right to advertise adult material. The court also found that Cammarata was unable to put forth evidence that demonstrated a probability of prevailing on the merits. (source)

Under the California Anti-SLAPP statute, not only does Camaratta now lose, but he must pay the defendants’ attorneys’ fees.

If his case has “legs,” he ought to use them to run away.

July 4 And Your Sexual Freedom

Dr. Marty Klein

By Marty Klein, Ph.D
Special Guest to the Legal Satyricon

This weekend we celebrate the birthday of our country. Many will do this by participating in a parade, getting drunk, or displaying the Stars & Stripes. But there are other ways to celebrate the sacrifices that have made America the world’s most radical experiment in free speech and free thought.

It’s not the fact that you were born here that makes America great. It’s the principles that America stands for, struggles with, and protects. So this week you’ll be honoring those who have fought and died for America when you:

* Use birth control
* Download porn
* Watch the Sopranos or South Park
* Go to a raunchy comedy club or listen to a raunchy CD
* Have non-intercourse sex
* Get a lapdance at a neighborhood club
* Have sex with someone of a different race
* Have sex with someone of the same gender

Every single one of these acts took a court decision to affirm its legality—many from the Supreme Court. Yes, the same historic court that ended racially segregated public schools was needed to decide that Americans could legally purchase contraceptives, and that whites and blacks could have sex together.

When you live your normal life this week—using condoms, watching grownup TV, shopping in private on the internet, enjoying oral sex, ignoring ads for massage parlors in your local newspaper—you’ll be honoring the lives and hard work of thousands of plaintiffs, lawyers, judges, clerks, and volunteers.

These men and women may not have died in the line of duty, but they are on the front lines, serving our country. We have no medals for Bill Baird, Phil Harvey, Mildred Loving, Sherri Williams, or other heroes who have risked their lives, freedom, money, and sanity to protect our sexual expression. They fought not against a foreign enemy, but against tremendous pressure right here at home—from tyrannical majorities, powerful minorities, vindictive government agents.

These same elements threaten our basic American rights today.

Like other freedoms, sexual freedom isn’t free. Today, on our country’s birthday, let’s remember those mostly-anonymous people who struggled and suffered to make America safer for sexual expression and the commercial and intellectual activities needed to support it.

Let’s also remember the human beings languishing in American jails simply for creating sexually explicit films that millions of grownups have bought to use in their own homes. Our government has spent our money to stop these people from expressing themselves. If these people aren’t political prisoners, who are?

Some will say that our founders didn’t suffer at Valley Forge or die at Lexington & Concord so that your niece can buy rubbers, or a guy down the street can go see a stripper, or you can hear Jon Stewart say “dickhead.”

I say that that’s exactly why people died to create America—a special country in which people have the extraordinary right to do, say, and think things of which their neighbors—and government—disapprove.

Drew (tentatively) acquitted in MySpace suicide case

A federal judge today tentatively acquitted Lori Drew, the Missouri woman convicted for her involvement in the MySpace “cyberbullying” hoax that allegedly resulted in a young girl’s suicide.  If it sticks, the acquittal will help reverse the momentous change in online liability that Drew’s earlier guilty verdict threatened to set in motion.

Last November, a jury convicted Drew of three misdemeanor violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030, which is essentially an anti-hacking law.  Commentors widely criticized the convictions, as the case’s logic seemed to criminalize any violation of a website’s Terms of Service (see Marc’s Satyricon post, CMLP, Threat Level, and numerous links therein).

As Judge George Wu pointed out in announcing his tenative decision, such a result is probably unconstitutional.  Terms of Service include an infinite variety of provisions — most of which have little bearing on criminal acts — and few web users ever read them.

Stripped of the emotionally charged facts regarding the fraud and suicide, Drew’s crime was nothing other than failing to submit “truthful and accurate” registration information when creating a MySpace profile.  She would have been no less liable for misstating her height.

Note that the acquittal will not take effect until Judge Wu issues a written decision.  Until then, keep an eye out for the flood of commentary that will no doubt arise regarding the issue.