Room Eight Fights Bronx Subpoena, Wins

Mon, 07/14/2008 - 10:57pm

We’re relieved finally to be able to share with the Room Eight community the details of our battle to preserve the anonymity of a blogger and commenters in the face of a subpoena from a politician the blogger had criticized.

This January, we received a subpoena (.pdf) from the Bronx District Attorney, Robert Johnson, demanding identifying details of a Room Eight blogger who wrote under the name “Republican Dissident,” as well as the authors of a dozen comments on his posts. Equally chilling, the subpoena contained a legend (above) implicitly threatening us with prosecution if we disclosed its existence.

Last week, we won our legal battle to preserve the blogger’s and commenters’ anonymity, but the story is a cautionary tale in how – whether deliberately or not -- a local prosecutor appears to have been able to intimidate an anonymous, small-scale local critic into silence.

The New York Times reports this evening that a spokesman for the District Attorney – over whose name the original subpoena, dated last October, went out – says Johnson was “not aware that a subpoena was sent nor was he aware of the content of the comments, until after the subpoena was sent. The district attorney reviewed the matter, determined that a subpoena was not necessary at this time, and directed that it be withdrawn.”

That response leaves many questions unanswered – notably, how his political ally triggered an investigation of her critic in the first place.

Republican Dissident – whose blog appeared on the back pages of this site until he took it down April 15 – wrote as a harsh internal critic of the Bronx Republican Party which, in a quirk of local politics, is closely aligned with the Bronx Democratic Party. He attacked in particular Dawn Sandow, a Republican hire to the Bronx Board of Elections staff of the county party. City investigators, according to the New York Times and the New York Post, have been looking into questions of her residence and her relationship with the chairman of the Bronx Party, Jay Savino.

Republican Dissident also took issue with the district attorney himself, calling for the Bronx Republicans to run their own candidate against Johnson, a Democrat, and calling for him to be removed from an investigation of the Bronx Republican Party. “I would get another prosecutor than Bronx DA Robert Johnson, Bronx County GP always endorses him in every election he runs in,” Republican Dissident wrote.

The district attorney’s office refused to offer any details of their investigation, leaving us with the concern that the crime they were investigating was the criticism itself, most of which involved linking – with harsh, at times mean, caricatures – to news stories and to publicly available documents, like a deed in Sandow’s name to a house outside the Bronx.

We don’t have any position on Republican Dissident’s views or his style of expressing them. We do, however, feel very strongly that he has a right to do so without fear of exposure in an investigation that – as far as we know – appears to have concerned nothing beyond his online political speech. So we chose to fight the subpoena, and were lucky to be referred – by our friend Orthomom, whom he’d represented – to a talented, dynamic lawyer at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, Paul Alan Levy, a national expert on online free speech. (Support his work here.) He and our smart, thorough, generous, and knowledgeable local counsel – Charlie Spada and Deepa Rajan of Lankler, Siffert, & Wohl – first determined that the Bronx DA was, in fact, seeking the information. Then, in May, they filed a motion to quash the subpoena in state court. (You can read the legal paperwork here.)

Two months later, after we asked the judge move on the case, the DA withdrew his subpoena. They withdrew the threat of prosecution for speaking about it only after we threatened to sue them in federal court. We’re thrilled by the outcome, and grateful to our lawyers.

But the damage may have been done: We don’t know why Republican Dissident – with whom we’ve never corresponded – took down his blog, but we can’t help suspecting the investigation had something to do with it. You can see portions of his writing here.

More broadly, the scary reality is that here in the free speech capital of the world, a prosecutor tried both to demand confidential information about an anonymous critic and insisted, under penalty of law, that his request for the information be kept secret. We’re glad he backed down, and confident that the courts would have rebuffed his demands.

But not every blogger will be lucky enough to find pro bono counsel like ours, and few can afford to pay for lawyers. In the meantime, we hope District Attorney Johnson will be able to provide more detailed answers to the unanswered questions in this case: Who ordered this investigation of a political critic to be opened? Did it proceed through the usual channels – a complaint filed with the New York Police Department, for instance – or through the D.A.’s political operatives? The chilling threat to an important new form of speech demands that the D.A. take these questions seriously, or if he doesn’t, that a credible outside investigator look into the matter.

--Gur Tsabar and Ben Smith

Irony
Submitted by Anonymous

Looks like the one person who has been calling on people to be investigated is being investigated himself.

Ironic.

Room Eight Fights Bronx

Submitted by Rock Hackshaw


quirk of local politics,
Submitted by 628

"the Bronx Republican Party which, in a quirk of local politics, is closely aligned with the Bronx Democratic Party."

Is this really a quirk? I thought the distinctive feature of local New York politics is that the county Democratic and Republican organizations cooperate more often than not to protect each others' incumbents.


Room Eight Fights Bronx
Submitted by Anonymous


first they came for the big mouths but I didnt care
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 10:37am.

and when they came for me there was no one there

The issue here is monumentally important

The problem is that - unlike products liability where soeone can get rich by doing good - no one gets rich by stopping abuse like this.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a supreme Supreme Court?




Preserve NET freedom at all cost
Submitted by Laser Haas (not verified) on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 11:21am.

It is hard enough today, for citizens to find a venue to voice, banter and debate the workings of our governments. The right to free speech in our Constitution was to assure us the right to state opinion without retribution.

We witnessed the website www.the-catbird-seat.net being ordered by a Federal justice, without a hearing involving the owner of the site, for Yahoo to yank it off the air.

Our case against cronyism and corruption, providing proof positive of DOJ rogue personnel in DE doing favortism to a former Law firm that the US Attorney was a partner of has been successful, in part, due to the Web.

Free speech is to be protected at all costs.

Lest the end result be we have no voice.

For the press, left and right, everywhere, refuses to investigate or iterate, unless sensationalism is in the story,

Even then, the WSJ Editors, ordered the reporter off from our story, that has more evidence now, than ever before.

Keep up the good work, you are added to my favorites now and cannot wonder what in the world the other site had that made it close.


Room Eight Fights Bronx
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 1:17pm.

Irony said:



"Looks like the one person who has been calling on people to be investigated is being investigated himself."

Police state tactics, no?

Secret Plan To Kill Internet By 2012 Leaked? MUST READ

In a speech last October, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills."

His solution is "intelligence fusion centers," staffed by Homeland Security personnel which will go into operation next year.

Some question if report that pay-per-view system to be introduced is a hoax, but wider march to regulate the web is documented

Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet | June 11, 2008

ISP’s have resolved to restrict the Internet to a TV-like subscription model where users will be forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites by 2012, while others will be blocked, according to a leaked report. Despite some people dismissing the story as a hoax, the wider plan to kill the traditional Internet and replace it with a regulated and controlled Internet 2 is manifestly provable.

"Bell Canada and TELUS (formerly owned by Verizon) employees officially confirm that by 2012 ISP’s all over the globe will reduce Internet access to a TV-like subscription model, only offering access to a small standard amount of commercial sites and require extra fees for every other site you visit. These ‘other’ sites would then lose all their exposure and eventually shut down, resulting in what could be seen as the end of the Internet," warns a report that has spread like wildfire across the web over the last few days.

The article, which is accompanied by a You Tube clip, states that Time Magazine writer "Dylan Pattyn" has confirmed the information and is about to release a story - and that the move to effectively shut down the web could come as soon as 2010.

Watch the clip.

People have raised questions about the report’s accuracy because the claims are not backed by another source, only the "promise" that a Time Magazine report is set to confirm the rumor. Until such a report emerges many have reserved judgment or outright dismissed the story as a hoax.

More here: (don't miss the comments !!)

Net Neutrality's Quiet Crusader

We must NEVER take internet freedom for granted. If there is one MOST important issue - this is the one.

Free Press's Ben Scott Faces Down Titans, Regulators in Battle Over Internet Control

SLIDESHOW

Previous Next

Ben Scott is the ringleader for an emerging political constituency raised on text messaging and that relies on e-mail and online video in its advocacy. (By Melina Mara/Post)

y Cecilia Kang

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 28, 2008; Page D01

Bearing video cameras, laptops and cellphones, a small army of young activists flooded into a recent federal meeting in protest.

Members of public-interest group Free Press weren't there to support a presidential candidate or decry global warming. The tech-savvy hundreds came to the Federal Communications Commission's hearing at Harvard Law School last month to push new rules for the Internet.

For the first time, Congress and the FCC are debating wide-reaching Web regulations and policies that would determine how much control cable and telecommunications companies would have over the Internet. The issue has given rise to a new political constituency raised on text messaging and social networking and relies on e-mail blasts and online video clips in its advocacy.

Although Free Press has generated buzz for its aggressive and sometimes controversial tactics online, its ringleader in Washington is an unlikely crusader. A soft-spoken 30-year-old PhD candidate, Ben Scott has become an operator in multibillion-dollar battles involving corporate titans, regulators and consumers debating policies over who controls the media and the Internet.

"There have been policy moments in the past when the market has been shaped by decisions made in Washington -- radio in the 1930s, television in the 1950s and cable in the 1980s. That moment is now for the Internet," said Scott, who runs a nine-member office.

Working mostly behind the scenes, Scott has been a driving force for "net neutrality," a concept that in policy terms has come to mean enforcement of open access online, so cable and telecom operators cannot block or delay content that travels over their networks. In a complaint filed at the FCC last November, Scott and his staff called for action against Comcast, which admitted it slowed content over its network involving the BitTorrent file-sharing site.

Scott and the group's 500,000 members, most of whom joined online, helped sell their argument. Free Press drew together strange bedfellows, including the Christian Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Gun Owners of America, and helped set in motion a broader debate on the issue that resulted in the recent FCC hearing in Cambridge, Mass. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) also sponsored a bill to strengthen governance against Internet service providers trying to control consumers' Web access over their networks.

"Ben has exquisite political judgment and is a key player in net neutrality and wireless issues because he represents a new, grass-roots dynamic in the battle against media concentration and the communications colossus," said Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet.

Under pressure, Comcast yesterday said it would work with BitTorrent to improve the transfer of large files over the network.

Free Press's critics -- who spoke on condition of anwith BitTorrent to improve the transfer of large files over the network.

Free Press's critics -- who spoke on condition of anonymity because discussions on net neutrality policy are ongoing -- say the group often oversimplifies complex technical issues, dismissing the importance of some network management practices that block spam and pornography, for example. Free Press is also not the populist group it makes itself out to be, critics noted, partnering with corporate interests when it suits its goals, as it did with Google on net neutrality. Also, they said the group is not as boot-strapped as it may appear, with donors such as billionaire George Soros and singer Barbra Streisand.

Free Press has more than $5 million in funding, in part from major foundations such as the Soros Open Society Institute. Its annual lobbying budget is $250,000, compared with the $13.8 million spent by Verizon Communications, $17.1 million by AT&T and $8.9 million by Comcast last year.

The group, founded in 2003, was the brainchild of Scott's doctoral adviser, University of Illinois media history professor Robert McChesney. Its first mandate was to fight policy changes allowing greater media consolidation between local newspapers and broadcast concerns.

Scott, who was in Washington at the time, joined soon after.

"It was the moment when core policies were being set up on the future of digital media and communications," McChesney said. "For Ben, who had studied this stuff, it was like asking a political scientist to be chief of staff to the president."

The issue also resonated with Free Press's fast-growing membership. Members regularly blasted the FCC and lawmakers with e-mails, video and online petitions. They flooded the agency's hearings on media ownership around the country to protest the rules. A Philadelphia district court eventually overturned the regulations, sending the FCC back to the drawing board.

What we've done is organize the massive pent-up frustration that the media wasn't measuring up," Scott said.

Harnessing that is sometimes just a matter of capturing a moment and publicizing it online.

When Free Press employees discovered Comcast had paid people to attend the hearing at Harvard and appear supportive of the company, it blasted e-mails with photos and video of some hired stand-ins sleeping in the front rows. The video was viewed 60,000 times on YouTube.

Members of Free Press "are people in their 20s and 30s who are active in politics, who have grown up on the Net, who have come to learn and appreciate the value of the Net and want to preserve it," said Richard Whitt, the Washington telecom and media counsel for Google.

If the issues are new to Washington, so is Scott's understated style.

gThe son of a Methodist minister, Scott is no bombast. He doesn't interrupt people. When he speaks -- whether it's about media ownership or low-power radio -- he does so with a studied economy of words, and in a voice that makes people crane to hear him.

"Ben Scott and his people are bringing thoughtful, knowledgeable arguments and doing their homework," said Blair Levin, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. "And they never are saying they want you do something 'because we said so.' "

Scott's kindred spirit at the FCC might be Democratic commissioner Michael J. Copps, also a student of history who recently read a biography on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Scott and Copps recently bonded over the book, drawing comparisons between the New Deal and net neutrality. At another meeting that day, Scott and the other Democratic commissioner, Jonathan S. Adelstein, held forth on legal definitions and case law for net neutrality.

Scott understands that effectiveness lies in the ability to cater the message to the right audience.

"Ultimately power is transacted on a personal level," he said, "and ultimately people make decisions based on conversations with people that they trust."

Catherine Bohigian, chief of the FCC's Office of Strategic Planning, said Scott keeps discussions going by advocating without aggression.

"You are able to talk about issues and don't have personalities that get in the way," she said. "We've been on the other side with him on some issues; but being a nice guy, you want to work with him."

It's not that Free Press's approach doesn't occasionally backfire.

On Valentine's Day, as part of an e-mail campaign, Free Press posted an fictional online video of FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin in a hotel room with big corporate lobbyists.

"Let's just say I didn't get calls back from the chairman's office for a couple weeks," Scott said.

Eventually Scott was forgiven, and Martin consulted him about a net neutrality hearing scheduled for next month at Stanford University.

"There have been times I might have agreed or disagreed with the position he's taken, but his ability to mobilize at the grass-roots level and advocate and communicate effectively has certainly had an influence at the commission," Martin said of Scott.

At Scott's urging, Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) wrote a bill in June to expand the number of low-power radio stations on the FM dial -- an issue that had languished for a long time.

After low-power advocates Pete "Petri Dish" Tridish and Hannah Sassaman approached Scott three years ago to craft their message and go against the powerful National Association of Broadcasters, Doyle took up their cause.

"What people don't know is that getting a bill like this together requires a lot of hard work. It's laborious, and a lot of people don't want to do it," Doyle said. "But Ben and his people are coming prepared and with all the facts and figures and willing to do the hard work and that makes us on the committee really take notice."

Conyers gets involved in Internet Contoversy!

==============================

TOPIC: LAWMAKER MAY JUMP INTO NETWORK NEUTRALITY FRAY
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.activism.progressive/browse_thread/thread/0227c3f0162b9308?hl=en
============================================================


REUTERS Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:54am GMT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress may have to stop broadband Internet
providers from charging content providers higher fees for priority access
to the Internet, a senior House of Representatives Democrat said on Tuesday.

"I am concerned that if Congress stands by and does nothing, we will soon
find ourselves living in a world where those who pay, can play (on the
Internet), but those who don't are simply out of luck," Judiciary
Committee Chairman John Conyers said.

Conyers, a Democrat from Michigan, may offer legislation that would make it
a violation of U.S. antitrust law for network providers to discriminate
against some content, an aide to the lawmaker said after a committee hearing on
the issue.

That legislation would be similar to a bill introduced by Conyers during
the last session of Congress, which was approved by the Judiciary
committee but was never brought up for a vote of the full House.

Conyers echoed the concerns expressed by a civil liberties lawyer and other
open-network advocates at the hearing. They argued that discrimination
by broadband network providers could lead to censorship of political speech and
shut out the voices of independent artists.

"To be sure, if we go in (that) direction, it will stifle future
innovation on the Internet,"

Conyers said.

At issue is the so-called "network neutrality" controversy that pits
open-Internet advocates against some service providers, who say they need to
take reasonable steps to manage ever-growing traffic on their networks.

Some of network neutrality complaints have centered on charges that
broadband companies were engaged in anti-competitive conduct, while others
involved charges of political censorship.

Digg .. pass this on, it's totally true ..

My War With Digg.com

Firstly, my apologies to my regular readers for being somewhat off topic today however this is something which I feel needs to be said. It recently came to my attention that regardless of how much support my submissions to digg.com received they never reach the front page.

Upon further investigation it became apparent that every one of my last thirteen submissions had been 'buried'. My first thoughts were that I had in some way offended someone or some people who had taken it upon themselves to attack every submission I make.

However, I soon realised that while such unscrupulous people no doubt exist they are not generally anonymous in their actions. Having seen such an attack on a friends submission it is clear that the people that do this at least have the courage to put their names to their comments. Furthermore, providing there is enough positive support these actions are not enough to supress an otherwise popular submission.

Having done some further research it appears that digg.com has a policy of blacklisting URLs allowing them to 'auto-bury' submissions and preventing them from being seen by the general public. Whilst I understand the potential need for such a practice there is no reason whatsoever for my own site to be subjected to this.

Most of my submissions have been from my own site although as my regular readers will be aware I often feature the work of others here as well as my own and nothing that I have submitted infringes upon digg.coms terms and conditions in any way. Digg purports that the success or failure of any story is dependant upon how it is received and voted on by the public. This as you can see is not always the case.

I was prepared to give Digg the benefit of the doubt and emailed them requesting that the error be investigated and resolved. I have now emailed them three times and have not received so much as a generic response.

This is unwarranted discrimination and as such is illegal practice but something tells me I am not the only one to have been treated unfairly in this way. Since they have failed to respond I have forwarded these concerns to both the BBC and Reuters and there will be many more to follow.

I have included the unanswered emails below for you all to see.

Dear Sirs,

Although new to Digg, I am active on various social media sites and was slightly baffled as to why my success elsewhere was not mirrored so far at Digg. However, I recently became aware that all 13 of my most recent submissions had been buried without even being viewed by those who were responsible for this.

The majority of these submissions were from my own site although they have been produced by a number of different authors and all were of good quality. Perhaps in one or two instances some may disagree but not in the case of 13 consecutive items produced by different people. It would seem either I am being personally victimised or there are a selection of people deliberately attacking blogger sites.

In the possible event that it was a personal attack I allowed the author of the latest post on my site to submit it themselves. The result was the same despite the fact that in this case the author is a highly successful writer and novelist. But then as I have said it was not even viewed before being buried.

I have no wish to be vindictive and so I have chosen to bring this to your attention privately rather than making this a public issue in the hope that you are able to satisfactorily resolve this issue and provide assurance that any future submissions I make be fairly treated. I am assuming of course that this is as a result of a few unscrupulous individuals whom you are able to identify and not a problem that is inherent to Digg.

I hope to submit within the next 24 hours and so I hope to receive a prompt response.

Regards

Matt Barnes (w0lfh0und)

Dear Sirs,

I find it unfortunate that you have not as yet replied to my previous email. Perhaps customer service is not considered a high priority?

Having completed some further research it has been suggested that my treatment is not due to public response but more likely that my URL has been blacklisted by Digg and that the removal of my submissions is an automated procedure. This would make some sense since public comments I have received have always been positive.

Whilst I understand a potential need for this kind of practice to be in place there is certainly no reason whatsoever for this to be so as regards my own submissions. I also find it disturbing that you purport that the success or failure of a story is dependant on public opinion when this is clearly not the case. As previously stated, every one of my submissions whether it be my own work or that of others has always been well received.

It is now my intention to prepare a report for bbcnews.co.uk as to how you have chosen to handle my grievance. I have already stated that I expect to receive a response from yourselves within 24 hours. This expires at 09.30 GMT, I trust that I will hear from you before then

Matt Barnes (w0lfh0und)

Dear Sirs,

Since you have chosen to ignore my previous emails you leave me with no alternative. You may expect to receive invitations to comment from several news agencies.

I am also seeking legal advice since unwarranted discrimination is quite clearly illegal.

It is unfortunate that this has become necessary when a resolution could have quite easily been achieved.

Matt Barnes (w0lfh0und)