A federal judge issued a stern rebuke Friday to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s method for breaking up an illegal online betting ring. The Las Vegas court frowned on the FBI’s ruse of disconnecting Internet access to $25,000-per-night villas at Caesar’s Palace Hotel and Casino. FBI agents posed as the cable guy and secretly searched the premises.
The government claimed the search was legal because the suspects invited the agents into the room to fix the Internet. US District Judge Andrew P. Gordon wasn’t buying it. He ruled that if the government could get away with such tactics like those they used to nab gambling kingpin Paul Phua and some of his associates, then the government would have carte blanche power to search just about any property.
“Permitting the government to create the need for the occupant to invite a third party into his or her home would effectively allow the government to conduct warrantless searches of the vast majority of residents and hotel rooms in America,” Gordon wrote in throwing out evidence the agents collected. “Authorities would need only to disrupt phone, Internet, cable, or other ‘non-essential’ service and then pose as technicians to gain warrantless entry to the vast majority of homes, hotel rooms, and similarly protected premises across America.”
Month: April 2015
Who runs this world? Sony Pictures CEO jokes about getting UK culture minister fired
Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton mulled pulling strings to get UK culture minister Ed Vaizey fired to replace him with the grandson of former prime minister Harold MacMillan.
Vaizey, a democratically elected Tory moderniser, oversaw “digital industries” for Britain’s Coalition government – from broadband to copyright shakeups. He was comfortably reelected in 2010, and slotted into the Ministry of Fun by Prime Minister David Cameron.
The revelation that Sony’s powerful Lynton wanted shot of Vaizey emerged fresh from the mountain of emails and documents leaked from Sony Pictures by hackers, all of which were bunged into a searchable online database by WikiLeaks this week.
Brit-born Lynton was sharing breakfast with Bella Pollen – a UK socialite, journalist, and novelist – in Los Angeles in August last year when he fired off an email to her husband David MacMillan, publisher and grandson of former Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, that read:
I am sitting here with Bella and conspiring as to how to make you Minister of Culture and Sport. You are perfectly qualified. First step is to get Ed Vaizey fired. I will do this with George Osborne. Next step is to get you appointed. This requires you meeting Charles Dunstone and having him recommend you. I will make the introduction in September. The games afoot !!!
Dunstone – chairman of Carphone Warehouse – is a big contributor to the Conservative party.
Two hours later, MacMillan, in the UK at the time, responded:
Need to be elected to parliament or raised to the peerage to proceed further with your plan, but love the idea Like all being in Charles Dunston’s gift, Think Osborne will be fearful of Vaizey as he wishes to avoid the publication of various school time photos … or maybe he feels comfortable with his past.
MPAA Wants Private Theaters in U.S. Embassies to Lobby Officials
In an effort to get foreign policy makers onside, the movie group asked its member studios to help fund an upgrade of the screening rooms in various U.S. embassies around the world.
In an email from Sony Pictures Entertainment Head of Worldwide Government Affairs Keith Weaver to CEO Michael Lynton last March, Weaver explains that the studio had been asked for rather a sizable contribution.
“I wanted to make you aware of a recent MPAA request, as Senator Dodd may contact you directly,” Weaver’s email begins.
“Essentially, the request is for the member companies to consider upgrading screening rooms at U.S. Embassies in various countries (Germany, Spain, Italy, UK, and Japan)…”
These rooms could then be used by the ambassadors to show off Hollywood content to invited high-level officials.
“…the idea being that these upgraded screening rooms would allow American ambassadors to screen our movies to high level officials (and, thus, inculcate a stronger will to protect our interests through this quality exposure to our content),” Weaver adds.
In other words, the MPAA wants to pay for an upgrade of the embassies’ private theaters, to indirectly protect the interests of U.S. movie studios abroad.
It’s a rather interesting lobbying effort and one that doesn’t come cheap. The estimated cost for the project is $165,000 per studio, which means the total budget for the project is close to a million dollars.
Unfortunately for the MPAA, Weaver suggested giving the project a miss and in a reply Lynton agreed.
“While studios have supported efforts like this in the past, my inclination is that we pass on this financial commitment at this time (of course, applauding the idea/effort),” Weaver noted.
In an email a few months later the issue was addressed again with additional details.
In this conversation Weaver notes that the request is “not unusual” and that the studio supported a similar request years ago. “Apparently, donations of this kind are permissible,” Weaver writes.
Again, Lynton replied that he was not inclined to support the project. It’s unclear whether any of the other members chipped in, or if the plan has been canceled due to a lack of financial support.
TV Companies Will Sue VPN Providers “In Days”
As Internet users demand more freedom online alongside an ability to consume media in a manner of their choosing, tools allowing them to do so are gaining in popularity.
Notable has been the rise of VPN services, which not only provide an increased level of privacy but also allow users to appear in any country they choose. This opens up a whole new world of content availability – such as better service from Netflix – often at better prices than those offered on home turf.
While popular with consumers, this behavior is frowned upon by distribution companies that spend huge sums of money on content licensing deals specific to their regions of coverage. Losing customers to overseas providers isn’t part of their plan and now some are doing something about it.
Earlier this month media companies SKY, TVNZ, Lightbox and MediaWorks told several Kiwi ISPs that if they don’t stop providing VPN services to their subscribers, legal trouble would be on the horizon.
Within days one of their targets, Unlimited Internet, pulled its VPN service after receiving a letter from a lawfirm claiming breaches of the Copyright Act. However, CallPlus and Bypass Network Services have no intention of caving in to the media giants’ demands.
“To receive without warning a grossly threatening legal letter like that from four of the largest companies in New Zealand is not something we are used to,” wrote Bypass CEO Patrick Jordan-Smith in a letter to the media companies.
“It smacks of bullying to be honest, especially since your letter doesn’t actually say why you think we are breaching copyright.”
Pulling no punches and describing his adversaries as a “gang”, Jordan-Smith likens the threats to those employed by copyright trolls in the United States.
“Your letter gets pretty close to the speculative invoicing type letters that lawyers for copyright owners sometimes send in the US ‘pay up or shutdown or else were are going to sue you’! Not fair,” he writes.
“We have been providing the Global Mode facility for 2 years. In all that time, none of your Big Media Gang have ever written to us. We assumed they were OK with Global Mode and we continued to spend money innovating the facility and providing innovative NZ ISPs with a service that their customers were telling them they wanted – a service that lets people pay for content rather than pirate it.”
The response from Bypass hasn’t been well received by the media companies who now say they will carry through with their threats to sue over breaches of copyright.
“Our position has not changed and unless they remove the unlawful service we will begin court action in the next few days,” says TVNZ chief executive, Kevin Kenrick.
“Each of our businesses invests significant sums of money into the rights to screen content sourced legitimately from the creators and owners of that copyrighted material. This is being undermined by the companies who profit from promoting illegitimate ways to access that content.”
Claiming that the action is aimed at defending the value of content rights in the digital world, Kenrick says that the legal action is not consumer focused.
“This is not about taking action against individual consumers or restricting choice, indeed each of our businesses are investing heavily in more choice so New Zealanders can have legitimate access to the latest TV shows and movies,” the CEO concludes.
While the commercial position of the TVNZ chief is understandable, his claim that this legal action isn’t aimed at reducing choice simply doesn’t stack up. Kiwis using Netflix locally get access to around 220 TV series and 900 movies, while those using a VPN to tunnel into the United States enjoy around 940 TV series and 6,170 movies, something which Bypass Networks believes is completely legal.
“[We provide our service] on our understanding that geo-unblocking to allow people to digitally import content purchased overseas is perfectly legal. If you say it is not, then we are going to need a lot more detail from you to understand why,” Jordan-Smith informs his adversaries.
“Simply sending us a threatening letter, as frightening as that may be, does not get us there and is not a fair reason for us to shut down our whole business.”
Computers For Christians by Ryan Alexander
This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen on Kickstarter. I don’t even know what it is. It’s just pure insanity. Read the whole description. Here’s an excerpt:
In fact it I could not build on existing platforms, simply out of my own distaste for this inexcusable insanity which is the current convention for which there is no excuse besides a lack of moral vision that does not extend beyond ones own self-absorbed existence, which those who have the power and control over supplying this service have confessed to being in possessed by. I am supremely unimpressed. Knowledge of these forms of low level operations has in fact caused me to do a self-evaluation and strengthen my bonds to my own roots and who I am as an individual which I proudly proclaim that I do not belong to man, I belong to God, if you take a close look at the 10 commandments you’ll see why, God is good, God is cool, God is a carrot not just a stick, a vision of something greater then ourselves, I will share this more later, but on the subject of integrity, it’s necessary to mention that God’s law, the 10 commandments, is my standard. It was the standard for the USA at it’s inception, which spurred the industrial revolution and for even the most modest in our country it has made life more heavenly then it would have been otherwise, and set an example for the world as well. Unfortunately this has not been preserved as it should have been, but let’s stick to personal computers, while noting the benefit of having faith in God’s commandments, appeared to be the fingerprint of visibility, note the first four commandments requiring recognition for this service that one can imply God didn’t necessarily have to make, but out of his mercy and steadfast nature of God’s love, did so. Impressive the result of their application, it is a no-brainer following in this standard, that is a carrot not a stick, thank you God, I bow to you. I trust in you.
Indiana judge goes extra mile in striking down Malibu’s motion for sanctions and fees
Malibu Media v. Tashiro (INSD 13-cv-00205) is an eventful case (228 documents so far), one of the few “cases to watch” — mostly copyright shakedown lawsuits in which defendants didn’t succumb to extortionists’ threats and decided to hire competent attorneys to fight back. Some of these cases (and this case in particular) have all the prospects to end up in front of a jury in the first trial of this kind.
I wrote about this case in the past: a sad story in which morally dead attorneys “on behalf” of jaded pornographers tried to extort money from an Indiana resident by threatening to destroy her life. Ironically, the defendant Kelly Tashiro is a nurse — a profession dedicated to saving lives.
Tashiro retained Jonathan Phillips and always maintained her innocence.
After the trolls realized that their case against Kelley is weak, they pointed their finger at her husband Charles, adding him as a defendant on 5/15/2014. Phillips began representing Charles too, and the newly added defendant also maintained his innocence since then. No evidence of XArt’s smut was ever found on the household hard drives by the Malibu’s expert.
As in virtually every case, when it turned out that the trolls had neither facts nor law to pound, they universally played the spoliation/perjury card, dangerously moving into the criminal law domain. Apparently, alleging criminal actions has more leverage in wrestling defendants into submission than does weaponizing the stigma attached to “barely legal” hardcore pornography.
On 1/29/2015 a big milestone — an evidence hearing — was set to happen. Not trusting his stooge Paul Nicoletti to handle the matters, Keith Lipscomb himself (with an associate) flew to Indianapolis.
On the eve of this hearing, seemingly sensing the gravity of the accusations of potentially criminal conduct, Charles Tashiro rather unexpectedly invoked the Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying about certain matters. As a result, the hearing was essentially cancelled.
The trolls went postal. A motion to sanction both Charles Tashiro and Jonathan Phillips was filed shortly thereafter. Lipscomb and Co accused Phillips of orchestrating the “sabotage” of the hearing and wanted more than $15,000 from the defendant and his former counsel.
After the botched hearing, citing the conflict of interest, Phillips withdrew as Charles Tashiro’s attorney. Erin Russell appeared on behalf of Charles shortly after.
On 3/16/2015 Phillips responded, calmly explaining the rationale behind the events that pissed off the trolls so much.
On 4/1/2015 Erin Russell also filed a short and stern response complementing Phillips’s one (this motion was even noticed by a legal media outlet).
Russell’s straightforward response resulted in a pure hysteria: it is hard to read 4/13/2015 Malibu’s reply in support without experiencing pain from rolling eyes exceedingly hard. As Raul put it in 140 characters or less,
Seen this drink before, a Malibu Media Crybaby: equal parts vitriol, hysterical accusations and clearly inadmissible evidence. 226 of 205.
I didn’t elaborate the details of the original Malibu’s Motion for Sanctions. In short, the trolls threw everything they could at the wall in a hope that something would stick. They demanded sanctions based on FRCP 37, 28 U.S.C. § 1927, the court’s inherent authority, FRCP 16, you name it…
We anticipated that the motion would be denied as meritless, but in today’s Report and Recommendations, Magistrate Dinsmore exceeded our hopes: he denied each and every claim, sometimes harshly (“This argument borders on the absurd”), and his thorough arguments didn’t leave a lint of hope for success of possible trolls’ objections to this R&R and/or Bar complaints against Phillips.
Groping Conspiracy Thwarted, TSA Claims
It still hasn’t caught any terrorists, but it has managed to root out a conspiracy of gropers (maybe sub-conspiracy is a better term) within its own ranks, according to this report.
After another employee reported that a screener at Denver International Airport had told her that he groped passengers he found attractive, a TSA investigator found that in fact at least two screeners were working together to further this goal. The investigator witnessed the male screener signaling to a female colleague when a certain passenger approached, and she then manipulated the scanner to “detect an anomaly.” (She apparently did this by deliberately selecting the wrong gender, something I’m sure they never do by mistake.) Result: thorough pat-down. She admitted she had steered travelers to him this way on at least ten other occasions.
The TSA described the alleged acts as “egregious,” which as you know means “really bad,” and because it fired both employees I assume it wasn’t using the archaic meaning of that term, which I have just learned was the opposite.
The case was turned over to the district attorney’s office for a possible charge of unlawful sexual contact, but the DA has apparently declined to prosecute because “none of the passengers believed to have been touched by the screener could be identified.” Well, I don’t think the admission to the tipster was hearsay, and the co-conspirator confessed. Do they not prosecute many people based on less evidence than that? I think they do.
No Good Deed: How Jose Arcaya Ph.D. Esq. Went From Suing a Client Over A Yelp Review To Complaining About Scott Greenfield
Jose Arcaya Ph.D., Esq., Etc. is a lawyer/psychotherapist in New York. Many lawyers have to assume the role of psychotherapist; Arcaya appears to have actual qualifications.
One of those qualifications is sensitivity, apparently. A former client left a negative review on Yelp. The review primarily complained about how Arcaya treated the client:
I hired Arcaya to help with a case. I asked him at the outset if he had handled these matters before and he said yes. The ensuing performance suggests otherwise.
When I mentioned his truly pitiful performance he implied that it was my fault. When i reminded him that he was the lawyer and hired to do a professional job he made fun of my medical issues. Absolute scum.
This is America, so you know what happened next: Arcaya sued the client for defamation, representing himself pro se. He demanded the removal of the Yelp review, $80,000, and the cost of his time. The complaint is a bitter denunciation of the client and a smirking recitation of his past misfortunes. Arcaya demands satisfaction for being called “absolute scum” and for the statement that he “made fun” of his client’s medical issues.
The statement that Arcaya is “absolute scum” is a classic example of insult, rhetorical hyperbole, and opinion: it can’t be proved true or false. The statement that Arcaya made fun of his client could be a potentially actionable statement of fact, though ultimately that’s probably a matter of opinion as well. Arcaya represented his client in an attempt to get him academic accommodations based on the client’s disabilities arising from brain damage. In the course of an email dispute about fees, Arcaya said:
In your dreams. You sorted me $2000. I got just $3k for the article 78. The deal had been $5K. Memory problems.
JMA
Was it over-sensitive of the client to interpret “memory problems” as a snide reference to his disability? Maybe. The tone of Arcaya’s complaint certainly suggests he’s the sort of person who would indulge in such an insult. Whether over-sensitive or not, it’s certainly not as freakishly over-sensitive as Arcaya suing over this Yelp review.
The client reached out to me, and I reached out to my friend Scott Greenfield. Scott wanted to try to talk Mr. Arcaya back from the precipice. That effort was unsuccessful. Rather than grasping that he was engaged in a self-destructive flirtation with the Streisand Effect, Arcaya doubled down. He subpoened Scott Greenfield for a deposition. No, really. Here’s the subpoena. Challenged, he filed a bizarre rant justifying the subpoena. He spun a tale that Scott threatened him with a “gang” of thousands of internet users. It sounds like a strange person’s misunderstanding of a point Scott often makes: if you act like an ass in the effort to suppress speech, the Streisand Effect will treat you unkindly.
Former Security Director For Lottery Charged With Tampering Equipment Before Secretly Buying $14.3 Million Winning Ticket
If someone hasn’t already sold the movie rights to the story of Eddie Raymond Tipton, expect it to happen soon. Tipton, an Iowa-based former “security director” for the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL), is accused of trying to pull off the perfect plot to allow himself to win the lottery. It didn’t work, but not for the lack of effort. MUSL runs a bunch of the big name lotteries in the US, including Mega Millions and Powerball. It also runs the somewhat smaller Hot Lotto offering, which was what Tipton apparently targeted. When he was arrested back in January, the claims were that it had to do with him just playing and winning the lottery and then trying to hide the winnings. Lottery employees are (for obvious reasons) not allowed to play. However, late last week, prosecutors in Iowa revealed that it was now accusing Tipton of not just that, but also tampering with the lottery equipment right before supposedly winning $14.3 million. Because of these new revelations, Tipton’s trial has been pushed back until July. However, the details of the plot and how it unraveled feel like they come straight out of a Hollywood plot.
First, there’s the story of how Tipton was discovered winning the lottery in the first place. The ticket was purchased in late December 2010 in a QuickTrip off of Highway 80 in Iowa. The winning $14.3 million went unclaimed for nearly a year, but right before it was set to expire, a New York lawyer named Crawford Shaw showed up with paperwork to claim it. However, Shaw refused to reveal the necessary details about who actually won the money, as Shaw was merely representing Hexham Investments Trust, which was a shell company set up in Belize. Belize, as you already know, is a popular place to setup offshore companies if you want the true ownership to be anonymous. The problem, however, is that Iowa doesn’t allow for anonymous lottery winners. That resulted in Iowa officials investigating who was really behind the winning ticket.
The resulting investigation took them from the NY lawyer Shaw to some (unnamed) guy in Quebec City, Canada, who was listed as Hexham Investments Trust’s trustor and president. That guy eventually pointed investigators to two other guys in the Houston area: Robert Rhodes and an unnamed Houston attorney — who had also known the NY attorney, Shaw, for many years. The attorney in Houston insisted that he represented the winner of the ticket who wished to remain anonymous. Somewhat stumped, investigators released a video and screenshots of the guy at the QuickTrip who bought the ticket:
Prison Labor Company Features Promo Video Touting “Best-Kept Secret in Outsourcing”
Searching for the “best kept secret in outsourcing,” one that can “provide you with all the advantages” of domestic workers, but with “offshore prices”? Try prison labor!
That’s the message of Unicor, also known as Federal Prison Industries, a government-owned corporation that employs federal workers for as little as 23 cents an hour to manufacture military uniforms, furniture, electronics and other products.
Though FPI markets itself as an opportunity for inmates to obtain skills training, critics have attacked the program as exploitative. Small business owners have also complained that FPI’s incredibly low wages make it impossible to compete.
What’s more, businesses that partner with FPI are organized and regularly lobby the government on prison-related issues. Their trade group, the Correctional Vendors Association, lobbied Congress last year on the Justice Safety Valve Act, a bipartisan bill giving judges the power to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum, including in drug-related cases.