Back in December, when the Sony emails first leaked, we wrote about how Sony hired super-high-powered lawyer David Boies to send off ridiculously misinformed letters to media outlets warning them that they should not write anything based on information in the leaks. Boies took it a ridiculous step further, threatening to sue Twitter for not blocking screenshots of the emails. Both threats had no real legal basis.
Of course, now that the emails are in the news again, thanks to Wikileaks posting the archive online and making it searchable, Sony is apparently shelling out more big bucks to Boies to send around another version of the letter. You can see the letter here or at the bottom of the post.
Once again, the legal reasoning in the letter is… questionable at best. The included attack on Wikileaks is even more confused, arguing that freeing up this information helps North Korean censorship. It’s difficult to see how that’s really true, but okay. But the really ridiculous part is arguing that the media should not publish this information to support the First Amendment. Really.
Tag: North Korea
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Is Leading An Incoherent, Facts-Optional Last Minute War On Net Neutrality…For The American People
Over the last few months we’ve discussed how FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai has been waging a one man war on net neutrality and Title II using what can only be described as an increasingly aggressive barrage of total nonsense. Back in January Pai tried to claim that Netflix was a horrible neutrality hypocrite because the company uses relatively ordinary content delivery networks. Earlier this month Pai one-upped himself by trying to claim that meaningful neutrality consumer protections would encourage countries like Iran and North Korea to censor the Internet.
Now on the surface, it appears that Pai just doesn’t understand technology very well. Of course, once you understand that he was once a regulatory lawyer for Verizon, you realize he’s simply dressing broadband duopoly profit protection up as some kind of deeper, meaningful ethos. As such, lamenting that Title II is “Obamacare for the Internet,” is just political theater designed to rile up the base to the benefit of the broadband industry.
With net neutrality set for a vote this week, Pai has accelerated his master plan to make the largest number of inaccurate net neutrality statements in the shortest amount of time possible. For example, Pai co-wrote an editorial in the Chicago Tribune last week that tries to use Obamacare fears to insist Americans will lose the right to choose their own wireless plans if Title II based rules come to pass:
“If you like your wireless plan, you should be able to keep it. But new federal regulations may take away your freedom to choose the best broadband plan for you. It’s all part of the federal government’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet like a public utility…take T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program, which the Internet conduct rule puts on the chopping block. The “Un-carrier” allows consumers to stream as much online music as they want without charging it against their monthly data allowance.”
Stephen Kim Spoke to a Reporter. Now He’s in Jail. This Is His Story.
ON THE MORNING of June 11, 2009, James Rosen stepped inside the State Department, scanned his building badge and made his way to the Fox News office in the busy press room on the second floor. It was going to be a hectic day. Like other reporters working the phones that morning, Rosen was looking for fresh news about the latest crisis with North Korea.
Two weeks earlier, North Korea had conducted a nuclear detonation that showed the rest of the world it possessed a functioning bomb. The United Nations was on the verge of a formal condemnation, but no one at the U.N. or inside the U.S. government knew how North Korea’s unpredictable regime would respond and whether things might escalate toward war.
Rosen called Stephen Kim, a State Department expert on rogue nations and weapons of mass destruction. Kim, a U.S. citizen who was born in South Korea, spoke fluent Korean and had worked at one of America’s nuclear-weapons labs. He probably knew more about what was going on in Pyongyang than almost anyone else in the building.
The call, according to metadata collected by the FBI, lasted just half a minute, but soon afterward Kim called Rosen and they talked for nearly a dozen minutes. After that conversation, they left the building at roughly the same time, then spoke once more on the phone after they both returned.
A classified report on North Korea had just begun circulating, and Kim was among the restricted number of officials with clearance to read it. He logged onto a secure computer, called up the report at 11:27 a.m., and phoned Rosen 10 minutes later. A few minutes past noon, he left the building again, and a minute later Rosen followed. The destruction of Kim’s life would center on the question of what the two men discussed during that brief encounter outside the State Department.
FCC’s Ajit Pai: By Making Sure The Internet Is Open And Free… It Will Inspire North Korea And Cuba To Censor
I should note, upfront, that I’ve had the chance to meet FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai a couple of times, and always found him to be interesting and knowledgeable, as well as engaged on important issues. Yet, for whatever reason, when it comes to net neutrality issues, the former Verizon lawyer (clue number 1) seems to have gone off the deep end, tossed all logic and intellectual honesty out the window, in an effort to just lash out angrily with whatever he’s got. We’ve talked about his incoherent attack on Netflix and his sudden and newfound love of transparency (never noted before…).
But his latest move just strips whatever credibility he may have had on the subject completely away. He’s insisting that the FCC’s new net neutrality rules (which he opposes) will inspire North Korea and Iran to further control and censor the internet (which they already control and heavily censor). And he’s not arguing this in a “they hate us for our freedom” way, but he’s actively lying and claiming that this move — a move to guarantee openness and not censorship online — will give the North Korean and Iranian governments the political cover to censor the internet. Let’s be frank, Pai’s statements are complete nonsense.
“If in the United States we adopt regulations that assert more government control over how the Internet operates … it becomes a lot more difficult for us to go on the international stage and tell governments: ‘Look, we want you to keep your hands off the internet,’” he said.
“Even if the ideas aren’t completely identical, you can appreciate the optical difficult in trying to make that case,” he added.