News & Media
Charlie Hebdo, One Year On
It’s been just over a year since the Charlie Hebdo murders, and I thought it was time to do a little more than simply defy, although I do love that that was Ken’s way of commemorating the date. On January 7, 2015, a group of lowlives attacked the offices of a satirical magazine for no other reason than they disliked its sense of humor. They believed that their religion trumped anyone’s right to mock it. They believed that their umbrage meant that they had the right to take the lives of those who worked there. And therein proved that their
Twitter Takes a Side in the Culture Wars – Lies About It
Twitter announced that in order to combat abuse and harassment on its increasingly unpopular online platform, that it would enact new rules and regulations that would hopefully get control of things. The stated mission was to cut down on loosely-defined “harassment.” But, what it seems to really be is yet another example of someone with a little bit of power behaving arbitrarily in favor of their “team.” Twitter didn’t call it “censorship.” They called it “fighting abuse to protect freedom of expression.” Ok, fair enough. Since it gives away accounts for free, and every lunatic has access to a computer,
The Establishment Claus
by Jay Marshall Wolman Five years ago, Josh Blackman asked whether the NORAD tracking of St. Nick violated the Establishment Clause. After all, he is sort of a religious icon. I would suggest it doesn’t. This year, the Consumerist delved a bit more into the history. It seems that a kid was concerned about that right jolly old elf, and he asked CONAD (predecessor to NORAD) about Santa. This proved to be a great public relations move, to show how our might could protect Mr. Claus from those godless commie bastards. This was in the 1950s (1955 specifically). The Pledge of Allegiance had
Free Speech and Discrimination Redux
by Jay Marshall Wolman Last week, I wrote about a potential implication from In re: Tam, based upon the hypothetical from a dissenting judge about a business calling itself “Spics Not Welcome”. There is a significant tension in the law between freedom of speech, which includes the right to offend, and anti-discrimination laws. The fine folks at the New York City Commission on Human Rights have decided to push the envelope, issuing guidelines for employers and landlords regarding transgendered individuals. Among the well-intentioned guidelines are those that prohibit an employer or landlord from using a person’s biological gender instead of the
Lawyer Mind Tricks
by Jay Marshall Wolman, CIPP/US Like many of you, I saw Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I’m a lawyer and had law-oriented thoughts. This post contains spoilers, so scroll past this image: and this one: OK, that should be far enough. Cyber Security. Star Wars exists in a galaxy where they have some form of holographic Skype/Facetime/etc. The Jedi Council used in the prequels, and Lord Vader communicated with the Emperor this way. Yet, in both A New Hope and in The Force Awakens, we have sensitive information transmitted through a physical medium given to a mobile AI.
Randazza: In These Parts, Claiming that a Republican Supports Harry Reid is Defamation
As readers may know, I have a bit of a soft spot (or a hard on, depending on how you look at it) for the Nevada Anti-SLAPP statute. See The Silver State Sets the Gold Standard. We don’t get many cases interpreting it out here in Nevada, so we generally interpret it the way that the California courts would look at theirs. So when we depart from California, even in an unpublished opinion, it is worth looking at. Recently, we had a pretty spooky case come down, Schmidt v. Kieckhefer. In that case, in an unpublished (and thank god, un-citeable)
Gag Clause Act Passes Senate
The U.S. Senate recently passed their version of the “Consumer Review Freedom Act” (CRFA), which would bar companies from trying to enforce “gag clauses” in contracts with consumers. It’s a good law that is long overdue, since clauses like these have been showing up much more often lately and serving as the basis of breach of contract claims bundled with frivolous defamation lawsuits. The impetus for this law is a Utah federal case, Palmer v. Kleargear.com, Case No. 1:13-cv-00175 (D. Utah July 1, 2014). The plaintiff there bought one of Kleargear’s products and then complained about it on the Internet.
Spics Not Welcome
by Jay Marshall Wolman By now, you have probably heard that Simon Tam won his case before the Federal Circuit regarding his attempt to register a trademark for his band “The Slants”. (Disclosure: Randazza Legal Group represented the First Amendment Lawyers’ Association as amicus curiae in that case and was recently co-counsel with Mr. Tam’s lawyers, Ron Coleman and Joel MacMull, on another matter.) In short, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals found that the denial of registration under the Lanham Act’s prohibition of the registration of “disparaging” marks did not survive strict or intermediate scrutiny under First Amendment analysis. I
Gag Clause Act Passes Senate
The U.S. Senate recently passed their version of the “Consumer Review Freedom Act” (CRFA), which would bar companies from trying to enforce “gag clauses” in contracts with consumers. It’s a good law that is long overdue, since clauses like these have been showing up much more often lately and serving as the basis of breach of contract claims bundled with frivolous defamation lawsuits. The impetus for this law is a Utah federal case, Palmer v. Kleargear.com, Case No. 1:13-cv-00175 (D. Utah July 1, 2014). The plaintiff there bought one of Kleargear’s products and then complained about it on the Internet.
Bernie Sanders v. DNC
Bernie Sanders sues the Democratic National Committee and the complaint is here. The legal issues are less exciting than Bernie’s hair style. What is more exciting is that Bernie Sanders isn’t taking this shit from the DNC. The DNC is playing the part of Roger Goodell in the 2016 election cycle. See Former NFL VP Of Officiating: “Looks Like The League Office Is Making Decisions On Who Wins/Loses Games” With New Playoff Officiating Rule, Masshole Sports. My take on this is that the DNC was pissed off enough last time around when its anointed candidate didn’t beat the upstart. They
Circuit Split Over Cybersquatting Act – 11th Circuit Rejects GoPets in Jysk v. Roy
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), provides: “A person shall be liable . . . by the owner of a mark . . . if . . . that person . . . has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark . . .; and . . . registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that . . . is identical or confusingly similar to that mark.” Back in 2011, the 9th Circuit came up with a pretty bizarre decision, GoPets Ltd.v. Hise, 657 F.3d 1024 (9th Cir. 2011). In that case, the
Bernie Sanders v. DNC
Bernie Sanders sues the Democratic National Committee and the complaint is here. The legal issues are less exciting than Bernie’s hair style. What is more exciting is that Bernie Sanders isn’t taking this shit from the DNC. The DNC is playing the part of Roger Goodell in the 2016 election cycle. See Former NFL VP Of Officiating: “Looks Like The League Office Is Making Decisions On Who Wins/Loses Games” With New Playoff Officiating Rule, Masshole Sports. My take on this is that the DNC was pissed off enough last time around when its anointed candidate didn’t beat the upstart. They
Circuit Split Over Cybersquatting Act – 11th Circuit Rejects GoPets in Jysk v. Roy
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d), provides: “A person shall be liable . . . by the owner of a mark . . . if . . . that person . . . has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark . . .; and . . . registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that . . . is identical or confusingly similar to that mark.” Back in 2011, the 9th Circuit came up with a pretty bizarre decision, GoPets Ltd.v. Hise, 657 F.3d 1024 (9th Cir. 2011). In that case, the
The First Amendment is not a free pass to harass
A charter school in Washington DC is suing abortion protesters. (source) Why? Because Planned Parenthood is opening next to the school, so the abortion protesters have decided to focus their protests on the children, parents, and employees of the school. Nobody ever said that abortion protesters were required to use logic. Although one might say it is logical. The protesters hope that the parents at the school will use their political clout to demand that Planned Parenthood move, so their kids can get back to getting an education. The school is suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress and for
The First Amendment is not a free pass to harass
A charter school in Washington DC is suing abortion protesters. (source) Why? Because Planned Parenthood is opening next to the school, so the abortion protesters have decided to focus their protests on the children, parents, and employees of the school. Nobody ever said that abortion protesters were required to use logic. Although one might say it is logical. The protesters hope that the parents at the school will use their political clout to demand that Planned Parenthood move, so their kids can get back to getting an education. The school is suing for intentional infliction of emotional distress and for
Good First Amendment Case – Biro v. Conde Nast
Peter Biro was the subject of a 2010 article in The New Yorker. Biro sued the publisher and other defendants who allegedly republished statements from the original article. Since Biro was deemed to be a limited purpose public figure, the court dismissed the claims against him because he did not allege sufficient facts to plausibly support an eventual finding of actual malice. The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal in Biro v. Conde Nast. The facts of the case really don’t matter for the purposes of this post. For all I know, Mr. Biro got a really raw deal, and the
Revisiting Prostitution
by Jay Marshall Wolman My recent post on the Ninth Amendment got me thinking about Griswold v. Connecticut, and its progeny, including Lawrence v. Texas. Although the latter explicitly stated it wasn’t ruling on prostitution, it didn’t say it wasn’t protected. Assuming a logical thread from Griswold, the case law is that, basically, whatever two consenting adults choose to do in private is private and the government should not be intruding. There are governmental interests in preventing abuse (based on consent or ability to consent) or preventing public sex, but other than that, how is prostitution still a crime? The government has no interest
Happy 5/6 Bill of Rights Day
by Jay Marshall Wolman We here at the Legal Satyricon are big fans of the Bill of Rights. Over at the Runt Piglet Squeals, the official blog of the Third Amendment Lawyers Association, I have a post discussing the less commonly understood history of the proposal and ratification of the Bill of Rights. The tl;dr version: it was originally 12 articles and numbers 3-12 became amendments 1-10 of the U.S. Constitution on Dec. 15, 1791. (Article 2 became the 27th Amendment on May 7, 1992, yes, 1992.) One thing I noted in that post is that, if another 27 states ratified Article
Good First Amendment Case – Biro v. Conde Nast
Peter Biro was the subject of a 2010 article in The New Yorker. Biro sued the publisher and other defendants who allegedly republished statements from the original article. Since Biro was deemed to be a limited purpose public figure, the court dismissed the claims against him because he did not allege sufficient facts to plausibly support an eventual finding of actual malice. The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal in Biro v. Conde Nast. The facts of the case really don’t matter for the purposes of this post. For all I know, Mr. Biro got a really raw deal, and the
She’s/He’s Got The Jack, Do You Got a Case?
A guy went on Tinder, picked up a woman, and got herpes from her. Yeah? Why is that news? Well, the guy sued her for giving her the as-of-today incurable disease. (source) The woman knew that she had herpes, but she lied to the guy about her condition. She claims that she only thought it would be contagious during an outbreak. He is now suing her for giving him the virus. Does he have a case? Probably. People do bad things to one another with their genitalia. In one case I reviewed, a wife accused a husband of intentionally infecting