Lawfare

Date
Canonical
10836
Archive
10836 [history]
Categories
Culture , Weird Stuff

The weaponization of the law, particularly the civil courts has become so common, that we no longer notice it. The most obvious example is when  someone gets acquitted of a crime, but then the alleged victim goes to civil court for damages. Alternatively, some hate thinker gets off in state court, but the the feds come in and charge the guy with civil rights violations. It’s an obvious abuse of the law in order to get around the jury system, but it is now just another feature of a system more concerned with vengeance than justice.

The college rape hoax phenomenon is another variation on this. A mentally unstable coed makes claims that can never be proved, but the school, fearing Title IX litigation, punishes the accused anyway. The SPLC is doing something similar with their litigation against the website, The Daily Stormer. The point of the suit is to shut down the site, because the people at the SPLC don’t like the content. Even if the case is eventually tossed, the point is to intimidate the owner and anyone who holds similar opinions.

This bizarre story is a new twist on how the lawfare game is being played.

Tumblr has released account information for close to 300 anonymous users to a revenge porn victim in what online privacy advocates say is a major violation of the First Amendment.

The 27-year-old New York victim, who first learned that an unauthorized video of her having sex with a boyfriend when she was just 17 had been posted on Tumblr ​​last winter, plans to sue the users for disseminating child pornography.

“The ultimate goal is to expose these people,” said attorney Daniel Szalkiewicz, who represents the Bronx victim.

“There is no First Amendment protection for child porn,” Szalkiewicz said.

On Monday​,​ Tumblr complied with a June 7 order issued by a Manhattan state court judge to release the email addresses and account names of 281 Tumblr users.

You’ll notice the legal base stealing. Is this woman a victim? We can’t know that until it is established that the video was shot without her consent. If she agreed to the filming, which is most likely, then she is the victim of her own stupidity. Then you have the legal fiction that this is child pornography. No one in their right mind would call this child porn. Clearly, her lawyer is hoping that fear of being tarred with “child porn” is enough to coerce a settlement. The Mafia would be envious of this maneuver.

What we have now is litigation in the shadow legal system. The lawyer has coerced the company into aiding him in what amounts to a shakedown. The lawyer is also using the media to threaten his targets with exposure and all that comes with it, unless they agree to pay him off. It is a clever legal trap. In order for these people to defend themselves, they first have to admit to viewing the material. A First Amendment defense would argue that they had a right to look at what was posted on the site, even if it was illegally posted.

Once you admit to viewing the material, you run the risk of losing the initial claim and then having to argue about whether it constitutes a violation of child porn laws. You don’t have to be a graduate of Harvard Law to see that the easiest way out of this trap is to settle as a group and get some sort of non-disclosure in place. In other words, this case is not brought in the interest of justice or to mitigate harm done to the alleged victim. It is a shake down and what most people would consider extortion, even if the court does not.

This goes back to the Servile State post. No one in this sordid relationship is free in any meaningful way. The big bad company is being forced to supervise its users, to make sure they do not violate the ever shifting morality of the people in charge of the state. If they fail in that duty, they are forced to help punish the users they did not properly supervise, by ratting them out to the state. The result here is that everyone is responsible for everyone else. It turns everyone into both a slave and slave master.

That’s the other aspect of lawfare. It is uncivilized. Into the Middle Ages, tribes in Europe still practiced the wergeld. This was the price put upon a man’s life based on his rank. If a rich man killed a poor man, by accident or on purpose, he could pay the victims family in gold for the value of his life. You can see how this can quickly get out of hand. Not only would rich people feel free to kill inconvenient poor people, they would be tempted to kill their families too. No family to pay, means to no wergeld to pay.

That’s what we have with lawfare. Instead of the law determining if a crime has been committed and then determining the guilt or innocence of the accused, the process is about determining the price of this woman’s honor, as it were. In the future, the courts may be forced to post prices for posting revenge porn so that angry ex-boyfriends know in advance the risk of hitting send. At the same time, young women will now know what they can get for agreeing to be filmed having sex with that guy they picked up at the bar.

That’s sarcasm, obviously, but lawfare is not a good thing for a society. What cases like this do is undermine the respect for law. It is why the bar associations used to forbid advertising on TV. They knew that greasy sleezeballs in their ranks would go trolling for slip and fall cases and phony disability claims. That’s been the result and as a consequence the public’s respect for lawyers has declined. If you want to have a low-trust society, erode public faith in the law. That’s exactly what lawfare is doing in America.

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Comments (Historical)

The comments below were originally posted to thezman.com.

43 Comments

Glenfilthie #37702 July 13, 2017 7:26 am 18
The courts became liberal chit shows when they were infested with activist judges back in the 60’s. The doings in your average family divorce court are proof of how utterly corrupt and self serving they have become. It is my conviction that the only way to clean up that mess is to take out every second judge and lawyer at random – and have them shot as a warning to the others. Since that will never happen… corrupt courts are a fact of life.Another fact of life is low women. All through history, even great men have been undone by mere whores. Even honest Women are very skillful manipulators, and dishonest women are incredibly dangerous animals. There is no such thing as free love, boys. There is always a price and the onus is on the man to know what that price is. Like it or not sex is a contract. You not only have to know the terms of that contract, you have to evaluate the character of the woman offering it. Protect yourself boys: long courtships, adhere to traditional values, and reject slutty or promiscuous women out of hand. Further: revere your woman when you find such a woman (they ARE out there) – revere her.Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and the courts are more than willing to be their tools.
notsothoreau #37726 July 13, 2017 10:47 am 5
I’ve been reading Proverbs at night, since it’s supposed to be the most conservative book in the Bible. Seems they spend a lot of time warning men against loose women, very similar to what you’ve mentioned.
A.T. Tapman Merica #37730 July 13, 2017 12:18 pm 1
Any woman not under the direct control of her husband or father will reveal her Thot nature. There are no exceptions!
Zeroh Tollrants #37849 July 14, 2017 3:53 pm 1
Despite being called a “turncoat,” woman, I agree with this, fully. One of my only complaints with the MGTOW/anti-woman branch is that they blame women for things like Women’s Suffrage movements leading to voting rights, women having so much control in the workplace, in the court system. I do not disagree that this is all true, it is, but who were the dummies that gave these yappy, (yet, powerless), broads what they wanted? If I would’ve been in charge, you wouldn’t have that 19th Amendment business, to begin with, much less all the other future lunacy that followed. Learn to say, “NO,” fellas.
Lorenzo #37688 July 12, 2017 11:41 pm 17
“The big bad company is being forced to supervise its users, to make sure they do not violate the ever shifting morality of the people in charge of the state.”…TheZman The conventional word that is employed to describe tyranny is ‘systematic’. The true essence of a dictatorship is in fact not its regularity but the unpredictability and caprice; those who live under it must never be able to relax, must never be quite sure they have followed the rules correctly or not. Thus, the ruled can always be found to be in the wrong.”…Christopher Hitchens
Lorenzo #37689 July 12, 2017 11:42 pm -1
I left out the open quote mark on Hitchens’s comment.
Joey Junger #37734 July 13, 2017 2:34 pm 11
I’m not sure about the pornography case, but the behavior of the SPLC toward the Daily Stormer is disgraceful. I think the science fiction writer William Gibson described the internet as a sort of mutual hallucination (or like a novel that’s written by someone and then read by someone else, a shared form of telepathy). When I’m reading someone’s blog or commenting on it, I’m doing nothing but sharing my thoughts or reading the contents of someone else’s mind. If someone (Zuckerberg or Morris Dees) wants to “regulate” (re: control) the content of the internet , they don’t just want to punish speech, they want to control thought. Once again, reality outpaces the worst totalitarian visions of dystopian SF.
Anonymous White Male #37709 July 13, 2017 9:08 am 10
“You can see how this can quickly get out of hand. Not only would rich people feel free to kill inconvenient poor people, they would be tempted to kill their families too. No family to pay, means to no wergeld to pay.”Except lawfare is just the opposite. The “members” of the man’s “family’, be it genetic or fellow travelers, game the system to receive wergeld for themselves. It has gotten to the point that the best thing a black man can do for his family is get killed. Preferably by the police. And it doesn’t matter if it was self-defense. The civil law system is about lawyers making a buck.
DarrylHarb #37701 July 13, 2017 7:17 am 9
“Not only would rich people feel free to kill inconvenient poor people, they would be tempted to kill their families too. No family to pay, means to no were-geld to pay.” Now you know why euthanasia is being pushed: it is the solution to the problem of unfunded retirement entitlements, even as abortion was the solution to the growth of the underclass brought on by unfunded welfare entitlements.
Worldly Wiseman #37704 July 13, 2017 8:08 am 4
it would explain importing of africans and arabs into europe. minimum pay no pension minimum healthcare with a constant threat of deportation. smarter locals can be bought with school vouchers, ideas like meritocracy, ayn rand philosophy or HBD – IQ . robert ardrey would be proud – us vs them played to perfection
guest #37699 July 13, 2017 7:09 am 8
Reminds me of a new trend how copyright claims on YouTube are wielded as a weapon, are used to dox people, because filing a counter claim requires the user to disclose his information, and bingo! So you either give out your address, or your video stays down. The problem is that anyone can claim anything, and YouTube has to take it down, that’s how the DMCA works.
SamlAdams #37696 July 13, 2017 6:09 am 8
Once found myself sharing a lunch table years ago with Jacob Applebaum who introduced me to the term “turnkey totalitarianism”. Though at opposite ends of the political spectrum–this was a point of solid agreement. Beria’s dream has come true.
Teapartydoc #37712 July 13, 2017 9:13 am 7
It is hard to know if a perceived historical trend in which one sees an historical parallel will come to the end one expects. As far as the Servile state goes we see situations where one is obligated to work for certain companies if one desires to ply one’s trade in certain locations, and we see that there are penalties for leaving near to the point of them being prohibitive, but we have yet to see people being tied to an employers by force of law. What force of law there is is obviously a cooperation (conspiracy?) between govt and powerful employer.When I think of these things I obviously concentrate on my own profession and assume that there are similarities elsewhere.I mentioned earlier the tendency for consolidation that has been encouraged by govt regulations and how if a doctor is going to continue to be able to make a living in his home town he must capitulate to the large conglomerate that has taken over the local “market”. Other things that makes it hard for him to leave the conglomerate are restrictive covenants forcing him out of the locality if he desires to go back to work for himself or others, economic credentialing whereby the conglomerate controlled credentials committee of the hospital(s) decide not to renew or to actually revoke privileges, sham peer review whereby any loose comment can be used to slander one’s reputation SJW-style, and by the cost of malpractice insurance in which if one decides to go to a locality not covered by his current insurance he would have to pay a “tail” on it to cover any not as yet claims against him. Depending on the specialty and where you practice these tails can run up into a couple hundred thousand bucks. If there is a shortage of one’s specialty somewhere, the new employer might pick up the tab for this, but if you want to go into private practice this cost is born by you along with all your other expenses, which may include a cash payment for your freedom to the conglomerate if you want to stay in your home town. In effect the peasant is tied to the soil, and we only have yet to hold his sons to his profession and force them to work for the conglomerate.These facts are why I and so many of my colleagues have not encouraged our children into the practice of medicine and why you see so many servile H1b’s in offices and hospitals.Just last night one of my sons pointed out that businesses that lease from the university foundation may have competitive advantages over other businesses and that this could facilitate the inexorable expansion you see with universities. They buy prime land and pay no taxes on it. They lease it to businesses at a rate lower than other local landowners can afford to, slowly driving the businesses on private land out of business, while the city sees a shrinking tax base and exacerbates the situation by raising taxes on private land. More land seemingly inexplicably falls into the lap of the university foundation. The process continues.I have no doubt in my mind that a similar process was involved with the formation of the Roman latifundia and the growth of monastic estates in Europe.In my mind the universities and the university health systems are the historical parallels of those things and unchecked will end up being powers against which rebellion will be necessary to avoid encroaching serfdom. It may not affect you in a direct way now, but it will. It is not only an ideological fight you are in with academia, but an existential one.
TomA #37708 July 13, 2017 8:58 am 7
This phenomenon is matter for evolution. When the legal system grows evermore corrupted and unjust, then individuals in society must respond by becoming more robust. The latter can take many forms, one of which is to alter the terms of the battle; especially the place, timing, and mode of combat. Only a fool would fight this battle on terms dictated by a corrupt combatant that abuses social institutions to win by any means necessary. In nature, these kinds of challenges often evolve robustness in the form of improved strength, stealth, and cunning.
Dutch #37731 July 13, 2017 12:22 pm 4
The trick is to stay out of sight. Once the system has detained you for any reason, that system can do what it wants to with you. Like a traveler getting waylaid by the highwaymen, long ago, but with the color of “law”. As dropping out of sight becomes more attractive, more people will do it, as best as they can. Getting out of debt, holding cash and precious metals, living off the grid. People respond to incentives, and the incentive is to bug out.
TWS #37687 July 12, 2017 11:40 pm 6
There’s a sharp line with child pornography. Thirty years ago Traci Lords cost the video industry millions and copies were hunted down like national secrets. Legally this case is worse. Lords was more than complicit but it doesn’t matter. Fake I’d, false name, consent isn’t an issue because at that age you cannot consent to the pictures. It’s so common now that most jurisdictions ignore ‘sexting’ but this was distribution. Theyhaveto make every effort to find out where the image went and who distributed it. This will cost money and screw up lives.
thezman #37698 July 13, 2017 6:23 am 6
I was thinking of the Tracy Lords case as well. I doubt this was deliberate, as the Lords cases suggested. Some people think Lords knew what she was doing from the start. The difference here, from a legal point of view, is this. We have laws to protect the site. They cannot be expected to police every post. As long as they take down content when made aware of it, they are not legally liable. It’s why the they are not being sued.
Karl Hungus #37714 July 13, 2017 9:19 am 0
from watching Lords at work, I would say she definitely knows what she is doing (in the videos)
TWS #37727 July 13, 2017 10:56 am 5
Pornography has held a strange place in society. Illegal and socially unacceptable in most times and places, a young man could go his entire life without ever seeing it. That included everything but the most tame (by our standards) pinups.While we have a very few bright lines now, (children, animals, necrophilia) we no longer have any real stigma and certainly no legal consequences. But those bright lines are tiny area in a vast sea of free and freely available smut.Actions that would have lead to a woman changing her name and a man being run out of town on a rail (sometimes literally) are now easily watched by anybody interested. Anyone at all. In fact there is so much of it that I am willing to be that a person who watches it at all has seen something illegal.Within a few short years (less than my lifetime), pornography went from something that could only be produced in a few small areas and could not be distributed in others is now available everywhere. Some cities even have clubs and events for children who are ‘exploring’.This is a direct breakdown of society and leads to problems that we haven’t seen ever. As far as lawfare, it makes it that much easier for the powers that be. My grandfather, a chief of police after WWII told me that he could arrest anyone now (the sixties) because of all the laws they had put on the books. He hated, he was an old country boy who figured live and let live. Now they don’t even bother with the police. There’s those pesky rights and cops must keep records of their actions. When was the last time the crisis action office at the local university kept action by action, minute by minute logs of the actual work they did?
Calsdad #37923 July 17, 2017 6:41 am 0
Lords sure looked like she knew what she was doing in the videos. Just sayin……….
Kentucky Headhunter #37785 July 14, 2017 9:10 am 4
They knew that greasy sleezeballs in their ranks would go trolling for slip and fall cases and phony disability claims. Lawyers don’t seem to come in any other form as far as I can tell. They legal system is set up to benefit lawyers and the state. Everyone else is just grist for the mill.
Coimhlint #37771 July 14, 2017 8:05 am 4
Just read the other day that Muslim groups in France practice lawfare against anyone who dares to criticise Islam. Whether the legal complaint has any merit or not is immaterial: the goal is to drain time, energy and resources from the accused, make them think twice next time around and to ultimately quell all opposition to Islam.
James LePore #37735 July 13, 2017 4:24 pm 4
Just about everybody in the case is a disgrace. The girl, (unless she didn’t consent), her boyfriend (he also posted her Facebook link), tumblr, the users who shared the video hundreds of times, the girl’s lawyer (extortion comes to mind), the judge for not shielding the users’ names until their culpability was established. It’s a cesspool.
Teapartydoc #37705 July 13, 2017 8:24 am 4
This comes to mind:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro_CaelioThis girl is a whore who seeks to be paid more than her services are worth. Perhaps the way to work out a settlement is to determine the market value of the video and what the thot riding the cock carousel would be paid for her “acting”.
Rhino #37695 July 13, 2017 6:05 am 4
Lawfare is helped out a lot by the proliferation of strict liability crimes. (e.g. intent doesn’t matter, see also, every case of statutory rape ever).
Old Codger #37725 July 13, 2017 10:11 am 8
Strict liability? Oh, you mean like Hillary’s violation of national security laws? The ones where Nancy Boy Comey created “intent” as an element, even though the statutes read otherwise?
SWRichmond #37738 July 13, 2017 4:45 pm 4
Property owners and businessmen have been complaining bitterly about the Administrative Law system put on place to interpret and then enforce various “laws”. Law of course is the ultimate weapon of oppression, backed as it is by the monopoly on then use of force. 3 felonies a day.
Al from da Nort #37723 July 13, 2017 9:44 am 3
Lawfare is the ‘logical’ result of social atomization + corruption of the courts. Individual humans have always needed protection from predation by other humans if society is not to collapse due to the extended periods of vulnerability at both ends of our lives. Originally, this was the role of extended kin groups. In civilization, other institutions took over this function. Our legal system was supposed to provide this protection but has been increasingly taken over by ingenious scammers, such as the one named above, and now seems infected by and incapable of rejecting the parasites.We might revert to wergeld, the likely historical basis of civil judgements, but this cannot really happen without recreation of extended kin groups to back up the claims. Before anthropology became a PC cesspit, there was general agreement that the function of blood money/wergeld, etc. (i.e. compensation paid for ‘wrongful’ death) was to avoid blood-feud between clans in tribal-level societies. The quid pro quo for the payment was that the victim’s clan wouldn’t pick out some random member of the perp’s clan for convent fatal retaliation, back and forth, on and on. As such, wergeld represented a distinct improvement over ‘the state of nature’, the war of all (your kin group) against all (everybody else’s kin group).But without extended kin groups for mutual protection or a higher authority to appeal to for justice, weregild makes little sense. It becomes yet another means for the relatively powerful to evade the consequences of their actions, as Z Man says. The ultimate examples of this were warrior castes dominating peasants who had no rights at all, such as Sparta and Japan under the Samurai. There, a peasant could be ‘killed for insolence’ at any time. If he were one of yours, no problem, you owned him anyway.However, if said nameless peasant belonged to another Samurai clan and this was becoming a habit, weregild might just functionally reappear. The scenario in most all cases throughout history was that the victim’s clan showed up and demanded money or the head of the perp, else war: Blood-feud being the option of the weak. The perp’s clan then had to urgently decide upon a course of action. The distinct possibility that your extended family might not care to pay, and that the consequences were then fatal, was a useful social restraint upon impulsive individual aggression.
Eclectic Esoteric #37741 July 13, 2017 6:48 pm 2
The 2+2=5 rhetoric the left loves to use as stuffing for their IQ gap is destined to fail.
Ryo #37736 July 13, 2017 4:36 pm 2
Privatize the judicial system?
guest #37700 July 13, 2017 7:11 am 2
Speaking of law Z, you may enjoy theReasonable Doubtpodcast: “Comedian Adam Carolla is joined by criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos for a no holds barred conversation about current events” Some pod’ inspiration…
Zeroh Tollrants #37851 July 14, 2017 4:22 pm 0
So many on the right are doing their, “I also hate “The Daily Stormer,” and hope they do get shut down,” routine, yet, cannot ever seem to see the slippery slope winding its way to their back stair.It’s the same with our Confederate monuments. So many “right” wingers not only don’t care about this issue, they secretly or even openly, agree w/ the Progressives that they should be be destroyed, ISIS-style.I’ve asked numerous times, “Will you fight when, not if, they come for Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington & Franklin?” Of course, there’s no answer to this, because what answer could there be? Sickening, spineless nothings, men and women. I wouldn’t trust a one of them to pet-sit a hamster.
Trent Denton #37683 July 12, 2017 9:56 pm -62
Speaking of the law it appears that there is hard evidence of Russian collusion with Trump and Trump jr to steal the election. Impeachment will begin next month I’ll bet
David Wright #37685 July 12, 2017 10:21 pm 15
Tiny dick is back.
Kek Jr. #37686 July 12, 2017 11:03 pm 13
Speaking of booger eating inbreds, someone who calls themselves “Trent Denton” is parroting untrue nonsense he read on Huffington Post
Epaminondas #37703 July 13, 2017 8:00 am 4
Check out your approval score, dickhead.
Anonymous White Male #37711 July 13, 2017 9:12 am 5
The only thing “hard” about the “evidence” is that it is hard to see how this is evidence. A private citizen meeting a foreign national with the promise that they would reveal unlawful actions by a string Secretary of State. Isn’t any private citizen supposed to provide information about government corruption to the authorities? Apparently, douches like “Trent” are using campaign finance laws to prove that Trump should be impeached.
Old Codger #37724 July 13, 2017 10:08 am 10
Uh oh! This “Trump Jr fake news” is quickly unraveling! Seems the Russian attorney/honeypot is an Obama plant! Story has already started to disappear from CNN!
onezeno #37713 July 13, 2017 9:16 am 3
You can bet, in fact. Go ahead, make that bet, and post the screenshot, unless you’re just some beta male playing pretend on the internet. https://www.predictit.org/Contract/5470/Will-Donald-Trump-be-impeached-in-2017
SamlAdams #37716 July 13, 2017 9:23 am 8
Please keep going down this path. I beg you. And just like “cowbell”, you need more “Maxine Waters”. Keep SanFranNan far enough out of the Alzheimers abyss to run one more time in 2018. We deeply want you to do this. I can picture those Rust Belt, blue collar swing voters thinking to themselves, “boy I should have voted for those people in the last election”. Another year or so of political nihilism and zero self reflection will hand the next couple elections to the Republicans, no matter how fractious they are. So please….continue.
Dutch #37728 July 13, 2017 12:10 pm 7
OK, Zman, this guy’s posts offer nothing any more, do you really want your comment threads clogged up with this kind of thing? Some humor, or an interesting unexpected insight is fine, but this is just the unadulterated CNN/NYT/WP drivel that is used by them to buy themselves political favor. No need to repeat it here, verbatim, where political favor from the powers-that-be is not up for grabs. This stuff is so dead and soggy that even we can’t really respond to it in an interesting or worthy manner any more.
SWRichmond #37737 July 13, 2017 4:39 pm 4
He / she is an obvious troll. But it is a kind coming-of-age ritual for an active conservative site to acquire a dedicated troll who posts first and tries to derail discussion with BS posts. Best response is I.G.N.O.R.E.
Joey Junger #37733 July 13, 2017 2:33 pm 6
Let me know when you find the smoking gun. Methinks Hillary’s steaming pile of uranium produces a more fetid wind than the cordite wafting from Donald Jr.’s alleged gun.


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