Anonymity and Cyber-Bullying

This originally ran on my bankruptcy blog. I am running it here as well. As a blogger, I am interested in cases about blogging. Recently, I have come across coverage of two cases dealing with people who wanted to say mean things on-line under the cloak of anonymity. One case involved postings which were merely libelous and nasty, while another involved a determined campaign of cyber-bullying against two female law students.

Skanks of NYC

The current issue of the Federal Lawyer has an excellent article by Michael Tonsing entitled "A Fashion Model, a Mean-Spirited Name-Calling Detractor, a Blog, and at Least Four Teachable Moments," The Federal Lawyer (October 2009), p. 10. It is the story of a blogger who wrote five posts about a fashion model under the title "Skanks of NYC." The author also included some sexually suggestive photos of the model. The model, Liskula Cohen, sued Google to find out the identity of the blogger. The trial judge in New York granted this request over Google's objection. The outed blogger turned out to be another woman, who then sued Google for giving up her IP address. In an interesting case of chutzpah, the attorney for the outed blogger compared the right to hurl anonymous insults to the authors of the Federalist Papers who wrote under pseudonyms (but whose identities were well known). Mr. Tonsing concludes his article with a great pun: "Anonymity is not guaranteed. Proceed at your own risk in Cyberia. When is a door not a door? When it's ajar."

Auto-Admit

The other case, which I discovered from Prof. Nancy Rapoport's blog, is much darker and more disturbing. A website called AutoAdmit bills itself as "the most prestigious law school discussion board in the world." www.AutoAdmit.com. Two Yale law school students were subjected to a vicious smear campaign on the site. Some 39 different anonymous posters using names such as pauliewalnuts, Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey and Sleazy Z started a campaign which began with sexually explicit comments and escalated to statements suggesting that the women be raped and killed. According to a Complaint filed in United States District Court:

Two women who have done nothing except work hard in school and show promise of making contributions to society have been targeted because of their appearance and out of spite to be the subject of a campaign of pornographic abuse. Hiding behind pseudonyms and the smug assumption that their carefully-aimed hostility can pass as merely juvenile misconduct, the defendants have worked assiduously to harm the plaintiffs, for the sheer joy of destruction. Plaintiffs, whose character, intelligence, appearance and sexual lives have been thoroughly trashed by the defendants, now seek redress by bringing this action for damages and injunctive relief.

Complaint, Doe v. Unknown Defendants, Case No. 307CV00909, U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, p. 1.

The statements made on the discussion board, which were outrageous in their vulgarity, are set forth in detail in the complaint. Some of the tamer comments suggested that one of the students had bribed her way into Yale Law School and was having a lesbian affair with the Dean of Admissions, included anti-Semitic slurs about the students, stated that one of them had herpes and had numerous postings about the manner in which the posters wanted to have forced sex with them. The campaign went so far as to send anonymous emails to faculty of Yale Law School and a firm where one of the students had a summer clerkship suggesting that she would harm the reputation of both the Law School and the law firm.

The two students fought back, hiring Reputation Defender, which is an internet public relations firm, and filing suit in United States District Court. In the District Court suit, the plaintiffs sent subpoenas to the internet service providers of the anonymous posters seeking their identity. One such anonymous person, who went by the moniker AK47, sought to quash the subpoena. In an interesting opinion, U.S. District Judge Christopher Droney found that:

The forgoing principles and decisions make clear that Doe 21 has a First Amendment right to anonymous Internet speech, but that the right is not absolute and must be weighed against Doe II’s need for discovery to redress alleged wrongs. Courts have considered a number of factors in balancing these two competing interests. This balancing analysis ensures that the First Amendment rights of anonymous Internet speakers are not lost unnecessarily, and that plaintiffs do not use discovery to “harass, intimidate or silence critics in the public forum opportunities presented by the Internet.”

Ruling on Defendant John Doe 21's Motion to Quash Plaintiff's Subpoena and Motion to Proceed Anonymously, Doe v. Unknown Defendants, Case No. 3:07CV909 (D.Ct. 6/13/08). After weighing various factors, the Court concluded that the subpoena should not be quashed.

As a result of discovery, the Plaintiffs concluded that one of the posters was Matthew C. Ryan, an undergraduate student at the University of Texas. Other identities were discovered, but kept quiet during settlement negotiations. When names started to be named, settlements came quickly. Left unanswered was what motivated the attacks in the first place.

In a bizarre sidenote, one of the libelled students is now the defendant in an action brought by a former employee of Auto-Admit. While attending law school, Anthony Ciolli worked for Auto-Admit as chief educational director. In their campaign to get Auto-Admit to take down the offending posts, the students and Reputation Defender publicly named Ciolli as administrator of the site and stated that he had refused to remove the postings. Ciolli was also named as a defendant in the initial lawsuit. Curiously, neither Auto-Admit nor its owner were named as defendants. Ciolli claimed that he had no control over the discussion board. However, when news of the scandal spread, a law firm rescinded its employment offer to him. While much of Ciolli's suit was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds or for failure to state a cause of action, it remains pending in the U.S. District Court in Philadephia.

Conclusion

The internet is a remarkable forum for the expression of ideas. Anyone can become their own publisher with a minimum of effort and can do so anonymously. However, anonymity can be a cloak for abuse. In the case of the Yale Law School students, they were subjected to nothing less than a gang rape of their reputations and psyches. It seems like a bit of an understatement to point out that online defamers are not the modern day equivalent of the authors of the Federalist Papers. In these cases, the outing of the anonymous authors was a good thing.

I choose to write under my own name and photo. I also don't write anything that I would be embarassed to have my mother read. For some time now, I have moderated comments on my bankruptcy blog. Besides filtering out comments which are really ads for male enhancement products, I have rejected several comments which made personal attacks on judges and litigants mentioned in my posts. As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, "Let's be careful out there."

Dissent and Racism

Recently I overheard a conversation where one person described President Obama as the worst president ever. When I recounted this to an acquaintance, he asked me if the person was a white male over 50 years old. When I acknowledged that this was the case, he made the statement that many older white males had a lot of trouble with the fact that we have an African American president. That analysis troubled me on several levels.

First, it bothered me because it seemed to be accurate in the particular case. Barack Obama has not been president long enough to be the worst president in history any more than he has been president long enough to earn the Nobel Peace Prize. On top of that, he has moved slowly and cautiously, much to the disappointment of his liberal partisans. As a result,the description of the president as being the worst in history clearly ignored reality and was likely the result of irrational prejudice.

Second, the analysis concerned me because I am a white male who is very close to 50 years old. I don't agree with the president on many levels, but it doesn't bother me that he is African American. Whether you agree with him or not, Barack Obama is a remarkable individual and his election was a watershed moment for the country. I hate to think that I would be lumped in with bigots just because of my age and gender. I also prefer to believe that we have moved past the point of widespread racial prejudice in this country (although that is easy for me to say, since I am not on the receiving end of racism).

Finally, the assessment bothered me because it follows a trend of equating dissent from the president's policies with racism. During the tea party madness this summer, commentators were quick to point out isolated incidents of racially tinged attacks on the president and his policies as evidence that the opposition was racist. It is no surprise that racists would turn out at anti-Obama rallies. By definition, racists will object to an African-American president. But that doesn't mean that dissent is racist. While it is convenient to tag those who disagree with the president as racist and therefore ignore their criticisms, that is simply lazy thinking.

The reality is that racism exists, but not everyone is racist. People can disagree with the president for reasons that have nothing to do with the color of his skin. As a result, you have to look carefully at the content of critism before ascribing motivations to it. Criticism which attacks or mocks the person is more dangerous than criticism aimed at an idea or a policy. In the example I gave at the beginning of this post, the claim that President Obama was the worst president in history could have been rhetorical shorthand for rejection of his policies. However, the manner in which it was expressed leaves much room for doubt.

In Awe of Flying

Sometimes an occurrence can become so routine that we are blinded to just how amazing it is. I fly for business sometimes. Not as much as the guy I met recently who lives in San Diego and works in Tampa, but enough so that flying is not a novelty. When I am not travelling someplace really fun, flying brings up images of standing in security lines, waiting between flights and eating bad over-priced airport food (except at the Austin airport where they have Salt Lick barbecue!). Mostly it tires me out and leaves me achy the next day.


Yesterday my jaded eyes opened to the wonder around me for just a moment. I was on a Southwest flight taking off from Phoenix on my way home from a bankruptcy conference in Las Vegas. At the moment that the plane left the ground, I realized that I was in a long metal tube which was blasting off into the atmosphere. With new eyes, I realized that my commuter flight was a close cousin to a rocket ship, defying gravity like Icarus (but without the part about getting too close to the sun and melting). In a matter of moments, we were cruising at a level where the air was too thin to breathe and the temperature was too cold to survive without the protective shell of the aircraft. Even though I was tired and ready to be home in my own bed, I was amazed for a moment.

Morning in Las Vegas

The cool, crisp air and the pastel blue of the desert sky give the Las Vegas strip a feeling of innocence and natural beauty. As I jog down the strip, my lungs grasp for traction in the thin mountain air. However I am glad to be out of the hotel alone with my music and my thoughts. On this morning, my run is not going so well. I am running out of steam about halfway through. I take the time to walk a bit and observe. Gone are the bustling crowds of the strip with their cigarettes and beer cans, the girls in cocktail dresses and the ever present hustlers passing out cards for girlie clubs from the night before. The sidewalk is home to a few joggers, service workers going to their jobs and a homeless person carrying a garbage bag full of his possessions. However, reminders of the other Las Vegas are everywhere. LED signs (the high tech version of neon) on every building advertise shows. Abandoned news stands contain advertisements for seedy clubs. Nevertheless, the morning is one of vitality rather than excess. Construction workers in orange safety vests appear every hundred yards or so, fixing the streets and renovating the insides of future shops. This is a bustling city brimming with the hope of a new day which will give way to the carnival atmosphere after sundown.

All About Sathers

My last name is Sather, which is not a particularly common name in Texas. I am told that Sather is Norwegian for shepherd, but I can't verify that. Ironically, my family is Swedish. When they came to this country, they did not have a fixed surname. The son was referred to as the son of the father and the daughter was referred to as the daughter of the mother. Thus, my ancestors were named Olson and Martasdottir. According to family legend, nearly everyone in the town where my ancestor settled was named Olson, making mail delivery difficult. As a result, Carl Olson became Carl Sather. The name Sather was not based on the Norwegian, but was derived from Satterbergen, a mountain in Sweden near where Carl came from.

Having a somewhat obscure name, I take interest whenever I see the name Sather come up. Here are a few instances of the name.

The Berkley Connection

Probably the largest concentration of Sather-related people, places and things relates to UC Berkley. Peder Sather was a Norwegian-born banker who donated money for two important landmarks at UC-Berkley in memory of his wife Jane K. Sather. These were the Sather Gate and the Sather Tower.



The Sather Gate seems to be a place where protesters tend to gather. According to recent news, demonstrators against budget cuts by UC President Mark Yudof (who was dean of the UT Law School when I attended) gathered at the Sather Gate.



The Sather Tower is also known as the Campanile due to its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Venice. The Sather Tower was the inspiration for the Sather computer language.

According to Wikipedia, "Sather is an object-oriented programming language. It originated circa 1990 at the International Computer Science Institute at the University of California-Berkley, developed by an international team led by Steve Omohundro. It supports garbage collectoin and generics by subtypes."

Apparently Sather was intended to be a simpler, more elegant version of the Eiffel computer language. Since the group which developed it was based at Berkley, they named their language after the Sather Tower, a tower which was smaller and more elegant than the Eiffel Tower. According to something that I found on the web somewhere, "The name 'Sather' is a pun of sorts-Sather was originally envisioned as a smaller, efficient, cleaned-up alternative to the language Eiffel. However, since its conception the two languages have evolved to be quite distinct."

Other Places Named Sather



Sather Air Base is located on the West side of Baghdad International Airport. It is named after Staff Sergeant Scott Sather, the first airman to give his life in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

3292 Sather is a main-belt asteroid disocvered on September 24, 1960 by Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory.

Sathers Candy

John Sather, a local grocer in Round Lake, Minnesota, established the Sather Company in 1936. In 1972, Sathers went national. It is now part of Farley's & Sathers Candy Company, Inc. You can find Sathers candy at grocery stores and Walgreen's everywhere.

Notable Sathers Who Aren't Part of My Family

Steve Sather is one of the most interesting Sathers who is not part of my family. In 1979, he was a guitarist and vocalist for Potliquor, a band from Louisiana which "straddled the line between country, blues, southern rock and hard rock, all the while throwing in horns just to keep things fresh." Steve lives in Round Rock, Texas. The proximity has caused me to receive his mail as well as calls from his ex-wife.

According to the blogs, Glen Sather may be the most hated man in New York. Sather is the current president and general manager of the New York Rangers. He was nicknamed "Tomato Face" due to his perpetually red face during his playing days. He played ten full seasons in the NHL and another season in the WHA. He played 739 regular season games as a pro and earned 801 minutes in penalties. Whenever he does something as GM of the Rangers, he is immediately criticised by dozens of hockey fanatic bloggers.



Natalie "Speed" Sather is a 24 year old race car driver from Fargo, North Dakota. Her favorite movie is "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." Her favorite food is grilled cheese with pickles. Her favorite tv show is the Austin based "Friday Night Lights." You can read more about her at www.nataliesather.com.

Drake Sather was a stand up comedian and Emmy nominated television show writer. His credits included Zoolander, Saturday Night Live, the Dennis Miller Show, Ed and NewsRadio. He had an untimely death in 2004.



Jeanne Sather is the author of the blog, The Assertive Cancer Patient, http://assertivecancerpatient.com. She began her career as a journalist. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in in 1998 at age 43, she began to write about her experiences.

When American Healthcare Works Well

One difficulty with the current debate on healthcare is that people's experiences vary dramatically. However, for most people the system works pretty well. Today was a case in point. I was preparing for my daughter's birthday party when I fell off a ladder and landed on a sawhorse. I knew right away that I had landed hard on my ribs.

Since it was Saturday, I couldn't go to see my own doctor. However, there was a minor emergency center less than a mile from my house. In just an hour and a half, I had been x-rayed and seen a doctor who confirmed that I had fractured a rib. However, it was not anything which required treatment. I left with a CD containing my x-rays and a prescription for pain medicine. All it cost me was a $50 co-pay. With the pain that I was in, I am sure that I would have willingly paid a lot more.

I was able to return to finish preparations for Kristen's party and was a lot more careful around ladders and sawhorses.

For me, the healthcare system worked extraordinarily well. I was able to get affordable treatment in a short period of time in my own neighborhood. I realize that many people don't have the same experience. However, it is important to make sure that we don't throw out the parts of the system that currently work.

Why It's Great to Be an Adult

Today I had two contrasting experiences. I spent day 4 of a hearing in bankruptcy court, then I went to my daughter's back to school night. In each class, the message was the same: if we see your phone, it will be confiscated. I felt guilty because I was texting my daughter with my progress from class to class to let her know that I hadn't gotten lost yet. However, the high school experience really contrasted with the court experience. While I was sitting in court all day, I had access to my email and texts on my phone. While the U.S. Marshalls would never allow me to make a phone call while court was in session, I was perfectly free to email my assistant to let her know that I needed a document or more bottled water or just to let her know that I was bored. The smartphone is both an incredible communications tool and a great antidote to a short attention span. However, I can see why they don't allow their use in high school classrooms. Sometimes, it's great to be an adult.