In a triumph of stupid hope over bitter experience, I am going to write again about Nakoula Basseley Nakoula aka Mark Bassely Youssef aka "Sam Bacile," one of the people behind the inflammatory "Innocence of Muslims" video.

Yesterday Nakoula admitted guilt on four of the eight supervised release allegations against him. He did so under the name Mark Bassely Youssef. In his underlying federal fraud conviction, Mr. Nakoula had repeatedly represented that his true name was Nakoula Bassely Youssef. Depending on how United States District Judge Christine Snyder handled his change of plea hearing, he might have said it under oath. (A federal change of plea colloquy is under oath. Some judges will ask you what your true name is before you're under oath, some after.) At any rate, though he answered to one name in his fraud case, Mr. Nakoula now now asserts that he changed his name to Mark Bassely Youssef before that case, and is now proceeding as Mr. Yousseff. For continuity I will continue to refer to him as Mr. Nakoula.

Though public court records reflect this result, as far as I can tell the Probation Office's petition specifying the eight supervised release violation charges has not been made public. Annoyingly vague media reports generally indicated that Nakoula admitted to lying to his probation officer, getting a driver's license in a fake name, and using aliases, and that the government agreed not to pursue violations related to alleged lies to law enforcement during his interview.

Judge Snyder sentenced Nakoula to one year in prison and four years follow-up supervised release. That's more than the home detention he asked for and less than the two years the government asked for. The sentence appears to be in the general range recommended in the non-binding United States Sentencing Guidelines for violations of this type, and is consistent with the sorts of sentences I've seen for such conduct by someone with such a record over the last 17 years. The sentence of exactly one year is notable: in federal confinement you don't get credit for good behavior (up to 15%) unless the sentence is at least a year and a day, which is why you often see sentences of a year and a day rather than a year. By sentencing Nakoula to a year Judge Snyder suggested she wanted him to do the full year. (Where he does it is in the discretion of the Bureau of Prisons.)

Nakoula's attorney claimed afterwards that the government proceeded against his client because of his exercise of his First Amendment rights. He didn't file any motion on that basis, and his client entered a guilty plea despite the claim. That's undoubtedly because under the relevant standard for selective prosecution, he'd have to prove not only that the government prosecuted him because of his protected speech, but also that similarly situated people who didn't speak like that were not prosecuted. Despite the sentiments of many internet lawyers who have never seen a supervised release revocation proceeding, all of whom are completely certain that convicted fraudsters never get revoked for using aliases and getting drivers licenses in bogus names, Nakoula would never be able to make that showing, because it's freaking ridiculous. That's why his attorney didn't try.

A few things about the plea and sentencing hearing are notable. First, I doubt anyone will take this at face value:

"I'm not going to say much about the movie because he's not here because of the content of the movie," Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Dugdale said.

"Agreed," U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder said abruptly, interrupting the prosecutor.

Fair disclosure: I know and respect Bob Dugdale, though I haven't seem him in years. The fact that the Chief of the Criminal Division handled a supervised release revocation hearing — normally something a rookie would handle — will be taken by some as evidence of the sinister hand of the administration. However, I've seen top office officials handle high-profile hearings for as long as I've been in this business. Cynics would say it's for the publicity; politics wonks would say it's to control the message tightly in a closely-watched case.

Also:

However, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale argued Youssef's lies about his identity have caused harm to others, including the film's cast and crew. Deadly violence related to the film broke out Sept. 11 and spread to many parts of the Middle East.

"They had no idea he was a recently released felon," Dugdale said Wednesday. "Had they known that, they might have had second thoughts" about being part of the film.

He said they have had death threats and feel their careers have been ruined.

I'd like to see a transcript, instead of USA Today's summary, to see exactly what Dugdale said. It's true that there was violence related to the film, in the sense that the film was used as an excuse for violence and used by terrorists as a cover for violent attacks. I would hope that the government didn't assert that the film caused violence, which based on what we know now is plainly incorrect. I think Bob Dugdale's point that Nakoula screwed his cast and crew is perfectly fair, though. I'm firmly opposed to any obeisance to anti-blasphemy laws, but I think the actors and crew of a movie should be able to offer informed consent before appearing in a movie likely to make them the subject of fatwas.

Mr. Nakoula's revocation proceedings required a probation officer (an employee of the judicial branch) to file a revocation petition and Judge Snyder (also in the judicial branch) to approve it. If the Obama administration — the executive branch — contacted the United States Probation Office and pressured the probation office to file revocation proceedings because Nakoula made the film, I think there should be a Congressional inquiry. I'm aware of the statement by Charles Woods, the father of the Navy Seal Tyrone Woods who was killed by terrorists in Benghazi, who says that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told him that the government would punish the filmmaker. Mr. Woods is justifiably furious with the administration and Ms. Clinton's words to him are not to be taken at face value, so this report is not conclusive evidence to me. But it's a piece of evidence, and Congress might think it sufficient to start an inquiry. Under existing selective prosecution law it might not be unconstitutional for the administration to suggest that Nakoula's supervised release be revoked for conduct that would get anyone else revoked. Nakoula's conduct is absolutely the sort that does, and should, routinely result in revocation of supervised release. But we should know whether or not the administration had a hand in it, and there should be consequences — even if they are only political — if they did.

If you got busted for streaking 20 years ago in college, should you have to notify the police if you comment at Popehat? If you had sex with your just-shy-of-sixteen-years-old girlfriend when you were seventeen, should you have to notify the police if you open a Twitter account?

Apparently the voters of California think so.

My fellow Californians gave a huge victory to Proposition 35, the cynically pitched "Human Trafficking" proposition. Along with increasing the penalties for various "human trafficking" crimes — more on that in a minute — the proposition requires registered sex offenders to disclose the following information when they register:

(4)A list of any and all Internet identifiers established or used by the person.
(5) A list of any and all Internet service providers used by the person.

In addition, it requires them to update that registration:

If any person who is required to register pursuant to the Act adds or changes his or her account with an Internet service provider or adds or changes an Internet identifier, the person shall send written notice of the addition or change to the law enforcement agency or agencies with which he or she is currently registered within 24 hours. The law enforcement agency or agencies shall make this information available to the Department of Justice. Each person to whom this subdivision applies at the time this subdivision becomes effective shall immediately provide the information required by this subdivision.

Read literally, if you're a registered sex offender, and you want to leave a comment on Popehat under the name "Bob,' or open a Twitter account, or leave a comment on the site of a newspaper or network, you've got to report the name you use to the police, in writing, within 24 hours. This means, among other things, that registered sex offenders can't comment anonymously on the internet — in, for instance, a discussion of whether sex offender laws are just.

There are First Amendment problems with that requirement right out of the gate. They are compounded by the fact that sex offender laws — the processes by which we put people on sex offender registries, and keep them there — are, in a word, perverted. They sweep up not just rapists and child molesters, but boyfriends and girlfriends convicted of statutory rape and people convicted of minor crimes questionably classified as sex crimes. There's no appetite to change how the system works, because the incantation Think of the Children! drowns out all rational thought in our culture. This is especially true when we engage in lazy categorical thinking about sex offenders.

Fortunately some people are fighting back. Yesterday the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit to block the portion of the law requiring registered sex offenders to report their internet providers and online handles. The litigants are registered sex offenders whose offenses had nothing to do with the internet. A federal judge issued an injunction blocking the online-disclosure portions of the law yesterday. You can imagine how that's going to be portrayed in the media.

I applaud the EFF and ACLU for pursuing this.

But it's only the First Amendment angle, and the raw idiocy of making all sex offenders report every online handle, that will get this lawsuit any support. The rest of the proposition won't get any real scrutiny. There are questions to be asked: were existing sentences too short? Will increasing sentences for these crimes really reduce crime or protect anyone? Does the proposition really address a need, or does it just add more laws onto a situation already addressed by existing criminal laws? Will the broad power of the proposition be used in a principled manner to attack real traffickers, or could it be abused and used against people who more closely resemble victims themselves?

We don't ask those questions in America. If someone says "let's add this law to criminalize this bad thing," we say "hell yes!" uncritically. When someone says "let's toughen sentences on these bad people," we say "yeah! the bastards!" And when anyone invokes "for the children" — well, nothing above our brain stems are in the mix at all. The most rabidly anti-government among us clamor for more criminal laws, longer sentences, more government power, more discretion for police and prosecutors.

That's not how a free people should act.

A few thoughts, the morning after:

This time it's really different! For sure! There are certainly demographic and cultural shifts going on in this country, and they will have an electoral impact. But I beg you, try not to be one of those people who buy into the "this represents a fundamental shift in the American electorate" narratives. In my lifetime, I heard it in 1980 and 1984 and 1992 and 1994 and 2000 and 2006 and 2008 and 2010, when one party or the other found favor, and there was much talk of "permanent majorities" and the like. Take it with a grain of salt.

On the other hand . . . . Same sex marriage prevailed in four states, a clean sweep. That ends the "gay marriage is always defeated at the polls" argument. Culture and demographics are not on the side of the opponents of same-sex marriage or other gay rights. I think — I hope — last night's success will continue. The question is whether Republicans will interpret last night as a signal that they should revert to using gay marriage and gay rights as wedge issues, a strategy that has sometimes worked for them at the polls. That would be bitterly disappointing to me; I'd like to see a party based on fiscal conservatism, not cultural conservatism.

I can make you famous: There is now a cottage industry of D-list celebrities losing their shit on Twitter over election results. It's more entertaining than 80% of network television. More, please.

I voted for Gary Johnson; snort my taint. Both major parties feel entitled, as a matter of right, to the votes of certain constituencies. Today there's some Republican outrage over the 1.1 million votes that went to Gary Johnson, even though those votes wouldn't have swung the election (even in Florida, though it was very close). Don't like it? Bite me. I'm happy voting for someone whose policies I actually supported, not the lesser of two evils. Fighting for an alternative to the two party system may be a task of generations, but it's a fight worth having.

I'm not happy Obama won. But I wouldn't have been happy if Romney had won, either. Obama is more fiscally reckless than Romney, though I don't think Romney's economic plans made any sense either. It's probably a matter of whether our courtship of economic collapse is a whirlwind romance or a prolonged seduction. Romney might have been somewhat more belligerent on the international stage than Obama, though their foreign policy differences seemed to be mostly matters of degree and recrimination for Obama's mishandling of Benghazi. Romney would surely have continued the ruinous War on Drugs, the steady one-way ratchet of the insipid "tough on crime" mindset, the post-9/11 security state, and the unprincipled asterisk grafted onto the Constitution that is the open-ended War on Terror. My chief concern is that because Obama — a Democrat widely (but inaccurately) classified as a liberal — is doing those things, they will become even more firmly entrenched and normalized. With respect to the power to appoint Supreme Court justices, my reaction is mixed: Obama-appointed justices will be more likely to recognize rights traditionally classified under the heading "privacy," somewhat more likely to protect the rights of the accused, probably no more reliable on First Amendment issues, and vastly worse on restricting government power over individuals in anything related to economics.

No change, but a little hope: Mark Bennett, an outspoken and unapologetic criminal defense attorney, ran for a seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals as a libertarian and got 22% of the vote — more than 1.3 million votes. That's astounding. In Texas. I want to believe that voters can be convinced that "law and order" is a political position, not a principled legal one, and that due process is an American value.

Speaking of the importance of education: Will either party take the right lessons from this election? I doubt it. Many Republicans will become convinced that the party needs to double down on social conservatism to nominate "real conservatives." This may make for an entertaining primary process, but I don't think it's a great long-term strategy, particularly because the social conservatism seems inextricably intertwined with things like bragging contests over who can build the most terrifying flaming machine gun emplacements on our enormous border fence. Democrats, on the other hand, are likely to walk away from this with "stay the course, everything you are doing is swell," rather than recognizing they were fortunate in their opponents. You can't count on Republicans — well, not all Republicans — to say stupid things about rape every year, people.

I'm imperfect: Because I'm deeply ambivalent about the Presidential result, my appetite for schadenfreude is quite limited. Just heavy appetizers, please. I will say, however, that the braggadocio and spite from the right was annoying me more than the braggadocio and spite from the left in the days leading up to the election, generating a certain amount of satisfaction afterwards. That may well be selection bias, though; I probably read more right-wing nuts than left-wing nuts. Honesty compels me to admit that I am fully satisfied today if homophobic Jabba the Hutt and Nutpants McScary are miserable and humiliated today. Also, as a lifelong geek myself, I feel a certain amount of affinity for Nate Silver, the criticism of whom seemed to have strong undertones of swirly-the-nerd by popped-collar frat-douches.

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end: Could the victory of marijuana initiatives reflect a slowly growing sentiment to limit the war on drugs? Could Democrats grow a spine on the issue? Could Republicans be forced to confront the disconnect between their ostensible commitment to federalism and their pursuit of the federal War on Drugs? Stay tuned.

I hope to have some reactions to California's propositions up later this week.

If you voted Obama

WOO PARTAY.  Let's all get baked at gay weddings!  Seriously dudes, that was awesome.  Have a frosty mug of [GOP] tears on the house.  Did you see Karl Rove on Fox?  Or Donald Trump on Twitter?   Holy CRAP, someone needs a hug.

Now calm the fuck down.  Remember how shitty you all felt when Bush won in 2004?  Be classy, don't be an asshole.

If you voted Romney

I told you to just play Halo 4!  It's a great game.  You would have had a better time then buying that stupid banner and all those American flags.  Now what you do have, besides hurt feelings and a box of bitchin' July 4th Party Stuff?  But look at it this way, at least you didn't have a total meltdown on national TV like Karl Rove.  Or Donald Trump on Twitter.  Wow.  Dude, I've seen North Koreans react more rationally.

Now calm the fuck down, remember how shitty you feel now?  That's how the other side felt in 2004.  Be classy, don't be an asshole. 

If you voted for Gary Johnson

You should already be drunk, and I salute you.

 If you played Halo 4

It ain't bad right?  It made a lot of interesting improvements.  Plus it's already great to just mow down the Covenent and n00bs again.

If you're Nate Silver

You are a God.

re: GREAT ARTICLE!
From: oconnorj70@gmail.com

Hi!

I stumbled across your blog and noticed the great content you write. Over the last few months I've been researching and writing about (hearing loss, healthy lifestyles, aging, etc) and decided to begin blogging about it. With hunting season right around the corner I thought it would be a great time to highlight and focus on how you can protect your hearing and prevent hearing loss while hunting. I am very passionate about these issues, and since October was National Audiology Awareness Month and National Protect Your Hearing Month, I feel that it is important to continue to spread awareness. I'm wondering if you ever accept guest posts on those topics? If so, I would be happy to send you an article to review. Please let me know what you think, thanks!

Best,
John

John:

We might well be interested. My question is whether you can tailor your article to discuss protecting your hearing not just during ANY hunting, but when hunting the most terrifying and dangerous game of all.

Please advise.

Ken
www.popehat.com

Or "Election Day" if you're a square.

In any case, sounds like as good a day as any to drink, right?  I mean, it's been a long long LONG few years, but now it's finally over.  We can finally don the green armor and shoot some aliens.  threaten to move to Canada.   whine and moan about the direction the country is heading.  But regardless of who wins, let's just all be glad of one thing:  At least John Edwards never got into the White House.  Holy SHIT that was a close one.

In any case, drinking.  <Political Theme> Drinking Games are passe now unfortunately.  After the infamous VP Debate of 2007, when Sarah Palin drove 1/3 of the country into alcoholic comas, it's been mutually agreed that we can never ever do one ever again.  So instead, here are some guidelines on how/what to drink on this great day.

If you voted for Romney

Your drink is Bud Light.  You actually hate Bud Light.  In fact, you (rightfully) think it tastes like lukewarm monkey piss.  But you gotta choke that awful shit down at some fuckin' shitty ass dive bar, while some bearded asshole next to you spills HIS Bud Light over your $500 Italian wingtips while he yells some bullshit about the Bill of Rights or something.  And someone has to talk to you about NASCAR or some sort of sport-ball team or whatever the fuck.  Look, just make it through the day.  You got a November 7th reservation at that bomb-ass steakhouse (just don't order the kobe); they'll serve a proper IPA.  MMMM, nice and hoppy, perfect for a shitty November evening.

Cocktail Suggestion:

The R-Money

• Water
• 2 Alka Seltzer
• Comfortable Pillow
• Prescription Painkillers

Take Alka-Seltzer, mix with water.  Throw it away.  SLAM the Painkillers, pass out.

If you voted for Obama

Your drink is Stella Atrois.  You don't HATE Stella, but you really prefer other beers.  You actually don't drink that much at all, but your Data Analyst's study indicates that Stella is about the most hoity-toity beer you can drink without seeming like an elitist.  Then you have to slop down some hot wings (that are going give you a "Ring of Fire" in the morning).  You'll be doing this with a bunch of overweight construction workers, and you'll be resisting the urge to lecture them on their dietary choices the whole time.   And in the meantime, some asshole with a stupid fucking mustache, drinking a PBR for fuck's sake, is busy being all ironic in your god damn ear when all you really want to do is just watch the fucking Bulls game.  Look, just make it through the day.   You got a November 7th reservation at that seafood place; they'll serve a proper IPA.  MMMMMMM, nice and hoppy, perfect for a shitty November evening.

Cocktail Suggestion:

The NObama

• Bottle of Vodka
• Straw

You know what to do.  And use the straw, you aren't a barbarian.

If you're playing Halo 4

You're drinking Smirnoff Ice.  Oh shit brah!  It's going to be so killer when you ice your bros after you tap them in the head with the BR. SLAYER FOR LIFE BRO.  Note, you'll probably be having a way better time than the above, especially since there will be less of that sexist crap on XBL.

Side note: Let's not be assholes, ladies and gentlemen.

Today I'm putting up the Popehat Signal seeking pro bono assistance for a threatened blogger and anonymous blog commenters.

For the moment, I'm only going to describe the case generally, though I may discuss it later at length. The blog in question reports on local crime stories in Ohio, and in this instance reported on a local prosecution of the rape of an unconscious young woman, allegedly by high school football players. One player was not accused of the rape, but was criticized on the blog based on an allegation that he took pictures of the unconscious young woman but did nothing to stop others from sexually assaulting her. He, and his parents, have now sued the blogger and have named multiple commenters as John Doe defendants and will seek to unmask them.

I've reviewed the complaint, and it appears to me that (1) many of the statements it complains of are archetypical statements of opinion protected under the First Amendment, and (2) that the relief it demands — including prior restraint on publication, removal of existing posts, and a court-mandated retraction and apology — are extremely questionable. Moreover, to the extent the suit attempts to assign liability to the blogger for the words of commenters, it runs afoul of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

The suit has been filed in Jefferson County, Ohio. The blogger needs counsel, and the John Doe defendants may as well — whether individually or as a group to fight attempts to unmask them. This may be a case like the Planet Valenti matter where local power politics play a role.

If you can possibly help, or if you know anyone who can, please drop a line to ken at popehat etc. I will pass information along to the people involved.

Remember: because of the flaws in our legal system, defense of the First Amendment relies upon the vigorous participation of lawyers (and others) willing to lend a hand.

[Confidential to C.B. and C.T.: snookumses, I'm sure you'll be mewling about "why does he attack us but help these people!" One answer, as anyone with a room-temperature IQ will tell you, is that these people aren't engaged in wire fraud and extortion. Thx.]

Last week I introduced you to Marc Randazza's investigation of fraud and extortion by "Is Anybody Down?" and imaginary lawyer "David Blade III", discussed how Craig Brittain, owner of "Is Anybody Down?", couldn't keep his story straight about whether Blade existed or who he is, and made a clearly pointless appeal to the humanity of Craig Brittain and his partner Chance Trahan.

Craig updated his "trolldown" blog with an attack on me, which featured the sort of at-length paean to sociopathy you'd get if you went to a Team Fortress forum, picked the user with the most scatalogical and racist username, withheld his medication for 48 hours, and asked him to explain his personal philosophy.

But that's not all. Craig also tried to get the three posts about him on Popehat taken down by sending a bogus DMCA takedown notice to our host, Dreamhost. I've been a little mad at Dreamhost recently because of some outages, but I'm very happy with their response to this, which gives me confidence they will handle it correctly. They've recognized that's the notice is defective and they're not requiring a counter-notice from me yet — though I'd enjoy writing one.

Here, without further ado, is Craig's notice. I've only changed it to remove his home address and phone number. Comments after.

Received: 2012-11-03 01:14:01 from Is Anybody Down to DreamHost Abuse

November 3rd, 2012
Notification of Claimed Copyright Infringement (Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512.)

To: Dreamhost.com/Abuse/Whom It May Concern Dear Sir or Madam, I, Craig R. Brittain, swear under penalty of perjury that I have been authorized to act as the non-exclusive agent for copyright infringement notifications for the undersigned parties (see
name(s) of copyright holder(s)). I have detected infringements of my accounts copyright interests on a website hosted by GoDaddy.com as detailed in the reports below.

1. Name(s) of copyright holder(s):
Craig R. Brittain/Is Anybody Down/isanybodydown.com/Chance Trahan/Kataishin.com/Trolldown.com/TakedownLawyer.com/TakedownHammer.com
2. Name of person authorized to act on behalf of copyright holder(s):
Craig R. Brittain
3. Identify the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed:

http://www.popehat.com/2012/11/02/my-dinner-with-chance/

http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/31/craig-brittain-of-is-anybody-down-cant-keep-his-story-straight-and-its-barack-obamas-fault/

http://www.popehat.com/2012/10/30/the-takedown-lawyer-lets-help-marc-randazza-investigate-a-scammer-shall-we/

4. Include a representative list of such works at that site:
Numerous text excerpts from various websites owned by Craig R.
Brittain/Chance Trahan as well as various pictures.

http://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Blade-Ad.png

http://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/correspondence-with-22david-blade22.pdf

http://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Craig-Brittain-Felony-Record.pdf

http://www.popehat.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ChanceTrahan-480×562.png

5. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled:
The posts and images above contain personal information which is owned and copyrighted by its respective copyright owners and is damaging in nature and contains personal information in violation of copyright and numerous privacy laws and must be removed immediately.
6. Name of complaining party: Craig R. Brittain 7. Address: [omitted by Ken], Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920 8. Phone: [omitted by Ken] 8. E- mail: submit@isanybodydown.com I hereby affirm, as the complaining party, that I believe in good faith that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright holder, its agent or the law.
I hereby affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the information contained in this notification is accurate, and that I am authorized to act on behalf of the holder of the exclusive right that I claim to be infringed.

Craig R. Brittain_____________________________
Signature of person authorized to act
Date: November 3rd, 2012, 2:10 AM MST______________________

The notice is patently ridiculous on any number of levels. Note, for instance, that Mr. Brittain is asserting copyright in a printout of his criminal record and in a correspondence between "David Blade" and Marc Randazza.

Note also that in his under-penalty-of-perjury statement Mr. Brittain avoids asserting explicitly that "David Blade" is a real person. That's probably prudent.

It's not going to work, Craig. Even if you catch some abuse official on a bad day and convince them to take a few posts down, 100 more will pop up talking about your sick campaign of fraud and extortion.

Last night I had an exchange on Twitter with Chance Trahan, the business partner of Craig Brittain and co-founder of the "Is Anybody Down?"/Takedown Lawyer extortionate scam that represents an effort to monetize humiliation of women for the pleasure of sick freaks.

I had sent Chance a tweet a few days ago asking him who "David Blade" is; he responded with a torrent of all-caps meatheaded abuse. He's taken down the account now, but this screencap (courtesy of Something Awful forum goon E4C85D38) you can get a flavor of a bit of it:

Yes, I blew the lyric. I was watching TV.

Among other things, he said that he would be releasing an "app" to fight me on the site he and Craig Brittain have put up (that's the one saying that Marc Randazza and I have been paid $350,000 each in porn industry mafia blood money to oppress them) and called me a bully. He also called me a FAT TREND KILLER, which I think he meant as an insult.

(Craig and Chance have also attracted the attention and support of the floridly ill and evil Crystal Cox, who has used the occasion to put up a slew of new sites attacking me and my firm, which — by the way — has nothing to do with this blog.)

Chance's cry of "bully" echoes Craig's. This illustrates something I've long observed — as a nerdy, mouthy fat kid getting picked on, as a prosecutor going after con men, as a lawyer doing both criminal defense and civil litigation: nobody whines about bullying more than a bully. Craig Brittain and Chance Trahan gleefully created and promoted a site that puts up misappropriated or fraudulently obtained nude pictures of women, adds their names and hometowns and contact information, encourages their verminous audience to harass the women, then chortles when the women beg or threaten to get the pictures taken down. Moreover, they've added fraud and extortion to that sick cruelty, first with the bogus lawyer "David Blade" offering to get pictures taken down for money, and now with the equally fraudulent "Takedown Hammer" calling themselves an "independent third party team" that will take pictures down for money. Yet they are able to imagine themselves as victims in the affair. It resembles classic mewling sociopathy.

I discovered something a bit disturbing last night. Someone showed me that Chance Trahan puts pictures on the internet showing that he has a very cute young daughter. I'm sure he loves her very much. I'm sure she loves him. Despite the fact that he's wantonly cruel, and a meathead, it would not surprise me at all to learn that he's a doting and tender parent. But somehow Chance Trahan is able to separate, in his mind, that little girl, and her mother, and his mother, and any other women he's ever cared about, from the women being humiliated and abused on "IsAnybodyDown?" He's able to put them in a separate category when his site posts women's phone numbers so people drooling over their pictures can call them incessantly. He's able to but them in separate categories when his site posts mocking posts about takedown requests.

But Chance Trahan's daughter is a human being, with feelings, and so are the people depicted on the site. So let me ask you, Chance: when your daughter is old enough to understand — say, 14 — and she asks you if you are proud of what you did with "Is Anybody Down?" and "The Takedown Lawyer?", how would you respond? If your daughter, as a teen, made a stupid young mistake that too many girls have recently and sent an explicit picture to a boy, and he sent it to a site like yours, would you be able to put that in a separate category, too?

I believe that people generally are not all good or all bad; I believe that "good people" are capable of cruelty and "bad people" capable of kindness. I think we're all broken, which comes out to different degrees. Despite that belief, my own brokenness is sometimes expressed by treating people as all bad — and exposing them to easy and occasionally cruel ridicule — when I write about them on this site. But like Chance, I have children that I love. Just as I can imagine my daughters being victimized by a site like this, I can imagine any of my three children, through their own brokenness, falling into a course of evil and cruelty like Craig and Chance have. I would be disappointed and humiliated but still love them, and would hope that others would still recognize their innate humanity — as I sometimes fail to do in writing about bad behavior on this site. A critic might say that when I write about bad actors on this site, I put them in a different category than myself and my kids, something like (though to a very different agree) Chance does with the women his site abuses. So let me make this clear: I'd be happy to take down this series of posts about Craig and Chance and their fraud and extortion and cruelty if they decide to stop doing what they are doing and spare the women on their site and take down their sites. I still believe that more speech — like this — is one of the best ways to address bad behavior, and that exposing bad actors is effective and appropriate. But I also believe, ultimately, in mercy for people who stop doing evil.

Chance, I recognize you as a fellow father, and human being, in the pictures of you as a proud father with a beautiful little girl. I ask you: look at her, then look at those sites, and make the decision to take them down. I will, in turn, take down these posts, and also apologize to you as a fellow human being for the cheap shots I have taken in the course of exposing what you're doing — because I've done wrong things, too. Craig, I don't know if you have children. But you seem to have a decent family made up of admirable people who have done good things, and I'm sure you love them and they love you. Look at them, and look at your sites, and decide if this makes you proud, and I will do the same.

But if you don't — I won't stop working with Marc Randazza to help the women you're treating that way, and I won't stop talking about your fraud and extortion, and I won't stop fighting you.

Update: I've just read an email exchange between "David Blade" and a victim. Never mind. Murum aries attigit.

Yesterday I invited you to join a crowdsourced investigation led by Marc Randazza. In brief: a scummy site called "Is Anybody Down?", a copy of the departed and unlamented "Is Anybody Up?", posts questionably obtained naked pictures of women with their names and hometowns and often their Facebook pages or phone numbers. The troglodytes who hang out there then favor them with comments like these:

You should really consider buying some tits the miracle grow isn't working babe sorry

Damn, poor girl, her reputation / NAME is dirty for life…. Her childrens children will someday see this ! Hopefully she dont go committing suicide & shit

Did anyone call her? phone work?

As Marc documented in a series of posts, "Is Anybody Down?" had a sleazy relationship with "Takedown Laywer" "David Blade III," who purported to be a lawyer who would help you get your picture off of the site for a few hundred bucks. Marc posted convincing evidence, with which I concurred, supporting the conclusions that (1) "David Blade" is not an attorney, (2) there is no "David Blade," and (3) "David Blade" is most likely Craig Brittain himself, who registered both the "Is Anybody Down?" and "Takedown Lawyer" sites. In other words, it's a wire fraud and extortion scheme.

Hilarity ensued. But now Craig Brittain is angry. Very angry. And in addition to Marc Randazza and your ob'nt servant, he knows exactly who is to blame.

Continue Reading »

I've been out of sorts of late, riven with the suburban fin de siècle, plagued with ennui, angst, weltschmertz. You know — moping.

There's only so many free speech cases I can write about in a week. Nobody pony-worthy is writing to me. I'm waiting for a couple of shoes to drop on the UST Development fraud investigation.

If only there were a nice juicy scam out there to chase . . .

Marc Randazza to the rescue!

Continue Reading »

Nancy French pointed me to this great video that illustrates the sort of comments you get from people when you are out and about as a multiracial family (often, but not always, an adoptive one). Been there, heard that.

Regular readers may recall that last year I collected comments from adoptive parents on an adoptive forum and posted them to demonstrate some of what humanity has to offer.

Like I said before, the point of this is not to throw a pity party for adoptive parents. Any discussion of transracial adoption shouldn't be all about the adoptive parents' feelings. Rather, calling this sort of thing out is about (1) preparing parents to deal with such situations in a way that's constructive for their kids, (2) whistling past the graveyard — a sharing of the experience, and (3) laughing about the brokenness and general asshatitude of humanity.

People rarely get killed or jailed in American over art. But it would be wrong to suggest that Muslims outraged over depictions of Mohammed are the only people getting upset about artistic endeavors.

It's also unfair to focus on modern university administrators being censorious, as if they have an active interest in suppressing dissenting speech. Sometimes they're just cowardly and servile.

In Laramie, Wyoming, the University of Wyoming allowed the installation of a piece called “Carbon Sink: What Goes Around, Comes Around,” by British artist Chris Drury, which uses coal and Wyoming wood to make a point about coal mining, or the environment, or man's inhumanity to man, or something.

Courtesy of the University of Wyoming Art Museum

The piece was removed ahead of schedule. University administrators claimed that it was removed early because of rain damage.

But investigative reporting revealed that the university actually removed it early in response to anger and offense from the coal industry and their friends in Wyoming's state legislature.

Yes, the University lied. It lied in the face of coal industry indignation, and threats of reduced support:

The sculpture felt like a “stab in the back,” said Wyoming Mining Association President Marion Loomis, in an email that day to Don Richards, then the university’s director for governmental and community affairs.

The energy industry pays millions in taxes, royalties and fees, he noted. Left unsaid: Those millions flow through state coffers to the university.

“Don, what kind of crap is this?” Loomis asked.

Bruce Hinchey, president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, fired off an email to oil and gas company officials and major university donors slamming the university for the sculpture.

“The next time the University of Wyoming is asking for donations it might be helpful to remind them of this and other things they have done to the industries that feed them before you donate,” Hinchey wrote. “They always hide behind academic freedom but their policies and actions can change if they so choose.”

The university also lied in the face of elected officials who were eager to attack art to please their donors:

State legislators joined the attack. Legislators, primarily from coal-rich Campbell County, wrote university officials. They threatened to restrict the university’s funding, called for a hunt to find out which university officials knew about the sculpture ahead of time and decried the university for not knowing about the piece.

“It never ceases to amaze me how the UW invites folks in that spit in the face of the very system that writes the checks to pay the bills at the university,” wrote Rep. Elaine Harvey, R-Lovell, in an email to Buchanan.

Must the coal industry donate to a university system that features a rather mild piece of abstract art that wounds its tender fee-fees? No. It's free to withhold, and threaten to withhold, its donations for whatever damnfool reason it wants. But citizens should judge the industry and its executives (not to mention their legislative lapdogs) based on their actions, and act — and vote — accordingly. Next time the industry attempts to burnish its image with a donation, citizens and the media should ask: what strings come attached to this gift? Does the industry believe that the gift entitles them to ideological compliance from the recipient, and will their backers in the legislature reward that expectation?

Moreover, when a university reacts to pressure about something as mild as this piece of art, it's fair to ask — on what substantive issues is it caving to pressure? What academic classes are being vetted to comply with the demands of industry donors and their governmental supporters?

Michelle Nijhuis at The Last Word on Nothing contrasts this response to braver responses from administrators at other universities, and considers what might have been. She's also got good links to information about the case.

Hat tip: Alex Wild.

"It was my understanding that there would be no Mandarin."

If you find yourself thinking this, gentle Popehat reader, well… 不对! For I am a language nerd, and recently I've been nerding out on Modern Standard Chinese (as the PC crowd call it) because I wanted to climb the mysterious, misty peaks of the Northern Song, and do that non-suicidal magical fog dive thing from the end of Crouching Tiger, and lose myself for a time in the coursing waters of the Yangtze River. I wanted difficulty. I wanted to say 'friend' and still not enter.

Well, if you've heard that Mandarin is nearly impossibly difficult for the Unitedstatesian mouth and ear and eye, then I'm here to tell you that everything you've heard is a lie. That's right– a lie. It's lies all the way down. An infinite regress of anti-truth. Mandarin, it turns out, is easy!

To be a bit more accurate: the grammar is astonishingly simple (all things considered), and the pronunciation patterns are a middling challenge, but the writing system is stultifyingly hard. Nate Silver tells me that when you average these, you get "easy".

I'm operating on the theory that some of you also may be ponderin' the Pǔtōnghuà, or that some of you may have kids in Mandarin immersion and may want to keep up with them, or that some of you, way beyond a rank beginner such as I, may be willing to share your more advanced tips and insights. On that theory, I want to let you know some of what I've learned so far.

In particular, I want to give (0) this introduction emphasizing that the grammar is well within reach, (1) a newbie's guide to the pronunciation of Mandarin, (2) a quick and dirty intro to how the characters work and how to learn them, and (3) an overview of some of the better online resources at Youtube and elsewhere. My goal is not to gather and dump as much info as possible, but rather to summarize only the essential facts and opinions that make the way easier for a beginner. From there, of course, the road goes ever on and on, and I'm not qualified to navigate that path.

So…. Hankerin' for some hàn zì? Ready to get Zhōngwénny wid it?

The Good News: Grammar

First, let's talk about grammar. If you have dabbled in a romance language, then you know about the conjugation of verbs across persons and numbers, about gendered nouns, and about the agreement of adjectives in gender and number with whatever they describe. If you've indulged in Greek or Latin or German or Russian or any other heavily inflected language, then you also know about the wonders of noun declension across cases. And let's not even get into the nuances of time, aspect, tense progression, and counterfactuality.

There comes a point in the study of these language when the lightbulb goes on and the learner realizes in practice what the trivia books had maintained all along: these are all the same language, and so they all work the same way. Well, more or less. Yes, each has its vocabulary and its idioms and its subset of linguistic functionality, but at heart, they're all descendents of the same ancestor of Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit.

All Look Same

In the wake of this enlightenment, one feels the call of the wild. The allure of linguistic isolates, such as Basque and Korean, and the siren song of untraceable languages, such as Hungarian or Japanese or Finnish, become irresistible.

Then there's Mandarin Chinese: simple, logical, beautiful in grammar; maddeningly complex and subtle in expressive capability. And spoken all over the 'verse!

Mandarin has no articles (a, an, the). It has no gender for nouns. It is almost entirely uninflected: each verb has exactly one form that never changes, and each noun has exactly one form, no matter what role it plays in a sentence. For the most part, the difference between singular and plural is not marked. The basic syntax of a simple sentence, as in English, is subject-verb-object, and qualifying phrases packed before the verb or the object follow a logical sequence. Mandarin has no tenses construed as time (past, present, future, past perfect, present perfect, future perfect, etc.); instead it emphasizes aspect (anticipated, continuous, habitual, progressive, completed, etc.) and marks this with a particle. In short, it's simple.

By way of comparison, think about what you have to learn for each verb in French. Consider aimer (to love):

Past, simple aspect: j'aimai, tu aimas, il/elle/on aima, nous aimâmes, vous aimâtes, ils/elles aimèrent
Past, incomplete aspect: j'aimais, tu aimais, il/elle/on aimait, nous aimions, vous aimiez, ils/elles aimaient
Present: j'aime, tu aimes, il/elle/on aime, nous aimons, vous aimez, ils/elles aiment
Future: j'aimerai, tu aimeras, il/elle/on aimera, nous aimerons, vous aimerez, ils/elles aimeront
Past perfect: j'avais aimé, tu avais aimé, il/elle/on avait aimé, nous avions aimé, vous aviez aimé, ils/elles avaient aimé
Present perfect: j'ai aimé, tu as aimé, il/elle/on a aimé, nous avons aimé, vous avez aimé, ils/elles ont aimé
Future perfect:  j'aurai aimé, tu auras aimé, il/elle/on aura aimé, nous aurons aimé, vous aurez aimé, ils/elles auront aimé

A different form of aimer is needed for each person and each number within each time and (for the past) in each aspect. That's the Indo-European way! Now let's consider the Mandarin way:

Given:
He, she, or it: tā
To eat food: chī fàn (吃飯)

Here's the verbal system:
Completed: tā chī fàn le (他 吃飯 了)
Ongoing: tā chī fàn (他 吃飯)
Possible: tā huì chī fàn (他 会 吃飯) [Edited for syntax per comment below. -dcb]

Simple. A modal (huì, sometimes roughly equal to "will") to indicate future possibility and a particle (le) to indicate completed aspect. All else depends on context, not form. See how "tā" (he/she/it) doesn't change? And see how "chī fàn" doesn't change? Of course, there are micro-rules about whether to put the particle right after the verb, or after a clause, or at the end of a complex sentence, or in two places. Most of the time, it's easier simply to say when ("tomorrow", "yesterday", "someday") than to bother with aspect particles. But still, how much simpler it is to learn that than to learn the literary tenses of French!

By the way, there's an expression, "chī bǎo le ma" (吃饱了吗), that literally means "Have you eaten your fill?" But it's used as a routine greeting in rural China in much the same way that "Grüß Gott" ("Say 'hi' to God!") is used in the boonies of Bavaria. It has approximately the same flavor as "How's it goin'?"

Anyhow, behold the lack of mutability:

I see you done. You see I done.
I see you. You see I.
I will see you. You will see I.

I see it. It see I. You see it. It see you.

And let's talk about "to be":

English: am, are, is, was, were, shall be, will be, have been, had been, will have been, to be
Mandarin:  shì (是)

In any event, Mandarin uses "to be" much less frequently than English does. It depends instead on juxtaposition and intelligence.

So if Chinese grammar does not require bulk memorization (or deduction) of nouns and verbs in their various forms, then what is there to learn besides vocabulary? Well, there are some syntax rules about when to mention the time, place, and method of an action. So, for example, there's a subject-when-where-how-verb pattern: I around five pm at the restaurant with my wife dine. (Not too far from German or Latin, really.) And there are various ways to express durations. And there are many formulaic ways to express the speaker's attitude toward the topic at hand. And there are particles to indicate causal relationships.

There are charmingly logical idiomatic patterns. For example, Mandarin famously has no direct equivalent of "yes" and "no", but instead relies on repeating or negating the verb in question (or providing multiple-choice options!):

Q: "Is that the new model?"
A: "Is."
Q: "You have|not-have an iPad Mini?"
A: "Not-have."

Perhaps the most important grammatical feature that distinguishes beginners like me from folks who know what they're doing is Mandarin's abundant use of "classifier" or "measure" words. We have these in English, but they're uncommon. They're words like "blade" in the expression "a blade of grass" or like "pair" in "a pair of pants". No idiomatic speaker of English would ever refer to "a grass" or "a pants". (Note: this is different from collective nouns such as an "exaltation of larks" or a "pride of lions", since larks and lions can be referenced properly on their own.)

Well, Mandarin has a bucketload of these, some referring to things bound like scrolls/books, some referring to anything rectangular and medium-sized, and so forth. A pack, a cup, a box, a piece, a crowd, a pair, a set, a kind — similar to English, these– but also a word for things with handles, for things bound by string, for items of correspondence, for rooms, for articles of clothing, for wheeled things, for stick-like things, and even for large, permanent things! The correct use of them is a big deal.

There are some other grammatical formulations that are easy to learn but different from English. For example, some verbs come automatically with a meaningless default direct object, even if it's not the object you mean. "To eat", for example, is "eat rice" even if you're not eating rice. (See chī fàn above!) "To read" is "read book" unless you specify some other object, and "to sing" is "sing song", and "to run" is "run step". There's also a strong tendency to order things from large to small, from earlier to later, from logically prior to consequent, and so forth. And, most cool, Mandarin includes many four-character sayings that are part of the common culture; the more of these one understands, the better. But more on those in another post.

Despite many small rules, Mandarin is left within reach of us langnerds by its startling lack of many of the big rules that we have come to expect if we've spent time mainly with languages that have them. Throwing them out at no cost is indeed refreshing.

In my recent review of Greg Lukianoff's new book "Unlearning Liberty," I noted that Greg's theme is not just that American university students are being censored, but that they are being taught to accept and even welcome censorship of unpopular ideas — that universities are making censorship their norm. The war is not just against administrators with the power of censorship, the war is for hearts and minds.

How goes the war? Well, consider this recent useful, fascinating, and thoroughly disheartening tool from the Student Press Law Center — an interactive map showing all the places that people have stolen or destroyed student newspapers across America since 2000, almost always out of disagreement with their contents. Sometimes people in position of authority are at fault — as in the case recently before the Ninth Circuit, in which Oregon State University trashed a conservative student paper, abruptly applying an otherwise-ignored rule against newsbins on campus. But often, as the SPLC's map shows, it is students themselves who lash out at speech they don't like by attempting to prevent anyone else from reading it.

As I said before — we have met the enemy, and he is us.