FC: Zenon Panoussis's letter to Kirkland: "I invite you to sue me"

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Sun Jun 03 2001 - 20:55:03 PDT

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: Washington Post op-ed calls for expanding Echelon, Carnivore"

    Zenon has been sued by Scientology for mirroring their ostensibly
    secret scriptures: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d1dd/cos/zenon-eng.html
    
    ---
    
    Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 04:24:47 +0200
    From: Zenon Panoussis <oracleat_private>
    Organization: Marcab Technologies
    To: Steven A Smith <stevesat_private>
    Cc: politechat_private,
    	Kirkland City Manager David Ramsay c/o <webmasterat_private>
    Subject: The fine art of suppressing information on the Internet
    
    
    Dear Steven
    
    With some amazement, some disbelief and a lot of amusement, I read 
    at http://www.politechbot.com/kirkland/ that you have been threatening 
    legal action on behalf of the city of Kirkland against Declan McCullagh's 
    politechbot.com for its publication of some police officers' social 
    security numbers. 
    
    Dear Steven. Being a good counsel to your client is not limited to 
    firing off standard cease & desist letters at the press of a button. 
    On the contrary, being a good counsel involves advising the client 
    on strategy and, in doing so, taking into account the nature, 
    strength, habits and expected reactions of the counterpart. 
    
    Dear Steven. You have advised your client to start a war against the 
    Internet. Not only that; you have actually started a war on behalf 
    of your client. Any half-wit who has been online for more than six 
    weeks could have told you that anybody who starts a war on the 
    Internet is guaranteed to lose it. If you would rather not take the 
    advise of half-wits, you could have asked the Recording Industry 
    Association of America, The Motion Picture Association of America, 
    the Church of Scientology (OK, I admit, those *are* half-wits, but 
    they are half-wits with millions), the Ford Motor Company or the 
    German government instead. They would all have told you the same. 
    
    Dear Steven. I regret to have to tell you that you did a lousy 
    job in persuing your clients' interests. The best way to go about 
    it would have been a polite e-mail, asking whether politechbot.com 
    would kindly remove those SSNs from the web as a token of 
    consideration and respect of the officers' privacy and worry about 
    possible abuse. You never know, you could have striken a cord there. 
    The next best way to go about it would have been to just do nothing. 
    
    Dear Steven. Your client has to pay for your mistakes. The article 
    that you demand removed is now republished by me at 
    http://www.provocation.net/mirrors/kirkland/p-02008.html and I am 
    hereby inviting your clients to sue me. You can do so in the US, 
    but a US ruling will not be enforceable against me. If you want 
    an enforceable ruling, you need to sue 
    
      Zenon Panoussis
      2e van Swindenstraat 188
      1093 XA Amsterdam
      The Netherlands
    
    (that's me) at the appropriate Dutch court, which is 
    
      Rechtbank Amsterdam
      Parnassusweg 220
      1076 AV Amsterdam
      The Netherlands
    
    You see, dear Steven, this means that any legal action against 
    politechbot.com will be useless even if it is successful; the 
    article in question will remain on the web, and it will attract 
    so much more attention precisely because of your lawsuit. Of 
    course, you could continue threatening and sueing left and right 
    for ever, until your clients run out of money and you become 
    known to your collegues as Don Steven Quixote. Somehow, though, 
    I think that you are able to learn from your mistakes and that 
    nothing of this will happen. Somehow I suspect that you will 
    not reply to this mail, and that you will quietly and with as 
    little loss of face as possible drop the whole issue and forget 
    that you ever started it. I am pretty sure that your client 
    will appreciate that. 
    
    Best regards,
    
    Z
    
    
    -- 
    oracle@everywhere: The ephemeral source of the eternal truth...
    
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
    You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
    To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
    This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sun Jun 03 2001 - 21:00:33 PDT