Federal Judge slams Facebook and its legal counsel for not taking terrorism seriously
Greetings from New York City, where I have been since Thursday evening and where I have been totally tied up with work. I have a few minutes now before a conference call - not enough to work but enough to post something.
On Thursday, a Federal Judge in Brooklyn told a shocked lawyer from Chicago's Kirkland & Ellis that the lawyer's client, Facebook, isn't doing enough to deter terrorists from using its site. And then the judge laid into the firm for sending a
first-year associate (someone about four months out of law school at this time of year) alone to the hearing.
U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis in Brooklyn, New York, also
accused Facebook’s lawyers -- by sending a first-year associate to a
hearing -- of not taking seriously lawsuits with implications of
international terrorism and the murder of innocent people.
“I
think it is outrageous, irresponsible and insulting,” Garaufis told the
attorney Thursday. The judge ordered Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the law
firm representing Facebook, to send a more senior lawyer to the next
hearing on Sept. 28 because he wanted to “talk to someone who talks to
senior management at Facebook.”
Garaufis
is overseeing two lawsuits in which more than 20,000 victims of attacks
and their families accused Facebook of helping groups in the Middle
East such as Hamas.
The judge noted similar suits haven’t been
successful under U.S. law which insulates publishers from liability for
the speech of others. But he said that doesn’t mean Facebook shouldn’t
take it seriously and try to address the issue.
Isn’t the social
media platform “basically putting together people who’d like to be
involved in terrorism with people are are terrorists?” the judge asked.
“Doesn’t Facebook have some moral obligation to help cabin the kinds of
communications that appear on it?”
The judge didn’t stop there.
"Let’s put the law aside and talk
about reality,” Garaufis said, less than a week after a bomb rattled the
Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, injuring 29 people. “The reality is
that people are communicating through social media and the outcome of
these inquiries, be it Google or Facebook, has the potential of hooking
people up to do very dangerous, bad and harmful things in terms of
international and domestic terror."
Federal
judges have limited ability to address terrorism and don’t usually get
involved in such cases until someone is arrested and charged with a
crime, Garaufis said.
"Don’t you have a social responsibility as
citizens of the world without having these plaintiffs come to me in
Brooklyn?" he asked. “There are things you could do that don’t involve
the courts or the judicial system."
Facebook said it’s committed to making people feel safe using the social network.
“Our
Community Standards make clear that there is no place on Facebook for
groups that engage in terrorist activity or for content that expresses
support for such activity, and we take swift action to remove this
content when it’s reported to us,” the company said in a statement. “We
sympathize with the victims of these horrible crimes.”
A Kirkland & Ellis spokeswoman didn’t have an immediate comment on the judge’s remarks.
The page pictured above was deemed not to violate Facebook's community standards. But Twitter last week briefly suspended Professor Glenn Reynolds (known as Instapundit on social media) for making a sarcastic comment that didn't threaten anyone. Some 'community standards.'
Labels: Facebook, Islamic terrorism, lawsuit, terror victim suits in US, Twitter
Terrorist claims Arab Bank in Ramallah refused to transfer money to him
One of the recently released 'Palestinian ' terrorists has complained that the Arab Bank branch in Ramallah refuses to transfer money received from the 'Palestinian Authority' to his account. According to the terrorist, the bank says that the money is '
terror money.'
Each of the 26 terrorists released in the second batch of "gestures" to the Palestinian Authority (PA) received a $50,000 grant.
In addition, those imprisoned over 25 years received senior
governmental posts with a 14,000 shekels ($4,000) monthly salary, and
those imprisoned under 25 years are to receive a monthly 10,000 shekels
($2,800) stipend.
All of this comes despite high unemployment among PA Arabs and the PA's reported $4.2 billion of debt.
The Arab Bank's refusal to pay "terror money" to Musa Karan of
Ramallah, a terrorist freed after 23 years in jail, was reported by a
Hamas website. Karan's brother Mohammed told the site that Musa ran into
trouble opening an account due to his being a freed terrorist.
...
In April the Jordan-based Arab Bank lost its bid to
avoid a US trial over lawsuits brought by Israeli and American terror
victims who accuse the bank of financially supporting terror. The bank
operates in many countries, managing business ties with various
corporations and governments.
Most of the plaintiffs in that case were thrown out over the summer when the US Supreme Court ruled that only US citizens could file suit in the US. Still, the fact that the lawsuit is pending might be enough to make the Arab Bank - which is not 'Palestinian' - worry about its own financial standing.
Labels: lawsuit, Palestinian terrorism, Palestinian terrorists, terror funding, terror victims
Surreal: Father of Toulouse terrorist suing police
The father of a
French Muslim terrorist of
Algerian extraction, who was killed in a
shootout with police after
murdering four Jews,
three of them children, is
suing the police for his son's death.
“This is a suit against unnamed persons for murder with aggravating circumstances concerning those who gave the orders at the top of the police” during the assault on Merah’s flat in Toulouse, said lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre.
Mohamed Benalel Merah said in March that he wanted to sue the RAID elite police unit that shot dead his son on March 22 during a shootout at the end of a 32-hour siege at his flat in the southern French city.
The 23-year-old had shot dead three soldiers, and three children and a teacher at a Jewish school, in a wave of killings that shocked the country.
He filmed himself carrying out the attacks and reportedly confessed to police before he was shot dead.
“You’ve got 300 to 400 heavily armed people and a guy shut up all alone in his apartment. That alone is enough to raise questions,” said Coutant-Peyre, who is part of Merah’s legal team headed by Algerian lawyer Zahia Mokhtari.
She said the family had video evidence that would be handed over to the authorities when they requested it.
Mokhtari said in April that she had proof that Merah was “liquidated”, including two 20-minute videos probably filmed by Merah himself before he was shot dead.
What did they expect the police to do? Get a few cops killed to take the guy alive?
Labels: France, Islamic terrorism, lawsuit
Sued!
Former US President Jimmy Carter is being sued in New York over his book claiming that Israel
practices apartheid.
The case, filed at the Manhattan Federal Claims Court by a group of readers, accuses Mr Carter of filling his book “with demonstrable falsehoods, omissions and knowing misrepresentations intended to promote [his] agenda of anti-Israel propaganda".
According to court papers quoted by the New York Post, the group who filed the case said Mr Carter was wrong to have promoted the book as “non-fiction".
The papers added: “This lawsuit challenges the defendants' actions in attempting to capitalise on Carter's status as a former president of the United States to mislead unsuspecting members of the reading public who thought they could trust their former president to tell the truth."
Mr Carter, who as president oversaw the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, is a prominent critic of the Israeli government. In 2008 he described Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip as “one of the greatest human-rights crimes on earth”.
The lawsuit is directed at both Mr Carter and his publishers, Simon & Schuster.
A spokesperson for the company said the lawsuit was "frivolous".
You can find a copy of the complaint
here (28-page pdf that froze my computer). This is NOT a defamation case. It's entirely based on economic grounds.
Heh.
Labels: apartheid state, Jimmy Carter, lawsuit, Palestine
