[HN Gopher] I've been targeted with a vicious corporate countera...
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I've been targeted with a vicious corporate counterattack (2021)
Author : robtherobber
Score : 284 points
Date : 2022-07-28 09:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.esquire.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.esquire.com)
| a2tech wrote:
| Its important to be reminded regularly that there are perfectly
| legal ways for people with lots of money to endlessly bully
| people that annoy them. These people/companies have lawyers on
| retainer that they're already paying so its essentially free for
| them to file bogus suits and motions to cause havoc in your life.
| What are you going to do? Sue them back? Thats the world they
| live in, and its a world that as a small time person or
| corporation you can not win in (long term).
|
| Look at Gawker and Peter Thiel--no matter how you feel personally
| about what they did, what they published about him was absolutely
| legal. As a background task his lawyers destroyed that company by
| keeping them tied up in court cases and funding any one with an
| axe to grind against them until they were gone.
| kemiller2002 wrote:
| My mom was an attorney. A really sound piece of advice she gave
| me was, "Never get into a legal battle with a lawyer. You can't
| win." What she was saying was that an attorney can essentially
| sue you for free. (Ok not totally free but you get the point).
| They can tie you up in legal battles and force you to just
| waste money on something that is seemingly trivial. The same
| advice goes for someone who can spend large sums of money and
| not worry about the consequences.
|
| There is this great scene in the movie "From The Hip" where the
| CEO of a bank assaulted another individual. The scene is his
| lawyer saying he thinks they can win the case. The CEO responds
| essentially with "You can't win. I hit him. Just make the case
| last 3 days so he has to spend more money." That pretty much
| sums up being rich and the power those people wield.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| > an attorney can essentially sue you for free
|
| Isn't his time essentially money?
| scottiebarnes wrote:
| People can be very irrational in their spending of time vs
| money, especially if its personal.
| jt2190 wrote:
| Can you refine "legal battle" further? Does it imply a
| complete immediate capitulation on all matters if the
| opponent is a lawyer, or does it imply something else, like
| one's best advantage in this case is to stay out of the
| courtroom?
| workingon wrote:
| RalfWausE wrote:
| Why the downvotes? The ONLY way to win against an
| opponent with much more power than you is to make him
| believe that you absolutely don't care for consquences
| and are out there to get him
| brigandish wrote:
| Whether that is true or not there is a big difference
| between what you wrote (stating an opinion) and what the
| other commenter wrote (appearing to advocate violence).
| That's why it's attracting downvotes. You're attracting
| them because it's obvious.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Actually he is advocating for peace. The suggestion of
| breaking the rules of the game balances the playing
| field. As it is a few can initiate bureaucratic violence
| against others basically free of consequences.
|
| If we were to judge which act of violence is justifiable
| a few broken ribs is nothing compared to losing your life
| savings or going to prison. The issue here is that
| physical violence is a taboo. There are good reasons for
| that though it's undeniably that the cowing of the masses
| is beneficial to those that practice other forms of
| violence.
| datpuz wrote:
| > Never get into a legal battle with a lawyer. You can't win.
|
| My ex wife is a lawyer. I agree with this statement...
| seventytwo wrote:
| One more mechanism by which those at the top can reinforce
| their position.
| [deleted]
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| So why does the US justice system allow this? It's occupying
| the whole legal system with time wasters.
|
| I'm glad I don't work in legal, it sounds so drawn out and
| boring.
| scottyah wrote:
| The justice system is kinda made for handling all these
| disputes that people can't talk out themselves. The lawyers
| are incentivized to drag it out because they almost always
| get paid by the hour.
| eterevsky wrote:
| Based on this summary of the Gawker/Thiel story, it seems like
| they mostly brought it upon themselves: https://www.reddit.com/
| r/todayilearned/comments/56kz4d/til_t....
| stuckinhell wrote:
| I agree with you up to a point. However there are real limits
| to what the rich and powerful can do before the peasants
| revolt. The current American Elites have completely forgotten
| the concept of "noblesse oblige" and I believe we are currently
| seeing the start of a peasant rebellion.
|
| It starts with rejection of the mainstream media, academics,
| and other "experts".
|
| In the case of Peter Thiel, he is extremely hated among
| emerging factions of the radical left and dissident right.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Gawker deserved someone to come after then as Thiel did, for
| what they did to him, Hulk Hogan and others
| derbOac wrote:
| For what it's worth, I respectfully disagree. The people
| Thiel should have gone after are those who leaked to the
| public.
|
| I can't say I read Gawker or was a fan of what they did, or
| saying it was morally upstanding. But they were the wrong
| target. It was bizarre to me that Thiel would go after them,
| _except_ if you look at it as Thiel not really caring about
| the actual spread of information, and instead look at it as
| Thiel scaring away any sort of journalist or journalistic
| organization from scrutinizing him at all on any
| controversial topics. It just seemed like a classic case of
| defending the freedom of speech of the morally questionable
| to protect freedom of speech in general.
|
| I don't remember the Hogan case in detail as it's been
| awhile, but to me Gawker was not the really offending person.
| It was whoever recorded that. Why Thiel went after Gawker
| rather than the person who clearly violated expectations of
| privacy in a way that might land them in jail in many
| districts is beyond me.
| Fargoan wrote:
| If someone secretly recorded you having consensual sex and
| sold me the footage, you think I have a right to publish
| that. That's ridiculous. Gawker got what they deserved.
| cagenut wrote:
| are you a world renowned celebrity who goes on radio
| shows on a near weekly basis to brag about your sexual
| exploits and genital size to millions of people?
| Fargoan wrote:
| No. Who are you referring to? How is that relevant?
| a2tech wrote:
| They didn't pay for it--someone (probably Bubba the Love
| Sponge) anonymously sent them the footage. He was legally
| able to record his own home.
| causi wrote:
| Florida is a two-party consent state. Everyone featured
| in a recording not happening in public must consent to
| being recorded. Both Hogan and Heather claim they didn't
| know.
| Fargoan wrote:
| Ok, well same thing. Hogan was invited over to have sex
| with Bubba's wife and Bubba secretly filmed it and sent
| it to a media company.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Gawker publicly bullied and antagonized their victims.
| Doesn't matter what the law says its incredibly immoral,
| there was nothing to report.
| causi wrote:
| They wouldn't stop hosting revenge porn, didn't pay
| interns, doxxed thousands of New Yorkers for daring to own
| a gun, and all the while ran article slamming people who
| did all those things. It really sucks that organizations
| who _aren 't_ the targets of billionaires won't get the
| same treatment but by god it was satisfying to watch.
| boredumb wrote:
| If I recall correctly, they publicly outed Thiel as a gay
| man, so I assumed that put them on his radar and he saw the
| Hogan incident as the opportunity to go all in on them.
| cagenut wrote:
| you recall incorrectly, but its a very easy mistake to
| make as every thread on the topic will be riddled with
| that false talking point.
|
| the gay editor of gawker published the gay writer from
| valleywag's essay about how peter thiel was ALREADY 'out'
| and that everyone in silicon valley acting like it was a
| shameful secret that could not be mentioned was in-effect
| trying to put a gay man who was _not_ in the closet back
| in it because of their discomfort with the topic.
|
| like everything else on the internet once the facts got
| rung through the social media process the conventional
| wisdom became the perfect inverse of the actual truth.
|
| its worth noting that thiel himself has never claimed
| that his 'outing' (which did not happen) was his
| motivation. he has however on many occasions explained
| his reasoning and justification as essentially viewing
| journalists/journalism/critical-reporting as haters that
| hold us all back and should be forcibly shut up. note
| that i'm using the word 'haters' but he actually used the
| word 'terrorists'.
| a2tech wrote:
| He posted pictures of himself cavorting with naked young
| men on a public website. Is sharing those publicly outing
| him?
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| Gawker boasted that they won't remove the video, no matter
| what, even after Hogan asked them. They 100% deserved what
| they got.
| cagenut wrote:
| this is incorrect you're mixing several separate facts
| into one false narrative
|
| gawker repeatedly offered to settle with hogan, but for
| some strange reason* hogan refused to and kept appealing
| and moving venues. during these appeals and negotiations
| a judge required gawker take the video down _which they
| did_. the judge then also required gawker take the _post_
| (ascii text) down as well, which they refused to do.
|
| * it turned out hogan was just a front for thiel and
| taking down the video was not really the goal,
| bankrupting the parent company of valleywag was.
| banannaise wrote:
| The problem is that what Gawker did to Thiel, while not
| _nice_ , was _legal_.
|
| If you do something _perfectly legal_ that someone does not
| like, and that person has sufficient money and /or power,
| they can simply go hunting for something _illegal_ you 've
| done (there's always something) and aggressively bankroll
| actions against you.
|
| Thiel used Hogan and his case as a proxy to settle a personal
| beef.
|
| This is not dissimilar from the cops tailing activists around
| in their daily lives, hoping they can find something,
| anything, to charge them with.
| kcatskcolbdi wrote:
| >The problem is that what Gawker did to Thiel, while not
| nice, was legal.
|
| And then what Thiel did to Gawker, while not nice, was
| legal.
|
| If you're going to build a company on the idea of skirting
| legality in order to ruin people's lives, don't be upset
| when someone does the same thing to your company.
| calibas wrote:
| Gawker was certainly trashy journalism, but I think the only
| lesson anybody learned from that whole experience was "Don't
| fuck with Peter Thiel".
|
| The lesson should have been that Thiel and other billionaires
| have such enormous influence over governments and courts that
| he's a direct threat to democratic systems. Just look at how
| things turned out, Hogan couldn't touch Gawker because of
| Freedom of the Press, but then Thiel got involved and
| suddenly the 1st Amendment stopped protecting Gawker. The
| moment a billionaire got involved the legal system changed.
|
| And if you need any more proof that people like Thiel are a
| threat to democracy, he's currently funding conservative
| candidates in the US who believe the presidential election
| was "stolen" from Trump.
| serf wrote:
| I think both things can be said :
|
| 1) Gawker got what they deserved 2) The legal power of the
| very rich makes me uneasy, and I don't support such
| unilateral over-use of the legal system by the very rich.
|
| In other words; Gawker got what they deserved, but I don't
| agree with the methodology behind the counter-attack -- I see
| it as abusive and indicative of a system that is tilted for
| one side to win more easily.
| fallingknife wrote:
| The problem isn't that Thiel could destroy Gawker. The
| problem is that you couldn't if they did the same thing to
| you.
|
| Thiel didn't take down Gawker by being richer and more
| powerful. He took them down in a fair trial because he was
| right and they were wrong. You would never get that fair
| trial because it would be millions in legal fees before you
| got there.
| davidguetta wrote:
| Yes, and even people like hulk hogan without the support of
| money are nothing against corporations like gawker.
|
| The power scale is kinda Hulk Hogan < Gawker < Peter Thiel
| < pether Thiel + Hulk Hogan.
|
| But in the end power (and money) are always amoral. Its
| their use which defines it. The only shocking thing is that
| justice is not free (even in countries in europe where
| education and healthcare are...).
| slim wrote:
| fencepost wrote:
| While what happened seems wrong based on the article, it's
| clearly not the "most vicious corporate counterattack in US
| history." No Pinkertons, no machine guns, no families.
|
| At the end of the day (or house arrest) this is all still legal
| maneuvering. It may be vicious within that context but there are
| much bigger and sometimes nastier contexts out there.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I opened up the article mildly curious about which internet
| personality was about to make the outlandish claim to the biggest
| victim crown for internet clicks.
|
| I'm heartbroken it was Steven Danziger, they guy that took on big
| oil, gave them a black eye, and went to (house) jail for it.
|
| Even though his case is one I've followed for years, it even
| escaped my own memory.
|
| Also, someone mentioned Snowden and Arrange. for comparison.
| Although they can be thought as same, remember these two, unlike
| Danziger, took on the govt, the intelligence apparatus, and its
| guns. They should have known full well that when you play high
| stakes poker you are risking a ton.
|
| Danziger OTOH, was taking on a private corporation. His case is
| big, but no too different in scope than say Erin Brokovich's case
| against PG&E & Hinkley(2), or Jan Schlittchmanns case vs WR Grace
| and Beatrice Foods(1). The plaintiff counsels won in both cases,
| without consequences to their life or careers.
|
| Arrange and Snowden were morally righteous however they probably
| knew the size of the sacrifice they were about to make and made
| the decision to proceed anyway. I doubt Danziger had any idea
| that what he was getting into would cost him his career.
|
| (1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_v._Cryovac,_Inc.
|
| (2)
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_groundwater_contamin...
| akudha wrote:
| _Erin Brokovich 's case against PG&E & Hinkley(2), or Jan
| Schlittchmanns case vs WR Grace and Beatrice Foods_
|
| Are these exceptions? I wonder how many individuals (without
| money) have taken on mega corporations only to have their lives
| destroyed by the mega corps (legally)?
|
| I am just speculating here, but my guess is that everyone knows
| about cases like Brokovich vs PG&E because the little guy won
| and because of the size of the settlement (and the movie helps
| too). For every case that small guys win, there must be many
| many more cases that they lose, even though they are on the
| right?
| simiones wrote:
| It should be noted that a significant difference between Steven
| Danziger and Erin Brokovich is that he took on a US energy
| corporation which was acting against non-US citizens.
|
| The US state apparatus clearly considers that US corporate
| economic interests far outweigh any rights non-US citizens
| have, especially outside the USA, and doubly especially in
| South America, and are thus more than willing to provide any
| kind of assistance that helps those economic interests - up to
| and including military aid in the past (for example, the
| infamous banana republics).
|
| Taking on a US corporation harming people outside the USA
| (especially if you have the gall of winning!) is seen as a
| slight on the USA itself, and is punished as much as possible.
| It's important to the US state department that people are
| taught not to take such a task on lightly. I'm surprised there
| weren't bigger repercussions for the foreign judges who tried
| the case as well.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Also remember another person who took on a large, well-
| connected corporation, Karen Silkwood [0], and ultimately lost
| her life under suspicious circumstances.
|
| [0] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Silkwood)
| tintedfireglass wrote:
| you mean Julian Assange? looks like your Autocorrect messed it
| up lmao
| exabrial wrote:
| The judges need to be jailed. There was a time when
| tarring/feathering was an acceptable practice too.
| glennvtx wrote:
| Needs to be brought back for cases like this, where the legal
| system itself acts as the coercive agent of some rich
| corporation.
| vlan0 wrote:
| ccvannorman wrote:
| This comment is inciting violence and advocating for
| prosecution without due process. Would you like to be pulled
| from your home by a mob, because some internet trolls said
| you did something wrong? That is the world we will head
| toward with this mentality.
| srean wrote:
| That is a good politically correct line, but accumulated
| injustices do find uncontrolled release when the justice
| infrastructure ignores them long term.
| vlan0 wrote:
| I don't disagree with you. It's a terrible situation to be
| in. Violence should always be the last resort.
|
| >Would you like to be pulled from your home by a mob,
| because some internet trolls said you did something wrong?
|
| Remember, the context of this is oil firms. Decades of
| scientific research show they were wrong. We even have
| evidence showing they knew they were wrong and purposely
| mislead folks. All for silly pieces of paper we call money.
| You're literally sympathizing with evil.
|
| So what else can we do against oil exces that manipulate
| and lie for decades? How can we have true accountability
| and change if the criminals own the system? Do you think
| they will one day hold themselves accountable and stop
| damaging our world? Do you think anything at all will
| happen before climate change causes the suffering and
| deaths of millions more? What do we do when the system is
| broken and no longer serves the people?
|
| Why let hundreds or thousands of people ruin the habitat
| for billions? That's simply unfathomable.
| nisegami wrote:
| Outsourcing violence to the state is probably the single biggest
| source of suffering in modern society.
| SigmundA wrote:
| The underpinnings of modern civilization is the state, and the
| base definition of the state is that which has the monopoly on
| violence.
|
| The alternative is anarchy, and from anarchy a winner through
| any violence necessary will emerge and become the monopoly on
| violence becoming the state. You cannot have rule of law
| without coercion, and you cannot have coercion without some
| threat of violence.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Its my understanding that anarchy is state without authority,
| or rulers. The idea of "disorder" has been tacked on because
| everyone believes that without some kind of authority, that's
| what anarchy would lead to, but from what I have seen in
| history, that ideology is not so conclusive. You can look at
| the Spanish revolution for reference. We don't know how that
| would have turned out because it appears that other
| totalitarian countries intervened.
| nisegami wrote:
| I've seen anarchy described as the removal of "unjust
| hierarchies", which feels like a cop-out that allows for
| hierarchies as long as they're "just"? But who decides
| that? Naturally, it'll end up being the ones with the most
| resources.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Humans are social animals, we work together to survive and
| prosper. In order to work together we establish agreed upon
| rules which are "law". In order for the rules to be
| enforced some form of coercion is used otherwise how would
| they be enforced?
|
| Throughout history some form of government exists with
| humans back to villages with chiefs or elders or council to
| arbitrate disputes and enforce law, violence is the basis
| for all human power structure, either you follow the law or
| you will cast out by force to then create your own power
| structure somewhere else or made to comply by force if you
| stay.
|
| Money allows people to freely trade, but in must be
| recognized by the state or theft of it will not be enforced
| and it becomes meaningless.
|
| It would be nice to think humans could just work together
| and agree on some basic economic rules and "let the market
| decide" but who would enforce the rules? That would just
| degrade into some aggressive monopolistic organization of
| people becoming the state again, power vacuums don't last
| and never have.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Until I read Hobbes in my late 20s I couldn't see further. Give
| Leviathan a go. I suggest an easy way in is to listen to these
| lectures on Political Philosophy by prof. Steven B. Smith [2].
|
| Now, Hobbes and Rousseau are flawed thinkers, but the gist of
| "social contract" theory still constitutes the foundation of
| the modern nations state, whether republic, parliamentary or
| monarchy.
|
| The failure, as an earlier commenter pointed out to be a
| "geopolitical risk" is when we don't uphold our own principles.
| the Rule of Law that we in the "west" are so (rightfully) proud
| of must therefore be as brutal against the rich and powerful as
| against the poor.
|
| Without that example to assuage the middle classes everything
| gravitates to two poles, those with everything to lose and
| those with nothing to lose. Hobbes rightly feared those with
| nothing to lose much more (being an aristocrat's teacher at a
| time of civil war) and seeing all the fancy lawyers and money
| in the world won't do you any good against a hungry peasant
| with a rifle and nothing left to protect, so the state must
| treat the rich and poor as equals.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(book)
|
| [2] https://oyc.yale.edu/political-science/plsc-114/lecture-1
| pessimizer wrote:
| State violence keeps the peace. If you think of your own life
| (for most people I think), there's some incident in the past
| where you or somebody you love was hurt, and if it weren't for
| state violence, you'd have felt the _obligation_ to hurt the
| perpetrator back. That 's not good for the victim of crime,
| because not only are they suffering from the crime, but now
| they feel obligated to do take a dangerous, difficult action
| that they're unaccustomed to, or to feel ashamed for not having
| done it. It's not good for society, because the friends and
| loved ones of the perpetrator of the crime may have a different
| view of it, and now for you, you're the perpetrator of
| unpunished harm to _their_ loved one. That 's how family feuds
| start.
|
| That's in the basic case that almost everyone will experience
| at multiple points in their lives. Instead, the state
| intervenes and does just enough violence to keep the peace on
| both sides.
|
| The other reason state violence keeps civilization together is
| _credit_. To extend credit, you have to have state violence or
| a mafia. There has to be something to do if someone just
| decides not to pay you back. You can build up trust with a
| particular borrower by starting with small amounts (or
| collectively do this by sharing information with other lenders,
| but that 's a bit of a mafia), but that doesn't prevent people
| from living up to that trust for the little loans, until the
| big loan comes, then absconding. Or simply doing it with
| introductory loans across many different (non-colluding)
| lenders.
|
| In all these situations, fortune favors larger families. Your
| family determines whether people will be afraid of hurting you,
| whether you'll get justice if they do, whether there are people
| who have resources that trust you enough to lend them to you...
| if you don't have a family, you're fucked.
|
| My problem is state violence on behalf of the powerful towards
| the weak, which comes with state control by the wealthy.
| Otherwise, thank Christ for state violence. I know I would have
| killed at least two people (unless one of them killed me) if it
| didn't exist.
| baxtr wrote:
| I am not sure if the other options are much better.
|
| Having armed militias / mafia organizations that operate state-
| like, working for those with the biggest wallets is not ideal
| either.
| nisegami wrote:
| Having armed militias / mafia organizations that operate
| state-like is just outsourcing violence to a different
| entity. For something to truly be an "other" option, violence
| would have to be something held and used at the individual
| level.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Because lynch mobs are better? That is what a democratic state
| is supposed to replace.
| pydry wrote:
| The state isnt infosys in the free market of violence. By
| definition it's the entity with a monopoly on violence.
| lupire wrote:
| pydry wrote:
| When I look at how figures like Donziger, Assange and Snowden are
| treated I cant help but think our society is a lot more like
| Russia than we think we are - differing mostly by a matter of
| degree, rather than principle.
|
| Furthermore, this is a geopolitical risk. If the west doesnt
| uphold the principles we purport to represent then our support
| dwindles and allies who were on the fence will fall against us.
| selimnairb wrote:
| We in the US definitely live in a soft totalitarian system.
| Like totalitarianism but with heated leather seats if you can
| afford them.
| glennvtx wrote:
| As long as people recognize hierarchical governments and
| their claims to authority, this will always be the case.
| mxuribe wrote:
| > ...totalitarianism but with heated leather seats...
|
| This is the first time i've heard this one! I have heard
| others too like "we live in handcuffs, pretty and fuzzy
| handcuffs, but handcuffs no less..."
|
| EDIT: I should have added that: i totally agree with you on
| the sentiment!
| jelly wrote:
| I understand it sucks to hear that people are mistreated, but
| at least you do hear about it.
| bcollaery wrote:
| theonething wrote:
| Given the choice, I'd still much rather live under the
| jurisdiction of the U.S. than Russia. The U.S. is far from
| perfect, but I'll choose her over Russia, China, North Korea,
| Cuba, etc. any day.
| TomSwirly wrote:
| "It's the United States, or North Korea!"
|
| Hello from Europe. We exist!
| FpUser wrote:
| There are other countries outside of those you've just
| mentioned. And committing comparatively less crimes against
| their own citizens while fucking up every other country they
| are in disagreement with is no excuse.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Can you name one country that doesn't have warts?
| TomSwirly wrote:
| What's your point? "No country is perfect, so we can
| ignore even the grossest misconduct by the United
| States"?
| JTbane wrote:
| I don't know why you're being downvoted, but I agree, the more
| a whisleblower brings to light the more they are treated as a
| traitor.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Who's the "we" you speak of? The "we're barely any better than
| them" or "we're just like them but with better optics"
| sentiment you profess is one of the common ones to find around
| here.
|
| If you wanna play that dumb "zoom out until everything looks
| the same" game then all societies are like Russia. Would there
| even have been a media article written about this guy had this
| story been in Russia?
|
| The caveman were almost certainly treating the guy who rocked
| the boat worse than the guy who didn't. Every society plays
| favorites to _some_ extent. There 's a lot of noise in the data
| when it comes to how much due process these kinds of
| "inconvenient to the rulers" people get in modern democracies
| so any nation can be made to look like Russia depending on who
| you pick and choose. The lawyer in question looks like he
| really got unjustifiably screwed but equally "inconvenient to
| the people on top" people have been left relatively alone in
| the past.
| pydry wrote:
| Perhaps they are, but we are still routinely told that ours
| is different - better, special, more principled, fairer,
| committed to democracy, human rights and freedom of
| expression.
|
| I think the West _used_ to be better at putting these
| principles into action although it 's true if never has been
| very consistent.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| > Perhaps they are, but we are still routinely told that
| ours is different - better, special, more principled,
| fairer, committed to democracy, human rights and freedom of
| expression.
|
| Who's we? Last I checked it was more or less a coin toss
| between "murka bad" and "murka bestest" depending on which
| filter bubble you happened to be in at the minute. Every
| society tells people that it is the best. I think pride
| based solely on group membership is a very bad thing at any
| scale beyond small groups but every organization from the
| smallest up to nations tries to foster that sentiment to
| varying extents so...
|
| >I think the West used to be better at putting these
| principles into action although it's true if never has been
| very consistent.
|
| I'm inclined to believe this but I'm also inclined to
| believe a lot more bad stuff was easier to sweep under the
| rug in the past so the error bars on any "it used to be
| better" observation are massive. Hearing about these things
| at all is a prerequisite to changing them.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Used to be better?! There has been far more fairness in
| trials, in justice, than there ever has been. It is just
| with the internet, with cameras everywhere, you hear anout
| injustice more... even if it is less common.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| I'm not sure your argument is intended to dismiss any
| differences between justice in societies. If it is:
|
| The rule of law, separation of powers and adherence to
| procedural rules can be assessed and are regularly assessed
| by organizations such as freedom house [1]. Sure, these
| assessments will have some bias, but it _is_ possible to work
| towards a quasi-objective take.
|
| [1] https://freedomhouse.org/
| psi75 wrote:
| _When I look at how figures like Donziger, Assange and Snowden
| are treated I cant help but think our society is a lot more
| like Russia than we think we are - differing mostly by a matter
| of degree, rather than principle._
|
| Stalinism was economic totalitarianism with a goal and an exit
| strategy. Authoritarianism was supposed to be a phase; the
| system would moderate itself over time. The degree to which
| that would have actually happened, we don't know. External
| forces destroyed the Soviet Union, so all we can do is
| speculate, but I suspect that if it had been left alone, it'd
| have fixed a lot of its problems and be a decent place to live
| by now.
|
| The corporate system we have now is also economic
| totalitarianism. Financial interests decide where you can live,
| what jobs you can do, and what kind of reputation you have in
| the community. The issue here is that it's economic
| totalitarianism with no exit strategy. Neoliberalism insists
| that things have never been better (despite substantial
| evidence to the contrary) and there's no reason to exit from
| economic totalitarianism when we should, instead, "own nothing,
| have no privacy, and be happy".
| Lazare wrote:
| It's worth noting that there is another side to the story. As
| Wikipedia notes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger),
| significant evidence of Donziger's fraud ended up being captured
| by a friendly documentary crew that had been following him
| around.
|
| The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague found that the
| evidence placed before the Court was "the most thorough
| documentary, video, and testimonial proof of fraud ever put
| before an arbitral tribunal", and that [Donziger] did engage in
| blackmail and bribery of Ecuadorian judges.
|
| The situation is complex, and I _certainly_ don 't have any
| insight into the true rights and wrongs of the case. And there's
| certainly evidence that points towards Donziger's innocence too.
| But Esquire's take is, I think, entirely unbalanced, and
| discounts out of hand the idea that any of the many, many court
| cases Donziger has lost (in multiple legal systems and in front
| of multiple judges) may have been at all correct.
| toss1 wrote:
| The article specifically pointed out that the fraud charges are
| based on a single accusation of a former Ecuadoran judge whom
| Chevron moved him & his family to the United States, paid his
| income taxes, and had their lawyers coach him for 53 days.
|
| He since recanted his false testimony.
|
| Even if there is actually some kind of wrongdoing on Donziger's
| side, the blatant multi-million dollar effort to discredit him
| and blatantly ignore the law on Chevron's part so taints any
| such evidence that it should be considered worthless.
|
| The "both-sidesing" it as you are doing, you very nicely
| demonstrate how it's so easy to fall into the trap of being
| "fair" but actually siding with the wrongdoer.
| elliekelly wrote:
| They're misdemeanor charges, though. I don't believe he was
| criminally charged in the US for the (alleged) fraud/bribery,
| only for contempt because he refused to produce documents as
| ordered by the court. Regardless of the evidence for or against
| his alleged past actions it's excessive to confine him to house
| arrest for 18 months when the maximum sentence for the charges,
| _if proven_ , is just six months.
| lesuorac wrote:
| > significant evidence of Donziger's fraud ended up being
| captured by a friendly documentary crew that had been following
| him around.
|
| I don't think thats a correct reading of the judgement at all.
| The "most thorough documentary" is the court referring to
| itself in the amount of data (i.e. documents) that it
| accumulates to show that it's improbable for the Ecuadorian
| judge to have written the initial decision (against chevron).
|
| > many court cases Donziger has lost
|
| Tthose court cases generally explicitly say they're not
| deciding if Chrevron broke any laws. They're generally pretty
| explicit in that they don't think Donziger won "correctly".
| i.e. with the PCA the PCA isn't saying that Chrevron didn't
| litter, they're saying we think the decision by initial judge
| was done improperly (i.e. it was ghost written).
|
| [1]: https://pcacases.com/web/sendAttach/2453 > (4) The
| 'Ghostwriting' of the Lago Agrio Judgment: The facts
| established on the factual, expert and forensic evidence speak
| for themselves, as set out at length in Parts IV, V and VI
| above. 8.54 As there explained, the details as to how exactly
| all or material parts of the Lago Agrio Judgment came to be
| written, corruptly by certain of the Lago Agrio Plaintiffs'
| representatives for Judge Zambrano, remain incomplete. The
| missing factual and forensic evidence is likely available only
| in Ecuador, if it still exists at all. Yet the circumstantial
| and other evidence adduced in this arbitration is overwhelming.
| Short of a signed confession by the miscreants, as rightly
| submitted by the Claimants at the end of the Track II Hearing,
| the evidence establishing 'ghostwriting' in this arbitration
| "must be the most thorough documentary, video, and testimonial
| proof of fraud ever put before an arbitral tribunal."31
| shkkmo wrote:
| "Significant evidence of Donziger's Fraud" seems to only be
| backed up by the following line from the article you cite:
|
| > showed an environmental scientist present at a legal strategy
| meeting of plaintiffs' lawyers; the same scientist was later
| appointed by the Ecuadorian court as an ostensibly impartial
| expert to write a report on technical issue
|
| So the evidence shows that one scientific expert wasn't fully
| independent.
|
| Contrast this with the clear evidence of conflicts of interests
| from the US judges, the bribing of the oil company's star
| witness and their eventual recantation of some of their
| testimony.
|
| It sure looks like there's far more evidence of fraud from
| Chevron than whatever the documentary crew caught.
| resfirestar wrote:
| Yes, there's definitely a lot more to the story than what is
| described in the article, or indeed most of the articles that
| are based primarily on interviews with Donziger. It's hard to
| find a single element of the case that hasn't been the subject
| of fierce controversy. The arbitration decision you referenced
| [1] also relied heavily on disputed evidence, but they tended
| to give it credence anyway. I don't think it's very
| controversial that Judge Lewis Kaplan has been remarkably
| hostile toward Donziger, just depends on whether you believe
| Donziger deserves the harsh treatment. I think it would help if
| the case got a proper review from a cooler headed judge, but
| with the current trajectory of the US judicial system that
| seems to be impossible.
|
| [1] https://www.chevron.com/-/media/chevron/stories/documents/i
| n..., especially part IV where the use of Guerra's testimony is
| explained on page 139 of the PDF.
| scythe wrote:
| Donziger did some bad things. That's mostly indisputable,
| although it's questionable how much control an American lawyer
| had over a team of Ecuadorians operating in Ecuador. But the
| sanctions carried out against him were an atrocious breach of
| ordinary legal procedures.
|
| Just because someone's moral character isn't perfect doesn't
| mean their legal rights disappear. John Adams would be
| horrified.
| drazle wrote:
| While the atrocities committed by Texaco and the Ecuador
| government in Ecuador are heinous, Steven is a class action
| lawyer that was trying to line his own and his backer's pockets.
| I agree that Chevron and US judges appear to have crossed the
| line and hope that is prosecuted. But you should really research
| the whole story before you honor the lawyer's actions in any way.
| And the whole suit was frivolous anyway as the Ecuador government
| had already absolved Texaco/Chevron of all liability. Their own
| documentary was very damning even before the outtakes where
| revealed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvrZRvgwBS8. This guy
| is getting way too much mileage out of this 20+ year lawsuit and
| should stop representing himself as the victim.
| https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/boutrous....
| '"Indeed, Maria Aguinda, the lead plaintiff in the Chevron
| litigation, admitted that when the plaintiffs' lawyers originally
| instructed her to sign the litigation papers, she thought she was
| signing up for free medicine: in her own words, the lawyer told
| her, "In four months, I will bring medications so you will be
| healed. But first, sign this paper here."'
| pain2022 wrote:
| This story is scary and heartbreaking. The guy represented poor
| people in a foreign country against brutal corporation and now
| his life and career are ruined
| lupire wrote:
| nerdponx wrote:
| And there's an obviously corrupt judge "on the loose", posing a
| credible threat that keeps who-knows-what-other abuses from
| ever being brought to light.
| revscat wrote:
| Oil is the greatest evil mankind has ever encountered. Change my
| mind.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| "The love of money is the root of all evil."
|
| It's as true today as it ever was.
| revscat wrote:
| Degrees of evil, though. Pursuing money through, say, selling
| shoes is much, MUCH less evil than the crimes Chevron, Saudi
| Arabia, and the other FF companies have committed, continue
| to commit, and will commit tomorrow.
|
| No cobbler is capable of extinguishing humanity. Exxon is.
| What makes it worse is that they _know_ they have this power,
| have known for decades, and do not care.
|
| I cannot imagine -- literally -- a greater evil.
| stuckinhell wrote:
| I'll try. Oil without humans, doesn't seem to do much of
| anything. I think its moreso that Humans are the greatest evil
| that Humans have ever encountered.
|
| "Hell is other people."
| fjfaase wrote:
| He was released on April 25, 2022.
| https://www.democracynow.org/2022/4/26/steven_donziger_freed...
| ratg13 wrote:
| Released after being held several times over the maximum
| allowed limit, and they took his law license away.
|
| The judge responsible should be disbarred.
| nceqs3 wrote:
| He bribed judges
| platz wrote:
| If that is true, should that waive his rights in the
| american legal system?
| braingenious wrote:
| This stuff is part of why I love this website! You'll
| always, _ALWAYS_ find folks that will inexplicably carry
| water for any large corporation (for example, Chevron)
| and due to the way the rules are structured, you're
| explicitly not allowed to poke at them about it. You
| can't even bring up the content of the rule without
| breaking the rule in this case!
|
| Anyway, to more directly address your point: The person
| you're responding to might likely respond in the
| affirmative to your question, though I've never seen
| anyone actually explain how house arrest in the US makes
| any sense in this case.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yes. Why is that even a question?
| dctoedt wrote:
| Context:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Donziger#Kaplan's_2014_...
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The context in the Wikipedia article seems a lot more favorable
| to Chevron[0] than the Esquire article. I know, I know, NPOV
| and all that is Wikipedia's MO. But everyone here seems to be
| thinking that all companies have a magic "put person in prison"
| button on their desk. While I do have very many complaints
| about the civil legal system this isn't exactly what happened.
|
| What it seems to me is that the legal system has a blind spot:
| they are very much obsessed with jurisdiction and ethics rules,
| but don't know what to do when those are in conflict. What
| happens when you insist that the only venue for a case is one
| that demands bribes and does not try cases impartially? Chevron
| seems to think that Ecuadorian corruption meant they were above
| the law - it's the same logic as the Idaho Zone of Death[1].
| Donziger figured that if he's being told to try the case there
| by an American judge, than it's OK to pay the bribes necessary
| to get the ruling he wants.
|
| The only reason why that even seems remotely OK is purely a
| function of how dirty and awful oil companies are. Had this
| happened to almost anyone else the countersuit on Donziger
| would have been considered to be a moral imperative. If a
| lawyer bribed a judge in another country to get a quick
| judgment on, say, a bakery or something, we'd be up in arms and
| wanting to see that lawyer behind bars. So perhaps this is a
| new benchmark for unsympathetic plaintiffs somehow. You are
| such a bad person that _we don 't care_ if you got extorted by
| a dirty judge-bribing lawyer.
|
| That's, of course, assuming the judge-bribing happened. The
| person who delivered the testimony has been rather unreliable
| about this; and has recanted and un-recanted his testimony
| multiple times. I don't necessarily treat this as evidence that
| nothing happened and that he made it up. It's entirely possible
| that this guy just plays up all sides for himself. He could
| have taken a bribe from Donziger, then "protection from
| Ecuador" from Chevron, and then more money or favors from the
| other international tribunals he testified at later. That
| doesn't exonerate Donziger, it just implicates Chevron, too.
|
| The ultimate take-away here is that the legal system has tunnel
| vision and is easy to distract. Allegations of unethical
| conduct by lawyers is enough of an internal threat to the
| functioning of the courts that they will forget the original
| crime in favor of circling the wagons. Scumbag lawyers like
| Chevron's legal team know that they can gin up an ethics trial
| to get out of their own misconduct.
|
| [0] Or at least, as favorable as you can get for a company that
| dumped oil on indigenous peoples
|
| [1] A small strip of Yosemite National Park in Idaho where it
| is constitutionally impossible to empanel a jury for criminal
| proceedings because Congress demanded it be treated as part of
| a Wyoming judicial district
| TomSwirly wrote:
| > But everyone here seems to be thinking that all companies
| have a magic "put person in prison" button on their desk.
|
| No one said anything like this. We feel that the behavior of
| the judge and of Chevron are completely inexcusable, and it's
| a condemnation of the system in general that this sort of
| behavior is even allowed.
|
| > Donziger figured that if he's being told to try the case
| there by an American judge, than it's OK to pay the bribes
| necessary to get the ruling he wants.
|
| You introduce this as if it's absolute truth.
|
| As you know, because you mention it later, there is
| _absolutely no evidence_ that Donziger bribed anyone, as - if
| you had read the story - the _single_ witness had received
| huge compensation from Chevron for his story, relocation to
| America, and still recanted his testimony. You later mention
| that maybe it isn 't true, ending up "That doesn't exonerate
| Donziger," bookending your comment with a Donziger's guilt on
| both ends.
|
| There's no reading of this that's OK in the slightest with
| respect to Chevron and the judge, period, the end.
|
| All your talking seems to be an attempt to distract from this
| nasty truth, to carry water for one of the more evil
| companies of today, and that's saying an awful lot.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Well thought out. After reading the article I was thinking
| that its going to take some significant changes in something,
| I was going to say western priorities, but I don't even know
| what to call it, to extract ourselves from the mess we are
| creating for future generations... When we can allow
| corporations to have the power to poison the planet with
| little recourse I have a hard time seeing the light at the
| end of the tunnel.
| glennvtx wrote:
| A person has an inherent right to justice, this is an
| individual right, one is induced to delegate to an
| organization, jury, etc.. etc.. to ensure a transparency
| meant to insulate the individual against claims of trespass
| during their pursuit of that justice, but ultimately, it is
| an individual right, and if the system society encourages
| you to delegate that right to, fails, you still retain the
| right to seek justice on your own.
| Threeve303 wrote:
| This kind of stuff happens more often than people want to admit.
| For example, I have discovered that I have no constitutional
| right to a trial or due process. A multi year long Federal
| investigation was done based on a false accusation. My career and
| everything was taken. I have never been charged with anything and
| it is implied that there is no crime to even charge me with. I
| have taken all of this to Twitter recently (link in my profile).
| The past few weeks I have been asking the state and federal to
| arrest me, even though I didnt do anything, just so I would have
| a right to an attorney to be honored and begin the process of
| defending myself. But they havent even replied now for months.
|
| Good luck out there when you run up against real power
| structures. You do not have the rights you think you do.
|
| The Government can and will kill you without even charging you or
| proving anything to a jury.
|
| This isnt even political as both left and right wing controlled
| states, CO and TN have gone along with it.
|
| We simply do not have any rights in the U.S. Truth seems to be
| based simply on how many political connections and how much money
| you have.
| rehash3 wrote:
| Twitter is a horrible way to discover your full story, maybe
| write it in a blog some place? Or even do a Ask HN thread..
| Threeve303 wrote:
| I agree. Something like substack would work a lot better
| since this is a complicated years long situation. After much
| thought, the ability to message people and link them back to
| it like I have been doing will be useful if I can ever have
| my day in court. I am able to tag people and agencies
| involved and their response or lack of will become very
| useful some day. Substack, etc is missing that one feature.
|
| For example, "Hey @FBI, why am I not being arrested so I can
| defend myself in court?"
|
| Then in a way, the continued silence proves my side of
| things.
|
| Anyway. Sorry to sort of hijack this post with this story.
| Wasnt my intention.
|
| We all just need to focus on our core rights as U.S. Citizens
| because they are quickly going away.
| dncornholio wrote:
| I fail to see your posting on Twitter is going to help you
| in any shape or form. From my quick scim.. it's really
| incomprehensible. Doing you probably more worse than good
| IMHO.
| Calavar wrote:
| Based on a skim of your Twitter, it looks like you were accused
| of committing a lewd act with a minor. You believe that this
| was an unfounded accusation. The police seem to agree because
| they have decided not to charge you with a crime, but the
| stigma has hurt you personally and professionally. You want to
| be charged with a crime so you can prove yourself innocent in
| court. It also appears that many, many people you know have
| urged you to seek mental health care, which you perceive as
| attempts to gaslight you.
|
| I won't discuss the mental health component further because I
| don't see why you would trust an anonymous HN comment on this
| topic if you are skeptical of the motivations your friends and
| family.
|
| Due process and right to a trial don't apply to your situation,
| since those are rights for people who have been charged with a
| crime. There is no constitutional right to be charged with a
| crime on request.
|
| I understand your desire to prove your innocence in court, but
| even if you were able to do that, it is highly unlikely (read:
| near zero chance) that it would reverse the damage to your
| career and personal life. Based on the lack of potential
| benefit, time spent on trying to be charged with a crime is
| likely to be time wasted. I suggest that you move on and try to
| rebuild your life in other ways.
| Threeve303 wrote:
| I appreciate the reply. It is more than most. This is a
| unique situation with a lot of history behind it. With that
| history comes proof of my innocence and a court room is the
| only place where I can call witnesses, present evidence, etc
| under oath.
|
| Finally, the investigation is on going right now. As it has
| been for years. There is no crime to charge me with so there
| is no end to it.
|
| It is a very unique situation and I am not guilty.
|
| My right to a trial and due process does apply here. The Govt
| cannot injure you in the way it has done to me now for years
| without due process. Simple as that.
|
| Courts prove guilt or innocence, not accusations and not law
| enforcement agents.
|
| It is also not a mental health issue, thank you.
|
| EDIT: Also I have tried to move on for years. I am not
| allowed to and they even refuse to give me ID or allow me to
| earn any income. I would love to move on. Endless
| investigation will not allow it.
|
| Also to be clear, it has been heavily implied death is the
| result, I have survived multiple murder attempts already. I
| do not think this is how it is supposed to work. It was only
| a few seconds of accidential nudity, at home, after waking up
| from a nap.
|
| This is being used to kill me without even charging me.
| ftyhbhyjnjk wrote:
| The real shameful here are the those judges. Those greedy,
| corrupt, soul-less judges.
| notlukesky wrote:
| hulitu wrote:
| A very nice explanation on a functioning democracy. And of course
| Ecuador is just another vasal state.
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