BirdieMod

Originally posted by jeffreywilens
As already speculated on this board, Paul Overhauser of Indiana and I have filed a new class action against Directv. This one focuses on the illegal manner in which Directv obtained the postings from Pirate's Den and DSS Chat. Basically, after suing the operator of those sites, Directv "convinced" the operator to turn over all of the stored electronic messages that had been posted or exchanged by the participants.

A different section of the same federal law used by Directv to sue you folks prohibits what Directv did. With many exceptions, none of which are applicable here (things like search warrants, consent of the posters, etc.), it is illegal for the operator of this type of message board to turn over the stored communications to third parties and equally illegal for someone to conspire with that operator to break the law.

18 U.S.C. section 2707 provides for minimum damages of $1,000 per person per violation. The law does not specify if each disclosed message is a separate violation or whether all of the disclosed messages for any particular person constitutes one violation. Either way, Direct would be looking at a rather hefty penalty.

Here is the lawsuit.

Directv-Pirates-Den-Lawsuit.pdf

Two things to think about are:

1. While the "exclusionary rule" which prohibits use of illegally obtained information in criminal prosecutions may not apply to civil cases, you should still be able to obtain a jury instruction that advises the jury that Directv broke the law to obtain this particular evidence.

2. What other electronic communications did Directv acquire illegally?

Jeffrey Wilens
Lakeshore Law Center
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Risestars response at WuMarkus:

Well, let me start off by stating that this suit, which appears to be directed at me for some alleged wrongdoing is baseless.

I for one am somewhat disappointed that a reputable law firm such as Jeffrey Wilens would attempt to subvert the facts or lodge an action based on incomplete or inaccurate factual statements.

Especially considering that I was one of the only ones that did challenge the actions and I spent considerable time, effort and money at preventing third party use of documents obtained per court order.

Everything that was obtained, was done so by court order, there was no consentual or voluntary disclosure of ANYTHING.

The order specifically mentions website data and databases as well as names and addresses of any and all of the website members and subscribers, users, affiliates, customers and suppliers among a multitude of other things.

I am not sure on the legal reprecussions of court orders of this nature, but let us be clear that these allegations are not factual as per my involvement