Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Censorship attempt hits the innocent

Sheer government arrogance
"Yesterday I filed a “friend of the Court” brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the case of Gemtronics, Inc. v. Federal Trade Commission, a case I’ve reported on extensively for this and other websites. The question before the Fourth Circuit is whether to compensate a retired engineer, William Isely, who was falsely identified as the operator of a website that contained statements the FTC wanted to censor.

William Isely[1] defeated the Federal Trade Commission’s attempt to hold him legally responsible for a website he did not own, operate, or control. Isely now seeks to recover some of the $130,000 in attorney fees and other expenses he incurred defending himself. The Commission’s Administrative Law Judge held that Isely was eligible to recover an award under the Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA), 5 U.S.C. § 504, but ultimately denied his application because the Commission’s position was “substantially justified,” as defined by § 504(a)

Source

In the USA today you can be innocent and guilty at the same time, apparently.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

WTF? Typical government. We were wrong but you can't sue us because we are the government. Government does not make mistakes therefore you pay.

-btm

Spurwing Plover said...

A big loss for BIG BROTHER and a vicory for common sense

Anonymous said...

This man was a typical victim of the bureaucratic mind speak, which is "while you were innocent of our charges you must be guilty of something, why else would we have accused you?"

Anonymous said...

If you sue someone for something and lose doesn't mean the accusation was unreasonable. In that case you also do not need to pay the winner's fees. Only if the suit was riduculous.

So the question here is whether the judge unreasonably sided with the government, which is a different issue, and a massive problem. I know nothing about the case, but it does seem like really bad work for the government not to be able to identify the owner, and therefore should pay for their ineptness

Anonymous said...

because after I read that u absolutely nothing about the case, I couldn't care less about what u expound upon next.

Anonymous said...

"know nothing"

Anonymous said...

The problem here is a common one. Judges have far too much power. And the more power they have, the less power the people have.

Anonymous said...

Ok - many people might consider this wrong but it doesn't change some simple things.
1. The winner is not always able to cover their legal costs.
2. If the action taken was 'substantially justified' the costs can't be recovered under the EAJA Act.
3. the American rule on costs makes this type of outcome inevitable in most cases. In many common law jurisdictions the general rule is that costs follow the event.

Anonymous said...

Free country? LOL!

Wildbird said...

Buricrat another word for IDIOT

Kee Bird said...

OABAMA+HOLDER=SOCIALISM