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Guess Who (No Fair Googling)
A confidante describes him thus:
I think [he] knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is.... He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability - the extraordinary, uncanny ability - to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually.... So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy.... He's been bored to death his whole life. He's just too talented to do what ordinary people do.
He's not as smart as he thinks he is-smart people don't get bored.
He's narcissistic, seeing himself as "too talented to do what ordinary people do."
Anyone who knows exactly how smart, how perceptive, what a good reader of people he is suffers from the Dunning-Kruger Effect; competency is inversely proportional to certainty.
You See a Gun, I See a Lever
California Highway Patrol thug pointing rifle at innocent man. (AP Photo/The Sacramento Bee, Randall Benton, via KTVU)
It sure looks to me like that cop is pointing a rifle at the guy in the Mustang. Which he shouldn't be doing.
I thought he was doing it because he's scared, but the more I think about it, the more it seems it's all for show: an aggravated assault to impress the motorist or the photographer. The cop has no reason to think the driver might have evil intent.
Why do I say that?
The cop would never get that close to the driver with his rifle if he though the guy in the Mustang might have evil intent, because action beats reaction. Before the cop could get his finger on the trigger, a guy with evil intent could certainly deflect the muzzle of the rifle away from himself. He could probably grab the barrel and pull it into the car (with the cop attached, it appears, by the sling around his neck). He might even be able to get the the muzzle pointed at the belly of the Pillsbury Doughcop on the other side, all before the cop could pull the trigger.
A Better Revenge-Porn Statute
Here's what Marc Randazza said to an academic about her proposed revenge-porn statute:
While you're sitting on your ass "teaching people how to think like a lawyer," I'm actually out front on this issue, *litigating* these kinds of cases.I think your law is fucking idiotic. Absolutely. Fucking. Idiotic.Nothing but the academic circle jerk and a few vote-starved legislators could possibly consider *criminalizing* the publication of photographs to be tolerable. So go write another law review article about something else you have no first-hand experience about, and leave the legal work to the big boys and girls.
I'm neither part of the academic circle-jerk nor a vote-starved legislator, and I think that criminalizing some publication of photographs is tolerable (as some publication-obscenity, child porn-is already criminalized) as long as it doesn't narrow First Amendment protections. ((I hope Marco, who fights revenge-porn publishers in civil court, will tell me why I'm wrong.))
Scholarship or Activism, but Not Both
I shouldn't be surprised, but I am. I knew it. I had written about it. But still I tried to engage Mary Anne Franks on the law, to explore the truth. Like Charlie Brown with his football, I allowed myself to be surprised by more of the same: Overstate your case. Misstate the law. Make handwaving generalizations. Demonize disagreement. Use false analogies. Lie.
Mary Anne Franks won't engage on the law in any honest way. She confesses why:
The bottom line for me as an activist and legislative advisor (as opposed to as a scholar, because the roles are slightly different) is to draft and support laws that protect victims and comply with the First Amendment.
Franks is a true believer. When it comes to revenge-porn legislation, she is writing not as a scholar but as an activist-a role that is not only "slightly different," as she claims, from that of scholar, but radically different. How so? Scholars explore the truth. Activists try to get things done. If you see yourself as an activist, the end justifies the means, so overstate your case, misstate the law, make handwaving generalizations, demonize disagreement, use false analogies, lie.
More JD Underground Lulz
In a comment to this post, in which I wrote:
I confess that I don't know who JD Underground's denizens are. Dropping in there is like visiting a party at which a bunch of doughy masked frat boys alternately slap-fight and masturbate each other. It's frankly disturbing.
...JD Underground denizen "patentesq" asks, "Hey, Bennett how about arguing your points on JDU?"
I wonder: what part of my description of JD Underground does patentesq find so appealing? Does he like the doughy fratboys, the slap-fighting, or the mutual masturbation? Or is the whole package what attracts him so much to the site that he thinks I should want to be there too?
Then patentesq's fellow doughy masked frat boys discuss who Mark Bennett is. Which is funny, first inherently-because if identity were important to them, they'd be identifying themselves-and second because "who Mark Bennett is" is no mystery: I've written more than 850,000 words here; I have a separate advertising website; I'm active on Twitter; I've got videos online; I've been interviewed by various media outlets. I'm very much the opposite of an anonymous commenter.
Revenge Porn: More Made-Up First Amendment Law
Mary Anne Franks is still inventing First Amendment law in the cause of her political crusade to get her proposed statute outlawing revenge porn outlawed:
PrometheeFeu, I do disagree with you, but much more importantly, the Supreme Court disagrees with you. The Court has never held that speech that has zero political, newsworthy, artistic, or scientific value receives First Amendment protection – and certainly not full First Amendment protection. Speech, by the mere virtue of being speech, does not receive First Amendment protection by default. Factor in that the speech in question here is sexually explicit, of purely private interest, and has devastating secondary effects – that's speech with zero positive value and a great deal of negative value. There's no Supreme Court precedent for protecting that. To the contrary, the Court has made it clear that such forms of speech "are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality" (Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire)
No, We're Not Doctors [updated]
In anonymous commentary on JD Underground, the subject being a lively discussion with a lawyer who publicly gave a wrong answer-I thought harmfully wrong-to an ethics question, "patentesq" ((1,238 posts on JD Underground since May 9, 2012)) wrote:
I can't imagine a group of medical doctors acting this way... law is a sickening profession in so many ways.
I confess that I don't know who JD Underground's denizens are. Dropping in there is like visiting a party at which a bunch of doughy masked frat boys alternately slap-fight and masturbate each other. It's frankly disturbing. "Patentesq" might be a patent lawyer. Or he might be a twelve-year-old boy or a federal judge or a guy who likes to wear vinyl shoes that look like shiny leather. ((They're patentesque.))
The fact that there are lawyers who thrive on conflict is foreign to patentesq and makes him all queasy, but still he makes a good point: medical doctors don't publicly call out each other's bullshit.
Police Aggravated Assault Caught on Video
Momma calls cops for help with mentally ill son.
Cops come, Officer Cardan Spencer shoots the son, who's standing with his hands at his sides.
Son is charged with aggravated assault on the cops, which is what happens when the cops try to kill you and fail.
Until the video turns up...
State of Texas v. Hunter Thomas Taylor [Updated]
Those who think we need a statute criminalizing nonconsensual porn need look no further. Texas's improper-photography statute says:
A person commits an offense if the person...by...electronic means...transmits a visual image of another at a location that is not a bathroom or private dressing room...without the other person's consent; and...with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person;
In a deposition in August Hunter Thomas Taylor, the alleged proprietor of revenge-porn site texxxan.com, told lawyer John S. Morgan, "I'm not at fault for anything because I just opened the platform and let people post whatever they wanted."
Texas's Law of Parties states:
A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if...acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he...aids...the other person to commit the offense.
Is California's Revenge-Porn Statute Constitutional?
I've discussed Mary Anne Franks's proposed state statute criminalizing revenge porn and New Jersey's statute criminalizing revenge porn, and concluded that under current Supreme Court caselaw appellate courts will be constrained, in the face of a serious First Amendment challenge, to invalidate both as unconstitutional restrictions on free speech.
What about California's statute, which was more recently signed into law? According to that statute, misdemeanor disorderly conduct is committed by:
Any person who photographs or records by any means the image of the intimate body part or parts of another identifiable person, under circumstances where the parties agree or understand that the image shall remain private, and the person subsequently distributes the image taken, with the intent to cause serious emotional distress, and the depicted person suffers serious emotional distress.
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