[Nettime-nl] Fw: Zenon Panoussis's letter to Kirkland: "I invite you to sue me"

["geert" <geert@basis.desk.nl>]

From: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@well.com>
To: <politech@politechbot.com>
Cc: <oracle@xs4all.nl>
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 1:55 PM
Subject: FC: Zenon Panoussis's letter to Kirkland: "I invite you to sue me"


> Zenon has been sued by Scientology for mirroring their ostensibly
> secret scriptures: http://www.dtek.chalmers.se/~d1dd/cos/zenon-eng.html
>
> ---
>
> Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 04:24:47 +0200
> From: Zenon Panoussis <oracle@xs4all.nl>
> Organization: Marcab Technologies
> To: Steven A Smith <steves@prestongates.com>
> Cc: politech@politechbot.com,
> Kirkland City Manager David Ramsay c/o <webmaster@ci.kirkland.wa.us>
> Subject: The fine art of suppressing information on the Internet
>
>
> Dear Steven
>
> With some amazement, some disbelief and a lot of amusement, I read
> at http://www.politechbot.com/kirkland/ that you have been threatening
> legal action on behalf of the city of Kirkland against Declan McCullagh's
> politechbot.com for its publication of some police officers' social
> security numbers.
>
> Dear Steven. Being a good counsel to your client is not limited to
> firing off standard cease & desist letters at the press of a button.
> On the contrary, being a good counsel involves advising the client
> on strategy and, in doing so, taking into account the nature,
> strength, habits and expected reactions of the counterpart.
>
> Dear Steven. You have advised your client to start a war against the
> Internet. Not only that; you have actually started a war on behalf
> of your client. Any half-wit who has been online for more than six
> weeks could have told you that anybody who starts a war on the
> Internet is guaranteed to lose it. If you would rather not take the
> advise of half-wits, you could have asked the Recording Industry
> Association of America, The Motion Picture Association of America,
> the Church of Scientology (OK, I admit, those *are* half-wits, but
> they are half-wits with millions), the Ford Motor Company or the
> German government instead. They would all have told you the same.
>
> Dear Steven. I regret to have to tell you that you did a lousy
> job in persuing your clients' interests. The best way to go about
> it would have been a polite e-mail, asking whether politechbot.com
> would kindly remove those SSNs from the web as a token of
> consideration and respect of the officers' privacy and worry about
> possible abuse. You never know, you could have striken a cord there.
> The next best way to go about it would have been to just do nothing.
>
> Dear Steven. Your client has to pay for your mistakes. The article
> that you demand removed is now republished by me at
> http://www.provocation.net/mirrors/kirkland/p-02008.html and I am
> hereby inviting your clients to sue me. You can do so in the US,
> but a US ruling will not be enforceable against me. If you want
> an enforceable ruling, you need to sue
>
>   Zenon Panoussis
>   2e van Swindenstraat 188
>   1093 XA Amsterdam
>   The Netherlands
>
> (that's me) at the appropriate Dutch court, which is
>
>   Rechtbank Amsterdam
>   Parnassusweg 220
>   1076 AV Amsterdam
>   The Netherlands
>
> You see, dear Steven, this means that any legal action against
> politechbot.com will be useless even if it is successful; the
> article in question will remain on the web, and it will attract
> so much more attention precisely because of your lawsuit. Of
> course, you could continue threatening and sueing left and right
> for ever, until your clients run out of money and you become
> known to your collegues as Don Steven Quixote. Somehow, though,
> I think that you are able to learn from your mistakes and that
> nothing of this will happen. Somehow I suspect that you will
> not reply to this mail, and that you will quietly and with as
> little loss of face as possible drop the whole issue and forget
> that you ever started it. I am pretty sure that your client
> will appreciate that.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Z
>
>
> --
> oracle@everywhere: The ephemeral source of the eternal truth...
>
>
>
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