FBI

Lawyers Survive With A Little Help From Their Friends — In The FBI

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Kinda like this, but with an FBI uniform.

It’s hard out here for an attorney, when you’re tryin’ to get money for the loans…

Especially when your legal work forces you to make enemies with an angry ex-husband who might try to, say, blow up your car. Or when you do contract work in a city nuisance department and wind up targeted by hit men for your work on the case against a local strip club.

No, this isn’t the trailer for Taken 2, it’s just two recent cases out of Texas and St. Louis.

Luckily, no one was killed in the car bomb attack or a strip club owner’s plan to kill the Fort-Worth Mayor and a mild-mannered contract attorney, but there’s plenty of stranger-than-fiction details to these cases….

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Insane Clown… Plaintiffs? Juggalos Consider Suing the FBI

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Father of Our Country, Juggalo Washington

What is a juggalo?
Let me think for a second
Oh, he gets butt-naked
And then he walks through the streets
Winking at the freaks
With a two-liter stuck in his butt-cheeks

– Insane Clown Posse

At the 1992 Republican National Convention, Pat Buchanan announced that America was in the midst of a culture war. In his view, this war was being waged between descendents of the 60′s counter-culture and those who sought to protect “traditional” values. In the field of law, this idea found a home in (who else?) Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissent in Romer v. Evans, in which he famously wrote that “[t]he Court has mistaken a Kulturkampf for a fit of spite.” Something about the original German sends a shiver down the spine, doesn’t it? Anyway, we can all surely agree that these two yahoos wouldn’t know a culture war if it slapped them in the face with a bottle of Faygo soda.

There’s a real culture war going on, ninjas. And it has nothing to do with gay marrying or abortions or the third rail of American politics, cockfighting. It has to do with the FBI’s insane decision to categorize Juggalos — i.e., fans of the Insane Clown Posse hip-hop duo — as a “loosely-organized hybrid gang.” It has to do with real persecution and honest-to-God discrimination against the Juggalo people.

Luckily for me and my fellow Juggalos, Insane Clown Posse doesn’t know the meaning of backing down. And that’s not a slam at all, it’s just a turn-of-phrase. They know the meaning. They just refuse to back down. Is what I’m saying….

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Lawyer of the Day: No, a Man Cannot Just Have ‘His Fly Undone’

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We’ve all had bad flying experiences. It is just part of life in modern America. My colleague Elie has been groped by the TSA, everyone has to deal with humorless flight crews, and even the lead singer from Green Day has been kicked off a plane for not pulling his pants up high enough. The list goes on.

Still, our Lawyer of the Day created quite a stir on a Continental flight from Los Angeles to Houston, even by today’s standards. Let’s meet the Mile-High Flasher, who also happens to be (for now) a lawyer in good standing in California and a graduate of Loyola Law School in New Orleans…

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Morning Docket: 03.07.12

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* All your base are belong to… Rick Santorum? Error! Malfunction! Super Tuesday was not quite as super as Mitt Romney was hoping for. Looks like it’s time to reprogram the Mitt-bot so he can conquer the true conservatives. [CNN]

* And the Cebulls**t just keeps on coming. Now Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are calling for a hearing and an investigation on the consequences of the federal judge’s racist email. [Associated Press]

* After wrapping up a Chapter 11 bankruptcy for Lehman Brothers, Weil Gotshal’s bill came to $383M. And sadly, that’s probably going to be the only “spring bonus” associates will see this year. [Am Law Daily]

* Complete pwnage: a handful of LulzSec hacktivists were arrested after their leader, an FBI informant, turned on them. How will this affect the Anonymous movement? More importantly, who cares? [New York Times]

* No postponements for you, Casey Anthony. Try as she might, the acquitted ex-MILF just can’t escape the defamation lawsuit filed by a woman who was only supposed to be make believe. [Washington Post]

* Don’t like Maryland Law’s environmental clinic litigation? Offer another public law school $500K to represent the defendants. Because if anyone would take a bribe, it would be Baltimore Law. [National Law Journal]

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Federal Investigators Pay Visit to Rich ‘Honkey’ Lawyer

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Remember David T. Shulick, the Philadelphia lawyer who filed a colorful case that we recently named a Lawsuit of the Day? After his luxury vacation was ruined, Shulick sued two airlines, alleging (among other things) that a sassy baggage agent referred to his wife as a “honkey.”

Well, David Shulick — “a nationally and locally recognized attorney,” according to his website, which also shows photos of him with famous people (like Barack Obama) — is back in the news….

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SOPA Be Damned, DOJ Has Sent a Message to Internet Pirates. And the Internet Sent a Message Right Back

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Not going to lie. These guys are starting to make me nervous.

While the Internet was throwing itself a party yesterday for taking down the Stop Online Piracy Act, getting drunk off its own power and shooting pistols into the air like a Mexican fiesta, the Department of Justice was already throwing up a big middle finger to offshore rogue websites, or whatever they’re calling pirates now.

Yesterday, the DOJ and FBI seized and shut down one of the largest filesharing websites on the internet. The department also filed indictments against seven people involved in the site, in what authorities call one of the “largest criminal copyright cases ever brought.” That’s pretty big news all by itself. But, oh it gets better.

Everyone’s favorite shady hacker collective, Anonymous, struck back in revenge almost immediately. The group launched massive denial of service attacks against every media and governmental website their deranged hive mind could think of.

So, which of your favorite movie streaming sites is no longer online? And who faced the wrath of Anonymous? It’s a long list…

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FBI Rolls Out the Hacker Paddywagon in Nationwide Raid

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It’s been an unusually exciting month in the legal tech world. Several lawyers have been charged with (and cleared of) upsetting electronic crimes. An Am Law 100 firm got sued for allegedly screwing up e-discovery. I haven’t even had the time or need to write the same vague jibber-jabber about Google+ that everyone else on the Internet has already written.

This week, we’ve got more high-profile tech arrests, involving the members of an international hacker club who happen to be supporters of everyone’s favorite Australian albino.

For deets on the legal consequences of crashing PayPal’s website, read on….

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Non-Sequiturs: 06.16.11

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* “I doubt this is constitutional, but let’s just do it.” Sounds like business as usual down in the Senate as to plans to extend the FBI Director’s term. [Blog of Legal Times]

* Are we really still talking about desegregating schools in Arkansas? I can’t even believe that this is a serious proposition. [WSJ Law Blog]

* This is what happens when lawyers from Yale stop being polite, and start getting real. What good can come from Kentucky or North Dakota? [PrawfsBlog]

* Ladies, should you take a new job while pregnant? To me, that’s kind of like asking, “Should I go bungee jumping while pregnant?” Not a good idea. [Corporette]

* Apparently, there’s some debate as to which city will be the next world capital of law. And no, it probably isn’t going to be one of these outsourcing cities. [Law21]

* Kash, of course it’s bad for America that Weiner is resigning. We don’t get to see any more big, kosher pickles. [The Not-So Private Parts / Forbes]

* Summer associates, please take note. Do not send emails to colleagues about wild, underage ragers like this JP Morgan intern did. You will look like a complete tool. [Dealbreaker]

* Leave it to Paul Clement to get this lady off with a 9-0 decision. It turns out she wasn’t a terrorist, just a little kooky. [CNN Justice]

* Bob Tennant of Recommind tells patent critics (and competitors) a thing or two about prior art and automated discovery. [Recommind]

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Are Tech Companies Becoming Unofficial Intelligence Agents?

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The satirical Onion News Network recently reported on new government funding for that “massive online surveillance program run by the CIA,” known as Facebook — dreamed up by “secret C.I.A. agent Mark Zuckerberg.” The report made light of how much information we’re willing to make available to a third party — information that we would never consider freely handing over to the feds. While funny, the report speaks to serious concerns about privacy. Civil liberties advocates like Christopher Soghoian and Nicholas Merrill worry about the ease with which the government can get access to the digital information we store with third-parties like Facebook, Yahoo!, and Google, as well as to the rich databases that our mobile phone providers have.

Should we call it the Tech.B.I. or the Dot.Com.I.A.?

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Morning Docket: 03.25.11

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* In the Barry Bonds trial, an expert on steroids described how the government injected a bunch of baboons with the drug Bonds is accused of using. I, for one, welcome our new baboon overlords. [ESPN]

* Some Amish in Kentucky are fighting a regulation that requires reflective safety triangles on their buggies. Say they’d rather get Munsoned out in the middle of nowhere than use those things. [Louisville Courier-Journal]

* Fresh off his Bushwick Bill impersonation, Allen Stanford has withdrawn his lawsuit against the federal government. [WSJ Law Blog]

* A lawyer in Illinois faces possible jail time for letting her detained client use her cell phone. At least she’ll get bars now. HIYOOOO! [ABA Journal]

* The FBI has instructed agents to to hold off on Miranda warnings when interrogating “operational terrorists” about immediate threats. These threats include suitcase bombs, sex bombs, nude bombs, and La Bamba. The Los Lobos version. [New York Times]

* Law firms are whetting wetting their collective beak on drug deals. But drugs is a dirty business. It makes, it doesn’t make any difference to me what a man does for a living, understand. But your business is, uh, a little dangerous. [Am Law Daily]

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