Welcome to the Citizen Media Law Brief, a weekly newsletter highlighting recent blog posts, media law news, legal threat entries, and other new content on the Citizen Media Law Project's website. You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in the CMLP or registered on our site, www.citmedialaw.org. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, you can unsubscribe by following the link at the bottom of this email or by going to http://www.citmedialaw.org/newsletter/subscriptions.

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The latest from the Citizen Media Law Project blog...

Eric P. Robinson risks life and limb by inserting himself between New York lawyers and their Blackberries.
New York Attorneys Want Devices in Federal Court, But Only for Themselves

Martin v. Langlois
Posted July 30, 2009

Gannon v. Walker
Posted July 28, 2009

Virginia v. Ostergren
Posted July 28, 2009

Wiseman v. Does
Posted July 28, 2009

Horizon Group v. Bonnen
Posted July 28, 2009

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Other citizen media law news...

Detention Center director sues blogger
Delmarvanow.com - Thur. 7/30/09

Graphic Photo Posted on Facebook at Center of Pending Lawsuit 
Foxnews.com - Wed.7/29/09

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The full(er) Brief...

"Restraints on speech prior to publication are almost never OK. It wasn't OK in the 1930s when Minnesota tried to enjoin the publication of an anti-Semitic newspaper. It wasn't even OK in the 1970s when the U.S. government tried to prevent The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the top-secret Pentagon Papers. But a Rhode Island Family Court judge recently thought it would be OK to stop a woman from commenting online about a child custody proceeding that she's not a party to. The Newsroom Law Blog reports that Judge Michael Forte of Kent County Family Court enjoined Michelle Langlois from posting on the Internet any information about her brother's ongoing custody dispute with his ex-wife. The gag order came after the ex-wife filed a "domestic abuse" petition against Langlois. The petition claimed that Langlois' posts on her Facebook page constituted harassment and might psychologically damage the children involved in the case. . . ."
Courtney French, Rhode Island Judge Pokes Free Speech on Facebook

"Last Friday, the Associated Press briefly became the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz. It announced, in a booming press release, an 'initiative to protect news content from unauthorized use online.' To accomplish this feat, the AP will use an informational 'wrapper' embedded in its product. At first I was terrified and angered by the Great and Powerful AP's announcement, as were the other members of the lollipop blogger guild. After all, this plan sounded like digital rights management. Would the AP begin erecting pay walls and chasing news pirates? More confusion ensued when the AP gave a few more conflicting statements, saying that the system wasn't a form of DRM but a content tracking beacon (huh?) and released the most jejune info-graphic imaginable. . . . Journalists began asking questions regarding the AP's intentions and its (maybe) scary new technology. In response, the Great and Powerful AP said nothing and told the reporters to go away and come back tomorrow. Befuddled? Let me clarify. AP's new system is not DRM, but the association was foolish enough to feign that it was. Instead, the tool is designed to make it easier for AP to go after competitors (aggregators and some bloggers) that use AP content. But this explanation still raises questions: If the technology is so banal, why did the blogosphere go nuts? And why wasn't the AP more clear? I think the AP wanted to send a warning to aggregators and search engines, used the bright flames of DRM-ish language to spice up its message, and didn't understand how much people loathe DRM. . . ."
Andrew Moshirnia, The AP of Oz: Associated Press Prohibits Reporters from Peeking Behind its False DRM Curtain

"The Supreme Court once famously said that public school students do not 'shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.' Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969). Implicit in this quote is the understanding that outside the schoolhouse gate, students are entitled to full First Amendment rights. Unfortunately, educators (and even some judges) seem to have forgotten this recently, with a spate of cases involving students being reprimanded for off-campus speech. Although many previous examples have at least involved distasteful public speech surrounding school officials, the latest example is especially egregious, as it involves private speech that does not really implicate the school at all. Mandi Jackson was just starting a new school year at Pearl High School when she was asked, as a member of the school's cheerleading squad, to provide her coach with the password to her Facebook account. While other students surreptitiously deleted their accounts via mobile phone, Mandi complied with her coach's request. According to her complaint, she was rewarded for her honesty by being 'publicly reprimanded, punished and humiliated' by school officials. She was also 'forced to sit out of cheer and dance training and refrain from participation at school sponsored events, for which she had enrolled and paid various fees and costs of participation.' Apparently, Jackson's coach had accessed her Facebook account and discovered a 'profanity-laced' exchange of private messages between Jackson and another cheerleader. He is then alleged to have forwarded these messages to teachers and other school officials. Given the school's reaction, the messages at issue must have been a matter of serious school concern, right? Actually, according to the SPLC, Jackson had merely asked (albeit in the aforementioned profanity-laced manner) the cheerleading captain to 'stop harassing' several other cheerleaders. . . ."
Lee Baker, Educators Reprimand Student for Private Facebook Messages

"Horizon Realty Group, an apartment leasing and management company in Chicago, filed a defamation lawsuit last week against a former tenant, Amanda Bonnen, over a tweet she posted about the company on Twitter. According to the complaint, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, Bonnen posted the following tweet on May 12, 2009: '@JessB123 You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it's ok.' According to Chicago Bar-Tender, Bonnen had just 20 followers before her account disappeared from Twitter. Nevertheless, Horizon claims that, as a result of the post, the company 'has been greatly injured in its reputation as a landlord in Chicago.' This is not the first Twitter-related lawsuit, nor is it likely to be the last, and it is mostly notable for the sheer folly of Horizon's overreaction. Talk about the Streisand effect. Just try searching for 'Amanda Bonnen' or 'Horizon Realty' on Twitter. . . ."
Sam Bayard, Management Company Sues Renter Over Twitter Post