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The State of Georgia in the US is suing the owner of the Public.Resource.org website for publishing the State of Georgia's own laws online.
According to the lawsuit [PDF] filed this week, Carl Malamud has "engaged in an 18 year long crusade to control the accessibility of U.S. government documents by becoming the United States’ Public Printer."
Although an alternative reading could be that he was simply publishing public laws on the internet.
At the center of the issue is not Georgia's basic legal code – that is made readily available online and off – but the annotated version of it. That annotated version is frequently used by the courts to make decisions of law, and as such Malamud decided it should also be made easily accessible online.
Georgia says that information is copyrighted, however, and it wants him to stop publishing it. Currently you can access the information through legal publisher Lexis Nexis, either by paying $378 for a printed copy or by going through an unusual series of online steps from Georgia's General Assembly website through to Lexis Nexis' relevant webpages (going direct to the relevant Lexis Nexis webpages will give you a blank page).
[...] However, the State of Georgia filing points to a little more animus than concerns over scanned documents. In particular it uses a quote of Malamud's from an article in 2009 in which he talked about committing "standards terrorism" to actually accuse Malamud of committing a form of terrorism. "Consistent with its strategy of terrorism, Defendant freely admits to the copying and distribution of massive numbers of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Annotations," reads the lawsuit in part.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday July 27 2015, @12:15PM
In some ways, I don't care if the authorities overuse the word, as eventually it'll carry no weight in the ears of the listener, and the weapon they use to shock us will become defused.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by WizardFusion on Monday July 27 2015, @12:29PM
Your post is an act of terrorism because you pointed out all the other acts of terrorism that was committed.
On a serious note, what the fuck is going on with america and it's hard-on for using this word for everything.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @12:39PM
As much as these comments are funny, the scary part is that with all this crying "terrorist", eventually (if not already) everyone is going to become desensitized to the point where real threats of terrorism are going to be waved off as hyperbole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @01:27PM
You do realize we have terrorist attacks on US soil practically every week and nobody so much as bats an eyelash...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @02:11PM
That's only if you think that all of those attacks were acts of terrorism, which I don't believe. Not even close.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Tuesday July 28 2015, @08:23AM
They totally are acts of terrorism. You can tell, because the person has a foreign-sounding name. Or knows someone who does.
Seriously, I've had enough of the stupid reports like "we've definitely established the guy did a lone-wolf attack, not telling anyone about what he was going to do. we are still investigating whether he has heard of ISIS, so we can link him to that group."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @02:33PM
My father was from Maine where they can't pronounce words with "r" (and they also add an "r" to words without one). I guess there won't be any "terrorists" in Maine, three r's in one word must be impossible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @01:08PM
On a serious note, what the fuck is going on with america and it's hard-on for using this word for everything.
If you accuse someone of "terrorism" the chances of hiding/squashing the release of discovery (to the defendant and the public via a FOI request) increases, and the chances of the defendant getting bail are greatly reduced (for now this does not apply in this case, at least until Georgia charges him with criminal acts of terrorism).
We can't have the public being informed of the laws that apply to them, and how the courts will apply those laws. An informed public is the enemy of law enforcement and the state.
(Score: 2) by jcross on Monday July 27 2015, @04:41PM
In addition to all the other reasons suggested here, adding the word "terrorism" can get the federal government involved in a case in a way that few other things can. Disclaimer: I know this from watching "The Wire", but my guess is that it was and is a fairly accurate portrayal of the federal government's priorities.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @01:46PM
I don't care if the authorities overuse the word
Maybe you should.
Terrorism is a magic word when it comes to the law. Saying that word means that the accused looses a whole bunch of rights and different laws can apply to the situation.