David Boies is one of the highest profile lawyers in the country. I first became aware of him when he (as outside counsel) represented the Justice Department in the overreaching antitrust case against Microsoft in the 1990s. However, I think most people became aware of him when he represented Al Gore in Bush v. Gore. Since then, nearly every time he’s popped up in Techdirt, it’s been doing really, really sketchy things. He was the lawyer for SCO in that company’s insane “set open source on fire” lawsuit against IBM over Linux. He represented Oracle in its ridiculous lawsuit against Google over whether APIs are covered by copyright*. He represented Sony Pictures after its email was hacked and threatened lots of journalists — including us! — for publishing stories based on those leaked emails (we told him “go pound sand.”) And, honestly, until earlier this week, I thought the most egregious efforts by Boies had been his connection to Theranos, the disgraced medical devices company, where Boies wasn’t just a lawyer for the company, but on the board, and participated in terrible and far-reaching attempts to punish whistleblowers at the company.
But, it turns out that Boies’ activity in trying to stifle whistlebowers and reporters regarding Theranos and Sony Pictures were just the warm up act for a truly horrifying bit of business revealed by Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker this week. It was widely reported that Boies was a key player on Harvey Weinstein’s legal team, responding to the claims of sexual harassment and assault, but the Farrow article shows just how deep the campaign went, with Boies allegedly orchestrating an “army of spies” to try to trick Weinstein’s accusers and reporters working on the story to reveal what they knew. The whole article is incredible, but here’s just a snippet, involving one of Weinstein’s most outspoken victims, Rose McGowan:

In May, 2017, McGowan received an e-mail from a literary agency introducing her to a woman who identified herself as Diana Filip, the deputy head of sustainable and responsible investments at Reuben Capital Partners, a London-based wealth-management firm. Filip told McGowan that she was launching an initiative to combat discrimination against women in the workplace, and asked McGowan, a vocal women’s-rights advocate, to speak at a gala kickoff event later that year. Filip offered McGowan a fee of sixty thousand dollars. “I understand that we have a lot in common,” Filip wrote to McGowan before their first meeting, in May, at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. Filip had a U.K. cell-phone number, and she spoke with what McGowan took to be a German accent. Over the following months, the two women met at least three more times at hotel bars in Los Angeles and New York and other locations. “I took her to the Venice boardwalk and we had ice cream while we strolled,” McGowan told me, adding that Filip was “very kind.” The two talked at length about issues relating to women’s empowerment. Filip also repeatedly told McGowan that she wanted to make a significant investment in McGowan’s production company.

Beyond being a bastion of exelent journalism in the face of an oppressive surveillance state, Masnick also hosts other like minded writers who have a grasp on the technological assault waged by the deep state on our right’s of speech, press, and assembly; and privacy rights not yet enumerated.
Few face the threats that writers, bloggers, and journalists face right here in America. I you read trough my writing, you will see me shot, Tased, followed, and more, since 2004.I personally don’t need any stories from pimple faced writers at Salon or the HuffPost about journalists in some banan republic- because right here in America, we are under attack.
And, as usual, the word is mighter than the sword, and journalism the go-to weapon of non-violent resistance to big bullies, as more and more writers are writing great stuff-Techdirt tops the list of GREAT STUFF about technology, first amendment, and more.
Here is Tim Cushing, also of Techdirt, writing on air-to-ground surveillance of citizens:

Texas National Guard Latest Agency To Be Discovered Operating Flying Cell Tower Spoofers

from the sky-spies dept