I believe our instincts were always to use such threats for additional publicity and raise the profile of the action. I think this made a difference to the political calculation as to any response, and probably explains why we are a bit thin on examples.
It is likely that, were we to get into trouble, and had we had got professional legal advice, they would have told us to keep completely silent and let them handle everything. Due to the complete lack of any mention of the case on his blog, it is likely he received and was keeping to such advice. You have to. The lawyer sets the terms they will work for you, and will quit if you don't stick to them. Very few lawyers are hippies enough to be optimistic on the practicalities of changing the law. They will constantly terrify you about the worst case scenario. And the scenarios are bad in the US, where the law can be quite a lot more vicious against its own citizens than we are ever used to here. Julian. On 14 January 2013 14:11, Matthew Somerville <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > I'm not aware of anything; people are often silenced simply by the threat of > civil action, as Ernest Marples was by Royal Mail as you say. > http://dracos.co.uk/odeon/ and > http://theatricalia.com/publicity/2010/march/national-theatre are two of mine. > > ATB, > Matthew > > On 14 Jan 2013, at 13:35, Javier Ruiz wrote: >> The New Statesman are writing an article today about Aaron Swartz and are >> asking whether there are any cases of similarly heavy handed prosecutions in >> the UK. We have the extradition cases and the social media speech trials, >> but I cannot recall a similar case for digital activists. For example, the >> Ernest Marples post code liberation was threatened with civil suits as far >> as I know. > > > _______________________________________________ > developers-public mailing list > [email protected] > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > > Unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/julian%40publicwhip.org.uk _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
