Mrs. K for the Defense:
Marcy Tiffany, the wife of Judge Alex Kozinski, comes to her husbands defense. She notes many inaccuracies and distortions in media coverage about the contents of the Kozinski family server, and offers this bottom line: "The fact is, Alex is not into porn - he is into funny – and sometimes funny has a sexual character."
Related Posts (on one page):
- Mrs. K for the Defense:
- More on Kozinski:
- Kozinski:
- Lessig on the Kozinski Kerfuffle
If this claim is true, it illustrates a willful disregard for journalistic integrity on the part of the paper, and as such, constitutes a profound disservice not only to Judge Kozinski, but also to all the papers' readers.
It's just not obvious to me that Mr. Glover's use of the word “website” denoted or connoted much more than a collection of files available via HTTP.
Do other Volokh readers restrict their own use of the “website” in such a way as to support Ms. Tiffany's characterization of Mr. Glover's intention?
If you do use the word “website” only in such a restricted sense, then what other word(s) you use?
Yes. To me "website" implies that a person has deliberately and carefully made the files publically available through some sort of html interface.
As a "network person" you may have a more expansive, or perhaps more accurate, view of what a website is, but I suspect Ms. Tiffany is correct. The vast majority of LA Times readers would probably draw the wrong conclusion from Mr. Glover's description. I don't know whether Mr. Glover was deliberately trying to mislead, but some of his characterization of the content makes me suspicious.
I sympathize, and like Judge Kozinski but found the explanation in that post (particularly the "website"-portion) lacking.
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Knowing I'm a like broken record on this point, I think clear showings of bias and lack of integrity on the part of the press are a GOOD thing. People who think the media are unbiased and have integrity are setting themselves up to be fooled.
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Journalistic integrity is a myth, promulgated by journalists. "Trust us, we're trustworthy." ROTFL. Fake, but accurate.
So the Times sat on the story until it become more of an, erm, story? The horror!
In some cases it would be illegal to enter someone's server (DOD). Someone in a previous thread pointed out a law that may make the accessing the Kozinski server a crime in California.
“Some sort of html interface”....
What about Adobe® Flash® -based sites? Do you call those “websites”? Or do you use another word for sites that serve up mime type application/x-shockwave-flash rather than mime type text/html?
what next, complan when the non technical exclut xhtml? And then come back with xhtml transitional or XAML?
Normal people believe certain kinds of food fit the label "organic", and do not worry that all of them are somehow carbon based.
It is clear from the other conversations that many people misunderstood, despite repeated words otherwise, that the AK site to have been somehow graphically organized rather than merely not prohibiting directory scans.
And yes, most flassh sites are merely embedded in HTML, so don't get so cute.
If the material was obscene, I believe it was relevant and newsworthy as soon as it was discovered. This is because I believe it is unusual and improper for a sitting federal judges to possess or distribute obscene material.
On the other hand, if the material was not obscene, it is of no relevance, ever, even when heading into the obscenity trial.
So either the LA Times a) hid the fact that a federal judge possessed obscene material until it suited them to reveal this fact, or b) made a story out of nothing in order to create a scandal and sell papers. Either way, color me unimpressed with their behavior.
(Of course, my analysis is contingent on the Ms. Tiffany's claim that the paper sat on the story for months; I have no way to independently verify this claim.)
"Website" means what everyone thinks it means: a public web page on the Internet. CNN has a "website," as does Volokh and his colleagues, for example.
Of course, it's quite possible to have a non-public "website," but that's normally called an intranet, as someone like "Network Person" should know. Intranets are normally private, so to speak, and meant for the internal consumption of the owner (e.g. workplace intranets). Kozinki's page was clearly intranet page.
Cyrus Sanai has said that he was shopping the story around starting in January.
Yeah, but I'm struggling to see how that's a helpful analogy.
Curt Fischer:
If it's true that it's just adult humour, then yeah, it's b). I'm not saying you should be impressed, but is anyone really shocked that newspapers do this?
The job of a newspaper is to sell copies of itself. If it believes it can sell more copies by promoting integrity and journalism, it will. If it believes higher profits can be obtainted by printing trashy stories, it will. Ultimately, a newspaper prints what people will buy. This isn't to say that there aren't specialty publications that do rely on actual news, but your local city paper is more interested in ciruculation numbers.
This story shows 1) Koz's sense of humor somehow stilted at age 14 or so; 2) he is or is equivalent to one of those e-mail forwarders; and 3) he named his son "Yale."
All of which lower my opinion of him.
There's a big problem with this though.
There's a fairly large gulf between the legal definition of "obscene" and what your average person who actually cares what someone else is looking at considers obscene.
Most people who don't particularly care that K was looking at porn might well be likely to agree that a humorous picture involving naked women is not obscene.
But someone who's up in righteous indignation about that is more likely to consider nudity in general obscene.
So the question becomes when did Sanai give the information to Scott Glover, the reporter who wrote the Times story. If it was early enough that the Times could have run the story before jury selection began, then the Times has some explaining to do (not that it would explain, mind you). Judge Kozinski was assigned to the obscenity case long before jury selection began, and it was then that the story became newsworthy, if at all.
I don't know much about the legal standard of obscenity, but I'm sure you're right. The difference between legal and everyday standards, however, has no bearing on when the Times should have published their story.
Even if the LA Times felt that the material was borderline -- perhaps but not assuredly obscene, say -- would waiting for Kozinski to start an obscenity-related trial really help them determine on which side of the line the material fell?
And, I notice that the wife's statment was silent about what appears to be child pornography saved onto the computer. (The picture of the teenage boy - apparently well under 18) who is administering sex to himself.) Isn't mere possession of such child pornography a felony?
Instead of some disciplinary review by his peers on the 9th Circuit, shouldn't this matter be investigated by the appropriate law enforcement officials.
Kozinski apparently has many friends in the legal community and the porn might not, in fact, be child pornography. But no conducting a half-hearted investigation does not inspire confidence in the judiciary.
So was the LA Times' story. Do you think that they're part of the 'protect Kozinski' conspiracy too? Keep fighting until the truth gets out!
Note the assumption that if a wife defends her husband, she was "sent." I hate to cry "misogyny," but...
And, I notice that the wife's statment was silent about what appears to be child pornography saved onto the computer. (The picture of the teenage boy - apparently well under 18) who is administering sex to himself.) Isn't mere possession of such child pornography a felony?
Instead of some disciplinary review by his peers on the 9th Circuit, shouldn't this matter be investigated by the appropriate law enforcement officials.
Seriously, you're embarrassing yourself. You don't think that if there was any real suspicion by reasonable people that this was child porn, the media would be jumping all over it? You're assuming the man's under 18, assuming that's provable, assuming it appeals to some prurient interest (well, I guess I can only think of one way you'd know it appeals to someone's prurient interest...). Just stop.
So "A file server connected through the Internet and accessable to the public [via a typed-in URL]", which IMHO does make him look better since it emphasizes that the public accessability is coincidental or unintentional.
Don't waste your time, i doubt jwww has significant higher brain function. It's funny how alot of the supposedly obscene pics are now coming out as just humorous pictures that happened to be sexual--I wonder if other idiots who bemoaned the sharing of porn between father and son will now admit they got suckered in?
When you are in the middle of a PR disaster, the most important thing is message control. You put a leash on everyone, regardless of whether they are male or female. One of two things happened here 1) the judge knew about this e-mail and endorsed it or 2) the wife is just out there on her own deciding what is best to do. Either way - not a good thing.
Well several posters in VC and on other sites have suggested that at least one of the images raises some troubling questions.
I don't know if you have some personal connection to Kozinski that is clouding your judgment but to suggest that I am the one being embarassed by the Judge's taste in porn and humor is a bit of a stretch.
I am not an expert on child pornography, but one poster in another thread pointed out that graphic images of minors engaging in masturbation are - by definition - child pornography. It is pretty clear to me that a photograph of a fella with his penis in his mouth is masturbation. Given that, if the dude is under 18, possession of the image would seem to be child pornography regardless of whether it appeals to prurient interests. In that thread, Orin Kerr seemed to be persuaded that this was the relevant law, but I, of course, don't speak for him.
You are apparently remembering something you heard about the definition of "obscenity" or something which does not provide the relevant law for this inquiry. So, before advising others to "just stop embarassing themselves" you might want to first acquaint yourself with the law on the matter.
A) A "file server" is distinctly different from a "web server." Alex.kozinski.com was a web server.
B) The purpose of the server appears to have been for Judge Kozinski to be able to serve up web content from a personal perspective. No, it wasn't an official 9th Circuit web server. It was however a platform for him to publicize his work in the judiciary (as noted by copies of various writings.)
C) It most certainly was meant to be accessed by the public. This was not some server that they mistakenly left outside of a firewall. It was meant to be accessed by the public.
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Some of the content appears to have been meant to be a joke. And some of it appears to just be porn. And some of it appears meant to be funny but of a racist nature.
First, it keeps the issue alive. Best to let it die. Would there be a post today here, for instance, without this?
Second, it lets people compare her to Hillary Clinton, Mrs. Spitzer and others "standing by" their man, who was guilty. See Althouse blog for instance. It doesn't matter if the comparison is right or wrong, it lets the thought occur.
Finally, it challenges the LA Times to keep digging and come out with more stories to refute the attack. (See point 1) Ask Gary Hart about such a tactic.
A) I'm assuming you're referring to a networked file server. Few individuals, even the technically capable go to the trouble of setting up networked file servers in their own homes, further, a mere networked file server is much more difficult to access than one that is a web server. What you said may be technically true, but the line is considerably more blurry than you imply. I have several such webservers that I use as file storage so I can access those files from any geographic location. This does not mean they are for public access, although technically someone could reach them .
B) The stated purpose of the webserver was for him and his family to share documents, not for him to publicize his work.
C) it was absolutely not "meant" to be accessed by the public. It was tagged as to be not indexed by search engines and was apparently indended to have been de-indexed. The only possible sense you can say it was "intended" for public access was that if you define members of his own family as the "public."
EV's contratry perspective is not mentioned.
The LA Times did not sit on the story. I tipped Henry Weinstein soon after I found the material. Another reporter was interested, so I did not follow up. When the other newspaper's editors killed the story, Weinstein was gearing up to take the buyout.
However another reporter, Terry Carter of the ABA Journal was working on the story for many weeks when I read Scott Glover's story a week ago Sunday on the trial. I emailed him that night. Next morning, he contacted me, I met him at lunch, they did their own investigation (including dowloading stuff I did not have) and ran with it. Scott did not know about Henry being alerted by me, and I see no reason that Henry would have told him.
Mrs. Kozinski's contention that the LA Times sat on this to do maximum damage is completely, totally false.
But it's not the limit of her dishonesty. She quotes from a California Court of Appeal decision involving an unrelated case before Judge Elizabeth Grimes. What she conceals is that the Court of Appeal was quoting her to demonstrate misconduct and bias, and in the next paragraph the Court of Appeal tossed Grimes off the case, and the disposition was a complete reversal of everything Grimes did.
By quoting the Court of Appeal's decision (downloadable from Westlaw) without explaining that I WON THE APPEAL and that the language was quoted by the appellate court as the grounds for tossing Grimes off the case, Mrs. Kozinski has committed precisely the same kind of misleading personal attacks she claims have been inflicted on her husband.
Cyrus Sanai
I'm not sure whether you're aiming at a legal definition here. The standard English definition of "pornography," though, certainly requires that the image be intended for sexual arousal. In other words, graphic images of minors engaging in masturbation are not by definition child pornography.
Is there any evidence beyond your impression that the person in the picture is under 18?
The lookup for Cyrus Sanai's bar number is here.
Ms Tiffany says that there were perhaps a half dozen files with sexual content, and that each of the files was clearly an attempt at humor, whether in poor taste or not. Do you disagree with that?
What was the point of your actions? Do you equate the files as described by Ms Tiffany with the pornography that was the basis of the case in front of Judge Kozinski? If you were somehow concerned about the trial itself, and/or Judge Kozinski's ability to remain impartial, why not send whatever you thought you had to the the defense counsel, and allow them to exercise their professional discretion?
Does it concern you that the story as published appears now to have exaggerated, misunderstood or misrepresented the nature of (at least some) of the files? I refer to a video originally alleged to be some type of bestiality, but now appears to be an innocuous spoof of a man being chased by a donkey, and that the video is available to anyone on YouTube?
Does it concern you that the sensational nature of the reporting has lead to a mistrial?
Best advice for the judge and his family is to accept the PR hit to date and move on. He wasn't going to get a SC appointment in the foreseeable future anyway.
If you'll look through the recent threads in VC re Kozinski, you'll see a post from a commenter (I believe his name is Nieropont or something like that) excerpting the relevant law regarding child pornography. (If your recent posts hadn't been so insulting to me, I would have dug around and posted a link. But you were snide and condescending so you can go fetch it yourself.)
You seems to be analyzing this situation through the standard "obscenity law" analysis (prurient interest, arousal etc.) That analysis is completely irrelevant when child pornography is at issue because there are specific laws that state what is child pornography and one subsection states that depictions of minors engaging in masturbation are child pornography. It doesn't matter one whit whether or not one is aroused or intended to be aroused or anything. The mere possession of it is a felony. Doesn't matter if you have it because you think it is funny.
None that I know of other than the fact that several other people who have seen the image also thought that it depicted a teenage boy under the age of 18.
I will concede that it is possible that the boy was 19 or 20 or, heck, that he was really 40 and someone expert in photoshop doctored the image. Maybe.
But when you have the presiding judge of the 9th Circuit hoarding images like this, a decent respect for the integrity of the judiciary requires that there be a meaningful investigation - instead of just having it decided by anonymous commenters in law blogs, don't you think?
Cyrus, I don't know what to say. I think you're scum. You are why people hate lawyers. Congratulations! You're a living breathing cliche!
Here is an example, other than the patently offensive pic of the youth fellating himself, that colors this problem. It is the photo of the two naked women painted like cows.
Wouldn't the humor have been much more spot on and effective if those women were fat and unattractive, rather than pretty with sexy bodies? And why were their vaginas the major focus of the photo -- that was the only part of the body not painted; I think another shot from another angle showed the nipples were unpainted, too.
Was that the joke, what went unpainted? The viewer's attention is drawn eventually to their vaginas and nipples.
Maybe not obscene; surely offensive to a lot of women, and others. But not pornography?
As for sitting on a story until the right time: Lots of journalists gets lots of tips they just put in a drawer or trash can. Sometimes a "peg" comes along later. Peg is a journalist's term. It means something to hang an interesting but otherwise not timely and thus questionable story on.
It certainly could be argued that the LATimes was responsible and throughtful for not going with it as soon as they got it. They did nothing. Then a peg came along.
Kozinski “whistle blower” (or stalker, depending on your point of view) Cyrus Sanai:
1. Was found by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to have “intentionally altered court documents” to mislead the court about required service of legal documents.”
The blawg adds: “Speaking of misplaced legal discipline, one wonders why Kozinski is facing investigation while Cyrus Sanai has avoided legal discipline from the bar.”
2. In a 2005 order from the Western District of Washington, Judge Zily wrote regarding the Sanai litigation machinations:
“Plaintiffs’ conduct in this litigation has been an indescribable abuse of the legal process, unlike anything this Judge has experienced in more than 17 years on the bench and 26 years in private practice: outrageous, disrespectful, and in bad faith. Plaintiffs have employed the most abusive and obstructive litigation tactics this Court has ever encountered, all of which are directed at events and persons surrounding the divorce of Sassan and Viveca Sanai, including parties, lawyers, and even judges. Plaintiffs have filed scores of frivolous pleadings, forcing baseless and expensive litigation. The docket in this case approaches 700 filings, a testament to Plaintiffs’ dogged pursuit of a divorce long past.”
This disgruntled and obsessed litigator has filed frivolous motions and sued judges—all in aid of relitigating his parent’s divorce action. When that did not get him satisfaction he brought an ethics complaint against Kozinski. When that did not succeed in exacting the misplaced revenge he was seeking he rifled through Kozinski’s website looking for some “dirt” on the judge.
After fixating on Kozinski for months or years, he downloaded some material from the Kozinski web server that the DC blog Wonkette characterized as the “sort of naughtiness you’d find in the dirty birthday cards section at Spencer Gifts,” and then sent it to The Times after becomeing aware that Kozinski was assigned to an LA porn porsecution.
Before tipping The Times, the lawyer contacted the defense attorney in the pending prosecution and was told that it was wrong and not to do it.
In addition, he is now shopping around a CD that he asserts is a compilation of material from Kozinski’s family web server.
What is wrong with this picture?
Even if everything you say about Sanai is true (and it isn't since much of it was already rebutted here an elsewhere) what does that have to with whether or not Kozinski violated federal and state law by illegally downloading and sharing MP3s and child pornography? [None of this is proven yet of course and Judge Kozinski is presumed innocent of felonious conduct until proven otherwise]
I've seen the contents of the robots.txt file. So have a lot of other people. There's an archived version.
The archived version contains:
I've also seen the Google search results for site:alex.kozinski.com
So have other people.
So, you're just plain wrong when you try to tell people that it "appears" that he didn't want the web site indexed by search engines. Saying that just makes it "appear" that you're intentionally telling a falsehood.
A) The line between a file server and a web server is very clear. A file server serves files, meaning that it understands the concept of a file being open, being written, being read, seeked, truncated, appended, locks, enforces POSIX rules. A web server responds to the HTTP protocol. It may return a file. Or it may generate content on the fly. Or it may pass the request to a second tier app server. They are completely different things. When people speak ignorantly they can be corrected.
B &C) In addition to the racist, pornographic and juvenile "humor" the server was full of various scholarly writings. A fair number of them penned by the Judge. He gave out links, to the public, to the server. See his "judicial hottie" self nomination letter. Whatever they say about what is was "meant" to be, what it was was a soapbox to speak from.
As you wish, I shall correct you. From wikipedia for File Server comes these paragraphs. In the future, don't be such a tool. File Server has always been a generic term. And for what it's worth, the term was in common use BEFORE 1985. You know, 1985.. the year they started working on the POSIX standards you seem to think are little more than rules to govern a file server..
Anyways:
In computing, a file server is a computer attached to a network that has the primary purpose of providing a location for the shared storage of computer files (such as documents, sound files, photographs, movies, images, databases, et cetera) that can be accessed by the workstations that are attached to the computer network. The term server highlights the role of the machine in the client-server scheme, where the clients are the workstations using the storage. A file server is usually not performing any calculations, and does not run any programs on behalf of the clients. It is designed primarily to enable the rapid storage and retrieval of data where the heavy computation is provided by the workstations.
File servers may also be categorized by the method of access: Internet file servers are frequently accessed by File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or by HTTP (but are different from web servers, that often provide dynamic web content in addition to static files). Servers on a LAN are usually accessed by SMB/CIFS protocol (Windows and Unix-like) or NFS protocol (Unix-like systems). Database servers, that provide access to a shared database via a database device driver, are not regarded as file servers. Most file servers are simultaneously print servers too, as they provide access to printers via network. A single file serving computer may be accessible by multiple means: it may run an FTP server, an CIFS server, etc., serving the same files.
No, as I made clear in my last post, I'm talking about the English language. In English, the word pornography refers to images intended to cause sexual arousal. (cf. dictionary.com)
What is public is what you invite the public to. Not what they can trespass within with whatever effort.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, &pfpp
And TDPerkins, why don't you go ahead and look into the various court rulings regarding private on the internet. These questions have already been settled. The only difference is a bunch of fanboys running around trying to make nonsensical claims regarding privacy and intent.
Hell if you guys are right, and all that matters is intent, then from here on out there will be a lot fewer criminal convictions because all the defendants will have to do is say "I didn't mean for anybody to be able to see me steal this keg of beer." and the judge will throw out the evidence.
Anyway. Have fun.
Well I really don't know what your point is.
Child pornography is defined by statute and if he violated that statute he would be subject for prosecution for it.
Your views on what is and is not "pornography" are utterly irrelevant to that inquiry.
I share your general sympathies about this, but personal attacks here are uncalled for.
[...*crickets*]
Sinai goes on:Simply because Mrs. Kozinski has a different point of view than Sinai, she is dishonest? Let's see some strong evidence of that strong charge, Sinai.
M adds: I couldn't have stated it better myself.