
Pirate Bay founders: FBI has Prenda Law under investigation - batguano
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/pirate-bay-founders-fbi-has-prenda-law-under-investigation/
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explorigin
From another perspective...FBI tries to trick Neij and Sunde into identifying
the new TPB admins.

FTA: Neither Neij and Sunde could help with the request, since they no longer
run the site. The officers also asked about just who is running the Pirate Bay
these days, so it's not clear what the real motive of the questioning was.
Both men were interviewed by Swedish police, but the Swedish officers said
they were "sent on behalf of the FBI."

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jacquesm
That's so strange. Didn't they claim during their trial that they had handed
off TPB to other parties? I'm also quite surprised that they would keep logs
that would allow the FBI agents to determine who was the uploader of a certain
torrent.

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tedunangst
Wait. Isn't this what we've been demanding all along in response to electronic
surveillance? Good old fashioned police work? Aka asking questions? If you
want to know something, start by asking someone who might, or who might know
somebody who knows. Maybe the Prenda dudes were dumb enough to try to recruit
TPB into their scheme. Won't know if you won't ask.

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jacquesm
It's strange because they already declared _under oath_ that they do not know
any of this.

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jimrandomh
This is a good step towards restoring faith in the US court system. There have
been a significant number of high profile, large scale abuses of civil
litigation lately. I'd started to think of the US courts as participants in a
protection racket. Knocking down the lawyers behind a few of those is a
significant positive step.

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ObviousScience
Prenda Law in particular has taken a beating, largely stemming from them
attempting to defraud the court and refusing to comply with court orders.

The conduct of the Prenda Law group was so bad, the attorney representing them
in California was allowed by the judge to withdraw midcase and cease to
represent key members of Prenda Law once it became clear the extent to which
Prenda Law had commited fraud and the extent to which they'd lied to their
counsel.

Multiple federal judges wrote in their orders that they hoped that Prenda
Law's conduct would be investigated in this or that regard.

It turns out that if you go on a systematic plan of fraud and then refusing
court summons or abiding by orders and fines, eventually, other people like
the FBI will take an interest in you too.

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PhantomGremlin
The really amusing part of this story is Prenda Law.[1]

This was set up by a couple of lawyers as a copyright troll. However, those
two lawyers were dumber than Beavis and Butt-head. They filed thousands of
lawsuits, hoping for quick settlements. Instead, they were sanctioned by
multiple Federal and State courts. With any luck they might actually wind up
in Federal prison.

Ars links to numerous articles about them. The Wiki link also has lots of
amusing information. So if you think popcorn tastes good, make yourself some
and settle in for some very entertaining reading.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law)

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Intermernet
Really, for the best, select commentary, you need go no further than popehat.
[http://popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/](http://popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/)

Some of the judges presiding over these hearings have dropped quotes that will
echo through legal chambers for years. Very entertaining indeed :-)

