California City Apologizes for Wrongly Accusing Bloggers of Criminal Hacking (ocregister.com) 61
To settle a lawsuit, the city of Fullerton California "has agreed to pay $350,000 and take back its accusations of criminal computer hacking" against two local bloggers, reports the Orange County Register. The settlement ends what the newspaper calls "a contentious fight over censorship and freedom of speech."
The lawsuit accused Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee of stealing computerized personnel files from a Dropbox account to which the city had mistakenly given them access. Some of the files were later published online... Attorney Kelly Aviles, representing the bloggers, said she was pleased with the settlement, but the litigation could have been avoided. "The city shouldn't have tried to blame their mistakes on journalists trying to cover the city," Aviles said. "It was unbelievably wrong ... those kind of people should never be in public office..."
Under the terms of the deal, Aviles will be paid $230,000, while Ferguson and Curlee will receive $60,000 each. Additionally, the city must publish a public apology on the home page of its website, Aviles said. While no formal charges were brought against the bloggers, the city's accusations of criminal conduct cost them friends and family members. She said Ferguson was fired from his job. "It was really traumatic for them," Aviles said.
In turn, the bloggers must return the remaining confidential records — which they don't plan on publishing anyway, Aviles said.
Under the terms of the deal, Aviles will be paid $230,000, while Ferguson and Curlee will receive $60,000 each. Additionally, the city must publish a public apology on the home page of its website, Aviles said. While no formal charges were brought against the bloggers, the city's accusations of criminal conduct cost them friends and family members. She said Ferguson was fired from his job. "It was really traumatic for them," Aviles said.
In turn, the bloggers must return the remaining confidential records — which they don't plan on publishing anyway, Aviles said.
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Apparently they have excellent lawyers
Apparently Fullerton has excellent lawyers (Score:2)
If you must play.
lazy bureaucrats (Score:1)
According to court documents, Ferguson had requested police personnel records under SB 1421 and was given a link to a city Dropbox and told he could retrieve some of the records there. However, the Dropbox contained thousands of other preliminary files prepared by the City Attorneyâ(TM)s Office that were not meant for Ferguson.
Very lazy at that
They were given access to specific folders. In addition to getting those folders, they went into privileged folders that they got somehow,â Barlow said, adding that the files were marked âoeattorney-client privilege, do not release.
Still no apology (Score:3)
Additionally, the city must publish a public apology on the home page of its website, Aviles said.
Still no apology since the article was published two days ago.
Anyone want to bet how far down the front page [cityoffullerton.com] the apology will be buried? Prop bet on it not even making the "CITY NEWS" section?
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I would have demanded the firing of everyone involved in proceeding with the prosecution with no chance of rehiring by the city for 10 years. Until there are consequences for what those officials did this sort of shit will never stop.
get a better lawyer (Score:2)
Under the terms of the deal, Aviles will be paid $230,000, while Ferguson and Curlee will receive $60,000 each.
0of. this is just wrong
Attorney Kelly Aviles, representing the bloggers, said she was pleased with the settlement
I would be pleased too if i were in her shoes!
Re:get a better lawyer (Score:5, Interesting)
That was my initial reaction too. But consider the lawyer put in over a year's work on this at least (since 2019), and this isn't pro-bono work for her. This is also a very small town, 135K as of 2010, so this is probably a fairly substantial payout for them, and probably decent enough compensation for the bloggers.
If those bloggers did indeed "lose family and friends" over this incident... well, at least they know which of their family and friends were fair weathered in nature now. More likely, something of an exaggeration when arguing the settlement. I'm not excusing the city by any means, just looking realistically at this.
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This is also a very small town, 135K as of 2010, so this is probably a fairly substantial payout for them, and probably decent enough compensation for the bloggers.
The city's false accusations cost them their reputations, friends, and family members. It also cost Ferguson his job.
"While no formal charges were brought against the bloggers, the city's accusations of criminal conduct cost them friends and family members. She said Ferguson was fired from his job."
I don't consider $60,000 fair at all.
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getting 60K in a year for one client would be more than acceptable for the lawyer. lawyers should be paid a percentage of the overall settlement, but definitely not over 50%!
115k for each person and 60k for the lawyer sounds more than fair (and 115k to get your reputation destroyed still sounds fairly low)
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$60,000 for the lawyer means there would be no lawyer taking the case.
While the bloggers in this case suffered loss and damage, its still the lawyer taking on the risk of the litigation.
Given this wasn't a class action, but instead the lawyer directly represented the two clients in question, the clients would have to have agreed the settlement terms, which means they got to decide if the outcome was acceptable to them or not.
I know people here on Slashdot like to think that lawyers shouldnt be paid anything
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Acceptable, or worse. Not much of a decision. Lawyer being compensated more, than parties in lawsuit, is not speaking for very just arrangement, but for abuse.
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I think thats for the client to decide, personally.
Without these style settlements, the case simply wouldnt be litigated.
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Just as said, given degree of a decision does not seem fair, and was very much predetermined by the lawyer.
To own benefit, many could notice.
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One of the many absurdities with America is how many people have been propagandized to dislike lawyers. If you've been screwed over by a business, employer, official etc, you'd rather their money be burned in the street rather than stay in their pockets. But ermagerd, lawyers, who want a percentage after fronting all of the costs in bringing a suit.
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Did they have to get bank loan to front these costs? Very unlikely, right? I respect my lawyer, and wish all the success, yet not that it is much needed.
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Eh? A case like this can cost many thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. If you don't have that kinda scratch, don't be surprised when the lawyer wants a return on their investment if they have to front the costs.
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Seriously, how does one lose *family* over this? I'd really like to hear someone explain this to me. Did their wives divorce them? Parents or children disown them? Are they no longer allowed to join their extended family at Thankgiving?
Even though I'm siding with these two, I'm not going to just swallow everything their lawyer claims in a press release without even a hint of skepticism.
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Given that she spent over a year on the case, that payday is minimal for any kind of decent lawyer. She got her clients' lives back for them. You have this exactly backwards. It's not that Ms. Avilas was paid too much for her work. It's that the settlement awarded to the journalists was far too small.
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Aren't you assuming it was the single case, carried by lawyer for that long time? Quarter a million is still a fortune, especially when you did not work some harder to "get her clients' lives back for them" in more just proportions of compensation. It's abuse.
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Do you have evidence to the contrary? If so, please present it. Otherwise, it is reasonable to conclude that the attorney of record actually did the bulk of the work, and that anybody else who helped out would be from the same firm. Apparently you have no clue what a major law firm would charge for this kind of work. A lot of New York firms would charge a quarter of a million per month. Many would charge a hell of a lot more.
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I have only experience to never be single person served by the lawyer, and can't think why this could be overall reasonable. There are only that much of certain dates with the events in the ongoing process and allowances, waits in between, when other proceedings are more likely to be handled, than not. As to charging whole lotta more, that's exactly an observable issue, not an excuse.
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Under the terms of the deal, Aviles will be paid $230,000, while Ferguson and Curlee will receive $60,000 each.
0of. this is just wrong
Why on earth is is wrong? What do you think her take home pay is after her costs?
The bloggers were the defendants (Score:3)
The city sued the bloggers to retrieve the documents they sent them, i.e., prevent them from being fully published. It's possible the main objective of this settlement was to prevent a countersuit, but it's also possible they really just wanted to gag the bloggers.
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That sort of thing bothers me in situations like a class action lawsuit where the lawyers themselves instantiate the legal action then fail to properly represent their supposed clients, instead just looking out for themselves.
This is different. The journalists chose to hire lawyers to defend themselves (rather than rely on overworked and thus subpar public defenders), and the lawyers deserve to be paid rates that are on par with other lawyers. The settlement the city agreed to was likely a dollar amount for
California City? (Score:2)
Like "California City", next to Mojave. That's what I thought this was about. Not much of a city and the only stuff there are rattlesnakes, chukkars, tortoises, and perhaps meth labs.
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You can find find all kinds of crazy things in the desert out there. You'd think it was mostly untouched, not hardly more like some kind of mad max junk yard.
Behind the Orange Curtain (Score:2)
Fullerton is behind the Orange Curtain, this kind of thing is to be expected.
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Yep. Exactly.
still criminal (Score:2, Insightful)
if you are given the login name and password and permission to obtain specific data and you login and intentionally obtain other data, that is a criminal act. it may be very stupid on the part of whoever gave you the login, but it is no different than being given the combination to a safe and told to take the $100 (by someone that owes you $85.17) bill from the top and you take the whole $10,000 pack. depending on what you did to access the other files, it could even be argued that you use advanced comput
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So, I gotta return all this stuff I just found?
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It's not really *theft* either; and the part of the settlement that requires these people to "return" the "stolen" files has me scratching my head. I think the best and most accurate term would be misuse; or perhaps "abuse of access", and corrective action should be for them to eliminate their access to the information in question -- deleting copies, purging backups etc.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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If the city was in the right, would they have settled and paid a court judgment? That doesn't seem very likely. (Note: I am not a lawyer.)
Also, using money as a analogy is an obviously prejudicial tactic. Does anyone ever say "go in the cash drawer and take some money" as opposed to saying "go to the cash drawer and take $85.17"? How were the people who accessed the data suppose to know that some of it was not supposed to be avai
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Well it says "personnel files". So why would anyone think that kind of information should be published in the first place, mistake or not?
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It was a civil suit... brought but the city (Score:2)
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where is the apology? (Score:1)
what is the URL? i went to the "home page" looking for an apology but it isn't exactly easy to find,
Subject (Score:1)
Just checked (Score:2)
Not their first time in the news (Score:2)
I'm always fascinated by how some cities are basically shit holes that end up repeatedly making news. In 2011 a homeless man named Kelly Thomas was murdered in public by police officers in that city and made national news. This wasn't a George Floyd incident - the victim had no drugs or criminal activity and was beaten to death while people watched.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That actually led to a recall election against three councilmen who sided with the police union and lost their jobs over it.
An
Return remaining confidential records? (Score:1)
Technically speaking, how does one return electronic records.
California City is not the city of Fullerton. (Score:2)
There's a real place called California City and it's mostly empty, it's an off-roading destination. I was shocked to hear they have journalists writing about it.
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