January 28, 2011

Kochs Attempt to Unmask Climate Pranksters


A few weeks ago, I reported that Koch Industries didn’t take too kindly to the anonymous pranksters who spoofed their position on climate change last month with a fake website and press release. The Kochs argued that the fake site that claimed the company had changed its tune on global warming was bad for the bottom line of Koch Industries. Koch has filed suit, accusing the spoofers of “trademark infringement, cybersquatting, and unfair competition.” And, in order to do so, Koch wants the names of the folks behind the prank revealed.

But the anonymous defendants in the case—who are calling themselves “Youth for Climate Truth”—now have representation from an attorney, Deepak Gupta of the public interest group Public Citizen. This week, Gupta asked the judge in the US federal district court in Utah to dismiss the case outright. Public Citizen is also asking the court to quash the subpoena issued to the web hosting company that sought to force it to cough up the names of the pranksters and issue a directive to Koch’s lawyers barring them from releasing any information about the defendants that they may have already obtained.

The Koch suit also seeks to purse the pranksters for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, a federal offense that is intended to deal with hacking. This one, the defendants’ lawyer says, should be a real stretch of the law, since there was no hacking involved in the spoof; it was only a parody of the Koch website and a fake press release.

Revealing the identities of the anonymous people behind the prank and punishing them for it would have a “chilling effect on free speech,” Public Citizen argues. “The First Amendment protects anonymous speech and speech on the internet,” Gupta tells Mother Jones. Moreover, there is no evidence that the spoof site caused any financial harm to Koch, nor did anyone take the prank seriously, Gupta argues. (See the defendants’ filing here.)

This case is pretty similar to the one that the US Chamber of Commerce filed against the Yes Men in 2009 after the pair of notorious pranksters made a mockery of their climate stance as well. There hasn’t been any resolution in that case so far.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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