Item 2 (posted later): Bullying from Former Employer. I received today a threatening letter from the law firm I was fired from, ostensibly for my political and/or religious views, claiming that I have defamed the firm and demanding that I remove 'offending materials' from the Internet or they "are prepared to take legal action to restrain [me] from continuing to injure our Firm's reputation and goodwill."
+
Are they serious? Would they really like a jury of my peers to consider whether I have "defamed" the firm by saying what I said? Do they really want that kind of notoriety in the legal community of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, in which their attorneys operate? Do they really want a jury of ordinary "little guys" deliberating whether a multimillion-dollar law firm has the right to punish employees for what they say on the Internet? or whether they are using my political views as a pretext to get rid of a disabled older gay man whose age and infirmity might cost them more money than a younger (heterosexual) replacement? And do they expect me, if sued, not to assert counterclaims for very substantial financial injury and attempts to injure my reputation (remember, I have been in both Who's Who in American Politics and Who's Who in America) caused by their behavior?
+
I started to write "Truth is an absolute defense to charges of defamation." but thought I should check that on the Internet. I came up with this quote:

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation: if what you say is true, it cannot be defamatory.

I had written only the extra words "charges of", which were not part of what I first wanted to say, which was exactly what the author of that webpage says: "Truth is an absolute defense to defamation".
+
Everything I said in my January 10th blog entry is absolutely true, and thus an absolute defense to defamation.
+
The burden of proving it false — an impossible burden, since it is absolutely true — would rest upon the firm if it sued me. But how much time and money would it cost me to establish the absolute truthfulness of what I wrote? And how much time and money can a law firm with 50+ attorneys (tho they've been losing a lot of lawyers lately, a trend I hope will continue and intensify) devote to persecuting me? I have better things to do with my time and money than defend a frivolous lawsuit instituted by a big company with "deep pockets", millions of dollars, as against my very limited resources, especially given that I just LOST MY JOB due to their bigotry.
+
The letter claims that a webpage I created about the firm's softball tournament this past September, and told everyone at the firm about, "was linked through [my] blog to [my] website at www.geocities.com/lcraigschoonmaker/NoIraqAttack[.html], a site that contains inflammatory and derogatory statements that are extremely offensive to the members of our Firm."
+
However, there are NO hyperlinks whatsoever, of any kind, to any website, from that softball-tournament page — not to this blog, not to the "No Iraq Attack" page, not to my personal homepage thru which one might find my "No Iraq Attack" page! Nor are there any links from this blog to the softball-tournament page. So the assertion is factually false, as anyone could plainly see.
+
Nor does the attorney in question say exactly what on my "No Iraq Attack" page is "inflammatory and derogatory". Is it my opposition to the war and deriding of George Bush and other supporters of that war? That would be political expression, which may not be protected by antidiscrimination laws.
+
Or is it my commentary on the religious conflicts and similarities among Judaism, Christianity, and Islam? On that page I quote the New Testament at length, citing chapter and verse as to the murder of Jesus and persecution of early Christians by zealous Jews. That would be religious discrimination, which I believe is a protected category under antidiscrimination law. Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ was attacked by Jews who wanted to suppress it. They didn't get away with such censorship, and Christians, 90% and more of the population of this country, were not silenced by the 2% — and shrinking — portion of the population that is Jewish. Is it really wise for Jews to try to persecute Christians in a country that is preponderantly Christian and more Moslem than it is Jewish? Apparently the idiot at my former firm thinks so. Is the New Testament "inflammatory and derogatory"? Are Christians not entitled to believe its account of the murder of Jesus? Surely it is not for a Jewish employer to say that Christian employees are not entitled to believe the New Testament or agnostic employees entitled to criticize features of Judaism, or Islam, or any other creed.
+
I now have an express statement, in writing, that I was fired for things I said in at least one webpage, which constitutes an admission that I was fired for expressing myself on the Internet. That one page, however, is over 30,000 words long, and addresses both religious and political matters. It seems to me that I am plainly entitled to tell anyone I wish about that admission, including clients of that firm who may not wish to be associated with religious intolerance or suppression of political speech, but I will consult with free-speech experts before I resume my crusade — and yes, I did choose that word deliberately — to tell the world about that firm's bigotry.
+
(That little bastard, by the way, is one of those tiny men with big pretensions that people around him, if behind his back, speak contemptuously of as having a "Napoleon complex". I never liked him and always thought him a phony. He and the office manager who fired me are of the kind who are perpetually smiling and jovial, but you dare not turn your back on them. I'm sure everyone has encountered someone like that. You wonder, "Can they really be that nice?" and answer, to yourself, "I don't think so." You'd be right.)
+
His letter also claims that I "made direct and indirect references to certain clients and work product of the Firm in [my] blog during the course of [my] employment [specifically] commenting at length on the filing of lawsuits against Al Qaeda ... while [I] was working on such a matter at the Firm. The use and disclosure of this confidential information, no matter how vague, violated the Firm's Personnel Policy Manual."
+
Oh? I never mentioned any client in any identifiable way, and my only reference to a lawsuit against Al Qaeda is a September 10, 2004 blog entry that leads off:

I recently discovered that various insurance companies have launched civil lawsuits against hundreds of terrorists and asserted terrorist-front organizations to seize their financial assets as compensation for payments they have had to make to survivors of victims of the 9/11 attacks. I'm sure al Qaeda is quaking in its boots. They'll face Marines and missiles, but they've never faced off against American lawyers!

There is no "direct [or] indirect reference" to a specific law firm, insurance company, or judicial district in that blog entry, and lawsuits against terrorists had been reported by media before that entry appeared on the Internet (e.g., on CBS News in August 2004, New York Lawyer on September 11, 2002, and, most tellingly, by NewsMax.com on September 11, 2003:

A group of insurance companies says it filed complaints Wednesday not only against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, but also the governments of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and Sudan for their alleged responsibility in the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Even before that the Asbury Park Press here in New Jersey reported on July 14, 2003 that:

Insurance companies for hundreds of firms that were located in the World Trade Center have notified victims' families that the insurers may sue countries, individuals and other groups funding terrorists to recover money paid through workers compensation claims.

It is well-settled law that if information disclosed is available thru public sources, there is no breach of a confidentiality agreement. Considering that my references to such lawsuits were generic and not specific to any firm, any jurisdiction, or any insurance company, my former employer hasn't a leg to stand on.
+
Did I really "link the Firm to [my] unsavory commentary"? Passing over the disparaging, if not actually 'defamatory', adjective "unsavory", I say, emphatically, No!
+
There was absolutely no link from my softball-tournament page (for which, I repeat, I had been thanked and praised by many people at the firm; indeed, the firm's marketing manager had sent one of those pictures to the New Jersey Law Journal, which published it, giving favorable publicity to the firm!) to ANY OTHER PAGE of the well over 130 webpages that I have on the Internet. Moreover, there is and was also no link from this blog nor my "No Iraq Attack" page to the softball tournament page. Further, not even on that softball-tournament page does the full name of the firm appear.
+
This disgusting-excuse-for-a-human-being of a partner of the firm I used to work for also asserts in his ridiculous letter (which he may have typed himself, since no secretary's initials appear on it, perhaps to keep his shameful behavior secret from the staff) that I "ridicul[ed] [them] for assigning Jewish lawyers to represent Arab clients". I did no such thing. Quite the contrary, I had been proud that Arabs and Jews could get along so well, here in the United States, that Arab entities would entrust their interests to defense by Jewish lawyers. What I did imply was of questionable intelligence — no: friggin' moronic! — is the firm's permitting one of those partners to display an ISRAELI FLAG in his office, on the firm's premises. That seems to me much more dangerous to the firm's business than anything I could say in this little blog.
+
Nonetheless, since I don't want to be sued by a multimillion-dollar LAW FIRM, which could divert as many of its staff as it might wish (well, those who consent to be assigned to persecuting someone for speaking his mind), at least until I have gathered support from civil-libertarian groups such as the ACLU, Amnesty International, peace groups, or Internet-free-speech litigation groups, I am gladly removing the softball-tournament page from the Internet. I don't want to be associated with that firm any more than some members of that firm want to be associated with me. But you know what? I searched that page for "Schoonmakr", the name of my personal homepage, and confirmed that it did not appear there. Then I thought to search that softball-tournament page for my actual name, "Schoonmaker" — and THAT does not appear either. So (1) not only do I not (hyper)link, directly or indirectly, from that page to my blog or the "No Iraq Attack" page, and (2) the softball-tournament page does not contain the firm's full name, so only people intimately familiar with the legal scene in Newark, New Jersey would know what firm was referred to, but also (3) I didn't even have my name associated with the firm's name on the softball-tournament page!
+
I would have removed that page IMMEDIATELY after I was fired except that I did not want anyone accusing me of trying to 'hide the evidence' of my having mentioned that I was part of the [firm name] 'family' — a dysfunctional family, it turns out — by removing it. It remains on my hard drive and a copy resides on a backup CD-ROM so that if there is any question of what that page said or when it was last revised, I have documentary proof for any court to which this matter might ultimately go.
+
Moreover, I am content as well to remove all reference to the disgusting, disgraceful piece-of-sh*t 'law' firm I used to work for from my January 10th entry in this blog. (I'm so glad someone at the firm was reading! This tiny bit of the Internet needs all the readers it can get.) I am replacing all references to that odious bunch of bigots with "[firm name]", as one of my brothers had suggested. I will nonetheless continue to seek allies in fighting its bigotry, and if I find, thru consultations with the ACLU, other free-speech organizations, the human-rights commissions of any jurisdiction in which that firm has offices, etc., that I have a case for discrimination, I will pursue whatever measures seem to me wise to take.
+
I will let the firm censor my blog only until I get the go-ahead from lawyers to resume my attacks on their attempt to control what their employees say beyond the office. I have learned from guerrilla movements worldwide: when directly confronted by an insuperable enemy force, retreat, regroup, and attack again some other time, some other place. Or, as we say in the United States, "He who fites and runs away, lives to fite another day." (That's good advice for Palestinians, by the way).
+
Stay tuned.
- posted by L. Craig Schoonmaker @ 8:26 PM