Somebody casually slandered Mike Murray in a post above. When I read it a few days ago, I rolled my eyes and moved on. But the sheer nastiness, ugliness, and stupidity of that post has kept coming back to me over the weekend and I have to reply.
I know Mike Murray through a group that we both both belong to and I've followed his nonstop crusade against Section 2257 that started in the Connections case, I think about fifteen years ago. He's been up and down between the trial court and the Sixth Circuit several times fighting the good fight, honing and refining his arguments, and now he continues that battle in the Third Circuit. It's a personal life-mission for Mike. No one in the world has more thanklessly fought against this horrible law. He's fought it without much of an incentive to make money. I know for a fact that he was paid pennies on the dollar in Connections and he's owed money in six figures in the present case. It's all been work of the highest quality - and it's all been done with the kind of zeal that should be an inspiration to every lawyer. He continues the aggressive fight whether he's paid or not.
I am not close to Mike, we are not close personal friends, we just see each other at meetings. But I know him to be a heroic figure whose life work stands a good chance of protecting the rights of everyone, not just people in this industry. Lawyers disagree about legal arguments and theories and that's a natural thing, but despite any of that, no one can take away from Mike that his work is simply excellent by every objective standard. His latest motion for summary judgment - which the judge will not grant because this judge is tired of motions and will press the case to trial so that it does not drag on further - shows that Mike is now in sych with the Third Circuit. The Third Circuit sees this case as one that goes to the core issues of the personal privacy rights of all Americans. If you read Mike's motion, he capably proves that Americans in numbers impossible to count with precision, but surely in the tens of millions, perhaps nearly half of the population, are using digital technology to take pictures and videos of highly personal intimate acts of affection. This is a very hard thing to prove, but I think he's done it. And because 2257 indiscriminately covers noncommercial depictions of actual explicit sex - it has to do that because almost all child pornography is made for noncommercial purposes - it improperly invades the bedrooms of all Americans.
http://www.xxxlaw.com/news/Materials...L%20RESIZE.jpg I think that's the issue that this case will turn on at trial and in the inevitable appeal to the Third Circuit - and the Third Circuit has amply telegraphed how important this issue is to it. Listen to the oral argument last year.
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/oralargu...AttyGenUSA.wma and read the Third Circuit's opinion.
http://www.xxxlaw.com/section-2257/4....3rd%20Cir.pdf
I think the odds are good that Mike will win in the district court at trial and that his victory will be upheld in the Third Circuit. He's got his ducks lined up on the issue that counts, the issue that has far-reaching privacy implications for everybody. The government just went too far in this law and Mike is ready to ram that home. What the US Supreme Court does later, if it takes this case at all, is anyone's guess, but Mike's on the right path here and now.
To defame this smart, hard-working lawyer on these pages is, to me, sad beyond comprehension and completely uncalled for. Shame on you.