Twitter Possible restraining order granted to Wu -

[HoloSkull]

To be fair, I thought it was a 4 too.

Well I took a look at the file, I don't think its going to be possible to do any deblurring. There's just not enough detail. Usually swirl and gaussian blurs are the easiest to undo, this was a cranked out motion blur (possibly multiple applications). It might be possible by someone more skilled with Photoshop than I am.

Postmortem of recovered artifact yXCY5yH.jpg:

This is a 72 dpi 1024x1365 photo shot in low-light probably shot with a camera phone. If this was from a Iphone it looks like it was resized (my phone takes around 2488 x 3264 for example). Coupled with that and low-light the image is incredibly lossy as evidenced by the grain.

Restoration of Information:

Impossible at this quality. Motion blur can be difficult to reduce on even a mild blur. That's why you don't shoot HDR on a windy day it blurs things to shit. Pro tip.

Miss Wu used the rectangular marque tool and motion blurred it by approximately 25 pixels, but this value looks irregular in relation to width of selection. This could be an application of the smudge tool which would mean its a total wash. The place where Jace's name would be is a small selection of 184px wide by 18px high, top left, beneath Brianna's name. Still even with these specs, in retrieval you will loose whatever was written to the left or right of the selection.

Cursory notes:

• She's using a brush or fountain pen to sign these documents.

• Subject does not seem to know Jace's many aliases: Jack Stryker, Parkourdude91, and Commander Lazy-Eye, to name but a few.

• Gail Connors makes no guest appearance.

• Does miss Wu realize that 100 yards is not that far away for marine trained gunmen? No matter.

This concludes this postmortem examination of artifact yXCY5yH.jpg

 

[Optimus Prime]

Postmortem of recovered artifact yXCY5yH.jpg:

This is a 72 dpi 1024x1365 photo shot in low-light probably shot with a camera phone. If this was from a Iphone it looks like it was resized (my phone takes around 2488 x 3264 for example). Coupled with that and low-light the image is incredibly lossy as evidenced by the grain.

Restoration of Information:

Impossible at this quality. Motion blur can be difficult to reduce on even a mild blur. That's why you don't shoot HDR on a windy day it blurs things to shit. Pro tip.

Miss Wu used the rectangular marque tool and motion blurred it by approximately 25 pixels, but this value looks irregular in relation to width of selection. This could be an application of the smudge tool which would mean its a total wash. The place where Jace's name would be is a small selection of 184px wide by 18px high, top left, beneath Brianna's name. Still even with these specs, in retrieval you will loose whatever was written to the left or right of the selection.

Cursory notes:

• She's using a brush or fountain pen to sign these documents.

• Subject does not seem to know Jace's many aliases: Jack Stryker, Parkourdude91, and Commander Lazy-Eye, to name but a few.

• Gail Connors makes no guest appearance.

• Does miss Wu realize that 100 yards is not that far away for marine trained gunmen? No matter.

This concludes this postmortem examination of artifact yXCY5yH.jpg

Holy fucking shit.

The fact you know that knid of shit is amazing.

 

[Saul Goodman]

Update: That is the correct form and the correct style for a TRO (in MA called a "Harrassment Protection Order" -- that's what the "HPO" in the docket number stands for). The temporary order is good for up to 10 days until a hearing where the defendant gets to tell his/her side of the story and contest the need for an order. If the granted, the order remains in place for up to a year, at which point it may be renewed.

The case is not in the Mass Courts system. However, I called the clerk of the Cambridge District Court with the pertinent information to see if there was a case on the docket that just hadn't been filed electronically yet. She looked up the information, paused, and said "there's nothing here I can tell you." I.e., it's sealed. Which is not especially unusual for a TRO hearing.

TL;DR: This is almost certainly legit, and we're going to have a courtroom showdown between Commander Stryker and SpaceKat next friday.

Spoiler

 

[RequiredName]

Who the hell's Brianna Wu, some kind of other lolcow dramawhore?

Brianna Wu (born John Flynt)

So, yes, then.

 

[QueenMegan]

If an insane person I believe to be a danger to my life threatened me online, yet I've never met him/her, the last thing I would want to do is give him/her a document with my address and the address of my place of work.

He didn't get to Wu's house last time, Wu has essentially doxed himself to Jace now. He really is a professional victim.

 

[4Macie]

It's been pretty much worn out but I've shadowed lawyers going to court with these things and I can say I doubt wu will get the order. 1) she doesn't know anything about Jaces home or address so he likely can't be served 2) this is, as it was stated, only proof that she's tryin to get one, not that she has one, and 3) just having threats against you doesn't show you need an order of protection. You need physical interaction of some kind. She has nothing but tweets and streams. I've personally seen people not get an order even though someone has already assaulted them. The judge said they weren't in eminent or immediate danger so an order could not be issued.

She's also literally breaking rule number one any lawyer tells a restraining order client: "cease all interaction with defendant". Personally, I think Wu knows she doesn't have a chance to get it, but if she says it's an order and jace believes her, maybe it's just as good for her.

 

[Pikimon]

I fucking hate Brianna Wu and think she's a psycho and a talentless con artist with the morals of a 1840's New York slumlord, but getting a restraining order against Jace who is severely mentally ill and is a danger to himself and others is not that irrational.

That being said, there is no way in hell she's not going to attention whore this from here until the end of time.

 

[CWCissey]

I'm surprised Wu didn't try to get some money out of this and demand compensation.

 

[blackie toy]

It's been pretty much worn out but I've shadowed lawyers going to court with these things and I can say I doubt wu will get the order. 1) she doesn't know anything about Jaces home or address so he likely can't be served 2) this is, as it was stated, only proof that she's tryin to get one, not that she has one, and 3) just having threats against you doesn't show you need an order of protection. You need physical interaction of some kind. She has nothing but tweets and streams. I've personally seen people not get an order even though someone has already assaulted them. The judge said they weren't in eminent or immediate danger so an order could not be issued.

She's also literally breaking rule number one any lawyer tells a restraining order client: "cease all interaction with defendant". Personally, I think Wu knows she doesn't have a chance to get it, but if she says it's an order and jace believes her, maybe it's just as good for her.

I strongly suspect that she's applied for it in order to get it denied. She, along with a lot of Ghazi, have been bawwing about how the police don't do shit to protect them from /baph/ et al., and Wu has said that she's in contact with congressmen.

Basically Wu wants something to wave in front of a congressional committee if she's ever called to testify.

 

[Saul Goodman]

I doubt wu will get the order. 1) she doesn't know anything about Jaces home or address so he likely can't be served 2) this is, as it was stated, only proof that she's tryin to get one, not that she has one, and 3) just having threats against you doesn't show you need an order of protection. You need physical interaction of some kind.

Service may be a problem (although 15 minutes of Googling will get you a pretty good idea of where Jace lives). However, under MA law, all you need to do is show three malicious "acts," which do not need to be physical interactions, "intended to cause fear or intimidation."

We know that Jace is a harmless crackpot who smokes too much weed. However, judges tend to err on the side of granting these orders ("better safe than sorry"), and I can imagine that this will be all the more true for a judge who, lacking the context we have on the forums, gets a taste of Deagle Nation.

 

[Null]

I'm surprised Wu didn't try to get some money out of this and demand compensation.

There's no indication that she didn't.

 

[AnOminous]

We know that Jace is a harmless crackpot who smokes too much weed. However, judges tend to err on the side of granting these orders ("better safe than sorry"), and I can imagine that this will be all the more true for a judge who, lacking the context we have on the forums, gets a taste of Deagle Nation.

Agreed. It's actually a good thing judges err in this direction at least at the TRO stage. The reason is pretty simple. Who wants to be the judge who denies a TRO and then the plaintiff gets shot the next day?

But more lasting injunctive relief generally requires process. I can't see her getting a permanent "never say anything mean about me again" injunction, or even bothering to pursue it that long unless Jace defaults or something.

If it actually gets litigated, I could see a stay away and don't make threats, but not a "never say anything about this public personality again."

At least some of what Jace said seems to constitute legal threats, though context is at least somewhat relevant to whether they were objectively credible threats that would cause a reasonable person fear and apprehension. It might be worth looking into the legal standard in Massachusetts to see to what extent, if any, it is required that the threat actually did cause fear as well as being objectively the kind of threat that could cause fear in a reasonable person. Because Wu did not act at all like someone actually afraid of Jace, instead publicly taunting him.

ETA: Also along the same lines, if I were Jace even dealing with this pro se, I'd want to call that stuttering little weasel Reuben to the stand. It may be quite relevant that at the time Wu was supposedly terrorized by Jace, she was harassing him through intermediaries.

Maybe she didn't know about it beforehand. But that stuttering little fuck will come across as a liar whatever he says. I'd actually love to see Jace cross examine him. Now that would be court drama worth driving to see. The phrase "Your Honor, may I treat this man as a hostile witness" comes to mind.

 

[Saul Goodman]

It might be worth looking into the legal standard in Massachusetts to see to what extent, if any, it is required that the threat actually did cause fear as well as being objectively the kind of threat that could cause fear in a reasonable person.

It's both subjective and objective. A reasonable person would have to view the statements as intended to cause fear, *and* the statements must have actually caused fear.

In that sense, I agree that in an ideal world Wu would have to answer for her taunting. But, despite being a somewhat delusional sociopath, she looks sane, and Jace looks like, well, Jace.

Heck, if I wasn't so busy at the moment, I'd consider flying to Boston and seeing if I could get pro hac vice to rep Jace pro bono (or, perhaps more accurately, "pro lulz").

 

[4Macie]

My question is this: has Jace committed at least three different acts of harassing wu? And I don't think these can mean tweets and videos. Because, as far as I can tell, internet (virtual) acts don't count in a majority of the states. There just aren't laws about virtual abuse yet. I think it might be because virtual threats aren't deemed to show much intent... not sure.

I will also add that the worst thing about restraining orders is that the Plaintiff (Wu) can try and contact Jace as much as she wants and not violate the order. This means she could tweet at him every day about how she feels so much better that he can't touch her... and Jace can't say shit back because it'll violate the order.

 

[CWCissey]

My question is this: has Jace committed at least three different acts of harassing wu? And I don't think these can mean tweets and videos. Because, as far as I can tell, internet (virtual) acts don't count in a majority of the states. There just aren't laws about virtual abuse yet. I think it might be because virtual threats aren't deemed to show much intent... not sure.

I will also add that the worst thing about restraining orders is that the Plaintiff (Wu) can try and contact Jace as much as she wants and not violate the order. This means she could tweet at him every day about how she feels so much better that he can't touch her... and Jace can't say shit back because it'll violate the order.

If Wu does that, I think she'll end up coming out of it worse. People are already looking for an excuse, and taunting a mentally unstable man who you got a restraining order out against is really low.

So it does sound like the kind of thing she'd do.

 

[Saul Goodman]

My question is this: has Jace committed at least three different acts of harassing wu? And I don't think these can mean tweets and videos. Because, as far as I can tell, internet (virtual) acts don't count in a majority of the states. There just aren't laws about virtual abuse yet. I think it might be because virtual threats aren't deemed to show much intent... not sure.

Actually, it's a well-established principle that it's the content of the threat, and not the medium that counts. I can give you 500 horror stories of people getting charged for making a true threat on social media, where they thought it "didn't count because it was on the internet." Almost every court everywhere has held that you get full first amendment protections online, but you also remain liable for speech that constitutes libel, a true threat, etc.

As for the instant case, yes, these video acts can count as harassment if a judge believes that (a) they are objectively intimidating and (b) that Brianna actually was intimidated.

 

[XYZpdq]

I strongly suspect that she's applied for it in order to get it denied. She, along with a lot of Ghazi, have been bawwing about how the police don't do shit to protect them from /baph/ et al., and Wu has said that she's in contact with congressmen.

Basically Wu wants something to wave in front of a congressional committee if she's ever called to testify.

He should make plans for something to wave at the saucermen when they come to make him their new Saucer Queen, too, since that's about as likely.

 

[blackie toy]

At least some of what Jace said seems to constitute legal threats, though context is at least somewhat relevant to whether they were objectively credible threats that would cause a reasonable person fear and apprehension. It might be worth looking into the legal standard in Massachusetts to see to what extent, if any, it is required that the threat actually did cause fear as well as being objectively the kind of threat that could cause fear in a reasonable person. Because Wu did not act at all like someone actually afraid of Jace, instead publicly taunting him.

I think we're looking for something like this:
"We interpret G.L. c. 258E, § 1, to require proof that the defendant had the requisite intent in committing each of the three required acts of wilful and malicious conduct. A plaintiff seeking protection through a civil harassment order must show that the defendant engaged in at least three wilful and malicious acts, and that for each act the defendant intended to cause fear, intimidation, abuse, or damage to property. But, in determining whether these three acts did “in fact cause fear, intimidation, abuse or damage to property,” the fact finder must look to the cumulative pattern of harassment, and need not find that each act in fact caused fear, intimidation, abuse, or damage to property. General Laws c. 258E, § 1, defines harassment as “[three] or more acts of willful and malicious conduct ... that does in fact cause fear, intimidation, abuse or damage to property” (emphasis added). The use of the singular “does” rather than the plural “do” indicates that it is the entire course of harassment, rather than each individual act, that must cause fear or intimidation."

O'Brien v. Borowski, 961 N.E.2d 547, 557 n.8 (Mass. 2012), abrogated in part, Seney v. Morhy, 3 N.E.3d 577 (Mass. 2014). Upon review of Seney, I'm really not sure exactly how it abrogates O'Brien; it may actually say that the part about being able to determine harassment simply based on a pattern, even if the factfinder can't find the individual acts to be harassing, is incorrect. It does cite the above footnote prominently in the decision, though.

Edit to add: Okay, Shepard's says it's not abrogated. In fact, it says that it was followed by Seney. So whatever. Fuck you West.

The case is not in the Mass Courts system. However, I called the clerk of the Cambridge District Court with the pertinent information to see if there was a case on the docket that just hadn't been filed electronically yet. She looked up the information, paused, and said "there's nothing here I can tell you." I.e., it's sealed. Which is not especially unusual for a TRO hearing.

Yeah, it's gonna be effectively sealed:
"The plaintiff’s residential address, residential telephone number and workplace name, address and telephone number, contained within the court records of cases arising out of an action brought by a plaintiff under this chapter, shall be confidential and withheld from public inspection, except by order of the court; provided, however, that the plaintiff’s residential address and workplace address shall appear on the court order and be accessible to the defendant and the defendant’s attorney unless the plaintiff specifically requests that this information be withheld from the order." Mass. Gen. Laws 258E § 10.

Also:
"The court may order that information in the case record be impounded in accordance with court rule." Mass. Gen. Laws 258E § 3(b).

 

[rocket]

Restraining orders are such a waste of everyone's time. Truly dangerous people do not give a fuck about a paper shield.

Brianna's lucky that Jace is basically just a professional internet clown.

 

[blackie toy]

Restraining orders are such a waste of everyone's time. Truly dangerous people do not give a fuck about a paper shield.

Brianna's lucky that Jace is basically just a professional internet clown.

They're useful for the same reason that suicide is illegal in some jurisdictions: So the police can do shit like break down the door and take someone into custody without their consent for an attempt. With restraining orders, the point is that the cops can intercede more easily where they wouldn't be able to otherwise.