This post is actually in reply to Deborah's post on another thread. It's more appropriate to address it here. Oh, and Ginger, in response to your question about who I am, I will simply say you don't deserve to know.
OK, first I want to comment on Deborah's post, which admittedly is a cut-and-paste from a Q and A on another website, but the result is horribly misleading to the readers at Fornits.
Let me first draw a parallel which will help. Everyone knows there are websites where you can buy drugs from Mexico. On those sites, they refer you to a Federal Law which is supposed to legitimize having their stockpile of drugs, either not approved by the FDA/DEA in the US, or otherwise can only be obtained by prescription in the US, shipped to US Citizens in the US. The Federal Law these internet vendors recite does actually exist; however, its meaning legally versus how the website in Mexico interprets the meaning of the law is so different that many of its patrons do not realize they are breaking the Law when they buy drugs from these sites and then have them mailed to their homes in the US. It's exactly what's going on here in relationship to Deborah's careless post.
With all due respect Deborah, chillingeffects.org may not be the place to conduct serious legal research and then use it on Fornits to make Ginger or her readers feel better about what's going on. You may even be hurting people.
Title 47, USC ss230 also known as the Computer Privacy Decency Act provides a type of Statutory Immunity to Interactive Web Service Providers. There are different kinds of immunity. For example, you have Virtual/Full and Qualified (qualified means there are exceptions). So, this Law, which is a Federal Law, not a State Law confers a type of immunity, which does not (repeat, does not)mean that Interactive Webservice Providers, hosts and subscribers can say whatever they want about anyone or anything without consequence. In Ginger's case, privacy laws are said to have been seriously violated, and much of the Law being relied on is Law from the Southeast District. Remember too, that States have laws that conflict with Federal Legislation.
Unlike Deborah, I have done a little research to substantiate this post. In Morrison v. American Online (N.D. Ind. 2001) Docket No. 3:00CV0723AS America Online found itself on the business end of a lawsuit similar to the one Ginger is now involved in. I'll let the curious readers here find and read the text of that case, but keep in mind Ginger is not America Online and does not have even a micro-fraction of its resources and they found themselves bearing the huge cost of a legal defense in the end regardless of the outcome.
Other cases which would make me violently shake, if I were Ginger, are Mitan v Davis (Kentucky) Docket No. 3:00 CV-841-S, Hammer v. Trendl (E.D.N.Y. 2002). This case is particularly on point as Amazon.com was enjoined, again, in a situation most similar to the one Ginger is in. Also, Fischer v. Mt. Olive Lutheran Church (W.D. Wis 2002) Docket No. 01-C-0158-C.
So Deborah, I reassert that chillingeffects.com does not provide the whole picture in terms of unfettered freedom on the World Wide Web. The host and the provider have been found to, in many instances, to have a level of responsibility.
Next Deborah, there won't be any motion granted for severance. I have, in my hand a full copy of the Complaint against Ginger in Carey. Conspiracy is one of the Counts in the Complaint. Conspiracy, as it has been set forth here, means that Ginger and Carey acted in concert. No Judge anywhere will grant a motion to sever when conspiracy is one of the priciple causes of action. As previously posted here, Ginger's lawyer will want her to sue Carey for Indemnity and Carey's lawyer will advise the same. This is a very complicated lawsuit. Also, in a civil conspiracy theory, it doesn't matter if Ginger knew there were private issues that could not be disclosed. The right hand doesn't have to necessarily know what the left is doing.
Finally, Ginger, on your question about what makes yours and Carey's threat on Fornits, to make this litigation expensive for Sue, different from what Sue's lawyer said to you over the phone is that he filed his lawsuit. In other words he took his action than made his comments, which is different than not taking action and conspiring on Fornits to do something expressly prohibited in the Federal Rules of Court.