FC: No jail for Purdy, mystery Italian grabs washingtonpostjesus.com

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Background on Washington Post etc. vs. Purdy:
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=purdy

Without taking a position on the merits of their claims, it seems to me 
that the attorneys for the Washington Post and the other plaintiffs have 
placed themselves in a difficult position. They've spent hundreds of 
thousands of dollars of their clients' money and, in doing so, have 
successfully spawned (according to Bill's story below) Bill Purdy 
imitators. I don't share Bill's views on either abortion or the Washington 
Post Co. -- but I suspect there are plenty of people on the planet with 
access to domain name registrars who do.

For the record, lest the Wilmer attorneys subscribed to Politech get 
subpoena-happy: I do not know the identity of the mysterious (apparently 
Italian) domain name bandit. Naturally if I did know that person's identity 
and had agreed to keep his or her identity confidential, I would not 
divulge it.

-Declan

---

From: "William S. Purdy" <wpurdy () attbi com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
Subject: No Jail today
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 18:04:40 -0600

Feb. 4, 2003  4;30pm

Dear Declan,

The court had mercy on me today and did not put me in jail.  I believe I 
had purged myself entirely except for www.TheWashingtonPostCHRISTIAN.com 
which I truthfully told the court that I had not yet purged.  The court 
fined me $500 for today, and it is unclear if I will have to pay for any 
following days.  After the hearing I borrowed $20 from a friend and gave it 
to The Washington Post attorney, Thomas Olson, as payment for today's fine, 
but for some reason would not take it and gave it back to my lawyer.

Declan, YOU and your readers did it again.  The Court read aloud from my 
emails I have sent you that you have sent out, and Mr. Olson offered my 
emails to you as proof of so many things that I can't remember it all.  But 
one of YOUR READERS on YOUR Politech list from Italy has gone off and 
registered about 50 domain names that Mr. Olson said, "looks exactly like 
Purdy's work."  I have to tell you that I was dumbfounded by the news as he 
spoke, absolutely stunned, but ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED just the same.  Mr. 
Olson demanded that the Court make me testify about the new and wonderful 
Italian free-speech advocate copycat, and said that if I took the 5th to 
questions about my involvement in the Italian registrations, then the Court 
should ASSume that I am involved in the Italian registrations and hold me 
further in contempt.  The Court summoned me to the microphone and I told 
the Court that I had nothing to hide from the Court and that I would tell 
the Court anything it wanted to know.  The Court took a 5 minute recess at 
which time the Court called me to testify, but advised me that I could take 
the 5th for any question I wanted. I asked the Court if I took the 5th if 
the Court would then assume my answer to the question, and the Court said 
it would not.  Although I had nothing to do with the wonderful Italian, and 
to my honest recollection have never met him, have never spoke to him, have 
never emailed him, and never received an email from him, on the advice of 
my CRIMINAL lawyer I took the 5th on all questions relating to the "Italian 
domains".  I have scanned in a copy of the email that the wonderful Italian 
emailed to The Washington Post attorneys, and a translation that the Post 
also entered as an exhibit - view at 
http://www.billpurdy.com/wonderfulitalian.htm  Mr. Olson also asked me if I 
had ever used a language interpretation website, and I answered yes.  But 
before I could answer that I had never used a website to translate any 
Italian, my lawyer objected and the Court sustained the objection.

I honestly do not know who this wonderful Italian is, but he got all the 
information from YOUR Politech mailings, and all I can say is, "Praise God" 
and "Praise Declan" for getting the word out to the entire world about all 
attempts to quell our FREE SPEECH Rights.  This wonderful Italian fellow 
signed the email, "The Holy See" which translated from Catholic means "The 
Pope".  He has a rome.com address so maybe it is the Pope, or one of his 
agents. That would be really cool, and I know he's with me on the abortion 
issue.  The Washington Post attorney said that so far all they could 
determine was that that the street address listed is a hotel in Rome.  The 
Plaintiffs are certain that the wonderful Italian is really me, and they 
told my lawyer that if I fessed up it would go a lot easier on me.  But 
they are quite wrong as time will prove.  But even though this wonderful 
Italian chap has registered all the domain names that he has WITHOUT my 
knowledge, encouragement, or involvement, I exclaim to the world that I am 
ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED that he has!  I don't think it is against the law yet 
to be "delighted", and to express such delight on the internet, but who 
knows what the Post will try and make of it - maybe the crime of being 
"Delighted of International Contempt".

I was so delighted with the news of what the wonderful Italian had done 
that I immediately told my lawyer to tell the court that I would now purge 
myself www.TheWashingtonPostCHRISTIAN.com, even though it had not been 
asked of me yet.  I kind of think that is what motivated the wonderful 
Italian to register all the domain names that he did, so I wouldn't have to 
go to jail by standing on www.TheWashingtonPostCHRISTIAN.com.  When I got 
home I went to several of his domain names and they point to prolife 
websites that I am not connected with at all.

Also, Gandi.net which is in France is NOT cooperating at all with the 
transfer of registrations.  I don't know if they don't feel a U.S. Court 
can order them to do anything, or if they are on your mailing list and are 
aware of what is going on over here in this land of FREEDOM, or what.  The 
Court ordered me to send Gandi an email by 5:00 pm today, and so I sent 
them the email and a hyperlink to the order.

Lastly, the Court ruled that the new domain names that I just registered 
yesterday, iLIKEtheWashingtonPost.com and iADOREtheWashingtonPost.com are 
"confusingly similar" to The Washington Post, and such then ordered that 
they be immediately added to the list of domain names in paragraph 4 that I 
cannot use and must be transferred.

The Court scheduled another hearing for February 14, 2003 to see what the 
status is, but the Court told the Plaintiffs that they could cancel that 
hearing if they didn't feel it is necessary at the time.  I think by then 
the Plaintiffs will surely realize that they are barking up the wrong tree 
in trying to connect me with the that ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL, 
WONDERFUL Italian who saved me having to go to jail today.

Yours truly,
Bill Purdy




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