It’s been of those strange “legal stuff” weeks. Firstly, we take a look at a lawsuit filed by a man (an adult) demanding reimbursement for the 20,000 hours he (in)voluntarily submitted to his desire to playing a game, plus of course, damages. Secondly, is a brief background on, and letter from our Defense Department to, a Mississippi lawyer who somehow managed to get himself involved in the WikiLeaks (release of classified Afghan War documents) imbroglio.
From Wired:
A federal judge is allowing a negligence lawsuit to proceed against the publisher of the online virtual-world game Lineage II, amid allegations that a Hawaii man became so addicted he is “unable to function independently in usual daily activities such as getting up, getting dressed, bathing or communicating with family and friends.”
Craig Smallwood, the plaintiff, claims NCsoft of South Korea should pay unspecified monetary damages because of the addictive nature of the game. Smallwood claims to have played Lineage II for 20,000 hours between 2004 and 2009. Among other things, he alleges he would not have begun playing if he was aware “that he would become addicted to the game.”
For perspective: This period between 2004 and 2009 is comprised of 43,848 hours (Including two leap days).
(Please take our poll at the bottom of this post. We’d like to know if everyone else thinks it’s hypocritical that this man apparently found enough time to file a lawsuit.)
=============================================
From governmentsecurity.org: (excerpt):
The Defense Department immediately disputed the claim, and asserted it had neither contacted WikiLeaks nor had any intention of working with the organization. A Defense Department spokesman later revised that statement slightly saying the DoD had come across someone “purporting” to be an attorney for WikiLeaks and had scheduled a phone conversation with him for last Sunday morning, but the attorney was a no-show for the call. The Pentagon released a letter sent to the attorney, Matusheski, discussing the missed call.
The spokesman and the letter re-asserted that the Defense Department has no plans, nor did it ever have plans, to work with WikiLeaks to redact information.
Matusheski confirmed that the military had indeed approached him, but not about the Afghan documents and only after he had contacted authorities first, several weeks ago.
Matusheski said that he received a call last week from Chuck Ames, an investigator with the Army’s Criminal Investigations Division, which is working on the case of Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old Army private suspected of having leaked classified information to WikiLeaks.
Ames was interested in setting up a meeting with Assange, Matusheski said. But he never mentioned any documents WikiLeaks possessed, or suggested the government would be interested in working with WikiLeaks to redact sensitive information. That suggestion came from Matusheski himself, who thought it would be a good idea for the Army to view the documents “so that if anything gets published, they would have advance notice of it and could do some damage-control,” Matusheski said.
The text of the letter to Matusheski from the Defense Department’s general counsel, Jeh Charles Johnson, follows.
August 16, 2010
General Counsel of the Department of Defense
1600 Defense Pentagon
Washington, D.C. 20301-1600
Timothy J. Matusheski, Esq.
P.O. Box 15758
Hattiesburg, MS 39404
Re: WikiLeaks
Dear Mr. Matusheski:
I understand that you represent yourself to be an attorney for WikiLeaks and that you, on behalf of that organization, sought a conversation with someone in the United States Government to discuss “harm minimization” with respect to some 15,000 U.S. Government classified documents that WikiLeaks is holding and is threatening to make public. In response, I was prepared to speak with you yesterday at 10:00 a.m. EDT and convey the position of the Department of Defense. Despite your agreement to be available by telephone yesterday morning, we could not reach you at that time.
The position of the Department of Defense is clear, and it should be conveyed to your client in no uncertain terms: WikiLeaks is holding the property of the U.S. Government, including classified documents and sensitive national security information that has not been authorized for release. Further, it is the view of the Department of Defense that WikiLeaks obtained this material in circumstances that constitute a violation of United States law, and that as long as WikiLeaks holds this material, the violation of the law is ongoing.
The Secretary of Defense has made clear the damage to our national security by the public release by WikiLeaks of some 76,000 classified documents several weeks ago, and the threat to the lives of coalition forces in Afghanistan and to the lives of local Afghan nationals as a result. As the Secretary has also stated, we know from various sources that our enemies are accessing the WikiLeaks website for the purpose of exploiting WikiLeaks’ illegal and irresponsible actions, to pursue their own terrorist aims.
The threatened release of additional classified documents by WikiLeaks will add to the damage. Among other sensitive items, we believe the classified documents contain, like the first batch of released documents, the names of Afghan nationals who are assisting coalition forces in our efforts to bring about peace and stability in that portion of the world.
Thus, the Department of Defense will not negotiate some “minimized” or “sanitized” version of a release by WikiLeaks of additional U.S. Government classified documents. The Department demands that nothing further be released by WikiLeaks, that of the U.S. Government classified documents that WikiLeaks has obtained be returned immediately, and that WikiLeaks remove and destroy all of these records from its databases.
Jeh Charles Johnson
Filed Under: How to get a mean letter from the Department of Defense and not even come out with a client.
My thoughts on the above:
For the weak-willed gamer, we request our 300 seconds of readership time back.
For Mississippi lawyer Matusheski, with all due respect, Sir: a) It’s not a leak if it’s sanitized, b) refer to The War Room scene in Dr. Strangelove when trying to encourage cooperation with the military and c) did you seriously send a P.O. Box return address to the United States Department of Defense?
For the DoD: Shouldn’t this Jeh guy have something like Esq., LLM, DDS…??? after his name or was he someone just passing by Mr. Matuscheski’s open letter and thought he’d take a stab at it?
BNI Operatives: Street smart; web savvy (and addicted).
As always, stay safe (and sane).
Filed under: Oddities of the Legal Kind Tagged: | army, assange, department of defense, gaming, lawuit, lineage, ncsoft, wikileaks, wired
