Who remembers the Secular Policy Institute? It still exists, it has a mission statement.
The Secular Policy Institute (SPI) is a think tank organization of thought leaders, writers, scholars and speakers with a shared mission to influence public opinion and promote a secular society. We believe governmental decisions and public policies should be based on available science and reason, and free of religion or religious preferences.
The latest news from SPI is dated 2016; they published a newsletter in 2020. It seems to be moribund.
Who remembers the atheist movement in the mid-2010s? It was crumbling fast, all these different groups were scrambling to stake out a position, and one of them was the Secular Coalition of America, which also still exists, and is actively lobbying the government for secular rights. But for a while it was led by someone named Edwina Rogers.
Who remembers Edwina Rogers? She was a Republican strategist who briefly led the SCA before getting fired in 2014, and then scurried off to found this pointless SPI think-tank.
We’re talking ancient history here, petty derailments of the atheist cause that plagued various groups over a decade ago. You probably don’t care about any of it. I don’t care about any of it. I hadn’t given any thought to SPI or Edwina Rogers for ten years.
But the other day, I got a legal notice from a real lawyer on behalf of Edwina Rogers that I had 14 days to delete two posts, one from 2015 and the other from 2017, claiming that they were in violation of copyright and were defamatory. The merely defamatory page is basically a quote from an SPI representative.
“I’m starting to believe that the reason the secular movement doesn’t have more women is the women. Prove me wrong.”
The quote is accurate, and I agree that it puts SPI in an ugly light, but I didn’t make it up. Don’t complain to me about the fact that SPI had several misogynists on staff.
The other post they want deleted is full of my opinions, and includes a promotional photo publicly posted by SPI, that features Dawkins and Harris and Shermer mugging for the camera. Back then this was something they wanted to advertise, but times have changed and now they’re apparently embarrassed by the situation. Mainly, though, it’s about the unsavory reputation of one Jonny Monserrat, and linked to his history of lawsuits.
I guess you better go check those old posts now, just in case I have to take them down. I don’t know that I will, because there’s nothing factually inaccurate in either of them, but jesus fuck I am tired of these corrupt cowards who now feel enabled to silence anyone who ever criticized them. Of course, most of you weren’t paying any attention to those topics in 2015, or have completely forgotten that period of atheist drama, or think Edwina Rogers and Jonny Monserrat are being really stupid. How many of you have bothered browsing the archives here from over a decade ago? But now I have to deal with lawyers again.
Someone needs to mention Barbra Streisand to those people.
When anyone invokes the Streisand Effect I think of the quotation “uttering loud and continuous cries of apprehension in order to conceal the direction of her flight”
Do they really think that they’re going to get anything out of this after all this time?
When anyone invokes the Streisand Effect I think of the quotation “uttering loud and continuous cries of apprehension in order to conceal the direction of her flight”
Do they really think that they’re going to get anything out of this after all this time?
Sorry, unintentional duplication .
Sorry, unintentional duplication .
If Edwina Rogers is trying to scrub her online reputation, does that mean she is seeking a new position? Where will she pop up next?
Sorry, intentional duplication.
@5: I hear the Trump Administration has some openings…
I saw the headline and the picture of Barbra and thought that she had died.
Oooph…
I feel you, PZ. I get to go to court next month on two charges that will most certainly be thrown out (because I did not break any law), but now I’m paying 6K to my lawyer to explain it nicely to the jury, instead of my smartass mouth getting me jailed for contempt of court…
I recognize the names, but I forget why they were notorious. Not inclined to revisit them, I guess brain bleach does work sometimes…
On a related issue :
“John Oliver Beats Lawsuit That Tried To Silence Him”
.
The ghouls did NOT like being correctly quoted when they casually dismissed the need to help a celebral palsy person who had been left in his own excrement. Fuck the bastards. If Al Quaeda comes after them, I’ll cheer them on.
Just out of curiosity as I am not an attorney, but would there be an applicable statute of limitations?
Does anyone remember Richard Carrier, the guy who sued PZ Myers and a bunch of other people in 2016 for no real reason?
Probably, but you would have to spend a lot of time thinking to dredge it out of your long term memory.
I had forgotten him and the law suit to the point where I had to Google it to make sure I got the right name and date.
This is a huff and puff letter and almost always, they are idle threats.
IANAL and I don’t even play one online.
If it was directed to myself, I wouldn’t take it very seriously.
Back to Richard Carrier, he seems to have disappeared from the internet and the world is a slightly better place.
@11 Hemidactylus, it’s surely moot that the posts are 9 and 11 years old since they remain on this site right now.
Yes. In pretty much every state, it ranges from one to three years:
https://www.minclaw.com/defamation-statute-of-limitations/
Given that these posts were published almost ten years ago, Monsarrat and Rogers are long past the statute of limitations in any jurisdiction I’m aware of. That doesn’t mean they can’t pay a lawyer to send empty threats, but if they were foolish enough to try taking this to court, it would be thrown out in short order.
Of course, that still results in expense, harassment and inconvenience for PZ, which I’m sure is the point. They’re trying to be just enough of a nuisance that it’s easier to appease them than to fight them.
I’m sorry you face this legal bullshit, PZ. This is all consistent with the billionaire magat empire: lie cheat and threaten anyone who presents facts, opinions or parody that is contrary to their evil scheme. They have had success in using their their ‘legal’ (but dishonest) lawsuit tactics and wealth to beat-up and bankrupt decent honest people.
This society is run by wealthy sociopath magats and xtian terrorists. I’m hearing Martha and the Vandellas again right now.
Is there some kind of a statute of limitation on this kind of legal bullshit?
OOPS, sorry, I repeated @11 Hemidactylus about the statute of limitations without having read the comments. I must give Full credit to Hemidactylus!
Gosh, that does bring back memories (and @12: I also remember Carrier very well, partly because he keeps cropping up on Tim O’Neill’s blog).
I looked at the posts. Copyright? Defamatory? IANAL, but the complaints seem awfully thin.
Apparently she feels compelled to be the horribly malicious worthless wretch that she thinks everywoman else is instead of just her?
Which man’s catspaw is she (for the money)? Trump got Stormy Daniels to sue him so he could show us the penis he would like us to think he has.
Adam Lee @14
Would there be a statute of limitations on copyright that is separate from defamation?
shermanj @17
No worries. Glad someone else converged on the same question.
@ 12, 18
Yikes! between you two, you have now invoked his name three times. You know what that means.
Juice of beetles.
True in internet time. Not in human time.
I myself am pro-atheism, yet I lack an atheist cause. Never mind pursuing one.
Seems wise, in retrospect.
“jesus fuck I am tired of these corrupt cowards who now feel enabled to silence anyone who ever criticized them”
I must say that I can associate myself with a significantly weaker (and nonetheless in its meaning unaltered) wording of this statement, albeit regarding perhaps a slightly (if not at all entirely) different group of people.
English literature does appear to have an effect upon one’s manner expression. And with me reading Charles Dickens now, it’s only going to fortify.
I remember the photo in your second post. Shermer oozing all over Edwina Rogers and smirking at the camera, that was when it was finally becoming public what a rapey creep he is. Unbelievably tone-deaf stupidity.
Someone we know was getting harrassing letters from a lawyer, and he was advised to simply answer: “I am in receipt of your letter of //_.” They finally stopped… it was getting them nowhere. But ask a lawyer.
…and that is supposed to be a place holder for a date. Not sure what happened there.
What about arkell v pressdram? https://jollycontrarian.com/index.php/Arkell_v_Pressdram