SLAPP Censorship - Part 31 Out of 200: Speaking About 20+ Years of Alleged Harassment/Defamation and High-Profile 'Targets' of Garrett
At the beginning of last year our barrister followed up on the counterclaims [1, 2] by sending additional material that had been requested by Garrett's (M.J.G.) barrister. For those who have only bare recollection, attempts were made to settle (in effect end the case) by the person who started the case almost half a dozen times along the way and our barrister felt so strongly about the case and encouraged us to write about it. We've since then discovered many more things (embarrassing new revelations; Garrett swore on the Bible and admitted to me things he had previously denied) which add fuel to the fire and make it imperative to explain now that we're 6 months past the trial. In the next part we'll show how an increasingly desperate Garrett joined forces with a Microsofter who had abused women. He did so around the same time he (Garrett) received counterclaims. If it sounds confusing, that's because the modus operandi was all along absurd.
Around the same time he asked us to send a letter that he himself had sent to us! Based on the metadata in the letters, it came from the Wilson in Brett Wilson LLP, i.e. it had been escalated.
No kidding. In their own words:
Under paragraph 32.5 of the Defence and Counterclaim“the Defendants have not engaged with the Claimant’s correspondence because there is a history of the Claimant’s sending pre-action correspondence merely to vex and harass the Defendants [...]” Request
16. Please identify the occasions on which (a) the Claimant; and/or (b) the Claimant’s solicitors have sent pre-action correspondence to the Defendants and/or each of them that the Defendants contend was ‘merely to vex and harass’ the Defendants.
Our 2024 reply: See examples of pre-action letters sent only months after Roy had repeatedly accused M.J.G. of defaming him and others (hitherto named with examples shown). The reversal of narratives was not a successful stunt, but it was meant to cause anxiety, waste time etc.
This was also mentioned in Request #1.
See 2021-11-23 - Roy Schestowitz (with enclosures).pdf
It seems bizarre that M.J.G. would ask for this dated file, which he himself has (even uploaded to his own site) and is fully aware of. He is wasting the court’s time and limited resources.
Then they asked for more information on people that he is already very familiar with:
Under paragraph 33.2 of the Defence and Counterclaim“33.2. The Claimant’s general bad reputation in the eyes of readers of the Websites at the time of publication, as to which the following persons have experienced harassment and abuse from the Claimant and have spoken publicly of this harassment and abuse:
33.2.1. Linus Torvalds
33.2.2. Ted Tso
33.2.3. Bruce Perens
33.2.4. Alexandre Oliva
33.2.5. Richard Stallman
33.2.6. John Gilmore”
Request
17. Please identify for each of the individuals pleaded above full particulars of the ‘harassment and abuse’ by the Claimant, the dates and nature of each alleged incidents and details of each of them speaking publicly or making public statements made regarding the alleged harassment and/or abuse.
Our own reply at the time is to be found below (unaltered):
Linus Torvalds is the creator of Linux and Git, two high-profile projects. It is a matter of public record (in the media) that M.J.G. kept attacking Torvalds in the media and elsewhere because Torvalds had turned down his (rightly unwanted) patches – basically code meant to oppress many million of computer users by giving Microsoft remote control over their Linux PCs. This would hardly be the first time someone throws a tantrum at Torvalds, but Techrights documented how M.J.G. persisted in this behaviour for many years, demanding disciplinary action of some kind, even ousting. This went on for over half a decade. M.J.G. did so again only a month ago, having another go at Torvalds in public posts in social media.
Ted Tso is regarded as the "heir" of Torvalds and he has long supported Torvalds and his project management style (he spoke out in his support and insisted that Linux succeeded because of Torvalds’ sensible leadership). In his personal site and elsewhere M.J.G. has long sought to associate Tso with rape or rape apologist or something to that effect, to no avail. The intention was to darken his reputation to either censor him or shoehorn someone else into his position inside Linux. He demanded disciplinary action of some kind - a very common pattern (removal, resignation, forced apology for a non-offence).
Bruce Perens is considered the man behind "Open Source". Bruce Perens has supported Techrights since 2006, said on many occasions that M.J.G. defamed him (M.J.G. also said to people that punching Perens was warranted; it's a common theme from M.J.G., maybe he thinks it's OK because he suffered domestic violence, according to himself, and saw violence as a youngster in Ireland, where bombs went off, injuring friends of his). Bruce Perens is one among several people willing to testify in our support, as one of the main targets of M.J.G.'s campaign of defamation (enforcing a defamation ruling/sentence against M.J.G. would be hard because he shelters himself in the woods in the United States – a fact he’s happy to exploit).
Richard Stallman (RMS) is the creator of GNU and the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the project and institution (respectively) that laid the foundations for Free software, "Linux", and what many people nowadays wrongly dub "Open Source". M.J.G. coordinated many campaigns of hate against RMS, based on insincere distortions, misrepresentations, and outright libel.
Alexandre Oliva is regarded as the "heir" of RMS (for good reasons; RMS is also in his 70s and battles cancer) and he has therefore been the subject of endless abuse by M.J.G., especially libel and innuendo trying to hold him accountable for words of other people. This has been done by M.J.G., extensively and repeatedly, even as recently as this month. Libel actions are relatively difficult in the US and expensive everywhere, so M.J.G. knows he can get away with quite a lot of this muck-raking against a Brazilian like Oliva. To put things in perspective, M.J.G. began attacking Roy in 2012 (more and more over time, to the point of 24/7 stalking in IRC, for several years!) because Roy covered the campaign of harassment by M.J.G. from the perspective of a technical journalist with in-depth knowledge in this domain. To be clear, Roy’s first 10 or so articles about this didn't name anybody; they pointed the finger at the employer (a large company). Then M.J.G. made it personal and started commenting in Roy’s blog, slandering Roy (attacking the messenger) etc. Roy didn't fall into his trap of provocations and instead carried on (until today); things went too far when Roy’s family members were being targeted too. Roy had never done anything even remotely like that to M.J.G. Roy respected people’s privacy and relied only on what people – including M.J.G. - published to the general public.
John Gilmore is a co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and is now at the FSF's Board. There was a power grab at the EFF in recent years and Gilmore got pushed out (verified by mainstream and technical media) while M.J.G. was spreading slanderous rumours about him in IRC networks and mocked him online using innuendo (Chinese whispers). That was because of his stance and beliefs, nothing that he had done wrong. Now that all the co-founders of the EFF are out many of the position statements of the EFF are for "big tech" (funding likewise). Techrights published dozens of articles about this seemingly 'niche' problem, so there is a very high incentive to muzzle the site. Roy exchanged some messages with Gilmore this past autumn. Roy also spoke to the EFF quite a lot for many years; Roy knows who's who and they know Techrights very well.
To avoid reproducing libel, the false accusations made against the above people - Gilmore included – are not reproduced here.
In some subtle or implicit sense, Techrights and Tux Machines “Represent” the community or “Other Victims”. Techrights in particular is a “lucrative” target because it published about 42,000 articles and many of them covered the abuse against people including the above, politely explaining who did what, when, how to tackle these attacks and which companies fund them. █