Kimberlin Unmasked Is Back Online!

Some good news.  Kimberlin Unmasked is back online!

The proprietors of this website were the focus of Kimberlin's lawfare, along with several other bloggers, and for a time the website was taken offline.  Kimberlin apparently settled with the blog owners, and withdrew his lawsuit against them.  I figured they had caved to Kimberlin's legal extortion, along with two other defendants.  Apparently, this was not the case. (Or maybe it is the case -- see update below -- the blog is under new authorship.)

I don't know why, or how, Kimberlin Unmasked decided to get back into the fray, but I am so glad they did.  KU posts some great satire against Team Kimberlin, creating some funny Photoshop cartoons in the process.

The blog has been re-linked in my sidebar, and I intend to enjoy its output on a regular basis.  Check it out at the link above.

UPDATE:  Apparently, Kimberlin Unmasked is under new management.  Another anonymous blogger has taken over in the absence of the original authors.  He or she was able to grab the twitter account for Kimbelin Unmasked after it was abandoned by the original authors.  He/she was unable to acquire the original website name of KimberlinUnmasked.com, so started the new version under a new URL, namely, kimberlinunmask.com.

Note to Brett Kimberlin: Pro Se Litigation Works Both Ways

Hogewash is reporting this morning that the federal copyright lawsuit against Kimberlin Unmasked will go forward.  Judge Titus of the federal court accepted Kimberlin's amended complaint, which allegedly identifies the person or persons blogging as Kimberlin Unmasked.  As a result, Judge Titus has ordered the issuance of summons to the defendants.

It's amazing how much a vengeful litigant, acting as his own attorney, can disrupt lives and cost his targets lots of time, money and mental anguish.  Lawsuits are often nothing more than legal extortion, but you have to go through the process of the litigation.  Knowing that the system is grossly flawed won't protect you from the system.  To defend yourself, you need to learn how to use the system.  You must go through the process, no matter how repugnant or fearful it seems to you.  When I was being sued by a ruthless POS plaintiff, I kept this little piece of verse in mind:

Have you come to that Red Sea time in your life,

When in spite of all you can do,

There is no way out, there is no way back,

There is no other way but through.

Face the lawsuit with determination to win it.

To escape financial ruin, you may need to learn how to become a pro-se litigant, to defend yourself from lawsuits and to file your own lawsuits -- perhaps for malicious prosecution against those plaintiffs who abused the system and lost their lawsuit against you.  (You can also file a counter lawsuit against the plaintiff for wrongs he may have done to you.  Kimberlin Unmasked may have some great reasons to countersue.)

Google "pro se litigants" and you will find numerous resources on how to be a pro se plaintiff or defendant, how to deal with pro se lawsuits against you, and the knowledge and skills you need to carry it all off.  For instance, check here.

I have been a pro se defendant in the federal court system (Ninth Circuit), and won.  My opponent intended to use the court system to ruin me financially, but by firing my attorney and taking over my own case, I denied him that weapon (if you can afford an attorney, use one -- I fired mine because I couldn't meet her demands for up front fees).  The suit cost me time and money, but it cost the plaintiff even more.  Once all their appeals were exhausted, my opponent and his attorney began suing each other, to my sublime delight.

I will begin researching the literature and available resources that are available to those who wish to represent themselves in lawsuits, either as a plaintiff or a defendant.  I will prepare myself to become a pro-se litigant, merely as a defensive measure, if nothing else. 

I'll report back on what I find.

Brett Kimberlin's Persecution of Kimberlin Unmasked

W.J.J. Hoge has posted Brett Kimberlin's amended complaint for copyright violation against Kimberlin Unmasked ("KU").  See it here.

What has the terrible copyright violator, Kimberlin Unmasked, done to damage Kimberlin?  She or he published screen grabs of Kimberlin's face from his "Justice Through Music" videos that are published on YouTube.

So now you know.  According to Kimberlin, someone's face is copyrighted, no matter how infamous, and no depiction of it can be published without permission lest he be accused of copyright violation. However, I doubt that this is true in most cases.  Use of a celebrity's face without permission to promote a product would obviously be a copyright violation, but use of an ex-felon's face for purposes of criticism is another thing altogether, particularly when the YouTube videos are political in nature and advocating a cause or political position.

Of course, the YouTube videos of Brett Kimberlin's face in the "Justice Through Music" videos are all linkable and embeddable on any blog that chooses to display them.  I know, because I just checked.  Obviously, Kimberlin wants these images disseminated far and wide, or the videos would not be linkable or embeddable.  What he doesn't want, obviously, is for them to be disseminated for purposes of criticism.

Also, there is no fee to view Kimberlin's mug on YouTube.  It's all free.  So what did Kimberlin lose by KU posting screen grabs of his face?  Nothing financial.  The screen grabs were fair use for purposes of criticism, education or satire, and therefore not a copyright violation.  Kimberlin's beef, as usual, was to damage anyone who criticizes him, to suppress criticism and free speech, to deny First Amendment rights to anyone he doesn't like, through the abuse and misuse of the court system.

In the process of shutting up KU, Kimberlin, or one of his minions acting on his behalf, lied to Blogger that the Kimberlin Unmasked's Blogger blogsite was a "spoof site," which is against Blogger's terms of use.  A spoof site is one where the author pretends to be someone else, i.e. by impersonating them.  The KU Blogger blogsite was most certainly not a "spoof site," but was taken down anyway by the bad-faith misrepresentation of Team Kimberlin.  Sounds both fraudulent and actionable to me, but I am no attorney.  So when Kimberlin claims in his court filings that KU was taken down by Blogger due to "violation of its terms of service," naturally he doesn't mention that it was taken down due to his own possibly fraudulent misrepresentations.  In a similar way, Team Kimberlin got two of KU's twitter accounts shut down by equally bad faith misrepresentations.

After KU replaced its Blogsite blog with another one hosted elsewhere, persons unknown but undoubtedly loyal to Brett Kimberlin, launched an illegal DDOS attack on the site, shutting it down for several hours.  Of course, there's the possibility that Brett Kimberlin had nothing to do with this felonious act, but I personally find that very hard to believe.  DDOS attacks are a specialty of the illegal hacker group "Anonymous."  Neal Rauhauser, a top Kimberlin associate, has been linked to "Anonymous":

Neal Rauhauser is a far-left activist who has engaged in violent rhetoric, contacts members from the hacking group Anonymous, and is an admitted associate of Brett Kimberlin’s. He has written how-to guides regarding methods to use phony identities and hide one’s Internet activities from law enforcement.

The truth is this:  Kimberlin Unmasked has violated no laws, federal or otherwise, against Brett Kimberlin.  However, there is substantial evidence that Kimberlin and/or his associates have committed torts or crimes against Kimberlin Unmasked.  If the ill-advised copyright suit against Kimberlin Unmasked is allowed to proceed, I would expect a countersuit and counterclaims against Kimberlin, and my money is on Kimberlin Unmasked as to the outcome.

Corrections as to any errors in facts in this post are welcome.  Brett Kimberlin is invited to rebut the above, subject to counter-rebuttals, should he wish to do so.  

Kimberlin Unmasked Suffers DDOS Attack: "Team Kimberlin" Suspected

Yesterday Kimberlin Unmasked (KU) emailed me, saying he couldn't log onto his site, Kimberlinunmasked.com.  I tried, and couldn't log on either.  I immediately suspected a DDOS attack.  KU contacted his web host and they confirmed it was indeed a DDOS attack (a "distributed denial of service" attack).  In a couple of hours, the web host was able to terminate the DDOS attack and service was restored.

A DDOS attack is when hackers direct many computers (and/or special programs) at a targeted website, all of them requesting to log on to that site.  The website is overwhelmed with these requests and traffic either slows noticeably or just shuts down.  Hackers create "bot nets" by infecting computers all over the world with trojan programs, without the knowledge of the computer owners.  Those infected computers can then be directed to send service requests to the target, knocking it off line.

The purpose of a DDOS attack is to shut down the targeted website, so that no one can log on or view the site.  The group of cyber-goons known as "Anonymous" have used DDOS attacks against banks and other commercial websites, costing the owners millions of dollars in lost revenue.  DDOS attacks are illegal, of course, and perpetrators have been sentenced to prison terms.

Brett Kimberlin, the convicted Speedway bomber, perjurer and drug kingpin, is the subject of Kimberlinunmasked.com.  All it does is reveal Kimberlin's criminal past and current unethical behavior, e.g., filing frivolous lawsuits against critics to cost them time and money defending such suits.  KU also criticizes and satirizes Kimberlin's supporters and yes-men, like Bill Schmalfeldt and Neal Rauhauser.  However, the KU site greatly angers Brett Kimberlin and his followers and fans.  The fact that KU's blogger is anonymous and unknown is particularly galling to Brett Kimberlin, as it has prevented him from serving that blogger with Kimberlin's latest lawsuit.  According to KU, the deadline for serving KU in Brett's RICO lawsuit expired yesterday.

Kimberlin, of course, has plausible denial of any knowledge of the DDOS attack, as it could have been initiated by one of his fans acting on his own and without Kimberlin's knowledge or approval.  Kimberlin's involvement in the crime cannot be assumed.

Kimberlin Unmasked has suffered aggressive and ruthless tactics by Kimberlin's minions, including an unwarranted take-down of the KU blogger blog site and the closing of KU twitter accounts, all based on false and phony accusations -- both Blogger and Twitter simply take a complainant's word for it when they accuse a site of Terms of Service violations, without any attempt to confirm the accuracy of the charges.  It then becomes the site owner's obligation to prove the accusations are false, while his site or Twitter account remain offline for weeks at a time.

These tactics are ruthless, unethical, probably illegal, and might qualify as harassment in any legal proceedings against the accusers.

I suppose the only good thing in the harassment directed against Kimberlin Unmasked, is that it proves his effectivemenss in exposing Kimberlin's unsavory practices and past.

Disclosures:
1.  Photoshopped photo of Brett Kimberlin found on the web; Fair Use Claimed under US Copyright Laws
2.  The term "Team Kimberlin" is short hand for certain fans and followers of Brett Kimberlin who may act on Kimberlin's behalf, with or without his knowledge or permission.
3.  Only a court of law can determine the guilt or innocence of any person, and guilt for any crime can not be assumed.  Every suspect of a crime is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
4.  I do not know the identity, gender or location of the blogger known as "Kimberlin Unmasked," nor do I wish to know, for his or her protection.