AG asks Epik to hand over communications with Gab.
Gab.com was registered at GoDaddy before moving to Uniregistry, and then to Epik. Epik founder Rob Monster got in touch and invited Gab to move the domain to its service, but he said he didn’t take the decision lightly.
It’s not clear what the Attorney General is looking for, but he is asking for all communications between Gab and the company, information about people working at Gab, and any complaints about Gab that Epik has received.
Gab disclosed the subpoena on twitter.
Hi @PAAttorneyGen do you really want to be seen as the AG who went up against the first amendment and CDA 230? You will be a made fool. I promise you that. We will not be bullied or intimidated. pic.twitter.com/yDckmAUoQM
— Gab.com🕊 (@getongab) November 7, 2018
Update: Gab has deleted the tweet about the subpoena.
No such thing as bad PR, just ask Donald….
Disagree on both.
The reaction of the Gab CEO is kind of strange.
Learn the law? Well, golly, the law permits the Pennsylvania AG to serve investigative subpoenas. The law permits the recipient of the subpoena to object on various grounds, or to comply.
It’s kind of weird to be going on about “rule of law” and having an emotional problem with the ordinary mechanisms of how it works.
This is being antagonistic for no reason whatsoever than to simply be antagonistic.
What grounds does the Pennsylvania AG have unreasonably searching a guy who isn’t even in his state? Wheres the probable cause of a crime to justify this illegal search? What happened to the 4th amendment or 1st amendment? 230 of cda?
This is a shakedown of businesses doing business with gab, as well as an attempt to get dirt on Gab ceo
Well, that’s a large number of questions to answer. But they are simple enough…..
“What grounds does the Pennsylvania AG have unreasonably searching a guy who isn’t even in his state?”
This is not a search, it is an investigative subpoena. If it is unreasonable, there are any number of legal grounds on which to object to a subpoena. You seem not to have understood what I meant by “The law permits the recipient of the subpoena to object on various grounds”.
Secondly, you seem not to be aware that Mr. Torba appears to be a resident of northeastern PA, and that Gab.ai Inc. is PA registered entity number 6599921. Interestingly, nobody goes after their corporate registration service in Harrisburg. Even if it weren’t for those facts, it is fairly obvious that both Epik and Gab conduct business with customers in Pennsylvania.
“Wheres the probable cause of a crime to justify this illegal search? What happened to the 4th amendment or 1st amendment? 230 of cda?”
Again, this is not a search. Likewise, at this point, nobody is being deprived of any Constitutional rights, and they are free to object to the subpoena. Most likely, their lawyer would prefer that they do so in court, and not on Twitter, but that’s certainly their call to make. As far as the CDA goes, again, this is an investigative subpoena, neither Epik nor Gab has been charged with anything.
If, for example, I run a car rental business, and someone rents one of my cars and robs a bank, I’m certainly not going to be charged with bank robbery. What will certainly happen is that I will be subpoenaed to turn over all of the documents and communications relating to the car rental.
The level of hyperventilation is entirely out of proportion to what is actually going on here. Every day, a zillion subpoenas are served on all sorts of people and companies for all sorts of reasons. There are procedures for dealing with them under the law and the Constitution of the US, and they generally don’t involve making ridiculous threats.
Well Said.
So somebody rents your car, you turn over the rental records, let’s stipulate after being required by law to do so. Hmm, as the car rental was used in a crime- alleged… let’s compare shall we…
Torba has already backed up and turned over all records pertinent to the shooter. None of those records have anything to do with the corporate shakedown leading to godaddy et al shooting the messenger, Gab, and forcing the necessity of Torba to find another registrar, Epik.
So, the PA AG is fishing and has no grounds. Plus, I do not see any reports of Twitter or Facebook down or of them turning over their records… maybe they have, but they were surely not treated like Gab and it has already been shown that racist tweets and language and direct threats to the President were made on Twitter as well as from the shooter on those platforms… why is not faceboo’s payment processor stripped? Why isn’t twitter’s stripe out of business? Really makes you wonder.
Hey Berryhill, your examples as given is full of crap and it relates to a crime. Gab did not commit the crime a person did. The comment did not commit the crime the person did. It does not matter if the owner resides in Pennsy or some other place. What Epik and Gab do together has nothing to do with the AG subpoena request. If that cluck A.G wants to know anything ask the FBI, DOJ, not ask GAB or Epik. This Subpoena request can be ignored, because it has no probable cause and infringes the privacy of a Company with another Company that does business with each other. Twitter and Facebook does their own Hosting and Server by themselves and nobody can shut them down because they do not rely on other registars to stay in business.
Once a person operates their own website, and hosts it themselves and is their own server with their own custom nameservers they can operate without anybody shutting them down. Last of all you don’t know anything yourself and neither does that stupid AG who is a DemoRAT himself. Ditto.
That is such bullsh*t, Berryhill, and your own personal bias is so blatant and has been since long before Gab existed. You are only playing the intellectual prostitute this time, as lawyers so often do. You remind me of when Dershowitz speaks on TV about something when his personal bias hemorrhages past his words without restraint like a tidal wave. This is unjustified harassment, abuse of the system and abuse of power, totally contrary to the principles of this country that every other would-be tyrant in a position of power tramples on. How about if all fifty states do the same, would you like that too? I’m confident you would.
“The news of the subpoena was not intended for public consumption,” wrote Epik CEO Rob Monster in an email statement to Ars (Technica). “We are cooperating with their inquiry.”
That’s what an adult sounds like.
“That’s what an adult sounds like.”
That’s what an actor sounds like.
“That is such bullsh*t, Berryhill, and your own personal bias is so blatant and has been since long before Gab existed.”
That’s what an authentic grown-up person being genuine and real instead of playing phony acting image games looks like.
“The news of the subpoena was not intended for public consumption,” wrote Epik CEO Rob Monster in an email statement to Ars (Technica). “We are cooperating with their inquiry.”
And that’s what any prudent business person acting appropriately to the context and specific circumstances looks like.
Most lawyers just go where the money is. Lol
They will play both sides of the fence or just keep swtching sides. Just as long as they get paid.
John you could host a TV show on IP law for dummies, you’ve had lots of practice based on the replies above….
Amusingly, while this discussion has gone the way it has, the CEO of Gab has apparently thought better of his counterproductive Twitter reaction on which I commented, and has deleted his tweets about the subpoena.
Per the article below, “Eric Goldman, a legal scholar at Santa Clara University, told us that the law is clear that Gab would not be liable for hosting content from the Pittsburgh shooter. Not only are the posts likely protected by the First Amendment, but a law called Section 230 gives service providers like Gab—not to mention upstream service providers like GoDaddy and Epik—an extra layer of protection against liability for user-submitted content.
So then what is Pennsylvania’s attorney general investigating? Shapiro’s office hasn’t returned emails and a phone call asking about that. But two legal scholars I talked to for this story couldn’t think of a legitimate reason for seeking these kinds of documents.
“I struggle to see a legit basis for this,” said Ken White, a First Amendment attorney and the proprietor of the popular Popehat blog.
Seeking information about Gab’s DNS provider “doesn’t make any sense at all,” legal scholar Eric Goldman told us. ”
Gab cries foul as Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas DNS provider
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/11/gab-cries-foul-as-pennsylvania-attorney-general-subpoenas-dns-provider/
Information that can be provided…
Not much.
The AG would presumably get more by talking to godaddy
CEO too young and emotional. Didn’t foresee inherit risk of domain registered/hosted in US jurisdiction (despite precedent from Virginia), didn’t have business continuity plan in place, now tweeting inflammatory statements towards State AG.
Have nothing against business model. CEO doesn’t appear suited to operate a company that serves investors’ best interests.
This is Stalinist government intimidation tactics. There’s violent posts on the big social media sites constantly, and their not even deleted. Do the shooter posted on dome site. So what? Seriously, eff the Left in this country. Orwell’s book were not instructional manuals, you authoritarian bastards.
Isn’t the favorite saying by the right…
“If you have nothing to hide”
Quoting myself here this time, lol: “Rob Monster probably more genuinely cares about the subject matter and the alleged reason for what was done with Gab.com than any company that was involved, but the real test would be what happens if the “powers that be” try to pressure Epik into doing the same without true justification and contrary to the real principles involved.” (https://domainnamewire.com/2018/11/05/rob-monster-explains-why-he-accepted-gab-com-domain-at-epik/#comment-2252065)
This “subpoena” could be a case of flirting with that direction, but fortunately the country still hasn’t completely morphed into what so many would-be tyrants in positions of power long for. And I’m sure I have more firsthand experience of such things in the trenches than almost anyone who ever posts in these blogs…
Rob jumps from one thing to another, whatever buzzwords or fancy venture he can use to make a quick buck. Look at his minisites, epik bucks, Digital Town that entire fiasco… Rob and Gab are both circling the asshole of the internet together, I hope they both get sucked and sooner wont be soon enough.
Your comment seems rather personal, and similar to many different type of smear techniques that shady characters emply or have other shady entities do on their behalf.
You think Rob did that to make money? A buck is all he’ll end up making, stupid.
I support Gab, but let’s be fair, Epik is getting a lot of press, they could give Gab free service and still be well paid by all the people transferring domains to them in bulk and adding other services. It’s a win for them, because they are defending free speech, which is in the news a lot lately. Thank you Epik for helping Gab, there is no harm in profit.
99% sure epik would prefer not being involved in a Pennsylvania murder investigation regardless of the press.
These communist thought police are out of control. However, this is just what is needed, a legal challenge that will be forced into the federal and possibly Supreme Court.
Is digital censorship and McCarthyism constitutional or unconstitutional? Only the Courts can answer that question, but I’m betting SCOTUS would rule in favor of cyber free speech.
We shall see…
Sigma – you astound me. Thank you for your courage, intellect and willingness to connect the dots.
John – You know what is at stake. Digital Sovereignty. We can have it but it will take courage and compromise.
John B – You are a brilliant legal mind. Indeed, among the best in this field. Perhaps you would join the Internet Bill of Rights team that is being assembled and help design the judicial review process that the industry needs. And perhaps ICANN will use their windfall to fund it.
Bill K – More hugs Bro.
@Rob
You may want to reach out to Law Professor Ned Snow as well to join your team defending digital sovereignty. He wrote the much ignored argument for the unconstitutionality of the ACPA. I found the 2005 article researching ACPA/UDRP defenses in the Willamette Law School Journal:
https://willamette.edu/law/pdf/review/41-1/snow.pdf
You can reach out to Professor New Snow at South Carolina Law School. I’d bet the bank he would join your movement against digital McCarthyism:
https://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/law/faculty_and_staff/directory/snow_ned.php
snownt@law.sc.edu
Good Luck.
“Gab, the social network that came under fire after one of its users shot people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.”
I think you meant, “one of Twitter’s and Facebook’s and Gab’s followers”. You know, he had active social media accounts on all of them. Gab is the only one that handed his hate over to the authorities and cooperated with them.
Yes. This is an all out attack on the smaller media players. Gab.com is just another victim of abuse of our freedoms.
Again, why have Facebook, Twitter, etc. been allowed to walk scott-free? Until that’s answered I don’t see any other answer other than it’s an attack on our freedoms and our democracy.
Stop saying he’s inexperienced or not fit, that does not matter, what matters is what’s happening to the country and what’s being done to companies like Gab.com . They are being silenced one by one and eventually it will be your turn to be shut up.
The word it getting out, yet some citizens don’t want to believe it and in fact, ignorantly believe what happened to Gab.com and others is the right thing to do. Those are people that have never once studied what freedom of speech means. Totally clueless.
Scary stuff. Wake up everyone.
“stop saying he’s inexperienced or not fit, that does not matter”.
With all due respect, you don’t seem to understand free market capitalism. The company is seeking $10M via ICO, has just $100K in annual revenue and $400K in annual expenses. It’s clearly a going concern in current state. A CEO that is “fit” attracts capital, and hence, keeps the business moving forward.
What I don’t understand is why nobody is trying to build the next Gab instead of complaining. The industry I used to be in was extremely cut throat. One slip up and competitors attacked. That’s life and that’s capitalism. Everything to do with making money not ideology.
Why doesn’t someone build a competitor to Gab and take advantage of their mistakes and inexperienced leadership? There certainly appears to be demand for its service, and it’s not proprietary by any means.
@RP, agree with you there, but I was meaning that all the business side of it really is not what we should be keeping our eye on.
So, Gab.com made some biz mistakes. The important thing is their values and convictions. I salute them. That’s all I was saying, sorry for not being clearer.
Now i remember why i don’t have any domains registered at Epik. Uniregistry as well.