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Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

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Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#161

Post by bsder »

ggm wrote: post #90

I can relate to a plague on both their houses but it is important to worry a bit about 'law of unintended consequences' effects. Bezos is going to get something ordinary mortals cannot, (redress) because of his money. So he isn't a champion for fundamental rights against press abuse, he's a champion for millionaires rights. A real win here is for a global press industry to adopt redress measures ordinary people can u…

> He might have made a worldwide empire which drives the economy, but he also helped wreck small-town shopping alongside costco and walmart, and their international cohort of economically efficient traders.

I'm of two minds about this:

1) Yes, exactly what you described happened and wiped out a lot of decent, local jobs

2) Holy hell, the vast majority of local businesses were mindblowingly horrible. From customer service to selection, they were just Bad with a capital B.

My go to story (I have many) was a local auto dealership who accidentally broke the back window on my parents car. No big, shit happens. Until this conversation:

Dealership comes out to talk to me at 11:00AM: "We're done with the car repairs, but, sorry, we broke the rear passenger window."

Me (waiting in the coffee area): "Well, that's annoying. But, no big, I'll pick up the car tomorrow then."

Dealership: "Um. It won't be done tomorrow."

Me (eyebrows just shot up): "Would you care to explain why it won't be done tomorrow?"

Dealership: "Well, the window isn't in stock locally."

Me (skeptically): "Okaaaaaaaay. So, then get it from Pittsburgh."

Dealership: "Um, it's not in stock there, either."

Me (starting to get steamed): "So, then get it from New York or DC and finish it the day after."

Dealership: "Well, they don't have stock either."

Me (getting well and truly wound up): "Really? I find that excessively difficult to believe. My mechanic in California is probably awake right now. I'm about to call him to find this window and have it sent here via FedEx if required. If I call him to look this up, am I really going to find that there is no stock?"

Dealership: "Erm, well...they have it in Pittsburgh, but it's an extra $20 to have it shipped tomorrow since our normal shipment just came yesterday and we're not scheduled for another one until mid next week."

Me (hitting the roof): "So, let me get this straight: your mechanics broke my window and I'm going to be down a car for almost a week because you lying dipshits are worried about 20 fucking dollars. GET THE GODDAMN WINDOW, ASSHOLE! I will pay the twenty dollars myself, if necessary. However, I WILL find someone at GM and make his life miserable until he calls this dealership's owner and makes his life miserable. GET MOVING AND GET THAT WINDOW NOW!!!"

This was around 5 years ago. While I still occasionally have an absolute gem (my favorite candy store from my hometown, for example), my general experience is that local customer service is worse than the big companies--something that you wouldn't think possible.

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#162

Post by sudosteph »

ggm wrote: post #118
lxmorj wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy that "buying your shit at huge markup from a local shop" is some great boone to a community. It's effectively a tax on everyone in town, subsidizing the one family that owns the shop. There are plenty of businesses that are more local-friendly, but household necessities aren't one of them.

That tax keeps people in jobs. That tax kept social capital i the town heart. The bigstore on the edge of town, and mail-order destroys social capital. I absolutely get the prices were higher. I have lived this experience in different times, and short of cash I resented paying that markup in the corner store. But now, older and I think a little wiser I realize that what I did, was suck energy out of the local communi…

Of course you're a local. It's ridiculous to judge a person's involvement with their community by how much money they can afford to waste at specialist shops. I grew up in a town that had little shops like that, but the only businesses that were at all accessible to me was the coffee shop and a diner, both of which were priced competitively with chains. My parents had to drive a town over because the only local grocery was an "organic" hippy place that charged double.

But I attended public school in that town, I attended church in that town, I volunteered at the community center, I basically spent every afternoon after class at the public library in that town. I learned to play harmonica on the sidewalk of that town. I knew the names of the old people and disabled people who hung out in the same places I did, places that wouldn't kick you out for not having extra money to spend. So yeah, I knew families that loved to brag about how they support small business by buying $40 books and statues of gnomes made by a well known artist. They usually sent their kids to private schools and had to drive in 15 min from mcmansions in a private neighborhood b/c as much as they enjoyed spending money in my town, they wouldn't dream of living in my part of town, next to the old mill houses and apartments. (That's all starting to change with some gentrification though.)

So yeah, people who don't have the luxury of being loose with money are absolutely locals - and it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#163

Post by thaumasiotes »

tptacek wrote: post #143
Novashi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the cherry on top: https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1093654471157170177 AMI probably just broke their non-prosecution agreement with the SDNY

What AMI did is unlikely to be criminal.

Assuming Jeff Bezos' quotes of their emails are accurate, it seems like a pretty open-and-shut case of criminal blackmail. I looked at Wikipedia's tiny entry for "blackmail in the United States", and it is definitely not federal blackmail. I looked at the state of Washington's legal code... ( https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.56.110 )

WA defines "extortion" pretty sparely as "knowingly to obtain or attempt to obtain by threat property or services of the owner, and specifically includ[ing] sexual favors". It is a class C felony when the threat is "(e) To expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule; or (f) To reveal any information sought to be concealed by the person threatened". (see https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.56.130 )

So it seems pretty safe to say that AMI's behavior is a class C felony under Washington law _if_, by making the threat, they were attempting to obtain any "services" from Jeff Bezos. What did they ask for?

> 1. A full and complete mutual release of all claims that American Media, on the one hand, and Jeff Bezos and Gavin de Becker (the “Bezos Parties”), on the other, may have against each other.

> 2. A public, mutually-agreed upon acknowledgment from the Bezos Parties, released through a mutually-agreeable news outlet, affirming that they have no knowledge or basis for suggesting that AM’s coverage was politically motivated or influenced by political forces, and an agreement that they will cease referring to such a possibility.

(see https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146... )

I don't see how this could fail to be criminal. Getting someone to do what you want by threatening to print embarrassing pictures of them is the prototype for the crime of blackmail.

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#164

Post by tw04 »

MisterOctober wrote: post #121

Another thing that strikes me is : Wouldn't that AMI lawyer feel embarrassed to type up that pathetic threat letter? "Hi, I am a high-powered attorney; my client has instructed me to describe some photographs of you that some may construe as naughty..." It just seems, I dunno, like beneath the dignity that one normally associates with being a lawyer? I mean damn, if that's what the job entails, I bet most people woul…

The type of person who asks their lawyer to send a message like that probably only hires lawyers that are willing to send a message like that.

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#165

Post by Zanni »

loeg wrote: post #63
CydeWeys wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A New York Times article is not "blogspam".

Usually not, but this one surely is. It's 90% direct quotes and paraphrase from the primary source, adding nothing of value; and it elides the incredibly relevant letters exchanged between Bezos et al and AMI. I think it's a pretty great example of how to blogspam and it's somewhat tragic that the NYT is resorting to blogspam for clicks.

In the context of the NYT, this isn't blogspam. This is news; they're reporting it; of course they're going to quote the article. In the context of HN, though, yeah, it kinda is. Why link to the NYT's rehash when the original is available (and has already been shared on HN)?

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#166

Post by tptacek »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #163
tptacek wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What AMI did is unlikely to be criminal.

Assuming Jeff Bezos' quotes of their emails are accurate, it seems like a pretty open-and-shut case of criminal blackmail. I looked at Wikipedia's tiny entry for "blackmail in the United States", and it is definitely not federal blackmail. I looked at the state of Washington's legal code... ( https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.56.110 ) WA defines "extortion" pretty sparely as "knowingly to obtain or atte…

See response below. Renato Mariotti is an expert, as is Ken White, who concurs (and also provides a further analysis of the case law on this).

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#167

Post by nyolfen »

debt wrote: post #149
nyolfen wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nothing in his letter suggests it was directed by "trump or his people"

Apparently you didn’t read his post: Exhibit A: “My ownership of the Washington Post is a complexifier for me. It’s unavoidable that certain powerful people who experience Washington Post news coverage will wrongly conclude I am their enemy. President Trump is one of those people, obvious by his many tweets. ” Exhibit B: “In the AMI letters I’m making public, you will see the precise details of their extortionate pro…

i did read his post, and you're trying to slip a couple of huge assumptions in there. again, nothing you quoted implies that trump or his people were behind this. the simpler (and to me obvious) read of what he said is that the enquirer is an ally of trump and has interests aligned with his.

saying "trump considers me an enemy" is also just a slightly obfuscated way of saying "i'm trustworthy" to about half the country.

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#168

Post by thaumasiotes »

tptacek wrote: post #166
thaumasiotes wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming Jeff Bezos' quotes of their emails are accurate, it seems like a pretty open-and-shut case of criminal blackmail. I looked at Wikipedia's tiny entry for "blackmail in the United States", and it is definitely not federal blackmail. I looked at the state of Washington's legal code... ( https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=9A.56.110 ) WA defines "extortion" pretty sparely as "knowingly to obtain or atte…

See response below. Renato Mariotti is an expert, as is Ken White, who concurs (and also provides a further analysis of the case law on this).

I'm quoting from Renato Mariotti's thread here:

> 10/ What is extortion? Typically it's when someone demands money in exchange for keeping something embarrassing private. While we ordinarily have a First Amendment right to say whatever we please, it can be a crime to threaten to say something unless money is paid.

> 15/ To make this out as an extortion case, prosecutors would have to argue that the claims Bezos had against AMI constituted "money or property" of Bezos and that the whole settlement proposal was merely window dressing for the extortion of Bezos by AMI.

But that is nonsense when compared to Washington's legal code, which specifically defines "extortion" to include demands for "services [...] includ[ing] sexual favors". I feel confident that sexual favors and other services are neither money nor property.

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#169

Post by cr1t1calh1t »

sytelus wrote: post #96
aerovistae wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing I was thinking. That said, I hate the National Enquirer and I am praying this leads to their destruction. On a tangentially related note I also believe there ought to be laws restricting paparazzi from harassing people. I think it's awful every time I see someone trying to walk down the street or out of a hospital or courthouse and swarmed by cameras that won't leave them alone even in moments of grief. Th…

You are missing the point. Entities like National Enquirer are not like Gawker that was bankrupted by Thiel with his wealth might. These entities are funded by politics aka American GDP aka your tax dollars. As Bezos clearly outlined in this letter, Trump administration helped these people have very lucrative deals with Saudies to get their financing, very likely, US government doing some favors to Saudies in return.…

National Enquirer is funded by US tax dollars?

I'm no friend of the National Enquirer, but we should make sure we're talking about facts here..

Do you have any proof for your assertion that they're "funded by politics aka American GDP aka your tax dollars"?

Re: Jeff Bezos Accuses National Enquirer of Blackmail

#170

Post by comex »

tptacek wrote: post #156
comex wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the New York Penal Law article 135.60 (AMI is headquartered in New York): > A person is guilty of coercion in the second degree when he or she compels or induces a person to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to abstain from engaging in, [..] by means of instilling in him or her a fear that, if the demand is not complied with, the actor or another will: [..] > 5. Expose a secret or publicize an…

https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/10936583665834229...

> 15/ To make this out as an extortion case, prosecutors would have to argue that the claims Bezos had against AMI constituted "money or property" of Bezos and that the whole settlement proposal was merely window dressing for the extortion of Bezos by AMI.

I’m not sure what they’re quoting from, but the New York law I quoted is not limited to attempts to obtain “money or property”. One federal law that might otherwise apply, 18 USC § 875, does have such a limitation, though not in those terms; it requires “intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value”.

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