Popehat
popehat.com · Group blog · on HN since 2011
Popehat is a legal blog by lawyers including Ken White, covering free speech, censorship, federal criminal law, and legal threats.
What HN saysCommenters call it consistently good, praise its commentary on the Prenda Law case, and point to Ken White as a useful lawyer to contact.
432HN people shared it
307linked it in comments
245stories submitted
7.1Kstory points
2 months agolast shared
2011people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough52 people · 6 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 2Confusion About Federal Sentences31 people · 17 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 3Spot and Critique Censorship Tropes in Media Coverage of Free Speech Controversies25 people · 4 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 4Lawsplainer: It's Not RICO21 people · 4 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 5Urbit for Non-Vulcans16 people · 32 points · first shared 2013 · 2 comments on HN
- 6Brett Gibbs Gets His Day In Court — But Prenda Law Is The Star14 people · 2 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 7Popehat has been defaced12 people · 1 points · first shared 2013 · 2 comments on HN
- 8Reminder: Oh, Won't You Please Shut Up? (2011)11 people · 266 points · first shared 2015 · 209 comments on HN
- 9Speech and Consequences8 people · 28 points · first shared 2013 · 3 comments on HN
- 10Hello You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About the First Amendment8 people · 5 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 11Section 230 Is the Subject of the Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen8 people · 3 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 12Bad reporting on matthew keys possible sentence conceals prosecutorial power7 people · first shared 2015
- 13Burn the Fucking System to the Ground6 people · 203 points · first shared 2014 · 115 comments on HN
- 14In Which My Identity Is Sought by Federal Grand Jury Subpoena6 people · 183 points · first shared 2017 · 71 comments on HN
- 15The Seductive Appeal of the “Nazi Exception”6 people · 73 points · first shared 2017 · 39 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
throwaway09223 · 2022-02-22
I used to mostly read on my commute and it's been a few years, but the most approachable is probably https://abovethelaw.com/. It has quite a bit of fluff and humor mixed in.
Popehat is usually quite good, especially when there's some kind of nonsense narrative going around. Good debunking explainers https://www.popehat.com/
Volokh conspiracy has very good analysis of current events as well: https://reason.com/volokh/ (was at WaPo, was independent before that. I haven't read it in a while)
There's a lot of other really great stuff around as well, like the lw blog collection: https://www.lw.com/blogs
djrogers · 2021-07-23
"To be clear, we have no legal department, let alone a subpoena compliance section of it. However, what we thankfully have is a very helpful Ken "Popehat" White on speed dial"
Beautiful. For anyone not familiar with Mr White, his blog is worth a read. I can't imagine someone I'd rather not face off against as a gov't official making spurious demands.
[0] https://www.popehat.com
[1] https://popehat.substack.com
jszymborski · 2020-10-08
I don't subscribe to many, but I do subscribe to
filipp.io's Cryptography Dispatches
https://buttondown.email/cryptography-dispatches/archive
Fermat's Library
fermatslibrary.com
The Popehat Report
https://popehat.substack.com/
and I've been subscribed to Bruce Schneier's Cryptogram since before newsletters were cool ;)
https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/
icebraining · 2020-01-01
Two tech blogs of which I read every post:
http://www.windytan.com/ - Oona Räisänen - great hacker of signal-related stuff (audio, video, wireless, etc), graphics, and more.
https://syonyk.blogspot.com/ - a lot of hacking around batteries, off-grid energy, and teardowns and repairs of various devices.
Non-tech related, Ken White at https://www.popehat.com/ can be quite funny, though he hasn't been posting as much lately.
faster · 2016-12-16
Popehat has had the best commentary on the Prenda debacle. They don't have this part yet, but stay tuned, they will and it will be hilarious. Well, as hilarious as a law blog can be.
https://popehat.com/?s=prenda
thaumaturgy · 2014-03-12
Ken Popehat (http://www.popehat.com/) might be worth contacting. Even if he can't help directly, he might know someone who can. He's about the closest thing the internet has to a folk superhero in law; he has a "Popehat signal" (http://www.popehat.com/tag/popehat-signal/) he uses for a "call for pro bono help for online folks who get threatened with bogus censorious lawsuits" (http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1aokls/iama_federal_criminal_def… and he got involved, at least twice, with a university-area bus company that has tried to silence criticism on Reddit (http://beta.slashdot.org/story/185659).
akerl_ · 2024-01-18
At risk of nit picking: you can shout fire in a crowded theater. That was a metaphor used in a historic case that’s been pretty radically walked back given how bad of an opinion it was.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-ap… Is a good read on the topic.
bbatsell · 2023-12-23
Popehat’s nuanced response that is well worth reading:
https://popehat.substack.com/p/substack-has-a-nazi-opportunity
owenmarshall · 2023-12-16
Popehat on 18 USC 1001, a good read:
https://www.popehat.com/2009/09/22/today-in-shut-up-moron-terrorism-su…
acomar · 2023-11-15
> How do we know it's automatic without knowing the quality of each request?
what purpose does the filter serve if it allows virtually all requests through? your response amounts to "trust the FBI, they don't need oversight".
> I think the FBI understands the process and doesn't send flimsy requests in the first place.
I would love to see your evidence for this.
> If it's a rubber stamp, why are any rejected?
because those requests were egregiously bad?
warrant approval is bad across the board, even when the requests are public[1]. what reason do we have to assume they're better when they're sealed? "the FBI is self-regulating" doesn't pass muster when we can see the warrant requests they put forward and get approved when the details are public.
[1]: https://www.popehat.com/2014/07/15/warrants-bulwark-of-liberty-or-pape…
constantly · 2023-11-03
For anyone curious, Ken White has a good and entertaining article breaking down maximum sentences in print (here, 110 years) and what people actually serve. It's worth a read:
https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy…
A takeaway:
"1. Maximum sentences have very little relation to actual sentences in federal law. When the government quotes the maximum sentence, they are trying to scare you. When the press quotes it, they are uninformed or lazy. Exercise skepticism. Resist emotional appeals to "how is this sentence reasonable when murderers get less?"
dry_soup · 2022-11-26
Ken White (of "Popehat" twitter fame) has a great article explaining how this and similar court cases during the first world war are the origin of the (poor) "fire in a crowded theater" argument against certain kinds of free speech:
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-ap…
RetpolineDrama · 2022-10-12
https://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-please-shut-up…
Great writeup on the topic
salawat · 2022-07-10
For the love of God, don't bring up that old turkey.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-ap…
Fire in a theatre came up in the context of squashing a protestor against the draft, from a judge who thought eugenics may have something going for it.
Just let it die. Please.
Jabbles · 2021-10-20
It's not that simple: https://www.popehat.com/2016/11/06/private-porn-shoots-brilliant-no/
garaetjjte · 2021-09-02
>Schenck was a bad ruling, it's been overturned, and Holmes's argument appeared in a dissent.
I'm not sure I follow. Holmes authored opinions for unanimous decisions for upholding convictions of peaceful criticism of draft in Schenck, Debs and Frohwerk.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-ap…
542458 · 2021-06-23
Popehat has an excellent article about this sort of thing. It’s really quite good.
https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy…
The tldr is that the maximum sentence of all the crimes added up has very little to do with what most people would actually face.
ashtonkem · 2021-06-18
Yeah, that's what I expected, a proposal to silence the speech of some people to protect others. Maybe you haven't thought enough about free speech, not me?
I think Ken White covered this dichotomy best, in this case a few years ago over a guy name Pax who got fired for his intemperate speech. See below.
> The foundation of "witch hunt" rhetoric is the notion that some free speech (say, Pax's) is acceptable, and other free speech (say, the speech of people criticizing and ridiculing Pax and his employer) is not. You can try to find a coherent or principled way to reconcile that, but you will fail.
https://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/
jessaustin · 2021-01-09
Please educate yourself:
After Holmes' opinions in the Schenck trilogy, the law of the United States was this: you could be convicted and sentenced to prison under the Espionage Act if you criticized the war, or conscription, in a way that "obstructed" conscription, which might mean as little as convincing people to write and march and petition against it. This is the context of the "fire in a theater" quote that people so love to brandish to justify censorship. [0]
Every time this stupid meme reemerges, it serves only to identify people who have no idea what they're talking about.
[0] https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-ap…
cafard · 2020-11-22
tzs · 2020-06-18
Sentences in press releases and articles are usually greatly overstated. See "Crime: Whale Sushi. Sentence: ELEVENTY MILLION YEARS" [1] for an explanation.
[1] https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy…
monocularvision · 2020-06-05
I recommend you check this out:
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-ap…
Note that I don’t think that Reddit policing its content is censorship, I am only responding to the “fire in a crowded theater” Internet trope.
loeg · 2020-04-19
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes_Jr.
The quote you know dates to 1919 and was a metaphor used to justify suppression of political speech during WWI.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1900-1940/249us47
It's pretty fucking shameful.
https://www.popehat.com/2018/06/28/make-no-law-episode-seven-fire-in-a… for a great podcast about it.
i_am_proteus · 2019-12-12
> It's my best piece of advice — and the advice most consistently ignored. If you're dealing with the government, and you are in any doubt, why won't you just shut up?
https://www.popehat.com/2013/05/01/shut-up-i-explained-mostly-pointles…
throwawaylalala · 2019-12-12
Popehat has a great example of why you shouldn't ever speak with the FBI:
https://www.popehat.com/2011/12/01/reminder-oh-wont-you-please-shut-up…
deogeo · 2019-09-18
Real anime fans (and Scotsmen) view dubs with, at best, open hostility, so they would have no motive to defend Mignona.
But it is hilarious how the article only describes as a "free speech advocate" someone making a mean comment. But all those 1st amendment lawyers fighting against the silencing (including the "we must allow Nazis to speak" Ken White [1]) don't make the cut. Somehow, only the side making censorious legal threats gets associated with "free speech".
It would be difficult for me to have a lower opinion of these journalists.
[1] https://www.popehat.com/2017/04/18/the-seductive-appeal-of-the-nazi-ex…
injb · 2019-07-10
The story is really well documented on Popehat for anyone who's interested: https://www.popehat.com/?s=prenda
davidu · 2018-08-18
The Prenda case has been amazing to watch. For years.... If you're interested, this is some of the most amazing jaw-dropping legal coverage of how stupid these lawyers were... and obviously, they are also criminals. https://www.popehat.com/tag/prenda-law/
-David
ransom1538 · 2018-06-15
+1 Thanks man. Amazing article.
https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence-eleventy…
stevenwoo · 2018-04-18
OK, not a lawyer but this seemed good so I read a couple of other posts and it appears he got something really wrong on the possibility of Trump being indicted entry.
https://www.popehat.com/2018/04/04/what-it-means-that-trump-is-only-a-…
Mueller won't indict Trump because he follows the rules and the Justice Department reaffirmed an internal rule in 2000 that they will never indict the President. It's not in the Constitution explicitly as he writes but it's never mentioned in his discussion but several commenters note the omission.