April 2015

April 15, 2015

Cleaning Up the “Chan v. Ellis” Mess (Part 6)

This is Part 6 of the “Cleaning Up the ‘Chan v. Ellis’ Mess” commentary series. If you have not read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and, 5, you should do that first and then come back here. Everything will make more sense to you.

Linda Ellis (Dash Poem author) and her lawyer, Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride, through their unwise choices wasted many people’s time, energy, and resources by forcing me and my team into the Georgia appellate process. Although many unintended benefits and priceless relationships were formed along the way through this two-year ordeal, none of this had to happen.

But the Chan v. Ellis appeal happened, it was ultimately decided by the Georgia Supreme Court Justices, and that case and decision is now part of Georgia legal history. Following the decision, one might think it is now resolved and all over. I was hoping it might but, unfortunately, the often-foolish Linda Ellis made certain declarations and took actions post-decision that were brought to my and my lawyer’s (Oscar Michelen) attention.

What people need to understand is that no matter how much Linda desperately tries to portray me in a “stalky” fashion, I can easily and objectively prove my claims and assertions all using the proper context. Linda is so foolish that she cannot see the havoc and collateral damage she has caused so many people in her efforts to smear me. She might have succeeded in creating some collateral damage for me and ELI but as time passes, she might one day see that she is being self-destructive and will have caused immeasurable harm to herself, her “employee” John W. Jolin, and her lawyer co-horts, Timothy B. McCormack and Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride and quite possibly even the law firm Betsy works for.

Oscar Michelen’s Cease-and-Desist Letter to Linda Ellis

But first things first. After a great deal of discussion and reflection, I am now publicly releasing Oscar Michelen’s Cease and Desist Letter (on behalf of Matthew Chan) to Linda Ellis. It was sent to Linda’s lawyer, Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride on April 13, 2015. We have no way of knowing for certain if or when Betsy received Oscar’s letter. He informed me that he had both emailed her and mailed a copy to her using the U.S. Postal service. As far as we know, Betsy still represents Linda in all matters between the legal dispute between me and Linda including matters following the Georgia Supreme Court decision. Hence, Oscar sent his letter to Betsy which should then be delivered or communicated to Linda.

View this document on Scribd

Given that it has been two full business days with no acknowledgement of receipt or response by Betsy, I see no reason to further withhold Oscar Michelen’s Cease and Desist Letter to Linda Ellis from public viewing. It is our intention to settle once and for all the matter of her potentially defamatory language when she makes false statements of fact about me and the case. I believe Betsy is capable of clearly explaining to Linda that she is perfectly able to use the words “stalker” or “cyberstalker” in her vernacular. But as it relates to me, we now regard the style of her usage as potentially defamatory against me. Certainly, no one can make Linda do anything she does not want to but going forward she has been issued a formal, legal notice.

I have never issued a formal “cease and desist” letter through a lawyer before. This is my first time to do so. But only because Linda caused such a public, legal train-wreck that continues to cause collateral damage that I agreed to have a Cease & Desist letter written.

Cease & Desist Letter to Linda Ellis Was Not My Idea

I want it known that Oscar Michelen’s Cease and Desist Letter to Linda Ellis was not even my idea. I didn’t even push for it. Full credit goes to my friend and ELI supporter, Robert Krausankas. He read something that Linda posted online about me which irritated and bothered him. Robert then emailed me and Oscar and suggested that a “letter” needed to be sent to Betsy and Linda.

To Oscar’s credit, he quickly replied to Robert’s email and said he would get right on it. And yet, I was slow on the uptake and didn’t even understand what kind of “letter” Robert was referring to that Oscar immediately agreed to write. I had to call Robert and ask him what kind of “letter” he was referring to! And before I really had a chance to think and consider what verbiage might be in the letter, Oscar had quickly drafted and emailed me an early version of the current letter for my review. I was pleasantly surprised at what I read.

Many people seem to think I am the “instigator” of many controversial ideas. That is sometimes true. But in this case, Robert wholly initiated the idea and Oscar quickly acted upon the idea. Apparently, Oscar also became dismayed at what my supporters were emailing to Oscar. My friends and supporters were emailing him screenshots and links to webpages and videos of Linda using potentially defamatory language and making false statements of fact about me and the case. And what they emailed Oscar became a “hot mess” collection he viewed and sorted through.

Linda made factually incorrect public comments about me and actually encouraged her followers the dissemination of such false statements about me and the case. It was interesting to read her Facebook followers various responses suggesting she exercise her Second Amendment rights as well as luring me into range so that a gun might legally be used against me.

Meanwhile, I was taking a careful, methodical approach to evaluating the court exhibits and taking the time to write and directly acknowledge some of the crazy, paranoid assertions Linda made in the last two years. The Cease and Desist Letter Oscar wrote was modified several times because Linda kept adding to the list that my supporters were compiling on her about me and the case. Many of my friends and supporters wanted Oscar’s Cease and Desist letter to go out quickly. However, I felt I needed time to take careful inventory of how much and how far Linda would go during her online rampage and smear campaign of me. I asked Oscar to withhold sending the letter until I could get a good assessment of how far Linda was going to go. I also needed time to write and publish the first 5 parts of the “Cleaning Up the ‘Chan v. Ellis’ Mess” commentary series. I thought it would save Oscar a lot of time by simply having him and everyone else refer to those crucial blog posts. There was no need to recount the same explanations and discoveries more than once if it could be avoided.

While I do not want to put words into Oscar’s mouth, I think everyone plainly understands Oscar’s position (through his choice of words within the cease-and-desist letter) of this big, hot mess Linda started of which Betsy only made worse. Even when the matter has been decided and resolved, Linda continues to be a troublemaker and unnecessarily draws attention to Betsy McBride and her role of not vetting her client and her case more carefully and doing a horrendous job vetting her client’s exhibits. If Betsy is able to be objective enough and step back to look at what I uncovered with the cropped, obscured, modified, and altered exhibits contributing to the lower court’s wrong decision, she should realize Linda has caused a great deal of potential embarrassment to so many people. That list might include herself, Judge Frank Jordan, Muscogee County Superior Court, and Betsy’s law firm: Page, Scrantom, Sprouse, Tucker, Ford. Tangential to that list is the fact that Betsy’s husband, Gil McBride, is a Superior Court Judge for Muscogee County Superior Court who works alongside Judge Frank Jordan in hearing cases for the greater Columbus/Muscogee County area.

Can anyone else besides me see how this can become a big, hot embarrassing mess? Unfortunately, Linda is at Ground Zero! If I were Linda’s lawyer, I would tell her to just “shut the hell up and move on”. But I suppose that is why I could never be a lawyer because what I just proposed is “unlawyerly” behavior.

Even without regard to the embarrassment issue to Betsy herself, does Linda honestly think that Oscar (with whom I have worked with and fought so many battles against copyright extortionists for seven years) will continue to stay silent while one of his long-time business associate’s reputation gets pounded into dog-meat? Oscar absolutely hated that the 2013 PPO that was issued against me. He insisted that I appeal the order and he insisted that he be my lawyer. He didn’t want anyone else to handle my case. When my appeal was transferred to the Georgia Supreme Court in July 2014, Oscar insisted on flying down to Atlanta to do oral argument when I was simply content with the legal briefs. Smearing and damaging my reputation also indirectly damages Oscar’s business reputation. One day, Oscar may want to part ways with me. But for the here and now, does Linda really want to invite more “unhappiness” from Oscar, as well?

Does Linda need to be reminded that around 1.5 years ago, Oscar sent a cease-and-desist letter addressed to her “employee”, John W. Jolin, for engaging in potentially defamatory behavior trying to tarnish Oscar’s name and reputation by slyly insinuating he contributed to my alleged (but now wholly disproven) “stalking”? Oscar doesn’t get riled up easily but John managed to get a serious rise out of Oscar because Oscar is very protective of his reputation. John must have thought we would never see the outrageous emails to his victims. But with special thanks to April Brown (author of “Poetic Justice“) and her special relationship with fellow Dash Poem extortion letter victims, she kept us informed. From what I can tell since then, John had the good sense to never engage in such despicable behavior where Oscar’s name was concerned.

However, I do have copies of John W. Jolin’s emails about ME that are pseudo-defamatory because John makes a veiled reference of Ari Hinnant’s (online scammer from 2009-2010) so-called “accusations” about me, who intentionally made seriously outrageous and OUTRIGHT DEFAMATORY statements about me. Timmy McCormack has tried a similar tactic of trying to make veiled references to Ari Hinnant without owning up to the fact that he knows they are entirely untrue and would be considered absolutely defamatory. It is a slippery slope that John and Timmy have walked. Time will tell if they want to try that again.

To be clear, Ari Hinnant’s statements about me weren’t pseudo-defamatory, they were PLAINLY DEFAMATORY. Ari Hinnant is the one person I have seriously considered filing a defamation lawsuit against. I did not do so because there was no meaningful money or assets to go after. No matter how I might feel about Linda, John, Timmy, or Betsy, I want there to be no confusion as to how I feel about Ari Hinnant. To give some basis of comparison of my contempt and disgust of Ari Hinnant, I would sooner become friends and allies with Linda, John, Timmy, and Betsy than deal with the scum known as Ari Hinnant. Objectively speaking, I know it’s hard to fathom, but in that hypothetical scenario, I believe Linda, John, Timmy, and Betsy are much better human beings than Ari Hinnant.

I give fair warning to anyone that if someone ever wants to go down the Ari Hinnant path and want to embrace her words and insinuations as truth, they can expect I will be calling in a LOT of favors to remedy the situation. I don’t often ask or call in favors but if I do, I promise it will become very unpleasant.

I rarely scream “defamation” as I know the general standards to meet the level of defamation. But “defamation” and “false statements of fact” are clear exceptions to the First Amendment. Linda Ellis is now being warned and put on legal notice to “cease-and-desist”.

I have to believe the irony is not going to be lost to my readers that the the Dash Poem extortionist who has issued so many legally-threatening letters is now on the receiving end of one.

This concludes Part 6.

=====

April 8, 2015

Cleaning Up the “Chan v. Ellis” Mess (Part 5)

This is Part 5 of the “Cleaning Up the ‘Chan v. Ellis’ Mess” commentary series. If you have not read Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 you should do that first and then come back here. Everything will make more sense to you.

Linda and her lawyer, Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride, through their unwise choices wasted many people’s time, energy, and resources over all this. Although many unintended benefits and priceless relationships were formed along the way through this two-year ordeal, none of this had to happen. Hindsight is often 20/20. I cannot say for certain that even with all the knowledge and experience I gained in the last two years, that if I had a chance to go back and redo the February 2013 hearing all again, that I could have prevailed. I think my chances would have improved significantly with what I know today but, perhaps, there was never really any way out of this for me except by going through it.

The Truth of Why This Battle Started

Linda wants to give the impression to others that I, April Brown, and ELI Supporters are simply irrational human beings who simply decided to one day start “picking on her” and “bullying” her. That is truly laughable considering Linda’s long history of legal bullying against churches, non-profits, and other organizations. The reality is that Linda never had anyone who dared speak out or challenge her publicly regarding her overbearing, heavy-handed copyright enforcement scheme. Although minor (and anonymous) complaints about Linda could be found on the Internet, it was April Brown in early 2012 who first used her real name and identity to complain and vocally fight back against Linda and her antics of trying to compel April to submit and pay for an innocent sharing of Linda’s poem. I won’t go into the details here (you can find out more at GetPoeticJustice.com) but suffice it to say, it was more than sending letters and emails to April.

When April came across my radar through her tweets in June 2012, she brought to my and ELI’s attention the issue of poetry copyright extortion. Because ELI had only dealt with copyright extortion as it related to stock photos, imagery, clip art, and newspaper articles, I found the idea of extracting thousands of dollars for the innocent sharing of a poem fascinating and incredulous. April has said to me she felt that I was initially skeptical of her and questioned her credibility. As I told her, it had nothing to do with her. At that time, I simply found the idea of poem extortion hard to believe and comprehend. In fact, the dollar amounts Linda was asking for poem infringements were far higher than anything we typically saw with most stock photos and image infringements.

It didn’t take long for me to start pursuing and researching the matter and a Linda Ellis/Linda Lyrics/Dash Poem Letter Forum was launched as a way to generate dialog, share information, and help victims strategize defend themselves. As we gathered letters from Linda’s letter recipients, we began posting copies of her letters on Scribd for public viewing and commentary. Since then, there have been other letters that have been posted and shared.

On June 6, 2012, John W. Jolin initiated his first “attack” on the ELI Scribd account by submitting a bogus DMCA complaint to Scribd over a document that we legally obtained from a demand letter recipient.

View this document on Scribd

The bogus DMCA complaint irritated me because I then had to waste my time to write a customized DMCA Counter-Notification Letter to explain that the document we shared was legally obtained.

View this document on Scribd

Following this incident, more complaints and stories came in. This ultimately led to the infamous $100,000 demand letter issued by Atlanta law firm, Kalka & Baer, on behalf of Linda to a California author which created quite a stir.

View this document on Scribd

I’d heard of this $100,000 demand letter a couple of months earlier from April but it was not until around December 2012 that I actually spoke with the California author and saw the full copy of the demand letter that was later posted for everyone to comment on. April became friends with this author and was morally outraged by the stunning demand amount. Quite frankly, I understood April’s moral outrage as well as many ELI regulars who followed the “Dash Poem extortion scheme”.

In my moral outrage and misplaced zeal to assist the California author, I obviously went overboard in what I wrote in some forum posts. I let my emotions get the better of me. Nevertheless, read objectively and in full context, the forum posts clearly did not indicate making physical threats or physical danger to her or anyone else.

Linda stirred the pot some more in January 2013 by filing outrageous complaints to Eapps, my web host provider at the time, that ELI was engaged in “death threats” and “threatening and dangerous” activities by reporting on publicly available information. This created a series of unhappy events for me which necessitated the sudden move of ELI to Robert Krausankas’ web host provider. Had Robert not stepped up when he did to assist, I would have had to scramble to find a web host provider that actually had enough of a spine to stand up for its clients unlike Eapps. I would like to add that Robert generously contributes web hosting services to ELI to this very day to support me, Oscar Michelen, and ELI supporters. I can say that Oscar and I continue to be grateful to Robert’s ongoing loyalty, contributions, assistance, and service to the ELI cause.

And when we moved ELI to Robert’s web host provider, Linda once again initiated another “attack” against ELI by her ridiculous complaints to Robert’s upstream provider. Fortunately, he was apprised of Linda’s tactics and was prepared for them unlike Eapps. Although no harm was caused to ELI by this set of complaints, Linda succeeded to once again irritate and annoy us in ways very few copyright extortionists did.

To summarize my “beef” with Linda which contributed to a few “ungentlemanly” posts about her, I prepared a presentation slide for the lower court.

The Truth About ExtortionLetterInfo.com (ELI)

One of the toughest things to do is to explain to “outsiders” what ELI is all about. In a broad sense, ELI discusses copyright issues, copyright enforcement, and copyright extortion in its various forms. However, the “culture” of ELI goes beyond traditional online discussions. There is a “rebellious”, “get educated, get empowered”, and “stand up and fight for yourself” attitude that I encourage and cultivate. The First Amendment legally allows for all kinds of speech, not just the polite, socially-acceptable, politically-correct kind. Because the American Colonists escaped the oppression of the English, the Founding Fathers wisely allowed for smaller, weaker, minority interests to speak out against larger, stronger, majority interests.

While Linda wants to place blame upon the Georgia Supreme Court for ruling incorrectly, even if I had been ruled as “stalking”, there is no way that the Georgia Supreme Court could ignore well-established historic decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court which has repeatedly supported people’s rights to free and open speech (with some very narrow First Amendment exceptions such as “true threat”, “child pornography”, “false statements of fact”, “incitement of violence”, etc.) Linda and her lawyer would do well to pay heed that Linda and Seattle attorney Timothy B. McCormack have treaded on thin ice regarding what I believe to be intentional “false statements of fact”. It is unfortunate that Betsy is not privy to written documents written by Timmy about me and others. If she did, she wouldn’t have been so quick to embrace him.

Linda supposedly believes in the First Amendment and was not trying to shut down the ELI Forums and yet, that is precisely what she and her lawyer, Betsy McBride did with great success. They “permanently” shut down a portion of the ELI Forums because Linda and her cohorts convinced the lower court that I was so “dangerous” that my and ELI users’ right to speak out on ELI was unceremoniously shut down. Even if I had been “stalky”, why were the dozens of other ELI users forbidden to share and post their comments? Because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was entirely ignored and disregarded by the lower court.

In the lower court, I presented slides that tried to succinctly explain what ELI was all about as of February 2013. Aside from some small changes in the last two years, these slides are still largely representative of ELI.

I believe the slides do a fairly good job in visually explaining and encapsulating what ELI is all about, not the distorted views Linda tries to peddle.

This concludes Part 5. Read Part 6.

=====

April 7, 2015

Cleaning Up the “Chan v. Ellis” Mess (Part 4)

This is Part 4 of the “Cleaning Up the ‘Chan v. Ellis’ Mess” commentary series. If you have not read Parts 1, 2, and 3, you should do that first and then come back here. Everything will make more sense to you.

Linda and her lawyer, Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride through their irresponsible choices and actions wasted many people’s time, energy, and resources over all this. Although a lot of unintended benefits and priceless relationships were formed along the way through this two-year ordeal, none of this had to happen. Hindsight is often 20/20. I cannot say for certain that even with all the knowledge and experience I gained in the last two years, that if I had a chance to go back and redo the February 2013 hearing all again, that I could have prevailed. I think my chances would have improved significantly with what I know today but, perhaps, there was never really any way out of this for me except by going through it.

The Truth About Representing Myself Without a Lawyer

An important point I want to make is that I have never regretted representing myself at the February 2013 hearing. I would have done a number of things differently but reading over the transcript, I did the best I could with what I had. My lawyer, Oscar Michelen, did an excellent job prepping me via Skype and it was extremely helpful. However, what I desperately needed and regretted from that day was an extra pair of hands to help with the props, exhibits, refreshments, lunch, paperwork, exhibits, etc.

There is a famous saying in legal circles, “A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” And yet, I am the “fool” who still does not regret representing myself “pro se” at the February 2013 hearing.

There is no one who knows ELI better than me. There is no one who would have fought as hard as I did to get the many important points into the court record as I did. There is no one who would have prepared as much as I did. Quite simply, no Columbus lawyer I knew could handle the depths and complexity of ELI and didn’t have the inner fire I did.

Both Oscar Michelen and Bill McKenney told me more than once that I did a very good job for a “pro se” defendant in laying the groundwork for a successful appeal. It was high praise coming from both men. Bill McKenney has mentioned to me more than once that I should consider becoming a lawyer. I chuckled at the idea and just took it as the compliment it was meant to be.

There are parts of the transcript I cringe to read but overall, I was satisfied with my performance given the circumstances and my relative inexperience in arguing in a trial. Some might say it is easy for me to say NOW that I have no regrets in representing myself because of our unanimous legal victory. But the truth is that I have maintained that “no regrets” position in representing myself the last two years. Even if I had not achieved a full win, none on our team could fully accept that we could ENTIRELY lose given the many layers of defense arguments we had including the First Amendment and Section 230 of the CDA. We believe we submitted very good legal briefs and Linda’s team had a very tough fight to keep the permanent protective order in any form much less keeping it entirely intact.

The Truth About My Calling Linda Ellis’ “Employee’s” Girlfriend

Linda Ellis seems to like tell the story of how I allegedly called her “employee’s” girlfriend. The “employee” that Linda refers to is John W. Jolin. First off, I do not believe that John W. Jolin is an “employee” in the traditional sense. But that is what she testified to in the lower court regarding John. I believe that John W. Jolin is actually an independent contractor for Linda’s business, Linda’s Lyrics. In a colloquial sense, he would be her “employee”. I don’t have any evidence one way or another (only a gut reaction) but being a small business owner myself, most small business owners much prefer to hire independent contractors instead formal employees if at all possible. I believe this is also the case with Linda’s Lyrics.

Dealing with formal employees entails much more responsibilities for the business owner such as dealing with payroll taxes and employee benefits. In any case, even if Linda made that “error” in testimony, it could easily be defended as her use of “employee” was not a legal definition but one that was colloquially used. As you can plainly see, I have a good sense of what a colloquialism is. For Linda, it appears to be an abstract concept like the word CONTEXT. CONTEXT appears to be a foreign concept to Linda and that will be her undoing when people shake their head in pity.

Pointing out that Linda’s reference to “employee” might simply be a colloquialism is my gift to her as a counter-argument to my own belief of his legal employment status. I bring this up to illustrate the point that I do pay attention to details and I do have a sense of CONTEXT unlike what Linda has shown towards me, April Brown, or ELI, in general.

Regarding the issue of whether I actually “called” John’s girlfriend, the answer is a conditional “YES” although I testified on the day of the hearing that I didn’t call her. Now before anyone screams PERJURY, the fact of the matter is at the time I was testifying, I absolutely believed I didn’t “call” her. In fact, I was so caught off-guard by the screenshot provided, I was truly dumb-founded. In my mind, I was desperately trying to figure out how my Google Voice number appeared on John’s girlfriend’s phone when I had no recollection of even having her phone number much less calling her.

The trouble I had was that John’s screenshot clearly showed my Google Voice number on her smartphone! Unlike Linda’s other court exhibits, this screenshot didn’t require much context. Either my Google Voice number was there or it wasn’t. If I had believed John made up or forged the screenshot, I would have stated it right then and there and accused him or Linda of creating or fictionalizing the screenshot. However, I couldn’t in good conscience do that because I didn’t believe anyone forged it. I believed John’s screenshot was legitimate and that it displayed my Google Voice number on her smartphone. John even provided a cell phone bill with a detailed log showing my Google Voice phone number and that the call was for one minute.

From a legal argument perspective, the case was about me allegedly “stalking” Linda, not “stalking” John’s girlfriend. Bringing up the notion that I might have “scared” John’s girlfriend with a one-minute call with my Google Voice number sounded “stalky” but it was not any proof whatsoever that I “stalked” Linda whatsoever. It was Linda seeking a protective order that day, not John’s girlfriend. Even the judge said as much.

As I was saying, I was caught off-guard trying to figure out how my Google Voice number ended up on their cell phone bill and cell phone display. The best theory I had at that moment was that my Google Voice number was spoofed. After all, Linda had earlier claimed that she received a “threatening ELI letter”. If she had actually received a letter that appeared to be from ELI, I would claim it was someone impersonating me or ELI. Likewise, it seemed to me that the best explanation that I could come up with was that someone spoofed my Google Voice number.

I cross-examined John and asked why he thought there was only one occurrence of my number and that one occurrence was for only one minute. He stated that he wouldn’t know. However, what I wanted to do with that question was to inform the court that if someone wanted to “stalk” his girlfriend, why only make one random call for one minute? It was a mystery that would not be solved for some time.

There was also the nagging technical irritation I had for some time that when I make outgoing calls from my cellphone, my “true” cell phone number is displayed in Caller ID, not my Google Voice number. At that time, I wanted all calls I made to display my Google Voice number but because I didn’t know how to make it happen. I finally learned how to do it in 2014 with my cell phone but in February 2013 when I testified, I didn’t know how it could be done with my cell phone.

For several years and to this very day, when I call anyone whether they be friends, business associates, supporters, vendors, or clients, people see my “true” cell phone number on their Caller ID, not my Google Voice number. The only people who see my Google Voice number on their Caller ID nowadays are the few Canadian contacts I have or when I text message anyone. I force my calls through Google Voice when making Canadian calls because calls to Canada are free using Google Voice, not because I want my Google Voice number to show up on their Caller ID. People see my text messages from my Google Voice number because I like that app better for sending text messages than traditional text message apps.

The issue of my Google Voice number showing up on John’s girlfriend’s phone bothered me because of the technical issues involved. Because I didn’t know how to force my outgoing calls to display my Google Voice number at that time, It was a huge mystery to me. The court exhibit John provided was not particularly important as this was largely hearsay evidence and it was not direct evidence I “stalked” Linda in any capacity. Nevertheless, I wanted to solve the mystery. By the time of the February 2013 hearing, it had been some time since I had conducted any online research on Linda & John (which largely consisted of Google, Facebook, and county government websites).

There were Google and Facebook searches that I did on a couple of family members out of sheer curiosity. I eventually remembered one evening when I was doing a Facebook research on John and he linked to his girlfriend’s page. I clicked to view her Facebook profile. Her Facebook profile was different than most Facebook profiles in that she published her personal phone number and it was visible to anyone who had a Facebook account.

What I recall seeing was an icon and a hot-link on her phone number on my Google Chrome browser. It turns out that Google Chrome browsers have a Google Voice “click-to-call” feature and the ability to make phone numbers into “live clickable links” that will automatically activate Google Voice to making a phone call for you.

Using my friend Greg Troy’s business website as an example, this is how his business phone appears in a Firefox browser. Notice how there is no clickable link on his business phone number.

And when I view the same exact page with Google Chrome browser, this is what appears. Please notice that his business phone number is now a live clickable link.

Even with what I know today, I would not normally assume that clicking someone’s phone number within a Google Chrome browser would automatically activate a Google Voice application on my computer. I would assume that clicking the phone number might take me to another web page. And yet, if you have the Google Voice Chrome extension installed and “clickable numbers” feature enabled, clicking anyone’s phone number on a web page will initiate the Google Voice call using your Google Voice number.

The biggest difference I remember from the current set of sample screenshots and what I saw onscreen two years ago is that I remembered an icon next to the live clickable phone number which triggered my curiosity.

Given that both Linda, John, and his girlfriend are inclined to think nefarious thoughts about me, they somehow speculated that I saw their Facebook timeline and “secretly plotted” to make a timely “stalky” phone call while he was allegedly out of town. The truth of the matter is that I don’t recall being able to read their Facebook timelines and if I did read it, it was of no particular significance to me.

The truth of the matter was there was no nefarious move on my part whatsoever to intentionally call (much less “stalk”) anyone whether it be Linda, John, or his girlfriend. If I had anything to communicate directly to Linda or John, it would be very easy to do. Quite simply, the Google Voice call was a weird, untimely accident stemming from an innocent mouse click not knowing that I would activate the “Click to Call” live-link feature.

As most people know, any cell phone connections automatically default to a 1-minute minimum when shown on a cell phone bill. It was likely a 5-second connection when I discovered the mishap and disconnected.

This concludes Part 4. Read Part 5.

=====

April 3, 2015

Cleaning Up the “Chan v. Ellis” Mess (Part 3)

This is Part 3 of the “Cleaning Up the ‘Chan v. Ellis’ Mess” commentary series. In Parts 1 and 2, I revealed how we recently discovered that many court exhibits Linda Ellis provided were of poor quality, flawed, altered, and incomplete. I believe it was a sneaky, intentional act by Linda to shield or skew certain facts that she did not want the lower court to see or know. Her lawyer, Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride did not do herself any favors by failing to vet her client’s so-called exhibits. The ELI support group saw her performance in the court transcript, the legal briefs, and her strange attempt to interact with us on October 7, 2014, and, of course, the very poor showing of her oral argument.

Through strategic concealing, cropping, obscuring, and altering the photocopies of the original forum posts by Linda, the true context of the forums posts were greatly skewed against me. Because I didn’t have access to my computer or the original posts in the courtroom, I was forced to make do with the poor quality, cropped, altered, and deceptive Ellis exhibits.

Since the Georgia Supreme Court decision went unanimously in my favor, Linda has once again embarked on a campaign to smear my name by, once again, providing out-of-context material to the general public through her postings throughout the Internet. I am directly challenging and calling out most of her false, incorrect, or exaggerated assertions.

=====

The Truth About My References to Marietta, Georgia

Linda continues to assert that my sometimes veiled and cryptic references to Marietta, Georgia is an indication that I might be following, visiting, or “stalking” her home in Marietta. In the lower court, Linda presented this as her “evidence” that I might be “stalking” her. Surprisingly, compared to her other exhibits she submitted as “evidence” against me, this particular exhibit is relatively intact albeit hard to read.

The true, easier-to-read version screenshot is here:

Read plainly, there is nothing sinister about this online discussion. Robert spoke with me on the phone and I told him I was on a date with my girlfriend traveling to Georgia Rib (restaurant) for a Valentine social event. Because it is common knowledge to many ELI regulars (as well as those who receive her Linda Lyrics demand letters) that Linda is based in Marietta, Robert posted an “inside-ELI-humor” remark that would get a reaction from regular ELI users. As expected, a regular ELI user did respond: April Brown. My subsequent “inside-ELI-humorous” reply with the “Roswell Down” reference is plainly directed towards both April and Robert who could easily understand that “inside-ELI-joke”. If Linda had not chosen to read the ELI Forums, it would have no significance to her whatsoever.

The ELI Forums is full of “inside-ELI” remarks that have nothing to do with getting the attention of the subject we write about. And yet, because of Linda’s own paranoia and the lower court’s lack of understanding of ELI, her exhibit was considered “evidence” of me “stalking” Linda in Marietta as if she “owns” the city and I have no legitimate reason to be in or traveling to/through Marietta.

I want to, once and for all, clear up misconceptions, misinformation, and insinuations by Linda that I might have “stalked” her in Marietta, Georgia.

1. Marietta, Georgia is a large suburb in Cobb County, Georgia. According to Wikipedia, the city has a population over 56,000. It is considered one of the largest suburbs in the Atlanta Metropolitan area and covers over 23 square miles. In plain terms, a lot of people live there and it covers a wide area geographically. It is much larger than most people realize.

2. I lived in Marietta from 1997 to 2000, a full 3.5 years. Although I traveled a lot, I lived and worked in Marietta. I also bought a small home as rental property. A tenant lives there that I visit from time to time to inspect the property.

3. Marietta has organizations that hosts many businesses, stores, attractions, events, and social and cultural events. I occasionally attend them with or without my girlfriend.

4. More recently, one of my Georgia lawyers is William J. McKenney. He is a long-time friend and associate of my New York lawyer, Oscar Michelen and that is how Mr. McKenney came to my appeal case. I have met with him a number of times personally in the last two years and plan to keep touch with him. The irony isn’t lost on me that Linda traveled to Columbus to hire a lawyer to represent her. And I then, in turn, traveled to Marietta to have Mr. McKenney represent me. There was no subtle, sinister message towards Linda at all. Although I admit I was amused at how it might have outwardly looked to her and her cohorts.

5. Roswell Rd (GA-120) is a major 30-mile travel thruway between North Fulton County and Marietta/Cobb County. There may well be over 100 subdivisions and hundreds of businesses in that 30-mile stretch. When I am in North Fulton County, I sometimes have a need to travel to or through Marietta using Roswell Rd (GA-120). Likewise, if I am in Marietta or Cobb County, I sometimes have a need to travel to or through North Fulton County. Unfortunately, Roswell Road (GA-120) is the shortest route (albeit an unpleasant one due to the numerous traffic lights).

6. Linda’s subdivision is only one of 100 subdivisions that are scattered off of Roswell Rd (GA-120). This large residential area is known by the locals as “East Cobb”. It is a 15-20 mile stretch that covers dozens of subdivisions off of Roswell Rd (GA-120).

7. Despite one snarky post to do a “paparazzi” video, it has never come close to ever happening. I have no intentions of ever visiting Linda in her subdivision. But even if I did have a need to drive into the subdivision for any reason, she does NOT own all the streets or all the homes in that subdivision, nor am I “stalking” her.

=======

The Truth About “Threatening” ELI Letters

Linda makes mention of alleged “threatening” ELI letters she received. During our February 2013 hearing, when I cross-examined her about it, she said she didn’t have the letter(s) with her. That seemed odd to me because she managed to have photocopies of other heavily cropped, obscured, and altered forum posts in her hands. And yet, a “threatening” ELI letter, she conveniently didn’t have.

The truth of so-called “ELI Letters” is that there is really no such animal (or at least the way Linda makes it sound). There are letterheads from my corporation (Intrepid Network Concepts Inc.) that I use to write formal letters to respond to ELI-related issues. ELI is not an official legal entity. It is a privately-owned website under the management of myself and my corporation. When I do respond on behalf of ELI, I generally use my corporate letterhead using a distinct font and style along with my full name and signature. There are many examples of my published letters on behalf of ELI published on Scribd:

DMCA Counter-Notification Letters (Blackline, John Jolin/Linda Lyrics, Photo Attorney, IMUA Legal Advisors)
Response Letters to: (Timothy B. McCormack March 2014, Bruce Rosenberg/Julie Stewart, Peter Holt)

Assuming that I give Linda the benefit of the doubt and that she did receive a letter she BELIEVED was from ELI, I would want to scrutinize it closely in its entire presentation, content, and appearance. If she did receive any “threatening” ELI letters, they would have to be forgeries or impersonated letters. As far as I am concerned, not a lot more needs to be said until she produces something more substantial than an unsubstantiated assertion.

This concludes Part 3. Read Part 4.

=====

April 2, 2015

Cleaning Up the “Chan v. Ellis” Mess (Part 2)

In my last post (Part 1), I began the “Cleaning Up the ‘Chan v. Ellis’ Mess” commentary series. My legal adversary, Linda Ellis, has caused a mess for many people with her reckless, irresponsible choices which was supported by other poor choices by her lawyer, Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride.

After two years, I finally went back into the ELI Forums archive to find the original, unblemished version of the forum posts that Linda Ellis submitted as court exhibits. What I found was both distressing and upsetting to me. It showed not only how poor quality her court exhibits were but how much was left out altogether misleading the lower court. I believe it was an intentional act by Linda to shield certain facts that she did not want the lower court to see or know. Betsy did not did herself any favors by failing to vet her client’s so-called exhibits. She is going to get some blowback from what Linda did.

Through strategic concealing, cropping, obscuring, and altering the photocopies of the original forum posts, the true context of the forums posts were greatly skewed against me. Because I didn’t have access to my computer or the original posts in the courtroom, I was forced to make do with the poor quality, misleading, and deceptive Ellis exhibits.

In my last post (Part 1), I directly confronted and called out Linda’s false assertions within the WXIA TV interview. I am now continuing to directly challenge and refute the other false assertions she is making about me (out of context) on her Facebook page and other websites.

=====

The Truth About Me Allegedly Posting “Death Threats”

Linda has more than once accused me of making “death threats” against her. Her assertion largely comes from two poorly photocopied forum posts submitted as court exhibits. The first one is the “Hearse Song” Exhibit. It contains the “Hearse Song” YouTube video along with the print lyrics beside it. The title of the forum post is:“Ellis – Get Ready – WE ARE COMING AFTER YOU!”. It is the 7th post within an extended online discussion (I will come back to this later.)

In the “Hearse Song” Exhibit that Linda provided, the first point I want to make is that I wasn’t the person that posted it. It was April Brown, author of “Poetic Justice”. This one simple point is clearly seen even in the modified court exhibit. Even if it had been a veiled “death threat” (which it wasn’t), I didn’t post it plain and simple.

The second point I want to make about this exhibit is that you see lyrics next to the YouTube screenshot. It implies that the original forum post contained visible lyrics, hence, conveying a written message of death. You will see below that the actual forum post was far less “threatening”.

hearse-song-post — Original “Hearse Song” post plus a follow-up post for context purposes.

The original, untouched forum post of the “Hearse Song” did not have any text or lyrics whatsoever. It contained no lyrics, text, or comment, only April’s lone post of the “Hearse Song” YouTube video. I included, in my screenshot, one of April’s follow-up posts to show the proper context. As you can see by April’s comments, April was angry that Linda was trying to go after the California author who had received the $100,000 demand letter.

“Linda Ellis and Johnny Boy – the gift that just keeps on giving. They just had to revisit the famous author. Just couldn’t drop it. They just had to try one more time to get him to pay their extortion demands. Had they left him alone, the A-Team might have just limped along waiting for another high profile person to get really pissed off and go public. Now, thanks to Linda and John our fight back campaign just got the boost of high octane we needed. Linda, you simply do not posses the ability, the cash or the integrity to go up against Mr. Big. Your history is so tainted, your words so revealing and your tactics so unscrupulous that now the world will finally hear the truth about Live Your Dash and You! little missy.”

April was certainly angry at Linda but at no point is April even hinting anything violent or physical against Linda, much less a “death threat”.

Another complaint Linda made was the title of the forum post “Ellis – Get Ready – WE ARE COMING AFTER YOU!” which was actually the 6th carryover title from the original first forum post.

Below is the first three posts of that forum discussion. I wish I had a copy of it at my original hearing but I didn’t know what Linda had as “evidence” beforehand. My team and I never imagined I would be dealing with highly modified, cropped, obscured, and incomplete screenshots. I naively assumed that any screenshot of forum posts presented to the lower court would have been reasonably clear and complete and that most of them would speak for themselves as NOT being physically dangerous. Again, I was quite naive.

As you can see, April was the originator of the discussion thread “Ellis – Get Ready – WE ARE COMING AFTER YOU!” and it was concerning Linda hiring Atlanta lawyers to issue a $100,000 demand letter to the California-based author. April expressed her anger by naming a forum topic the way she did. But if you read the first three posts and all the subsequent posts, the discussion is far tamer and largely surrounds others reactions to the $100,000 demand letter. No physical threats of any kind were express much less a “death threat”.

The next forum post relating to the “death threat” assertion is Linda’s Exhibit where I make a comment about Linda being “dead” right. As you see, the word “dead” is in quotes. It is a figure of speech being “dead” right.

Compare the exhibit version to this one, the uncropped version of that forum post.

Once again, you can see that Linda conveniently leaves off the quoted text written by April which my post was responding to.

“Just when I thought I might get a good night’s sleep.”

It had nothing do do with physical threat or violence much less a “death threat”. And yet, Linda considers all of these disparate forum posts as “death threats”.

As a final comment on Linda’s “death threat” assertions, Justice Keith Blackwell rather astutely observed that Linda’s poem is often associated with “death and a tombstone.” I need not say anything more regarding the issue of death as it relates to Linda.

https://vimeo.com/108666514

======

The Truth About the “Cult Leader” Title

I find it both amusing and sad that Linda seems to think that calling me a “cult leader” might actually convince someone that I am one. It is true that I have referred to myself as a “cult leader”. Does it really need to be said that it is meant as a “tongue-in-cheek” title?

In any case, I did write a commentary on my “cult leader” status on January 11, 2015 titled “Can I Convince You I Might Be a ‘Cult Leader’?” However, what I left out is where it actually came from because I forgot when I first used that title. In looking through my computer files, I came across a rebuttal letter from June 2012 that I wrote to Seattle attorney Timothy B. McCormack in response to his unsolicited, unwelcome letter to me and Oscar Michelen regarding his views and remarks about my opinions of recording telephone conversations as a defense tool against overly aggressive collection calls from copyright extortionists.

As some might expect, I wrote Timmy an unhappy and snarky rebuttal letter to him in my own “unique style”. I disrespected him so much, I didn’t print the letter out to waste a perfectly good envelope and postage stamp to send the letter to him. I efaxed the letter to him and posted my rebuttal letter (from June 2012) online for everyone to see. The one paragraph, out of the 17-paragraph letter, that Linda really enjoys and shares with others:

“You should realize that creating and managing an online cult such as ELI is actually more challenging than one where you physically meet and interact with my followers. My dazzling, hypnotic, persuasive, and entrancing words and prose are somewhat masterful I must confess. I can convince the most intelligent, self-determined, and self-motivated person to blindly follow any public suggestion I might make.”

Although that whole communication between me and Timmy McCormack had NOTHING to do with her whatsoever, Linda has “adopted” this one paragraph from that 17-paragraph letter to share with others. She can knock herself out with it. In many ways, it would really be cool if it was true. Alas, I know my influence is relatively low. I am not delusional in that regard.

This concludes Part 2. Read Part 3.

=====

April 1, 2015

Cleaning Up the “Chan v. Ellis” Mess (Part 1)

By now, the people who care already know about my team’s victory in the Chan v. Ellis appeal. I haven’t written a formal announcement here. But I did one on ExtortionLetterInfo.com (ELI):

All Justices Concur! ELI Wins Internet Free Speech Appeal in Georgia Supreme Court!

This post begins a mini-series of articles to clean up the factual mess Linda Ellis began two years ago.

My team knew there would be some public commentary and remarks following the court decision but I didn’t expect that TV reporter, Jon Shirek from WXIA, an Atlanta TV station, would contact me that same afternoon and ask me for a recorded interview. I also didn’t know that Linda Ellis would be contacted for her side of the comments. That was my own ignorance and experience with TV news. Honestly, I was tired and unprepared. But I knew that I had to do the TV interview because it was relatively important. I did get through it although so much of what I said never aired. I imagine the same happened with Linda.

From what I can tell, Jon tried to be fair to both sides and he was attentive and good with subsequent follow-ups. There wasn’t much more that I could reasonably ask from him. However, what was extremely disturbing to me and my team was that Linda, once again, was asserting “facts” that were demonstrably untrue.

In that TV interview, she incorrectly and falsely stated that:

1. I posted the photo of her home.

2. I posted her personal financial information.

3. I posted her family member names and the location where they worked.

Additionally, she released to WXIA a heavily-cropped 1-minute excerpt from the 33-minute, 9th Episode of “The ELI Factor” with my co-host Robert Krausankas ostensibly to make me look bad and prop up her claims about me threatening her physical safety.

=====

The Truth of the 1-minute Video Rant

It goes without saying she selected the most “offensive” rant from that video and claimed that I was making physical threat TO her because of my animated rant into the camera. And yet, for nearly the entire episode I am addressing my comments to Robert or the general view audience, not Linda individually. It was meant for public viewing although it had very limited viewership.

Essentially, I had a lengthy warning and disclaimer that the episode would contain open rants and profanity as well as a concluding statement with a public apology where I said I would likely password-protect the video because of the profanity. In fact, at the beginning of the video, I even instruct people to turn the video off if they felt they might be offended by what I said.

And yet, Linda watched the entire show at least once. In fact, she had to watch over 20-minutes to get to that 1-minute rant that she selectively recorded to convince others that I was making a threat to her physical safety. And yet that episode was NOT for her! I didn’t record that episode for her at all. It was for me, Robert, and my viewers. She was not the intended audience. Remember, it was the 9th episode of an Internet mini-series. Despite what she might believe, not everything on ELI is about her.

=====

The Truth of Posting a Photo of Linda’s Home

Next, I want to settle the issue once and for all WHO and WHY the photo of her home was posted on ELI. First, let me say that Google provides the Google Street View and Google Earth services freely to anyone who has access to the Internet. They provide both the photo and hyperlinks to millions of commercial and residential properties (not just personal homes) worldwide.

Secondly, Linda wants to insinuate that the photo of her home was posted with dark, sinister motives. And this is what she and her lawyer Elizabeth W. (Betsy) McBride submitted into evidence:

Compare the court exhibit to the true screenshot since January 13, 2013.

I did not get served until around February 16, 2013. There was NO Google Street PHOTO posted at time I was served. In fact, it was a good month BEFORE I was served with a lawsuit. In January 2013, the Google Street Photo post was changed to show that underlying Google link to that photo because of her complaint to Eapps (my web hosting provider at that time). We didn’t have to remove the Google Street View Photo but we did in January 2013.

Notice all the WHITE SPACE in the court exhibit. Compare that to the true screenshot that includes the full comments and context of that post. Robert was investigating Linda’s reported business, Kindercare Learning Centers, Inc. which listed the Preakness Ct. address. Robert clearly and plainly lists a link to Cortera.com of where he retrieved that information. It led Robert to identifying a peculiar type of building for a daycare center.

Robert comments:

“and why in the world would a KinderCare center have the same address…is she running a daycare there as well…hmmm pet rescue/rehab, nursing home and daycare center…along with the trolling operation..”

It was known by ELI that Linda had commendable interests in animal rescue and caring for her elderly mother. But Robert (as all of us did) found it peculiar that a Daycare Center would be a residential address.

Please note the topic discussion title: Re: The $100K Bryan Baer / Linda Ellis Lawyer Extortion Letter!

Robert’s post of Linda’s Google Street View photo was clearly part of a much larger discussion of her $100,000 demand letter against a California-based author. But all of that was conveniently and intentionally obscured by Linda where her lawyer, Betsy, did not vet that exhibit at all. I did not have access to my computer and I didn’t get the exhibit in advance to be able to research and refute it publicly until today. (Side comment: Once the hearing was completed, neither side was able to submit new evidence which is why I didn’t bother to post this earlier.)

Nevertheless, even with the court exhibit version, anyone can plainly see it was “BuddhaPi”, not Matthew Chan that made that post.

====

The Truth of Posting Linda’s Family Information and Financial Information

Next, I want to show the court exhibit Linda provided.

The court exhibit is largely intact but with drawn emphasis on portions of the exhibit favorable to Linda.

As you can plainly see, no information was given about her family members besides Linda and her husband’s name and age (public information). “Roswell Downs” was not revealed (at that time) to be her subdivision. And “Planters” and “Kipling” has no significance in itself. The “MEE Museum” had no public significance either until Linda herself revealed it in court records. Even if I had posted and revealed everything, it is undisputed that it was all publicly available information gleaned from Google searches, social media searches, and county government databases.

I did write an “open letter” but I never knew if she truly ever saw or read it until the day of our hearing in February 2013. I did “threaten” her in the sense I would publish publicly-available information but there was no threat of physical violence or personal safety.

This all ties back to Linda’s misleading on-air statements (and elsewhere online) that I had posted information on her family members, where “they” worked, and releasing “personal financial information”. At long last, the full context is finally shown and explained here.

As a side comment, Linda has actually forced out into the public eye the very personal information she prefers to stay undisclosed through her own foolish and irresponsible choices, actions, and personal comments against me. I honestly wanted to leave this alone but even after the court decision, she has taken to the court of public opinion. And so, here we are again at it. What a time and energy suck this is.

I was planning on leaving all of this alone until she decided to recklessly post misleading public accusations and complaints about me of things I did not do. Or certainly, not the in the proper context of how and why I did it. She has forced all this information into court records through court testimony, exhibits, transcript, oral argument, and the entire appellate process. It would have been much better if she had just left it all alone.

This ends Part 1 of “Cleaning up the Chan v. Ellis Mess”. Read Part 2.

=====