[Advocacy Advisors] Twitter v. Holder amicus brief

Wed Feb 18 17:54:48 UTC 2015

On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 9:42 AM, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte at wikimedia.org>
wrote:

> Hi Dimi,
>
> In the US, amicus briefs can have legal value as well as media value.
> Amici are not parties to the case, so it may not have the same weight as
> the parties' briefs, but it's an opportunity to add another perspective.
> Some advocacy organizations (like ACLU and EFF), as well as the US
> government, regularly file amicus briefs on potentially relevant topics.
>

I should add that while there is a publicity angle (as there is to anything
in our modern world!) most lawyers are fairly reticent to create or join
amicus briefs merely for publicity - as a matter of professional ethics in
a formal legal document, the legal arguments still have to be solid and
persuasive.

Luis

> On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 6:40 AM, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <
> dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Stephen,
>>
>> Thanks for doing this! I do think we have an interest in this case and
>> questions about such letters have been raised even within our community.
>>
>> The way I understand it, an amicus brief  is like a highly official
>> letter of support but has no palpable legal value. Do such documents play
>> any role for the court or is this rather targeted at the media?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Dimi
>>
>> 2015-02-18 6:56 GMT+01:00 Stephen LaPorte <slaporte at wikimedia.org>:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> We have joined six other organizations[1] in an amicus brief[2] in
>>> Twitter v. Holder.[3] Twitter initiated this action against the US
>>> government to establish the right to publish more detailed info about the
>>> number of national security letters it receives in its transparency report.
>>>
>>> [1] Aautomattic, Cloudflare, CREDOMobile, Medium, Sonic, and Wickr.
>>> [2]
>>> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/54/Twitter_v_Holder_amicus.pdf
>>> [3] https://www.eff.org/cases/twitter-v-holder
>>>
>>> --
>>> Stephen LaPorte
>>> Legal Counsel
>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>
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>>> members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
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>>
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>
>
> --
> Stephen LaPorte
> Legal Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> *NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
> have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
> mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal and ethical
> reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
> members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
> on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
>
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-- 
Luis Villa
Deputy General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext. 6810

*This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have
received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical
reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
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