Dear Ms. Hariz:
This is to acknowledge receipt of your email, which I have published on my blog, with my response, here:
Of course I harbor no malice toward your client, but rather believe that the entirety of this controversy is due to your client's malice toward me. Furthermore, I believe that nothing I have written about your client constitutes libel, and am likewise assured by others of extensive legal experience.
Your client is a 28-year-old freelance writer who is attempting to make his own reputation by attacking the reputations of other writers -- this being the entire point, so far as I can tell, of his forthcoming book. It ill-behooves your client, therefore, to threaten libel suits against his critics, and I would hope that you would advise him in that regard.
Wishing you all the best, I remain
Sincerely yours,
Robert Stacy McCain
From: Mirna Hariz <mirnahariz@gmail.com>
Subject: Concerning Barrett Brown
To: r.s.mccain@att.net
Date: Sunday, December 5, 2010, 11:51 AM
Mr. McCain,
You recently posted several articles dedicated largely to the subject of my client Barrett Brown. One such article includes the following passage:
Notice, however, that Brown speaks of my colleague Michael Hastings, expressing a collegiality that probably exists mainly in Browns mind. Brown and Hastings both had blogs at True/Slant, the now-defunct site which, despite funding from Forbes Media and Fuse Capital, flamed out in 15 months after publishing such memorable works as Rick Ungars Send the Body to Glenn Beck. But while Brown and Hastings were both True/Slant contributors, it wasnt like they were hanging out around the office coffee machine, swapping stories.
So here is Brown, staring into the camera and addressing Rich as if he were talking to a buddy, while referring to Hastings as his colleague, in a video recorded July 15 three weeks after the June 23 publication of theVanity Fair piece that Brown references, and two weeks beforeTrue/Slants July 29 shutdown. The timing seems significant, as if this were a cry for help.
You might get the idea that Barrett Brown is kind of a moody loner, isolated and alienated, attempting to invent a social context for himself where none exists.
You state, as supposed fact, that Barrett Brown and MIchael Hastings are not colleagues or friends and rather that Barrett Brown is in essence a fraud who uses a false association with Hastings to 'invent a social context for himself.' Any amount of investigation on your part would have quickly and easily determined this to be false. Brown and Hastings' relationship is professional, substantial, and well documented.
Your post falsely insinuating that Brown is fraudulently representing himself and his professional relationships is especially damaging as Michael Hastings wrote the blurb for Brown's upcoming book and Brown's reputation and relationship with certain figures such as Hastings is integral to the development of Project PM, Brown's distributed think-tank. You have published lies which you've claimed to be fact that, if taken seriously, substantially damage the financial interests and professional reputation of my client. As these lies are quite easily shown to be untrue it can be assumed that either you printed with malice what you knew to be false or you wrote
your article with reckless disregard for its veracity.
My client would like to resolve this matter quickly. We request that you link to the refutation he has posted and that you do so from the post from which the above passage is taken, and also that you publish the entirety of that refutation in an additional post at your blog. Alternatively, you may run a satisfactory retraction to the passage above, although Brown is not requesting that you take down any of your work.
Please be informed that if this situation is not resolved we are prepared to begin legal proceedings to protect my client's interests.
Best,
Mirna Hariz
512.947.5712
Lawyer, Mediator in New York & Texas
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