I'm curious as to what others think of this from a privacy issue. Not sure this guy was smart to take this to court, but it seems to me there are legitimate grievances regarding her putting intimate details on a web diary versus as the article says, "In a diary under a pillow". So I couldn't comment on this from a legal perspective, but from a (my) moral perspective, it seems like she was kinda doing a slimy thing (with the recognition that I'm generally a pretty closed-mouth private guy, so I'm probably reading this article with bias). Recognizing that generally women talk about their sex lives with one another a lot more than men do, there's a difference between talking to a few of your friends over coffee and making details available to anyone with an Internet connection. So is this wrong, or merely a part of the "Internet generation" that should be accepted as normal?
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http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/steamy-blog-lawsuit-heads-for-trial/20061227133109990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001Steamy D.C. sex blog scandal heads to court
Ex-Senate aide sues former lover after details of affair appear on Web
The Associated Press
Updated: 12:45 p.m. PT Dec 27, 2006
WASHINGTON - When Robert Steinbuch discovered his girlfriend had discussed intimate details about their sex life in her online diary, the Capitol Hill staffer didnt just get mad. He got a lawyer.
Soon, though, the racy tidbits about the sex lives of the two Senate aides faded from the front pages and the gossip pages. Steinbuch accepted a teaching job in Arkansas, leaving Washington and Jessica Cutlers Washingtonienne Web log behind.
While sex scandals turn over quickly in this city, lawsuits do not. Steinbuchs case over the embarrassing, sexually charged blog appears headed for an embarrassing, sexually charged trial.
Lurid testimony about spanking, handcuffs and prostitution aside, the Washingtonienne case could help establish whether people who keep online diaries are obligated to protect the privacy of the people they interact with offline.
Cutler, a former aide to Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, says she created the blog in 2004 to keep a few friends up to date on her social life. Like a digital version of the sex-themed banter from a Sex and the City episode, Cutler described the thrill and tribulations of juggling sexual relationships with six men.
'Current favorite'
One of those men was Steinbuch, a counsel to DeWine on the Judiciary Committee. Cutler called him the current favorite and said he resembled George Clooney, liked spanking and disliked condoms.
Hes very upfront about sex, she wrote. He likes talking dirty and stuff, and he told me that he likes submissive women.
When Ana Marie Cox, then the editor of the popular gossip Web site Wonkette.com, discovered and linked to Cutlers blog, the story spun out of control. Cutler was fired and Steinbuch says he was publicly humiliated. He went to court seeking more than $20 million in damages.
The case is embroiled in thorny pretrial issues, with each side demanding personal information from the other. Steinbuch wants to know how much money Cutler received from the man she called her sugar daddy. Cutler demanded Steinbuchs student evaluations from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law School, where he teaches.
Steinbuch also recently added Cox as a defendant in the case, though he has not served her with court papers. A trial date has not been set, but Matthew Billips, Cutlers attorney, said there are no settlement talks that might head off a trial.
I have no idea what he wants, Billips said. Hes never said, This is what I think should be done.
Restoration of his good name
Neither Steinbuch nor his attorney returned phone calls seeking comment. In court, attorney Jonathan Rosen said Steinbuch wants to restore his good name. Students in his legal ethics class all search the Internet and learn about the blog, Rosen said.
Its not funny and its damaging, Rosen told a judge. Its horrible, absolutely horrible.
To win, Steinbuch will have to prove that the details of their sexual relationship were private and publishing them was highly offensive. Billips argues that Cutler never intended to make the blog public but, in the information age, data is easily copied and distributed beyond its intended audience.
If the case goes to trial, its outcome will be important both to bloggers and to people who chronicle their lives on social-networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Marc Rotenberg, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said he may teach the Washingtonienne case this spring during his class at Georgetown Law School.
Anybody who wants to reveal their own private life has a right to do that. Its a different question when you reveal someone elses private life, he said, adding that simply calling something a diary doesnt make it one. Its not sitting in a nice, leather-bound book under a pillow. Its online where a million people can find it.
Rotenberg asked, what if Cutler had secretly videotaped the encounters and sold the videos without Steinbuchs consent? There has to be a line somewhere, he said.
Since being fired, Cutler moved back to New York, wrote a novel based on the scandal, posed nude for Playboy and started a new Web site, where she solicits donations for slutty clothes and drugs.
She wouldnt discuss the case but said shes amazed by what has happened.
The fact that anyone was interested in the first place was a surprise, she said. The fact that there was a lawsuit in the first place was a surprise. That its still going on is a surprise.
Judge mystified
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman was surprised, too.
I dont know why were here in federal court to begin with, Friedman told attorneys for both sides in April. I dont know why this guy thought it was smart to file a lawsuit and lay out all of his private, intimate details.
In that sense, the Washingtonienne lawsuit has become a study into when to make a federal case out of something and when to just let it go away. Its a question lawyers wrestle with all the time.
Lanny Davis, the former special counsel to President Clinton who now advises companies during times of crisis, tells clients to decide whether they want justice or simply to set the record straight and get a message across.
If youre looking for justice, the court system is the only thing you have, Davis said. If youre looking to get the full story, good and bad, into one coherent narrative, the court system is perhaps the worst possible forum.
