PI Hearing in DD v Grewal II

February 18, 2019

Last week DD and co-plaintiffs withdrew our TRO request in New Jersey federal court and pressed for a non-delayed preliminary injunction schedule. March 20 is our PI motion’s hearing date, and it will take place in Judge Anne Thompson’s courtroom in Trenton.

There had been some drama and intrigue about the nature of a takedown request to codeisfreespeech.com (CIFS) in our initial complaint and application for relief. The New Jersey AG’s office eventually disclaimed this takedown notice after an internal investigation, and referred the matter to their U.S. Attorney’s office. Cloudflare has a writeup about this notice as well.

Of course this changes nothing in the overall 1983 action. Grewal has been attacking our company for months and valorizing his efforts in the press. We have standing in New Jersey because Grewal:

1. Issued two rounds of cease and desist letters over the summer of 2018 to Defense Distributed and created press to reaffirm these threats.
2. Directed his threats and letters to Defense Distributed’s service providers, including Cloudflare.
3. Initiated civil action in New Jersey state court, attempting to block DEFCAD’s file publication under a theory of “public nuisance.”
4. Initiated and joined civil action in Washington federal court, attempting to block DEFCAD file publication.
5. Announced his intent to enforce New Jersey’s new speech crime at the signing ceremony for SB 2465.

His office may not have sent a takedown notice to CIFS, but read their letter again. Do they disclaim the power or intent to send such a notice?

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