Dear Avaazers,
Our hearing just ended, and
the judge absolutely DESTROYED Monsanto's subpoena on
Avaaz!!!!
He said the subpoena would have a
“tremendous chilling effect”, saying "no member would want to
have their privacy and their activity known" and actually
gave Monsanto a lecture on democracy and free speech!!
Avaaz members in the courtroom spontaneously broke
into applause and huge smiles at his words. Here's a quick
video filmed minutes ago from our Campaign Director Iain Keith
on the steps of the courthouse:
This subpoena was terrifying and would have had Avaaz
spend months and hundreds of thousands of dollars digging up
and handing over to Monsanto everything anyone on our team
ever said or wrote about them for YEARS. Including even the
email addresses and identities of our members who had sent
messages to officials about Monsanto!
Even worse,
lawyers told us that courts in New York tend to AUTOMATICALLY
GRANT requests like this! Because usually, more info means
more justice.
But then our community got involved.
Over 200,000 of us donated, and we hired the best lawyer in
the business -- Andrew Celli, who has taken on cases like
this before and won. He and his team worked with the Avaaz
team to write a ridiculously great takedown of the Monsanto
subpoena. It's long and legalistic, but if you speak that
language, it's a thing of beauty -- you can read it here.
Monsanto flew
in a top lawyer, a man who's defended everything from asbestos
to lead and arsenic. But between our briefs, and the powerful
oral arguments, the judge was convinced, and took the
incredibly RARE step of throwing out the ENTIRE subpoena!!!
Normally they just narrow the scope of the subpoena to
something more reasonable, but the judge couldn't find
anything reasonable in Monsanto's claims about Avaaz!
Avaaz
members, team and lawyers celebrating on the courthouse
steps!
It's a moment to celebrate, but it may
not be over.
Monsanto can still appeal, or come at
us another way. But we've got an amazing win and precedent
set, and an amazing legal team, and as ever, an amazing
movement that will stand by, stand up, and speak truth to
power when it threatens.
The purpose of these big
legal attacks is to scare us. I have tears right now as I
think about how, with the Avaaz community at our back, I
really don't have to fear stuff like this. Because even the
most powerful actors in this world, are not more powerful than
the truth, than the power of good people coming together to
work for everything we love, than the power of all of us
in this incredible movement.
With immense
gratitude,
Ricken and the whole Avaaz team.
PS - in
another amazing example of our movement, an Avaaz member wrote
in in response to our fundraiser, suggesting that the team
reach out to Bayer, who are buying Monsanto, to ask them to
drop this attack. He then took the initiative to write
personally to both me and the CEO of Bayer. The CEO of Bayer
actually called him hours later, saying he'd love to talk to
me! So, we're talking on Monday. No idea yet what will come of
it, but another example of the ridiculously wonderful movement
that we get to be part of. Thanks so much to everyone for
being you.
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