'Free Speech Protections Upheld for Landmark Aerial
Database'
ANN Note: This is the offical statement released by
the Adelmans... we felt it should be presented and read in its
entirety...
In a decision that
reaffirms the public’s First Amendment right to participate
in matters of public significance, a Los Angeles Superior Court
issued a 46 page opinion today holding that Barbra Streisand, the
well-known entertainer and Hollywood celebrity, abused the judicial
process by filing a lawsuit against aerial archivist Ken Adelman,
his Internet Service Provider Layer42.NET, and Pictopia.COM. The
court also firmly rejected Streisand’s request for an
injunction to force the removal of a panoramic photographic frame
that happens to include her sprawling blufftop estate from
Adelman’s website, www.Californiacoastline.org.
Streisand’s Use of Corporate Polluter Tactic Fails
A jubilant Adelman expressed gratification at the court’s
ruling. “My goal in bringing the Anti-SLAPP motion was to
protect the integrity of this historic photographic database of the
California coast and to ensure that the public continues to have
unfettered access to the photographs and the other data it
provides,” Adelman said. Lawsuits that seek to suppress
public participation and free speech are referred to as SLAPP suits
- Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation. The California
Legislature enacted the Anti-SLAPP Statute to stop the increasing
use by large corporate polluters of these meritless lawsuits that
sought to silence the “valid exercise” of the
constitutional right of freedom of speech of grassroots
activists.
Project is Labor of Love; Use Free to Government, Science and
Grassroots
The landmark California Coastal Records Project (CCRP), an
aerial database consisting of 12,700 sequential panoramic frames of
the California coast, is the brainchild of Ken and Gabrielle
Adelman. The Adelmans, a husband and wife team, self-funded the
project in an effort to promote coastal conservation. They donated
their time and the use of their personal helicopter and the latest
computer and camera equipment to complete the baseline photographic
index of the California coast; Gabrielle flies the helicopter while
Ken shoots pictures roughly once every three seconds. The aerial
photographs, taken over a period of over six months from public
airspace, are arranged sequentially by longitude and latitude and
made available to government agencies, universities, scientists and
conservation groups free of charge on the website www.Californiacoastline.org.
Users include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), Unites States Geological Survey (USGS), US Coast Guard, the
National Park Service, the State Coastal Conservancy, the State
Lands Commission, California State Parks and others. A more
complete listing of CCRP users appears below.
Streisand, a self-proclaimed environmentalist, shocked many in
the environmental and scientific community when she filed suit in
May against Adelman, claiming that the appearance of her lavish
blufftop Malibu estate in a small portion of one of the 12,700
aerial photographs in the database violated her right to be free
from offensive intrusions, violated the anti-papparazzi statute,
constituted wrongful publication of private facts and
misappropriated her name. Streisand sought ten million dollars in
damages and a permanent injunction against display or dissemination
of the photograph.
Hundreds of Scientists, Researchers & Planners Utilize
Site
“We were quite
surprised to learn that someone who publicly espouses support for
environmental and free-speech protection would sue to dismantle a
project that has proven itself a powerful tool for coastal
protection at no cost to the public. We were even more dismayed at
allegations posted on her personal celebrity website that claimed
that our hobby was to ‘fly around spying on people.’
Certainly, the hundreds of scientists, researchers, land-use
planners and conservationists who use the website in their work
understand that this project is providing a photographic baseline
from which to understand, measure and, hopefully, reverse
environmental degradation of the California coast,” said
Gabrielle Adelman.
“The Californiacoastline.org web site and photographs have
become an extremely useful tool for our coastal research on a wide
range of issues from coastal erosion and cliff failure, to the
distribution of seawalls and other coastal armoring,” said
Gary Griggs, Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the
University of California, Santa Cruz. “Nowhere does this sort
of statewide, up-to-date, high quality information exist in an
easily available and conveniently accessible format. It has greatly
facilitated our research and has become an invaluable data base.
This is a resource I use virtually every day and there is no other
source for this quality and scope of aerial photography for
documenting coastal change,” Griggs said.
Adelman’s attorney, Richard Kendall of Irell &
Manella, successfully argued that the photographs constituted
protected free speech in connection with a matter of public
significance - protection of the California coast - and that
Streisand’s suit was nothing more than a SLAPP suit that
lacked a ‘reasonable probability’ of success on the
merits. The Court agreed that Streisand’s lawsuit was an
attempt to unfairly restrain and punish Adelman and ordered
Streisand to pay the legal fees the defense incurred.
Countering Streisand’s claim that Adelman sought to
benefit by allowing Streisand’s name to appear in a caption
of the photograph, Kendall pointed out that Adelman does not profit
from the website. Her claim that her privacy suffered from the
publication of the photograph is also groundless; Kendall noted
that Adelman deliberately designed the site so that the captions on
the photographs, that are supplied by the public, are invisible to
external search engines like Google; that the site does not contain
Streisand’s address; and that the information that Streisand
sought to suppress was readily available on other sites and in
other publications - some with the express permission of Streisand
herself.
Streisand’s Mansion Attracted Little Attention
Kendall also pointed out that Streisand grossly overestimated
the number of people who would use the caption to download or order
pictures of her blufftop estate. In her declaration, Streisand
claimed that it was likely that thousands of people had downloaded
the frame to view her estate. In fact, prior to the lawsuit, only
six downloads of that frame were executed (out of a total of over
14,000 downloads for the site as a whole), two of which were
downloads by her own attorneys. Similarly, prior to the lawsuit,
only three reprints of the frame were ordered through Pictopia -
two by Streisand herself and one by a neighbor who is in a lengthy
dispute with her over controversial expansion plans for her
blufftop estate.
California Coastal Protection Activists Celebrate
Environmentalists up and
down the state rejoiced at the decision. “We applaud the
court’s determination that the public has a compelling
interest in viewing our coast and that efforts of coastal
landowners to intimidate the public will not be tolerated. The
victory today is more than just a validation that the
Adelmans’ philanthropic enterprise provides an extraordinary
and legitimate public benefit. It is a confirmation that the public
has the unfettered right to view our coast and public trust
resources.” said Mark Massara, environmental lawyer and
Director of the Sierra Club Coastal Program.
“For scientists, researchers, and conservationists working
to protect the California coast against environmental degradation
and the threat of illegal and inappropriate development, this
project is an invaluable tool. Streisand’s lawsuit, had it
been successful, would have opened the door for other wealthy
landowners to demand that individual frames be removed thereby
jeopardizing the entire coastal baseline survey that forms the
foundation of the California Coastal Records Project,” said
Susan Jordan, Director of the California Coastal Protection
Network. “Public access to the coast, whether physical or
visual, is a cornerstone of the California Coastal Act and we
welcome its implicit affirmation in the Court’s decision
today,” she concluded.
“This decision sends a message to all environmental
activists that the court will not tolerate threats of intimidation
whether it comes from corporate polluters like Texaco or Shell Oil
or a celebrity who believes that her personal interests are more
important the public’s constitutional right to free
speech,” said Adelman.