Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Remember that ridiculous brouhaha over Judge Alex Kozinski having a private server that was inadequately protected, allowing those who knew how to look and went snooping to find - gasp! - a few emails he had sent on to friends that included dirty jokes? Well now a judicial council has admonished him for this and (presumably) forced him to issue a strained and unnecessary apology.
The judicial council of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, assigned to look into allegations against 9th Circuit chief judge Alex Kozinski, issued its memorandum opinion this morning, admonishing him but concluding that no further action or punishment was warranted. By maintaining sexually explicit material on a personal web site and inadequately safeguarding against public access to it, Kozinski's actions were "judicially imprudent" in the view of the council, and amounted to "disregard of a serious risk of public embarrassment."
Here is the apology that Kozinski issued:
"I have caused embarrassment to the federal judiciary. I put myself in a position where my private conduct became the subject of public controversy. While this was painful for me personally, my greatest regret is that I was identified as a federal judge, indeed, as a Chief Judge of the nation's largest federal circuit. And thus whatever shame was cast on me personally, it reflected on my colleagues and our system of justice as well.My unfortunate carelessness with certain files on my computer has embarrassed the federal courts. And for this, I am deeply sorry."
But this is all quite silly. Out of thousands of emails and email attachments he received over the years were a few that had sexual jokes in them. He didn't delete those emails, or saved the attachments, on a server that he didn't know was connected to the internet. None of that material was the least bit obscene by any legal standard. It is no different than the kind of thing the rest of us receive and pass along all the time. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with his actions.
The only reason this has caused any embarrassment is because of the overactive imaginations and self-righteous declarations of moral crusaders with an axe to grind against Kozinski. And those are the only people who deserve to be admonished.
Politics
Comments
Cooked up controversies like this are especially galling because you know that many of the very people admonishing him have done exactly the same thing themselves and will continue to do so.
Posted by: Wes | July 5, 2009 9:45 AM
I think this is the first time I've seen a public figure engage in a real apology instead of a nonpology.
It would be on a topic that doesn't really deserve one, wouldn't it?
Posted by: Michael Ralston | July 5, 2009 9:53 AM
That reminds me of the “confession” by Jimmy Carter that he had committed adultery. According to Carter’s religious beliefs, if you even think about having sex with someone other than your wife, then you have committed adultery. I thought it was pretty ironic that the only presidential candidate that had admitted to adultery was likely the only one to have never done it.
Posted by: daedalus2u | July 5, 2009 10:23 AM
Let me get this straight.
People Hacked into a Judge's Private E-mail Account, and then had the cojones to criticize him for some dirty jokes.
WHAT THE FUCK?! Over!
And why aren't these Hackers being hung out to dry for this? And Isn't a Judge's Private Speech protected as well?
You know I would be pissed as hell if someone hacked into my private accounts or secretly recorded private telephone calls and then played them for the public, esp if it has nothing to do with work or with one's political office.
I mean we cannot very well complain about Big Brother, when our neighbors and fellow citizens seem intent on blazing these trails for the government now can we.
I don't care if he had porn on his private computer. As long as he is not breaking the law, then he has a right to a private adult life, just like everyone else.
Posted by: Seeing Eye Chick | July 5, 2009 2:41 PM
SEC, there was no "hacking" done - Kozinski didn't have the proper precautions in place to keep his server from being seen without password protection, so the person responsible (a lawyer who Kozinski ruled against once, IIRC) was able to browse the directory, which is incredibly simple and requires no knowledge of hacking. There was nothing about an E-mail account; Kozinski saved the kinds of things that he likely received through E-mail forwards on his server.
Posted by: Mr. B | July 5, 2009 2:53 PM
It wasn't just moral crusaders on the right. Quite a few feminist blogs were getting on him about the pictures as well.
Posted by: MarkusR | July 6, 2009 7:38 AM