User talk:Michaelcrookneedstogo

Michael Crook: DMCA Scumbag Extraordinaire

Michael Crook is a real piece of work. He posted ads on Craigslist pretending to be a 19 year old female looking for sex. He tricked at least one man into sending him a pictures of his erection and posted the incriminating responses -including names and pictures--on a site named craigslist-perverts.org, a domain that he himself created. Of course, he didn't ask the men who he tricked for permission to use their compromising pictures on his site. As you will see, his use of THEIR pictures without permission is particularly ironic in light of the DMCA campaign he would soon launch to try to get pictures of HIMSELF removed from the internet. When he wasn't conning men into sending him compromising information, he was busy denying the existance of the holocaust. And he also created a website called "Forsake the troops" where he posted an article saying “What idiots risk their life for a country…? Let ‘em die in combat - we don’t need their ilk in this country!”

Hannity and Colmes invited Crook to join him on their Fox News show and talk about his website. Please take a few minutes to watch the interview--it plays a large part in Crook's DMCA abuse. I advise putting a pillow on your lap before you watch it to catch your dropping jaw.

http://www.themaskedanalyst.com/Michael%20Crook.htm/ref>

The introduction to my debate with Michael Crook:

The internet is a great and amazing place. In barely ten years of widespread use, it has affected, and in most cases improved, almost every aspect of life in America. A person with an internet connection and a credit card can shop for anything and have it delivered anywhere; the internet has allowed artists to directly reach their fans without having to alter their voice to satisfy the corrupt desires of the established media machine; fat nerds can let other fat nerds that they “pwn3d” them at World of Warcraft without even getting off their fat asses.

Everything in life is a trade-off, and the internet is no different. The myriad benefits have come with their detriments; with opportunity for advancement and achievement comes opportunity for crime and exploitation, every piece of personal information posted on the internet is a piece of privacy lost, and though unfettered access to information is great, sometimes more than enough is too much.

Though it has it's problems, I personally think the internet is one of the great human inventions in history. But if someone were to write a book outlining the faults of the internet, this would be the picture on the cover:

Michael Fucking Crook.

Before the internet, the annoying craziness of nutjobs like Michael Crook was generally limited to pestering their local zoning boards, typing letters in their parents basement to corporations that had wronged them, and hanging at the arcade trying to bum smokes off middle schoolers. Now, people like Michael Crook can find an audience. Granted, every single person in his audience hates him and wants to beat his ass, but it is still an audience.

The History: If you are reading this, I presume you know something about him. If not, I'll give you a brief timeline, just so you can put his incredible feats of douchebaggery in context:

-He is the person who started forsakethetroops.info (no longer up), a site that argued that military personnel are worthless, idiots, overpaid, and that he is glad when they are killed.

-When forsakethetroops.info was getting attention, lots and lots of people forwarded it to me, asking me to call him out. I am a big public backer of the military, and everyone knows that, so I guess people expected me to automatically assault him. But I completely ignored him and his site for a very specific reason: For me to call him out would be to direct attention to him. That only spreads his site and his message further. You have to fight that sort of person by draining the swamp; by removing attention. If everyone would have ignored him, he would have just gone away.

-Alas, this did not happen. Lots of sensationalist media picked up the story, including Fox News, where Hannity and Colmes laid into him (look down the page a bit, its there).

-All that stupid shit eventually died down. But then Michael Crook decided to copy Jason Fortuny, the original CraigsList scam baiter. That whole thing is explained here, and here.

-Upset about being portrayed as the douchebag he is, Michael did a quick and amateurish reading of the law, and sent DMCA cease and desist letters to several websites that made fun of him. Those stories are outlined here, and here.

-The EFF suit got him a ton of attention (in addition to the 10zenmonkeys and boingboing posts above, read about it on the ISP he's suing and EFF's site), which led to these two threads on my messageboard, the one where we make fun of him, and then a photoshop thread. Which in turn led to me challenging Michael to a debate, him accepting (those posts are on this thread), and now here we are.

The Debate When I agreed to this, several people on my board asked me the same question, “Why would you debate this guy?” Perhaps I misstated my intention in this. I have no fucking desire or intention to “debate” this fucking assclown. There is nothing to debate. What position of his demands, or could even merit, a response? In fact, let's look at all the positions he takes on his site, and see if we can find one that is even in the same universe as “reasonable”:

-Michael thinks that the military is irrelevant, does not now nor has ever defended our freedom, and is so rabidly anti-military, he has said that he is glad when soldiers die. -The guy is a holocaust denier...HHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAA, no seriously he is. He admits to running this site: Deny The Holocaust -He is a white supremacist, and even though he is DUTCH, believes in the “purity of the white race,” whatever the fuck that means.

I mean seriously. What the fuck is there to debate? A debate must have two opposing sides to an issue, but this assumes that each side at least has a position that can be reasonably argued. These aren't positions he advocates; they are absurdities.

What am I going to do, argue that the military serves a crucial role in protecting our lives and our nation, and that soldiers now and in the past should be accorded a high level of respect for not only risking their lives, but in some cases sacrificing them, all so that we may be safe and free? Who doesn't think this? Why not just argue that water is wet? I don't feel the need to defend the military, their bravery and sacrifice speak for itself, and answers his ridiculous arguments without even having to respond.

What am I going to do, argue that the holocaust did take place? Well no fucking shit. There isn't a intelligent and reasonable person on earth who argues otherwise (I'm looking at you Mel Gibson).

Am I supposed to take a position against white supremacy? Is that even necessary? How about I also come out as opposed to kicking babies and drowning puppies, because those positions have the same moral relevancy and intellectual veracity as any sort of racial supremacy.

The worst thing anyone can do is legitimize this dumbfuck by engaging his clearly ridiculous notions. To debate them is to imply that they are important, or even realistic, enough to debate. They are not, and I will not debate him. Any claims he makes in those areas will be ignored, because they are on face ridiculous.

I guess I could dissect his EFF case, but it's already been done here (links above in the background section), and he has already stated that he won't talk about this in depth because it is pending litigation. Beyond that, anything I would say has already been said. Since, unlike Captain Community College, I graduated from a top ten undergrad and a top ten law school, and I am smart and actually know the law, I'll summarize all that long, complex legal analysis for the non-legal people: Michael Crook is a fucking tool, and is going to lose. Badly. (Six years and over $200,000 in tuition, just for that...well spent, indeed)

No, I will not engage in a debate with Michael Crook because there is nothing to debate about. Instead, my goal with this thread was to call him out, to really fucking abuse him. But as I started reading through his site, it just made me sad. Don't get me wrong; you can't think up a disparaging adjective that doesn't apply to this kid; just while typing this piece I've had to go to the thesaurus to see if there are any appropriate synonyms for “douchebag” (the best ones: douche-magnet, douche-farmer, douche-bucket, douche-pilot, douche-lobbyist, douche-bomb, douche-land and douche-Xena).

Whats sad about him is how obvious his anger and sadness are, and how poorly he deals with them. Despite his claims to the contrary, he was quite clearly rejected from the Army, despite his desire to serve. But instead of dealing with this rejection in a normal or healthy way, he writes a transparently obvious screed against the Army. You won't let me in your club, fine, your club is stupid!!

He was a dork in high school and was uniformly abused and rejected by his peers, and I'm sure every reasonable woman around him, so of course he hates doing normal social thingsand the United States and whatever the hell else he sees as having rejected him.

Here's the thing: I can understand the pain that comes with rejection. Look at my career and life. Michael wants to be a lawyer—I WAS one. I was not only rejected from the legal profession, I wrote my own account of it, and it was forwarded all over the world. Very few people have suffered a more public rejection and humiliation than me.

But do you see what I did differently than Mikey? Instead of acting like an assclown and a petulant bitch, I accepted the consequences of my behavior and used that rejection as motivation and inspiration to do something with my life, to accomplish something that would make me happy and that I was proud of. What did he do? Make and ass out of himself and just cause headaches for other people.

Michael, is that what you really want? To just be a nuisance? Is your life so pitiful and devoid of meaning that the only way you can find any identity is to be the guy that everyone hates? Does it really make you happy to be such a worthless prick? I can't find one person anywhere who supports or agrees with you.

I have a bunch of Jewish friends, and we always tease each other about various ethnic issues (this is what friends do, but since you don't have any I thought I might want to explain this to you), and one of the jokes I like to make is something along the lines of “Your people have been persecuted for 5000 years. You think that maybe you're doing something wrong?” With him I am of course joking, but with you the principle applies—you think that because NO ONE is in your corner, not a single person, you think that maybe your position is wrong? There are a lot of people who criticize me, but for each person who hates me, there are plenty more who love me, or at the very least, enjoy the art I produce. Can you say that? I doubt you could fill up a phone booth with supporters. I can point to something good I did and say “I did that.” Can you? Can you do anything besides link to websites of people that hate you?

In fact, I know you can't. Probably because once I posted about this “debate” I was flooded with emails from people who hate you and were offering me all sorts of assistance (those links are only the tip the iceberg, just google him and prepare for the flood of hate sites).

The things they showed me kinda pissed me off—I was intending on write a page full of really inventive insults, but after seeing all this I just couldn't get motivated to do it. Michael is too pathetic. Making fun of people is really only fun when they consciously choose their behavior. You didn't choose to be such an asshole; you are just the sad result of abusive parents, familial neglect, utter incompetence, and a complete lack of any desirable personal trait. You're like the dog that has been kicked and beaten so much that it knows nothing else besides snapping. It isn't choosing to be feral, it just doesn't know any other behavior. That makes you sad, and pitiful, and I just don't have the heart to “take the piss out of you” (as one of my English fans asked me to do).

But guess what? Just because I don't want to find new and creative ways to shit on you doesn't mean that other people are like me. I am going to post some of the screen shots that people have sent me.

You posted a FAQ here where you make a lot of claims about this, namely that you don't have kids and have no criminal record and aren't married. Well, it appears that you may be lying about almost all of that. Apparently you used to run a site called SilentMike.net. In fact, that domain reverts to your current site. And I have been sent screenshots from lots of pages on that site, that indicate many things:

-A bunch of fun biographical info: http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=345078

-You have a child and are married http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/2kid.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/SM_Writings.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/evilcpscny_YahooID.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/silentdaughter_02.JPG

-You had CPS take your child away http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/CPSan...ospital_01.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Familys%20Journey.JPG

-You give multiple stories about your Army experience: http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Score_01.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Score_02.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/MOS.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/MOS2.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/MOS3.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/MOS4__contradicts.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Score_01.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Score_02.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/SilentMike_Army.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/SilentMike_Army2.JPG

-You have been arrested: http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Clubbing_Arrested.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Clubbing_Arrested2.JPG

-Your original piece about your clubbing experience is quite interesting, and far different than theone now on your site: http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Clubbing.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Clubbing2.JPG http://www.tuckermax.com/crook/Clubbing3.JPG

-Some IM convo that claims to be with you. I have no idea if that is a legit convo or not

This is only the beginning of the rabbit hole that is Michael Crooks life. Just go through the thread on my board that I linked above or Google, you'll find a ton more links, or the other anti-Michael Crook stuff, it's all there. Someone else can meticulously piece his bullshit stories together, I don't care enough.

If you already hate him, this will just confirm all your suspicions about him—namely that he is a despicable and pitiful liar and coward—and if you don't already hate him...nevermind, those people don't exist.

Wait, there's more: The Consequences

Even though I said I don't want to make fun of Michael, there is one thing I can't let go. As you can tell from reading the front of his site, Michael wants to be a lawyer. I told him in a previous email that he had no case, and he responded thusly:

Quote: “Maybe not, but it could be considered, at least on the part of the submitter, as harassment per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress, likeness rights, all sorts of things that could at the very least tie up a user in court, which could be discovered with subpoenas, etc. Sound case? Maybe, maybe not, but it's just a point I thought about.

I plan to be a real prick of a lawyer once I get through what I need to do. This case, whether I win or lose, will only help me.” Michael, first off, your legal analysis is really, really bad. I am a big advocate of the notion that three years of law school is too long, but you might need all of it. There is no such thing as a “likeness right,” intentional infliction of emotional distress is not a cause of action you can pursue, considering that you VOLUNTARILY put yourself and your views into the mainstream, and parody is a very protected free speech use, and the fact that you would mention harassment per se means you have not the vaguest notion of what even simple legal concepts mean.

Mike, I hate to break this to you, but you will never be an attorney. Let's set aside the obvious considerations for a second—that you are stupid, being the main one—and take a more procedural bent. From BoingBoing:

Quote: “The most unbelievable thing to me is that Crook, who makes a big deal on his website about wanting to be a lawyer, is willing to shoot himself in the foot like this. Unless he makes some very major life changes, he's never going to be admitted to the bar. Every candidate, after they pass the bar exam, in every state of the US, has to go through what's called the Character and Fitness committee before they're admitted to the bar and can actually begin to practice law. You basically have to detail your whole public life, and a fair bit of your private one. Criminal background check (down to speeding tickets), sometimes fingerprinting (most states check with the FBI), lists of every address you've ever had, every job you've ever held, your driving record, any institutionalizations for mental illness, your record of paying alimony or child support.

Some states even require credit reports -- I knew a guy in law school who was rejected from the bar (after completing 3 years of law school and passing the bar exam and running up FSM-only-knows amounts of debt) for a history of multiple bankruptcies, for example. They gave him a chance to explain it away, and he couldn't do it to their satisfaction. The C&F committee simply felt that he was incapable of being trusted with other people's money when he did such a bad job with his own. It is, in its own way, as difficult as the bar exam, because it requires you to accumulate (or point the Committee in the direction of) a truly frightening amount of information about yourself-- because if you omit something unpleasant that they discover, they can refuse you admission on those grounds.


 * You also have to detail every lawsuit you've ever been involved in as a party.


 * The kind of activity that Mr. Crook seems to have involved himself in (the technical word is "barratry") is *exactly* the sort of stuff that gets a Character and Fitness committee *really angry*. Take a look, for example, at the guidelines for New Jersey, Mr. Crook's home state:

(from NJ Bar Character and Fitness regulations, PDF Link)

"REGULATION 302. Initial Review and Certification 302:1 Conduct Requiring Investigation. The appropriate Part of the Committee, or such member or members thereof so assigned, shall review the Statement of Candidate and related documents. If, on such review, further information is deemed desirable, a request therefore may be made of the candidate or any other appropriate source. The request may be made in person or by telephone or mail. Conduct requiring additional action may include, but is not limited, to the following:[...]

m. Abuse of legal process or history of vexatious law suits."

Did I mention that if one state rejects you, that that's generally grounds for other states to refuse you as well?

Were I one of Mr. Crook's victims (what a Dickensenian name!), I would certainly consider keeping a proper paper record for future submission to the C&F committee of any state he intends to apply to for admission to the bar. Indeed, given the already-low reputation of lawyers in this country, I'd consider warning C&F about him to be a public service.” Hear that Michael? Thats the sound of BoingBoing owning the fuck out of you.

But Mike, I am going to do BoingBoing one better. In the ensuing week leading up to this debate, of all the people who have emailed me about you, one stood out. You see, when you fuck with the military, you don't just fuck with the men and women who hold the rifles, you fuck with their families and everyone that supports them. This is an email I got from someone who falls into this category:

Quote: “Dear Mr. Max,

I am writing to you concerning your “debate” with Michael Crook. My name is [redacted], and I have some information that may be of interest to you about Michael Crook.

[removed all the background and quals about the emailer, which I verified, and some backstory that I have already covered about forsakethetroops, etc]

What Michael doesn't realize is that he has created more enemies than he knows, and as any strategist will tell you, it is the enemies you don't see that should concern you the most.

My father is one of these enemies. This is important because my father is on the Committee on Character and Fitness for the New York State Bar. After bringing Michael Crook to his attention, he has closely and avidly followed the progress of his online adventures, including and up to this debate. Being that my father is also a Vietnam vet, and the son of a WWII vet, and is currently married to a Jewish woman (my mom), and has a Jewish child (me), he takes a special interest in this case.

I am not a lawyer, but for the purpose of this email, my father has summed up Michael's chances of ever being admitted to the New York State Bar: “Never.” His chances of being admitted to any State Bar: “Sometime after never.”

My father will almost certainly not still be on the Committee on Character and Fitness by the time Michael finishes law school (assuming this ever happens, of course), and though I am not privy to the intricate machinations of the Committee on Character and Fitness, my father assures me that the name “Michael Crook,” and his aliases (my dad found several Ohio cases that involved Michael), is well known and on file for all future Committee on Character and Fitness members to know. And as he explains it to me, Michael's chances in other states are just as bleek. My father has already forward this file to the appropriate people in New Jersey and Ohio. Additionally, the various states talk to each other about applicants, and as he has made it his intention to ensure that Michael Crook will never be a licensed attorney, well, it won't happen. My father is quite persistent when motivated.

Tell Michael that my father sends him his best, and wishes him luck with his future as a marginally employed, Jew-Hating, internet pariah and recluse. I only wish I could see the look on his face when he reads this.” Wow. Bravo. The best part of my call out thread doesn't even come from me.

The Conclusion Michael, in closing, I would actually like to thank you. You are, quite unintentionally, proof of the greatness of America. I know I called you the the poster child for whats wrong with the internet and this nation, but I want to take that back. In the process of writing this piece, I have realized that you are in fact the litmus test for what is right.

To get to this idea, I had to think about another American who has been in the news lately: Pat Tillman. If you don't know who Pat is, please read about him here, but in short, he was an NFL football player, who quit the league in the prime of his career, giving up millions, so that he could serve our nation. Like Michael, he enlisted in the Army, but unlike Michael, he was not a failure and a washout. In fact, he made it into the Rangers, and honorably fought for our freedom and security before he was sadly killed in the line of duty. Considering the fact that he was also tall, handsome, athletic, and graduated from a four year university, this means that he is--in every way--the exact opposite of Michael Crook. Pat was, in every way, the type of person who embodies what America is about, the type of person who symbolizes the American character and the unique excellence and honor of military personnel.

Not only is America great because it produces individuals like Pat, but the contrast between him and Michael display a truth about this nation: The fact that the law protects Michael Crook, that the law makes no distinctions between great men like Pat Tillman and contemptible douchebags like Michael, the fact that I am legally prohibited from smashing Michael's skull in, that Simon Weisenthal cannot push his smug face into the furnaces at Buchenwald, the fact that any military serviceman or woman cannot lace up their boots up use them to punt his nuts up into your skull...its all proof of the greatness of America. I feel safe because any nation that will protect a citizen like Michael Crook, any nation that will respect his free speech rights and will extend the blanket of its protection to him, will unquestionably protect those that deserve protection.

Many of us are too young to remember a time when our safety—our real safety, from a real threat like Nazi Germany, or Imperial Japan—was truly at stake. We don't often consider that the history of the human experience is one of pain, agony, persecution and uncertainty, of living under the rule of despotic tyrants. America was the first nation to really, truly respect the rights of the individual, no matter how loathesome. Freedom is not free, and part of the cost of having a nation that respect my rights and yours is having one that respects the rights of the people like Michael Crook. When the least worthy are safe, then we know everyone else is going to be OK also.

[And as a side note, thanks Mike, it is not everyday that I get to be the good guy and defend our troops, Jews, blacks, Asians, women, abandoned children AND Holocaust survivors, all at once! It's not like I am against any of these groups, but damn, you have made me into more of a hero than even Anthony Dimeo did. I didn't think that was possible.]

For that—reminding me that America is great—I thank you, Michael Crook.

But now that I have been reminded of this, get the fuck out of my life, get the fuck off my message board, and get the fuck off the internet. Maybe you can find some peace and solace and let go of your anger and become a happy person, but I don't really care if you do or not. To quote the great Stitch Jones (as played by Mario Van Peebles in Heartbreak Ridge):

“Don't go away angry...just go away.”

EDIT: I promised Michael that he can respond, so I will leave this thread open and let him if he wants to. But that will be end of it, I have nothing left to say to him. As far as I am concerned, this closes the matter. __________________ "You're just so...American." -German reporter to Tucker Max Last edited by mrjake : 11-11-2006 at 08:59 PM. <refhttp://messageboard.tuckermax.com/showthread.php?t=12129

This is Michael Crooks "About Me" section on his blog...this is who he is...and he needs to go...
Happily typing away at the Jersey shore, I am Michael Crook. Despite many who question that, that is indeed my real name. I am a blogger, ordained minister, and an author. Although I am most likely best known presently for my position on the military, I am a man of many accomplishments, and I have led an interesting life; at least it’s been interesting for me.

As a child, I lived in Dundee, Oregon, where I got my first taste of public performance at the age of 6. Along those lines, I studied dance and choreography for several years.

After living in Oregon and Nevada for much of my youth, I moved to South Jersey, where I have lived for much of my adult life, returning in 2007 after living in a horrible ghetto known as Syracuse, New York. Presently, I reside in Hamilton Township, in my hometown of Mays Landing.

From 1993 to 1997, I attended Oakcrest High School in Mays Landing. During much of that time period, I was the founder and president of an international fan club for a well-known Dutch dance group. While fellow high school students were flipping burgers, I was busy at the first commercial ISP in South Jersey, and was one of the first to join my school’s Internet Club. I worked at IST from 1994 to 2000, supplementing my income with a summer/fall internship at The Press of Atlantic City in 1996. Thus, my expertise is in website/database consulting and content writing.

In my hometown of Mays Landing, New Jersey, I have in the past been active in political and civil matters, speaking out against the elimination of activities while a student at my high school, and as a citizen, I spoke up when the school board refused to give a student stabbing serious attention. Also as a citizen, I voiced my dissent in regards to a proposal which would cause undue harm to wild ducks in favor of affluent and ignorant property owners. I also served as a poll challenger for a well-known local candidate.

I was briefly in the US Army in 1999, but after getting to Fort Benning, it became apparent that we’d be expected to one day risk our lives for our country.

I couldn’t have that, so I exposed my own heart condition (which in reality is so minor that it’s inconsequential, but a good ticket to getting out of real work) to the battalion doctor, despite several successful physical training exercises. To get in, I had been instructed by my recruiter, Pedro Oliveras, who most recently was stationed in Marlton, New Jersey, to not disclose this condition. This was done with the full knowledge of the commander of the recruiting station, located in Northfield, New Jersey.

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