A month ago, KGUN9-TV (Tucson, Arizona) aired a program about copyright trolls . Anchor/reporter Tammy Vo , while talking about a mother of two Jenny Phan, an apparently innocent victim of a local CEG -affiliated troll Wayne Carroll , did an excellent job presenting to the general audience the ongoing rampant abuse of judicial system. Unlike a recent sloppy reporting by a Las Vegas TV station, Ms. Vo did her job diligently, researched this topic deeply, and as far as I know, this rather expressive program had a significant resonance in Tucson and the entire state of Arizona.

To our pleasant surprise, this theme was not closed with that program: apparently, Tammy Vo continued to investigate one of the most shameful “legal” scams in recent history, and, as a result, she interviewed a man who has a real power to put an end to semi-legal extortion in his state: Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne.

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time when a state attorney general speaks about this issue. In the video, Tom Horne looks polite and friendly, but what he says in a calm and casual voice must be sending shivers down the spines of trolls and their co-conspirator porn purveyors:

“I’m not aware of any legal basis for why you would be responsible for someone else’s wrongful acts if they wrongfully accessed your computer” said Horne. He also says that if there was no reasonable basis to believe that Jenny pirated the porn, threatening her for money would be extortion.

Ms. Vo mentioned a couple of examples when trolls have been preying on the most vulnerable people — immigrants.

“If they are targeting immigrants, then that would be a bad sign and indicate they’re doing it because the immigrants don’t know how to defend themselves and it could be an aggravating factor for any action” said Horne.

Hearing that, I couldn’t help remembering a sad story of a clearly innocent immigrant who was conned into paying by California troll Gill Sperlein a year ago. I hope that soon such predatory assaults will not be possible anymore.

It is difficult to overestimate the significance of an attorney general weighing in on this investigation, even if he would simply articulate his opinion. However, he went farther than that: he encouraged victims to overcome illusionary embarrassment and file complaints — something that I, DieTrollDie, and Rob Cashman have been advocating for a long time:

The Attorney General’s office would like you to file a complaint with them if you feel that you’ve been wrongly accused of pirating porn. To do that, click here. Scroll to the bottom of the screen to access printable or online complaint forms.

It is clear from the program that Mr. Horne sincerely was not aware of the problem, and just learned about it. Someone had to inform him: in this case, it was a journalist, but it could very well be any victim. Look, we have been witnessing a Florida Bar investigation of troll Joseph Perea, and this investigation would not start if not for a pissed off innocent Doe, who filed a complaint. And it is just the beginning.

In order to win, you have to pick up the fight, and in order to secure powerful allies, you should reach them, and you have to be persistent if at first you are not heard.

Update

There is a follow-up 8/24/2012 KGUN9-TV story that I overlooked: More threats for Tucson mom accused of dirty deed.