On June 11, 2009, Jeffrey Weaver was criminally indicted for statements he posted to InfoWars.com that threatened a California transit police officer and threatened the officer's family.  InfoWars.com is a website run by talk radio host Alex Jones.

According to the affidavit by the FBI officer who investigated the case, on January 7, 2009, an anonymous poster using the name "FuckThePIGS" posted a comment on InfoWars.com that identified Officer Johannes Mehserle by name and address, and made threatening statements about killing officer Mehserle and his wife and baby.  Officer Mehserle is a former Bay Area Transit Authority (BART) officer who has been criminally charged for a controversial shooting in January, 2009, that was caught on video.

Using IP records provided by an InfoWars administrator, the FBI was able to identify the poster as Jeffery Weaver, of Roanoke, Virginia.  Weaver was indicted in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia.

On August 14, 2009, Weaver pleaded guilty to one count of transmitting in interstate commerce a threat to injure a person, as well as one count of willful copyright infringement.  His sentencing hearing is set for December 14, 2009.

In October 2009, Donald Marvin Jones, a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law, sued David Lat and David Minkin, editor and publisher of the popular law gossip blog Above the Law (ATL), as well as ATL's parent company, Dead Horse Media. The complaint seeks $22 million in damages and an injunction "enjoining Abovethelaw to remove all articles and posts concerning Professor Jones."

The lawsuit revolves around a series of posts ATL published after Jones was arrested in 2007 on suspicion of trying to solicit sex from a prostitute. In these posts, ATL made fun of Jones—calling him "The Nutty Professor"—and posted a screenshot of the "incident report" for his arrest.  In one post, Lat published a photo/graphic mash-up collage forwarded to him by a reader that—according to the complaint—"depict[ed] Professor Jones as a drug dealer and a pimp or both."  The graphic featured one photograph of Jones superimposed on a $20 bill and another talking up a group of prostitutes. 

According to the National Law Journal, Jones pleaded not guilty to the solicitation charge, and the authorities later dismissed the charge and expunged it from Jones' record.

Jones' complaint alleges that ATL infringed his copyright by publishing the mash-up collage because a photo in it was "stolen from the UM website without permission." There is no allegation that Jones, as opposed to the University, owns the copyright in the photo or that the photo is registered with the copyright office. Jones also alleges that publication of the collage casts him in a false light by portraying him as a "dope dealer, pimp, and criminal."

Finally, the complaint alleges that ATL invaded his privacy and cast him in a false light by publishing the "incident report" despite dismissal and expungement of the solicitation charges.  Jones' claim that ATL made "private records public" is complicated by Fla. Stat. § 119.105, which provides that "[p]olice reports are public records except as otherwise made exempt or confidential," and says that, even in the case of exempt or confidential police reports, "[t]his section does not prohibit the publication of such information to the general public by any news media legally entitled to possess that information."

On November 4, 2009, after much criticism of the lawsuit in the legal blogosphere, Professor Jones voluntarily dismissed the action.

Platinum Equity, LLC, the parent company of the Union-Tribune newspaper, sent a letter to the San Diego Reader, another local newspaper with a website edition, cautioning them against publishing a story on two lawsuits charging Platinum with workplace sexual harassment.

In June 2009, when a CNBC report publicized the two lawsuits, the Reader asked Platinum’s public relations executive, Mark Barnhill, for a comment. Platinum responded with a six-page letter sent to the editor and publisher of the Reader and two of its reporters, warning them that Platinum would file a defamation suit if the newspaper published a story suggesting that Platinum engaged in wrongdoing as alleged in the lawsuits. 

Platinum's lawyers also marked the letter "Confidential Legal Notice" and threatened legal action for "breach of such confidence and a violation of the Copyright Act" if the Reader published the letter in whole or in part. 

The Reader published no in-depth coverage of the two lawsuits, but mentioned the lawsuit in two articles. In one, the Reader commented specifically on Platinum's threat letter and its assertion of confidentiality and copyright.  The article included a copy of the letter for download. 

As of the time of writing, neither Platinum nor its lawyers have pursued any legal claims against the newspaper or individuals involved.