Internet stalkers.

[The Backlash Cometh]

Most of us post behind a nom de plume for the very reason that we wish to remain anonymous, because if we weren't we wouldn't really feel free to speak our minds for fear our family and friends would be targeted for retaliation.

However, who knows how far the Republican breach of privacy went when they used phone companies and probably our cable companies to gather information on all Americans, for the wrong reasons.

So, if someone were to have revealed our identities and someone was reading our opinions on this newsgroup without our knowledge, wouldn't that be the same as following someone in a public place and eavesdropping on every conversation? Wouldn't that be stalking?

Could you see the day where someone would be able to rely on a legal remedy if their privacy was breached in this manner?

[librechik]

1. Big Brother is Stalking Us

are we going to do what Ari says and "watch what we say?" Or be like Calvin and piss on his expensive designer shoes?

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. I'm not afraid of Big Brother.

I'm afraid of his good ole lil' bro who has a Napolean Complex and living in a smaller hood.

[librechik]

10. Commander Guy Cuckoobananas is so much scarier than BB

because he's real, not fictional. Yikes.

Besides, he probably sells all our info to phone sales people. AAAAARRRGGGHHHHHH!

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Well, I live in a very, very, weird place.

Or, weird things have been known to happen around here. For example, not too long ago, a Congressman asked a computer programming company to write up a program to see how easy it would be to steal an election; and, an election supervisor allowed a Republican operative free reign in the office to change absentee ballots for Republicans.

Need I say more?

[panader0]

2. I have signed several petitions with my name and address

I'm not afraid for my views to be known. Even if I was, it'd be too late.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I don't have a problem with petitions, either.

But, petitions are a collective agreement on one opinion.

[NightWatcher]

3. the only place that we have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" is in our home

everything else is a gamble and is not protected. I dont rely on a legal remedy. I just watch what I say and do. And yes, I enjoy certain coverage by a nom de guerre, but there are many who know my name (thanks to my myspace page) and other mentions of where I live (south Georgia). I have even slipped up and mentioned various code words that I have been privy to.

I have passed beyond fear of "big brother" and have often contemplated signing many of my posts with my real name and home address. There are so many people and so much chaos that we can speak our minds and feel relatively safe by numbers. I've never solicited anything illegal online, nor have I made threats or statements that could get me in trouble. I say nothing that I would not say in the front lobby of the police department.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Again, I'm not concerned with all of you's out there, I'm concerned

about a nutcase neighbor.

[Warpy]

6. I've always preserved my anonymity

My family got the first TV on the block so my mother could watch the McCarthy hearings, white knuckled and furious. I was preschool, but those hearings had a profound effect on me. I've always been loath to put my name on anything. I learned how vicious the right wing is before I got to kindergarten.

The people I know who have run into trouble online just trusted the wrong people with a phone number, usually because they fell for a sob story.

(my mother'd had a brief flirtation with the CPUSA in the 30s, when they were the only ones standing up to Hitler. She never joined and dropped them when it became clear what Stalin was all about. She was terrified she'd be named in those rotten hearings. She needn't have bothered, she wasn't rich or famous enough)

[lonestarnot]

8. Rich enough, famous enough. Tee hee.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Well, we're fighting that monster now, aren't we?

But, we're fighting it together.

[watrwefitinfor]

14. Warpy, sounds just like my pre-school memories of the Army Hearings.

I thought I was the only one here old enough to remember. :-)

The killing of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg also made a lasting impression on me. I can remember one of them being put into a car, and people on the street shouting furiously that they should be put to death. And I wasn't scared of the Rosenbergs - I was sad for them and scared of the people who wanted them dead. I sensed the outrage of it all, even though I heard no one speak it. Why would a little child remember all that? My folks never even flirted with the CPUSA. Or anything.

It wasn't only the rich and famous, though. I met many people later in life whose lives were ruined, and they were not rich and famous. Trade union organizers, rank and file workers, one nurse I met who told me she and her husband had a small business that had been destroyed. Many of these didn't take the witness stand, but there were whisper and slander campaigns that lost them their jobs and ruined them.

Wat

[Warpy]

15. Yes, the whisper campaigns were in every community

and anyone who had slighted a neighbor was at risk. That's one of the things few folks remember about that time, the panic that was just barely under the surface as each person wondered if he or she would be the next to be unfairly denounced by some asshole with a grudge.

[The Backlash Cometh]

17. Those people have never gone out of fashion, my friend.

If you want to neutralize a neighbor, it isn't difficult to do with gossip, if you know where to tap into the grapevine.

[Warpy]

34. It was a little different during the McCarthy era

because those campaigns turned people into pariahs, wrecked their businesses, got their kids beaten up at school.

Now they mainly garner victims dirty looks until somebody finally fesses up about what the gossip is and the victim laughs at it.

I've been the victim of such campaigns. I always admit whatever it is and say I had a great time doing whatever it was. That shuts them up.

However, I'll keep my anonymity around right wingers, thanks. I've had them threaten my ISP, my job, and my life. As long as they don't know who I am, those threats are pretty toothless.

[L. Coyote]

12. Campaign 2004: Were Bush / Cheney / NSA illegal wiretaps spying on Dems?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=975902&mesg_id=975941

You write: "However, who knows how far the Republican breach of privacy went..."

The linked thread above covers the illegal spying story. However, there is no reason to relegate this to the past tense. There are other programs we have not been told about. The NSA story got press because the NSA is legaly restricted from spying within the US. The real spying story is with those not so restricted?

:: Welcome to the National Reconnaissance Office ::
A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel.
It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, part of the National Foreign ...
http://www.nro.gov/

The National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is one of the 16 intelligence agencies in the U.S.
which designs, builds and operates the reconnaissance satellites ...

UNITED STATES INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY - WHO WE ARE
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency · National Reconnaissance Office ... The National Reconnaissance Office
(NRO) provides our nation its eyes and ears ...
www.intelligence.gov/1-members_nro.shtml

The NRO Declassified
In September 1992 the Department of Defense acknowledged the existence of
the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an agency established in 1961 to manage ...
www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB35/ -

Before the existence was acknowledged, NRO had built a new headquarters larger than the CIA complex in Langley, and noone in Congress knew about it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. kick

[EFerrari]

28. Of course they were. BushCo started that program in Jan 2001.

"Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?"

[EFerrari]

16. I tried to get this handled at just about every level while Andy

was with us. I got police reports filed but mostly, no one knew what to do with it. :shrug:

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Exactly.

We have no where to go, and unless the ACLU gets a branch open to provide free legal representation for people who want to fight corrupt cities, we just have to stay in slow simmer, until something happens. Like the song says.

[EFerrari]

26. Well, there's an idea. Maybe I or someone needs to talk to ACLU

because what happened to Andy and to his supporters fell into every crack. It was insane.

[The Backlash Cometh]

32. Yes, someone with connections should talk to the ACLU,

and they should get a branch open to help deal with our present problem. The fact that developers are the only ones who have the money to challenge the cities we live in, and that our city government are so pro-real estate, that the settlements that those two hash out are rarily in the best interest of the public.

So, they need a branch which can help members of the public against corrupt HOA's that collude with the city, or cities who are just so damn corrupt, that they manage to get away with just about everything.

[OzarkDem]

19. I was stalked in 2006

By someone who left threatening phone and email messages, also tried to hack into my computer at work. They threatened to cause problems for my business.

They even followed me to DU. Fortunately, they eventually stopped since one of the ringleaders had a serious criminal past that caught up with him. Glad its over for now, but it was very frightening to go through it.

[brentspeak]

21. Who were these freaks? Why were they harrassing you?

[OzarkDem]

22. Actually fellow Dems

who had left the party over a contentious primary race. One of them was a former political consultant whose career was ruined when he was caught in a few police stings trying to lure young men for sex. Eventually everyone figured out he was a problem and dumped him. He probably stopped harrassing people because it was about to affect his probation status.

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. Okay, that's my hidden fear.

That some well-meaning DUer might pass on the mailing list to someone in my neighborhood who happens to call himself or herself a Democrat, or an Independent who goes to Democratic meetings, and in reality, is someone the Democratic party would dump if they really knew the trouble they've caused our community.

It could happen.

[OzarkDem]

25. Hopefully its rare

But there's nothing worse than being in the position of having to defend yourself against someone who is perceived to be an "upstanding" Democrat, but is really a twisted freak stalking you.

[The Backlash Cometh]

31. Thanks, because that is what's top on my list whenever I get a

call from a Democratic organization, asking for me to volunteer. Well, actually, only the Obama group called me to volunteer, everybody else just asks for money.

<By the way, anyone in the Obama campaign, I was crabby that day you called, but I wouldn't mind a second chance to help out. Probably okay for everyone else too, but you never asked.>

[michreject]

33. Who do we call?

<By the way, anyone in the Obama campaign, I was crabby that day you called, but I wouldn't mind a second chance to help out. Probably okay for everyone else too, but you never asked.>



:evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin: :evilgrin:

[EFerrari]

27. I wonder. The lead harasser of Andy kept claiming he was a progressive.

He was nothing of the sort -- it was just a cover, and a thin one at that. :shrug:

[OzarkDem]

29. Makes me so sad

to remember all the harassment Andy went through when he was so sick. In a way, I can never forgive those people.

Some stalkers may claim to be liberals or progressives to throw off suspicions. In my case (which I'm pretty sure is rare) it was actually someone who was an active Dem, held prestigious consulting jobs, but ruined his career when he was caught in the child molestation sting. I suspect he may have "left the reservation" so to speak, and was actually getting paid by the GOP to cause problems.

[EFerrari]

30. In Andy's case (and all of us who were hounded), if you went

to the ringleader's site, it was flat out scary rightwing militia stuff. And yet, this person went all over claiming to be a progressive.

[lonestarnot]

20. can kiss my ass.

[The Backlash Cometh]

24. They have to find it first!