Mimicking your opponent to make a point is not truly hypocrisy. It’s basically daring Poindexter to get upset about it and make him argue the wrong side. Surely this is clear. It’s a harsh way of getting Poindexter to see what the recieving end feels like.
Disagree with the method but calling it hypocrisy is B.S.It’s called “Fight fire with fire” and a good way to burn down the forest.
(Maybe if Chumpsky were all along running a secret information gathering organization and he was really only against TIA as a rival then ok that’s hypocritical)
There are vast functional and ethical differences between looking up somebody’s personal information and posting somebody’s personal information for the purpose of encouraging the harrassment of that person (or worse). A person who does the former is nosy; a person who does the latter should, frankly, be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agencies.
From Matt Smith’s own take on the thing (full column here)
(Matt Smith writes for the SF Weekly. He had the idea of spreading Poindexter’s information, and John Gilmore ran with it.
In that edition (last week’s), there was also a letter to the editor describing one reader’s phone conversation with Poindexter’s wife.
(Matt Smith was also on Democracy Now! today, though I only caught the very end of it so I missed what was said.)
I’m not sure that the abuse of the information by the people who’ve spread it around is any more an effective way to demonstrate the abuse of information in the TIA plan than mugging politicians who appear soft on crime would be.
On the other hand, this is public personal information, if you get my drift.
To what degree should it be considered inappropriate to share it? After all, the point of the people who are calling to protest is that even information in the public domain can be abused if it’s brought into one place and then distributed, much like what Poindexter wants to do with TIA.
Unlike the anti-abortion sites that list addresses, there’s no context of wanting someone to threaten/kill Poindexter in Chumpsky’s post (although those who’ve read some of his other threads can sense that he wants Poindexter to be annoyed)… Why would it be right to contact the authorities about this?
In other words: Chumpsky may have violated rules of nettiquite and courtesy, but has he done anything legally wrong?
There’s not much else to say about the disctinction between law and ethics in the call of the OP’s question.
As far as the red herring, perhaps I should elaborate. Whether the TIA unduly pries into the realm of privacy is irrelevant to whether it’s OK to publish a “private” address.
To suggest that such publication is OK because the TIA is bad public policy for similar reasons falls into the fallacy of two wrongs.
I’m sorry – I wasn’t implying that you were being rude.
My point about bringing up legality was that a previous poster had expressed the opinion that perhaps Chumpsky should be reported to the authorities. I kinda thought that was outside the bounds of my OP… and was pointing that out.
In all seriousness: was it ethically wrong of Chumpsky to be rude?
I believe that the TIA project is something worth resisting, but I reject resistance through use of the same techniques that we profess to find so obnoxious if they were to be practiced by the government
I don’t believe the SDMB message boards should be used to invite harassment of anyone.
Nonviolent protest took a whole new sway with the advent of the internet…I didn’t see a whole lot of difference in what Chumpsky did, than sitting one’s collective bulbous butts down in refusual of unblocking the the intrance to the Baby Seal Splatter Institute, in less than an orderly fashion.
At least nobody’s gonna pull their groins when they yell go limp!
Rand
My opinion of Poindexter, Ashcroft, & co is extremely…low. To put it mildly.
I see nothing wrong at all with using the same tactics against them that they see fit to use against their fellow citizens.
Justice. Instead of just us.
I was going to submit a heartfelt post supporting the outing, but then I realized there are too many informers her. So I’m just going to say something about this:
Mojo says:
‘You’re saying that you find their behavior so morally repugnant that you’re going to mimic it?’
President Bush announced last week that the policy of the United States People vis-a-vis terrorism now includes Preemptive Nuclear Attack.
Of course the information is public and publicly available on a public figure. So you are just wrong on that account: it wasn’t private.
Just because something is hypocritical doesn’t mean it cannot also be ironic and vice versa. Doesn’t require it. So you are wrong on that point too. Maybe you could punctuate this thread with a post where you state something correctly? Hmm.
Try finding me a poster who is as left wing as Chumpsky. I post in enough political threads on the board to know that there is no regular poster anywhere near as far to the left, but out of 30,000, maybe there is an obscure one. That would be an appropriate punctuation mark.
And Chumpsky does indeed have character, and you and your little chowder society are constantly trying to assassinate it. It is you who have no character.
QUOTE]*Originally posted by minty green *
**There are vast functional and ethical differences between looking up somebody’s personal information and posting somebody’s personal information for the purpose of encouraging the harrassment of that person (or worse). A person who does the former is nosy; a person who does the latter should, frankly, be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. **
[/QUOTE]
Chumpsky posted the the link to the information without comment. You then encouarge malicious prosecution against Chumpsky for this post. I don’t like what the public figure living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave or the public figure living at the Naval Observatory are doing with respect to tax policy. I encourage everyone I know to write them complaining about their conduct. Am I suggesting harassment or petitioning my government? Should I be reported to the “appropriate law enforcement agencies?” There is a retired Navy guy named Michael Moore (not the famous crank, but the same name). He objected to policies and got a visit from the secret service and the local sheriff, who searched his home. That was illegal, unethical, immoral and tyrannical, but nobody at the SdMB seems to think it worth protesting. Instead, they continue to bash those who protest. Do these people deserve liberty? No. And they don’t have it. But they don’t know it yet.
And under what law will they be charging such a person? Illegial telephone book usage?
Call it unethical if you want, but… geez.
Note that I myself don’t like some instances of addresses being public. Today I heard on the radio about some guy who was busted for 4 grams of meth in his house. They thoughtfully mentioned his address. I thought that was highly unneccessary, especially considering he wasn’t convicted yet, but I’m not going to question their legal right to do so.
By the way, I am Sparticus, I have heard about the Michael Moore incident, and I thought it was pretty damn crappy. I haven’t seen the more famous MM comment yet.
There is such a thing as unlisted phone numbers.
I don’t believe rudeness in the defense of liberty is a vice. Total Information Awareness.
Totalitarianism.
If you don’t vehemently object to this as a free citizen of a free country, what in heaven’s name would it take before you would become outraged enough to become rude? 10 years for speaking your mind? Would that be enough?
Damn, you people have to sit down & think what we’re talking about here. This isn’t a fine line. It’s a freakin’ Berlin Wall.
When Bush was running for President, I, as a loyal member of my local “rent-a-mob” organized a bunch of people to go hold signs and annoy his GW ness at an event he was holding at a public school after school hours. The secret service and the local police prohibited us from holding any signs and entering onto the school grounds under threat of arrest. We posed no threat but embarassment, we were not even scruffy.
He then implicitly conceded that his purpose was to harrass Poindexter: “And what makes you think that my purpose is only to harrass Poindexter?” That’s a crime in most jurisdictions I’m aware of. I’m frankly amazed the guy is still here.
