But it relates very specifically to the phrase you keep using - that there is a presumption of innocence that the PJ people are denying to their targets. I have contended that you’re mistaken in the way you use the phrase “presumption of innocence,” and I think your answers to the thought experiment I’ve proposed will make clear precisely where your misunderstanding lies.
So why not indulge me? Answer the questions, even if they are irrelevant.
You have your own standards about what’s acceptable and not acceptable. That’s a course for your own moral compass to chart.
But that’s not quite the issue here. You’ve asserted that the PJ people are doing something that has legal implications. When you play that card, you leave the realm of “it’s your opinion” and enter a more defined and objective arena. When you say that the PJ people deprive their targets of their right to the presumption of innocence, you’re making a legal claim. It is in this area that I wish to correct the record, and I do believe I can convince you otherwise. You may leave this discussion still convinced that they are acting reprehensibly; you may not (I hope) leave it convinced that they are depriving others of their legal rights.
Arbuckle weathered the storm of a false accusation and made a successful comeback after his acquittal. In addition, he never sued – his rehabilitation was on the back of a jury acquittal alone, not his own lawsuit for damages.
Moreover, Arbuckle faced an official accusation – a criminal prosecution – not simply a an accusation from a private party. This presumably carries more weight. Yet still, despite these differences, Arbuckle is remembered as a man who was falsely accused and vindicated.
Garfield are you kidding me? That is your site? A harassment suit brought by the parents of a kid who showed up (and he did show up) in a mall expecting to have sex with a 14yr old girl? Did you even read the whole finding? Even if they had the jursdiction to rule, they would have still ruled against the family. As it was not PJ.com that was harassing him, it was people who saw the site.
I see, have seen nothing yet, that points to PJ being a vigilante group. Try again with that one.
You made the accusation, why do I now have to do work to prove you right? Either you have something to back up your bold claims, or you dont. im guessing you dont?
Bricker I think that’s a matter of opinion. Fatty is first thought of as that guy who used a coke bottle on a chick; I don’t think and this is a matter of MY opinion, the public at large even thinks about the rest of his life.
Lordy. Now everyone’s arguing about Fatty Arbuckle. Aren’t internet discussions grand?
Anyway, thought I’d pop in and gently remind Bricker that, while harassment might not be an offense in his state, it sure is in others, including mine. See Texas Penal Code section 42.07.
So, if you plan to cause the telephone of an alleged pedophile to ring repeatedly, better not do it in Texas, y’hear?
Now “I” don’t consider that a succesful comeback, but that’s my opinion and you and the author are welcomed to yours…however even the author realizes what Fatty is remembered for…
Sure. But are you aware of any actions undertaken by any PJ members that would, if done in Texas, constitute harassment under Texas Penal Code section 42.07?
I’m sorry, but as I look at the absymal record of Hollywood stars and their marriages, I’m afraid I cannot conclude that, but for the accusations against him, Arbuckle would have had a single, long-term happy marriage.
Harassment, stalking, and threats of violence do have legal implications. I’d love to see you claim otherwise.
By acting as judge and jury outside a court of law, they are depriving people of their rights. I don’t much care if the right not to be harassed, stalked and threatened by internet vigilantes isn’t written down in some dusty book somewhere. There is such a thing as harassment by communication, there is such a thing as stalking, and there is such a thing as terroristic threats, and if one of these assholes from perverted justice was the defendant, I would vote to convict. I think that when someone says ‘Don’t contact me anymore.’ and the other person goes out of their way to do just that, by phone and/or email and/or in person, it meets my (a juror type person’s) definition of 'harassment by communication.
[QUOTE=Bricker]
Now, there is a tort - a civil wrong, not a crime - called invasion of privacy. This allows you to sue someone who invades your privacy. There are four versions of this tort:
[li]Public disclosure - the revelation of private facts that are truthful but not of public concern, and which release would offend a reasonable person. If you published the fact that I masturbate to still pictures of Helen Hunt from “AS Good As It Gets,” and if that were true, I would still likely have a claim against you. In this case, however, the facts are in fact “of public interest” since they involve attempted sexual crimes against minors.[/li][/QUOTE]
So does this include phone numbers, addresses, social security numbers, and such? It seems to me that any reasonable person would be offended at having their contact information released for purposes of targeting them for telephone harrassment. Are they of public interest simply because someone SAYS they attempted a crime?
re: Perverted Justice members hiding their identities:
And that’s bad, but it’s not a problem if PJ’s targets are frightened of extra-legal consequences of having their names and addresses posted on a site that says they molest children? If having one’s identity posted publically is dangerous, then what they’re doing is dangerous. They can’t have it both ways. If they’re not putting people at risk then they have no reason to hide their own identities. You’re saying they’re not vigilantes and they don’t threaten people?
Like the other person said, PJ can make the logs say anything at all that they want and they could tell a person he’s meeting an adult and then change it. That’s far from rock-solid. Now, if they have them on video or phone tapes actually talking about sex with minors that’s another story.
Believe it or not some reporters do lie and this has been shown on numerous occasions. NBC stands to make a hell of a lot of money of these shows. Besides, most of PJ’s targets have nothing to do with the Dateline show.
Motivation? Money. A lot of people would do a lot of things to get $100,000 from NBC and whatever else they’re being paid for. Also you’re crazy if you don’t think there could be people who would pay to get their names taken off that site. Power. There are a lot of people who would love to be able to join a website and destroy the lives and reputations of people they have a beef with.
There are allegations by the Corrupted Justice people, as well as a Pravda reporter, that when they’ve criticized PJ they’ve been called by PJ members trying to lure them into chats. They say that PJ edits their forums to remove all records of their failures, mistakes, and criticism of them. I see no reason at all to doubt these allegations any more than someone should doubt the allegations that PJ makes. Why should THEY lie?
“(7) sends repeated electronic communications in a
manner reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment,
embarrass, or offend another.”
That’s pretty much what they do. Embarrass, offend, torment. They say they’d be fine if their communications drove someone to suicide, and that they should not stop in order to prevent that. Is that not torment & repetition?
That’s fine. But your refusal to discuss what is meant by “presumption of innocence,” combined with your insistence on continuing to use the term, suggests that you have no real interest in clarifying precisely what you mean by it. You’re spouting it as buzz-phrase, a meaniingless platitude designed to elicit sympathy for your position. Everyone agrees that people should be presumed innocent, after all!
But you don’t know what you mean when you say it. You’re unwilling to explain precisely what you mean, but you keep using the phrase anyway. This is an example of the fallacy of equivocation.
Yes, those terms do. But they have specific legal meanings. Do the actions taken by the PJ members constitute “stalking” within the legal meaning of the term?
Luckily, then, the question isn’t likely to get to you, the juror, until a judge first decides that the legal standard for the charge is met. You need to allege more egregious conduct than simply “Don’t contact me any more,” and subsequent contact.
You sneer at the concept of “some dusty book somewhere,” without seeming to realize the contradiction you’re claiming: in one breath, you zealously defend “rights;” in the next, you disregard the due process right for everyone to know what, precisely, the law says so that they can conform their conduct to it. If the “dusty book” doesn’t criminalize an act, it’s not a crime. You would be willing to vote to convict PJ volunteers even though they didn’t transgress any written law, in violation of their actual legal rights, while protecting a mythical “right” of the pedophiles that exists only in your imagination.
Are they releasing such information for the purpose of targetting them for telephone harassment? What evidence do you have of that? I suspect they would say they are releasing the evidence for the public safety purpose of informing the public about the presence of a child molestor.
You miscast - or miss - what I said. They are at risk because criminals that they have exposed are likely to take revenge. The criminals, to the extent that they are at risk by virtue of their criminality being exposed, have brought that risk on themselves. The two cases are not analogous. The PJ people have acted legally to expose a criminal. The criminals have acted ILLEGALLY and the risk of arrest, prosecution, and the shame that those results bring are a consequence of their illegal actions.
Do you have any evidence that they HAVE changed any logs, even once?
For all the finger-wagging you do in political threads over posters demanding jail time for people who have not yet stood trial, the answer to this should be obvious.