My friend Andrew Breitbart sounded the trumpet for a thousand citizen journalists to rise up. Andrew was the subject of countless vile attacks daily, but even he could not have imagined the amount of energy that a handful of groups and individuals have put into attacking friends of Andrew and citizens journalistd who heeded his call.
These attacks are often done by anonymous accounts who seem to feel that they have no accountability for what they say online. They and a small group of people acting under their own name show a reckless disregard for the truth, making baseless and false accusations with a degree of vulgarity and mean-spiritedness which puts their conduct well outside the bounds of both civility and more importantly, the law.
[pullquote align=”right”]This defamatory intimidation has succeeded in having a chilling effect on up-and-coming writers.[/pullquote]I have seen these attacks leveled against people like Brandon Darby, Liberty Chick, Patrick Frey, Aaron Walker, and myself. As I have been covering the Republican National Convention for the past week, and am about to break a major story about Barack Obama, these attacks have intensified and worsened and have included despicable intimidation designed to put fear into my family. It’s caused me at some points to hate two things I love; political discussion and the internet.
This is about something much bigger than me, however.
In the past week, I have talked to at least three people who have told me that after seeing the attacks I have faced, they have no desire to write about or discuss politics in any way. This understandable reaction is sad, but it cuts to the heart of the deeply un-American attacks that have been enabled by an anonymous internet culture where people see no consequences whatsoever of their actions.
These stillborn political voices - voices we will never hear - demonstrate that all the amazing digital publishing and broadcasting technology in the world can actually hurt the cause of free speech when maliciously misused by people with a nihilistic political agenda and lacking the ability to create, acting on nothing but the desire to dt tear down, mock and destroy.
Luckily, our country already has laws in place about defamation and harassment that are designed to deal with these things.
Enough is enough.
Some of you wonderful folks have asked me how you can help to support my family in its defense against the attacks being organized against me, my children, my wife, my friends and my company. Here’s how:
I’m putting together a major defamation case against two groups of people:
- Brooks Bayne, his organization The Trenches, and everyone directly associated with it in these attacks, including screen names such as @cryingwolfeblog, @xcitizen10, @foolishreporter, @zapem, & @swiftreed and
@BradleySRees. - People or groups apparently connected to Brett Kimberlin and / or Neil Rauhauser, including screennames such as @liberalgrouch, @occupyrebellion, @anonyopx.
What you can do to help:
Just keeping up with and doucmentin these attacks has been a tiring job for me. But it has to happen in order to bring an effective case and show these people that they can’t lie, defame, harass and intimidate without legal consequence.
So I’m crowdsource the ‘neighborhood watch’.
What you can do to help is to screencap and save any attacks by these people. We’ll ask for these screencaps later on in order to help build our case.
Look for anything that accuses me of criminal behavior, unprofessional conduct or which besmirches my journalistic reputation. Also please look for and save any messages in which any of these people have contacted my employer (Brietbart.com), my coworkers, and any potential clients or business associates.
Screencap and hold onto this material. If I need it, I will ask for it.
If you can do this, it would really help to keep me from being distracted by the reckless defamation and endless harassment by these people.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Recent Comments