enough already!
So my mistake in life is that I answer email. Or I try to answer email -- however late. There are 400 emails in my to answer box, a bulge that began after the Eldred loss. And I'm committed to clearing the box by January 1.
All of which makes me particularly sensitive to email that I should not have to answer but which appears in my inbox because of the mistakes of others. E.g.:
A gaggle of angry emails continue this week based on Declan's claim that I "want to preserve freedom by ending anonymity." I pointed out that in fact, the article Declan quoted said nothing of the sort. I never called for "limiting anonymity" and the article never said I did. Though Declan found time to have a bunch of followups to his post, he hasn't had time to correct this error -- even though the author of the piece wrote to him to say that I had never said anything of the sort, and his article was not meant to suggest that I did.
I am surprised at Declan's silence here. When asked by one of his readers whether he would correct his post, he responded, "Are you high?" I guess I was high too, though perhaps he's a busy guy, and perhaps he'll get around to it someday. But meanwhile, enough of the anonymity flames, please. There are lots of things I have said to scream about. This was not one of them.
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Comments (15)
So you're just discovering now that Declan is a weasel?
Your politics - you are willing to consider that government is not all bad, all the time - are mortally offensive to him. If he can knock you, or cause you problems, or misrepresent your views in a trolling manner, he will do so. Always and forever. Now that you've learned that, don't forget it.
And Seth, of course, is a paranoid nutcase. If you haven't learned that yet, you will.
Last summer I emailed you and you eventually got back to me, it was much appreciated. I know that you're a very busy man, and the fact that you took time out of your schedule to respond to an email from an intern in the California Lt. Governor's office, well I was surprised and pleased. So I just thought that this would be a good time to say thank you.
Speaking of Seth, whatever happened to stalkedbyseth.com, anyway? It seems to have disappeared. It was an amazing, and important bit of net psycho-history that needs to be preserved for future generations.
Declan asked me if I was high when I asked that he (Declan) owed Professor Lessig an apology, if not an outright retraction. I have yet to recieve Declan's reply supporting his position.
Seth,
I read your blog and respect the work you have done. My humble advice to you is to shed the chains of frustration that seem to shackle you to the need for publicity. Keep doing your thing and you will get noticed. Forego your ego to advance technology and the inherent debates involved, and your name will live in history.
It's a rare quality these days, but the ability to surrender or simply admit a mistake is quite liberating. Declan might benefit from this insight.
--Jason
Andrew Orlowski, who was cited above, pegged Declan quite accurately in his discussion of the MicroFlaccid anti-trust trial. He Called him a, " a draw-by-crayon libertarian".
FWIW, I had a dialogue with him over Declan over his use of stuff from the Scaife supported Cato Institute as gospel, and as a result of this experience, I'd suggest that you not hold your breath waiting for a correction.
It's admirable that you try to answer all that email. But surely you must have some priorities of your own that guide what you want to spend time on, versus what you want to ignore? Publishing such characterizations of "what I will spend time on, what I won't" could help filter your inbox.
As to the question of anonymity itself, a useful distinction, indeed a core ontrological distinction, is that between some body and no body. If you have "no body", and are say a bot or a corporation, then presumably your rights should be less than those accorded to "some body". It isn't necessary to know your "Real name" - only that there is "some body" that takes ultimate responsibility. For these reasons many of us trolls prefer simple anonymous IP numbers which are in principle traceable if anything loathsome is done. The over-reaction of sysops to these, and their active attempts to suppress political dissent on most blogs and wikis, however, forces trolls to use pseudonyms, proxies, etc., foiling our honest attempts at accountability. It would be useful perhaps for you to comment on this habit of trolls, and perhaps our gnawings would become more tolerable to those sysops who can see the error of their ways.
400 email replies by January 1st. Good luck. If you are able to find the time and stamina to do that more power to you!!
Declan was once a good reporter - then he apparently decided he would become the next Markoff, and everything went downhill from there.
The upshot of the whole thing: Declan thinks more highly of himself than anyone else. Expecting him to roll back his ego for the sake of integrity is like expecting Bush to invite Gore for an evening in the Lincoln bedroom.
Don't worry about it, Lawrence. Anyone that takes his writings as gospel isn't worth the worry or hassle.
Who is Markoff?
BTW, when was Declan a good reporter? He's always read like a libertarian Fox News.
He was just one of the first on the scene, but I've always found his stuff unbalanced and juvanile.
"Who is Markoff?"
This might be a good starting point:
http://www.takedown.com/
For a counterpoint, check:
http://www.kevinmitnick.com/
It's a divisive online saga where some would argue that John Markoff got rich via the unlawful persecution of Kevin Mitnick and others would argue that he (Markoff) broke the story that got (or shamed) the feds interested enough to track down a nefarious hacker.
Hope that helps.
--Jason
I appreciated the email reply as well, but I wrote "no reply necessary" in my original email message for a reason. You have better things to do with your time than to feel obligated to reply to every know-nothing and blowhard who decided to give you a piece of his mind.
As for Declan, I have my own story. I tried for weeks to get him to correct his misreporting about the SAFE act, which would have made changes to crypto export laws. Declan refused to admit that the bill would have liberalized export of open source software, and he never corrected his misreporting (at that time in Wired magazine).
Have you considered using ActiveWords for quickly answering similar Emails?
Declan McCullagh's behavior indeed goes back very far. Here's a simple historic example of the exact same pattern we are seeing now (excerpts below):
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5iuqjf%24ag1%241%40news.nyu.edu&output=gplain
From: fresh@scscomm.com (Andrew Mathis)
Subject: I hit 4K; Thank *YOU* Declan McCullagh
Date: 1997/04/14
"A little over a year ago, Declan, defender of free speech that he is,
alerted Don Black, a former KKK leader, a friend of David Duke, and
producer of the "Stormfront" (oooh, I'm scared) World Wide Web Site,
that I was calling for "censorship" of his site."
"So what kind of person does that make Declan McCullagh? He's so
protective against perceived censorship that he alerts the KKK that
I'm out to get them. This is an organization with a well-defined
history of violence against anybody that isn't white and Christian. ..."
"Well, the results of Declan's letter to Don Black were mixed. First
of all, I got about 100 death threats, all anonymous ... but more than
that -- I got twice as many hits as I'd had already! Plus, I got
magazine articles and newspaper articles written about me; I got
offers to write web and print pieces on hate groups; I became a
regular freaking pundit!"
[Ed note - the writer there also has a few charged comments insinuating anti-Semitic feelings to Declan. Let me note I don't believe that's true at all. But I'd excuse the accusation in this context. Remember, this guy is writing with great anger regarding getting about 100 deaths threats from *real* KKK-types due to Declan's evident desire to stir up a controversy. Again, Declan McCullagh does this sort of thing over and over.]
Declan is sometimes a wanker.
For example, he was the original guy to get "DVD-Jon" in trouble. He wrote
a completely inacurate story in two hours and posted it. It's funny, really
when you think about what really happenned vs what most people think
happenned because of that article.
Declan didn't appologise for the writing things that weren't true. Instead he
blamed it on Jon for not phoning him back. (Of course, Jon was at school
when Declan phoned).
Declan did not understand how his inaccurate stories affect other people's
lives. He honestly thought it was Jon's fault because he didn't phone him
back within two hours.
In a way, Al Gore *did* have a hand in "inventing the internet." When he talked about inventing the internet, he was referring to the role he played in funding early technological developments that fostered its growth.