For example, 2008 is the year Senator John Kerry can kiss any future presidential ambitions goodbye. Those who donated online to his 2004 primary campaign do not appreciate his turning over their information to others. As the primaries began, they did not appreciate being harassed with e-mails and phone calls asking them to donate to Barack Obama's campaign.
"My phone number is unlisted," says community member Lynda echoing many who wouldn't support Kerry today for anything. Kerry can forget about the McKinnons support, as Mike has long documented at his site, for exactly the same reason. His aunt reveals she sent in checks to Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and made a point of marking through her phone number for that reason explaining, "It wasn't just the asking for contributions, starting two weeks before the [February Democratic] primary, we began non-stop robo-phone calls asking us to vote for Barack. I am not only voting for Ed O'Reilly [in the primary], if Ed loses, I'll be voting for the Republican running against John Kerry. We have three lines in our home, the only one getting the robo-calls to vote for Barack was the one we input when donating online for Kerry."
Lynda agrees with Mike's aunt and adds of her own experience, "It's unlisted for a reason. I did not appreciate getting endless calls, I did not appreciate having to change the number. I was not asked, 'Is it fine for me to share your information'?
But that's what John Kerry did and it wasn't his information to share. Jim accessed an old e-mail account he rarely even checks these days and, sure enough, there was non-stop Barack crap. Non-close personal friend David Plouffe was e-mailing him Tuesday about "Lies to Nowhere." Looking through the account, the only thing unread was non-stop Barack crap. 2007 contained some John Kerry e-mails (unread) and you can go all the way back through 2004 for the seven "Thank you for your contribution" e-mails to Kerry's 2004 primary campaign. Not only was Kerry the only candidate Jim had given money to, he never signed up with any political organization or candidate using that e-mail address. Opening the last one, we find:
Thank you for your generous contribution to our campaign.
The election is in full swing now, and we're winning -- but only thanks to people like you.
Please take the next step and ask your friends to sign up for Johnkerry.com.
John Kerry's success on Election Day depends on all of us and signing up will ensure your friends participate in activities that will make the difference in November.
If you want to learn more about John Kerry or his positions on the issues, please visit our website at http://www.johnkerry.com.
Thanks for your support!
Thank you,
The JohnKerry.com Team
Nowhere in that e-mail does it say, "By the way, in four years, I'll be handing over all your information during the Democratic primary to the candidate I've decided to endorse." The Kerry Team did ask you to sign up your friends and, if you did, you probably owe them an apology because Kerry repaid your support by harvesting information and passing it on to another campaign without permission. That's a funny way to say "Thanks for your support!"
Keesha knows all about the harvesting of information online from her own experiences and never, not even comments at a website, uses her real e-mail address.
"Your told your e-mail will not be made public, but you'll quickly learn otherwise," she explains. Whenever I leave a comment, I invert a letter or number in my e-mail address. If the site requires registration for comments, I don't leave a comment. I've had way too many bad experiences. At one 'Democratic' site in March 2004, I ended up with an online stalker who somehow obtained my information and harassed me repeatedly each day with e-mails. I ended up creating a new e-mail account. Now I'm very careful to only give my e-mail address to friends and to tell them not to send me something from a website because that can result in your getting spam mail. I never believe any site that says your e-mail will be kept private."
Which brings us to Dissident Voice, a website the community enjoys and the topic of discussion last week.
The online magazine allows comments after you fill in the following:
Your Name (required)
Email (will not be published!) (required)
Website (optional)
Though your e-mail is published, your e-mail hasn't been private. That point was driven home to Martha last Tuesday when she checked her account and found an e-mail from Stacie Adams that she was sent that day at 12:20 p.m. (PST). Who the hell is Stacie Adams?
Her bio says she's "an unassuming and introverted young woman with plans to take over the world and make it tolerable." She apparently feels the way to do that is to harvest private information and send e-mails to those who don't like her bad writing.
"Shrill, Baby, Shrill! Tactical Coups at the RNC and the Coming Out of Sarah Palin" is Adams' bad and offensive article. In one sentence, Adams manages to insult a wide stretch of America and to flaunt zero tolerance of many groups: "Between passing around her special needs baby for various photo ops and braying maniacally about the horror of being a community organizer, she struck that shrill conservative note beautifully."
"Passing around her special needs baby" is an offensive statement. For background, Hilda's Mix is a Common Ills community newsletter that was started to serve and highlight community members who are disabled/have special needs. Hilda had a personal reason for starting that newsletter, she's deaf. We asked her opinion of Adams' offensive remarks regarding special-needs and Hilda wrote back, "It wasn't all that long ago in this country that any disability meant you were hidden away. Adams is being not just insensitive but insulting. She is expressing distaste over the fact that Sarah Palin made her child with Down syndrome [Trig Palin] a public member of her family, someone as wanted and as deserving of sharing the moment as her other children who do not have special-needs. The language is insulting and offensive, suggesting that those of us not considered 'normal' should be hidden away. If Adams was 'grossed out' by the sight of a beautiful baby who has done nothing to harm anyone, she might take some time asking herself why that was and she might attempt to make a public apology to the special-needs community because that baby had as much reason to be included in his mother's big moment as any other of her children."
And the smarmy snark on a special-needs child was deplorable. It is not a minor issue to this community or to this site. July 30, 2006, Ava and C.I. were tackling one woman suggesting that special-needs children need to be hidden away.
There are a number of issues we deal with in various community newsletter. When Martha forwarded the e-mail from Stacie Adams, the consensus was that we would do that with this; however, C.I. made a point to read the article Tuesday evening and hit the roof on Adams' insulting and damaging remark regarding special-needs children.
"You need to go back to 2004 and the big announcement that John Edwards would be John Kerry's running mate," C.I. offers. "The young Edwards children were photographed and received nice press. Why shouldn't they? They're children. Fast forward four years later and Palin's indicted for 'passing around her special needs child'? That's is so far out of bounds. That's insulting to Trig Palin, that's insulting to all children and adults with special-needs and that's insulting to Sarah Palin and her husband. She did not 'pass around' her child. As Hilda says, she included her child in what was a big moment for her family. Adams may be uncomfortable around or with the mere fact that not everyone is as capable as she sees herself. That's her damn problem. The child was not 'passed around.' Palin held her son, her husband held their son, her children held the son and, when Palin was speaking, Cindy McCain went over to hold the child to allow Palin's husband to be able to stand. Apparently, to Stacie Adams, there was a cootie outbreak in Minnesota that she was repelled by. The family and Cindy held the baby and that was just too much information for Adams. Adams needs to confront her own prejudice. Trig Palin is a beautiful, little boy. He is not someone to be hidden away or ashamed of but Adams' offense that he was as visible as any of his siblings indicates she believes otherwise. So sorry that Adams had to leave her world of comfort for a minute and grasp that there are people who are different from her. She should relax, it's not 'catchy,' it's a chromosome issue so, to address more garbage online, Palin's birth or when her membrane began leaking in the ninth month, had nothing to do with Down syndrome. It is a condition that begins at conception, it does not suddenly appear in the birthing or after the birth. No one 'catches' it and Stacie Adams can relax, seeing Trig on her TV screen did not put her 'at risk' -- either of 'catching' the condition or of embracing humanity. "
We searched in vain for some moment where Adams decried the Obama girls appearing at the DNC convention or on Access Hollywood but found none. We'll assume she saves her vennum for special-needs children only. How very 'progressive' of her.
The National Down Syndrome Society explains that "more than 400,000 people in the U.S. have this genetic condition. One of the most frequently occurring chromosomal abnormalities, Down syndrome affects people of all ages, races and economic levels. Today, individuals with Down syndrome are active participants in the educational, vocational, social and recreational aspects of our communities. In fact, there are more opportunities than ever before for individuals with Down syndrome to develop their abilities, discover their talents and realize their dreams. For example, more teens and adults with Down syndrome each year are graduating from high school, going to college, finding employment and living independently. The opportunities currently available to individuals with Down syndrome have never been greater. However, it is only through the collective efforts of parents, professionals, and concerned citizens that acceptance is becoming even more widespread."
Acceptance is becoming even more widespread . . . except in Stacie Adams' home.
Now Martha's objection was over the sexist language. "Shrill" and "braying" were applied to Palin by Adams. Martha's call wasn't out of bounds. But it resulted in an e-mail from Adams.
Adams misses the irony of the quote she ends her e-mail with: "People come up to me and say 'What's wrong?' Nothing. 'Well it takes more energy to frown than it does to smile'. Yeah, you know it takes more energy to point that out than it does to leave me alone?" (Bill Hicks.) Does Adams believe that quote applies to Martha? It certainly "takes more energy" to e-mail Martha than it does to leave her alone.
Adams chose to post an insulting and sexist article at a site that allows comments. Seeing (yet another) woman being attacked in sexist terms ("shrill" and "braying") Martha left the following comment at Dissident Voice:
Sexism never wins your argument with me. The author lost me with her garbage including, "Between passing around her special needs baby for various photo ops and braying maniacally about the horror of being a community organizer, she struck that shrill conservative note beautifully." Shrill and braying in one sentence. Just a reminder that some of the worst sexist pigs are women.
Less than four hours after posting that comment (it was approved at some point), Stacie Adams enters Martha's inbox.
We contacted a number of people for this article and had planned to quote them. Bloggers and Dissident Voice.
Joshua Frank (of Dissident Voice) might like to be quoted but C.I. made the call that Frank's e-mail was private unless he stated otherwise because he is not the publisher of Dissident Voice. Sunil K. Sharma is the publisher and we did exchange e-mails with Sharma. Dissident Voice was unaware that this had happened and they are checking into it. Sharma responded at length and we would love to quote; however, we advised from the start that we were seeking comments for publication and we asked that this be approved. We did not get such approval.
From the e-mails (from Frank and Sharma), we believe the issue is being addressed and will not be a problem in the future. (And we do thank both men for responding and responding promptly.)
As stated, we also e-mailed bloggers. That includes people from the field of journalism who now blog and people who, as far as we know, began their public writing careers with blogs or personal websites. If any of the many people who were kind enough to reply would like to be quoted and misunderstood that we were writing for express permission to quote them, we will quote them next week.
Some shared that they had contacted someone who had left something on their own personal site which they found offensive. We tried to be clear in our e-mails (and will try to be clear here) that the issue with Adams is very different than that. Had Frank or Sharma taken offense to anything Martha or anyone else left at Dissident Voice and contacted them, that wouldn't have resulted in an article. Dissident Voice is online magazine and the ones running it can do with it as they see fit. Stacie Adams is a writer whose articles are posted to Dissident Voice. She is not on the masthead.
We would not be at all surprised by those running DV having access to the e-mail addresses of people who leave comments. We wouldn't be at all surprised for those with personal blogs or websites to have access to the e-mail addresses of people leaving comments at their own sites.
We do wonder how a writer (Adams) got access? (And if we could quote from a Sharma e-mail, we could explain how that may have happened.) But when the issue came up Tuesday evening, we made a list of community members who often e-mail (C.I.) to get something from DV highlighted. We then e-mailed those members to explain what happened to Martha and ask if anything similar had happened to them?
It had but nothing negative. Several members reported receiving e-mails from writers after they left comments at Dissident Voice. These were not e-mails like the one Stacie Adams sent to Martha. The writers were advising on their other writing and on the writing of others. [Those writers are not named here and were not named by us to Dissident Voice. There were no complaints over those e-mails and that had been taken place for several months.]
While there is a difference between that and the stunt Adams pulled, Dissident Voice was unaware that was taking place either.
Moving to the larger issue: Privacy concerns are not just an issue when it applies to the government.
The federal government now not only regularly circumvents the law to compile information on individuals, they also go to corporations where they are able to purchase the information that even they apparently fear gathering on their own.
The Patriot Act resulted in many cities and towns passing resolutions against it (see Bill of Rights Defense Committee). One thing many librarians were already doing was disposing of personal information as quickly as possible and many locales passing resolutions adopted those measures.
We were reminded of it often in 2007 and 2006 when we'd see one online blogger break from their weeks off to post a Guess-what-people-who-came-here-also-went-to post. We'd read that (usually in a copy & paste e-mail) and wonder what the point was in either gathering that information or making it public?
Google may gather site statistics here (we're sure they do since they own Blogspot/Blogger) but we do not. You will not find counters or anything that compiles your personal information at any community site including this one. There's already enough personal information gathering and compiling going on and we don't intend to add to it.
The Online Privacy Alliance has this to say on "Choice/Consent:"
Individuals must be given the opportunity to exercise choice regarding how individually identifiable information collected from them online may be used when such use is unrelated to the purpose for which the information was collected. At a minimum, individuals should be given the opportunity to opt out of such use.
Additionally, in the vast majority of circumstances, where there is third party distribution of individually identifiable information, collected online from the individual, unrelated to the purpose for which it was collected, the individual should be given the opportunity to opt out.
Consent for such use or third party distribution may also be obtained through technological tools or opt-in.
Clearly, neither John Kerry nor Stacie Adams share that belief.
Another issue we'd encourage readers to think about would be your right to privacy when you make a complaint? Should your complaint result in a response to the specifics or should be placed on a junk mail list? Feminist Majority Foundation and LeftTurn believe the latter as forwarded e-mails from readers demonstrate. Complain to either of them and get added to their junk mail list.
(For Feminist Majority Foundation, you then begin receiving their monthly calendar. For LeftTurn, you get an e-mail whenever they post something new. Please note, neither bothered to reply to complaints, they just added those complaining to their junk mail list.)
In recent years, attempts to share information gathered on the part of both FaceBook and Google led to a huge outcry. This is a new terrain and each erosion of privacy means futher erorisons -- from corporations, the government and individuals. The future doesn't start tomorrow or even today. It's already began and our lives and our right to privacy are already being determined.