Posted on 12/27/2012 10:11:53 AM PST by Slings and Arrows
Yesterday we told you about the interactive map of local gun owners published by the Journal-News, a newspaper serving the Westchester and Rockland counties of New York, and the outcry it immediately drew. Turns out the stunt was so unpopular — with gun owners and privacy advocates alike — that a blogger named Christopher Fountain took it upon himself to dig up and organize the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the Journal-News staff, starting with editor Cyndee Royle. The post is called "Keep up the heat" and encourages readers to pester the paper and prevent them from...report[ing] gun-owner addresses.
As long as they were keeping it to letters to the editor(s), the staff list was, at first, small potatoes as far as payback goes: the allure of the paper's original map of gun owners was the ability to see who, and how many people, owned a gun near a specific address — the paper's stunt was a map, not just a (sparsely populated) list of names. But overnight a different retaliatory blogger decided to map the newspaper staff addresses culled thus far (from Google and elsewhere). Here's what Robert Cox, of Talk of the Sound, came up with:
-snip-
It's an open question whether the retribution is misplaced. In a morning interview with CNN, Fountain said he was angered by calls from victims of domestic abuse with gun permits who were worried their whereabouts had been inadvertently revealed. And, more philosophically: "In the aftermath of Newtown, it was obviously one tragedy, but somehow they were conflating legal gun owners with some crazed tormented devil up in Newtown and putting the two together."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
This story served no public purpose that I can see. I would say the same thing even if I were not a supporter of the Second Amendment.
I would have a very different view if they printed a map showing how many gun owners lived in different communities or maybe ran a comparative graph showing violent crime rates and gun registration rates. I wouldn't even have a problem with breaking down the stats by police precinct, census data tract, or some other geographic unit that doesn't identify individual gun owners or show their address.
Granted, statistics can be misused and misinterpreted — for example, does high crime generate high gun ownership rates when people seek to protect themselves, or is it the other way around? — but that's a fair use of the raw data.
I can see absolutely no valid grounds for identifying individual gun owners. The management of Gannett can and should be asking hard questions to the publisher and editor of this newspaper.
Post the social security numbers on the internet.
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Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
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Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.
I’d rather our side not be the first to cross that line.
That's going too far unless the original newspaper report included the social security numbers of the gun owners.
If it did, then fair's fair.
It is war now. The lines are crossed.
When it comes to the media there is no “too far.” Why? Because they attack any and everything that will damage a conservative or anyone who dares question the liberal agenda. Look at what they did to Joe the Plumber. Look at what they did to Sarah Palin and her CHILDREN!!!
The media weilds absolute power in this country. They have twice now decided that Barak Obama was above criticism and reproach and have almost singlehandedly elevated this no talent hack to power. They are usurping our democracy and have become no more and no less than the far left’s ministry of propoganda.
Why is it and why should it be that we know every aspect of our politicians lives but know so little about these people who truly weild the power in this country? I demand to know everything about everyone of these media bastards that they demand to know about us. Enough of them being above it all. It is time to drag their asses into the fray that they have created!!!
Thanks Slings and Arrows.
Gannett won't do squat!
They started in Upstate NY, and did exactly the same thing in the Rochester, NY Democrat & Chronicle back in the 70's. They had a five or six full page listing of every CC permit holder in the county - full names and titles plus address - around 7000 or so listings. Then, as now, the excuse was "It's public knowledge."
Not sure what the answer is, but this type of usage of our public records may be legal, but to my mind is unlawful.
I know it’s an invasion of privacy and all, but Hell, I’d *much* rather be on the list than off it. Didn’t it occur to these Nimrods that they were “casing the joint” for prospective buglers and home invaders? Didn’t they notice the long lines at the out-of-town newspaper stands in the counties south of them, as career criminals perform a little “research”?
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