The East Valley Tribune had an article by Nick Martin yesterday that makes my blood boil.
Apparently, Tim Nelson, the liberal ACLU attorney who is running for Maricopa County Attorney hired an English handwriting expert (that was money well spent!) to investigate and analyze one of our writers who posts on Sonoran Alliance.
Yes, you heard me correct.
The liberal ACLU county attorney candidate wants to identify one of his political opponents.
In the article, Tim Nelson’s “hired gun” analyzed the writing styles of Sonoran Alliance’s “Pat” and the blog ACLU Tim Will Say Anything to Get Elected in order to identify who is posting the attacks against him.
As the editor of Sonoran Alliance, I find Nelson’s tactics unconsciencable, reprehensible and draconian. If Tim Nelson manages to get himself elected can we expect him to launch investigations against those bloggers and blogsites who oppose him? Will there be serious payback?
Only I know the identity of the writers of Sonoran Alliance and I have solemnly pledged to protect their identities in order to avoid retribution. Can I expect Tim Nelson and his goons to kick down my door late at night and drag me off to some undisclosed location? I don’t know but that won’t happen without a fight and as we say in the 2nd Amendment circle, they can have that info when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Gee, DSW, it’s simple. They can control the traditional media. So now bloggers are giving an outlet to people with differing points of view and they don’t like it.
He has every right to try to find out who is writing on that site, just as the site’s author has every right to post on it without identifying himself. If Nelson thinks that the author posted articles containing information that he knew to be false in order to advocate the defeat of Tim Nelson, than Tim may be seeking a plaintiff for a lawsuit. Nelson hasn’t broken any law by looking into it. Relax.
Besides, if Thomas were investigating a liberal blogger, you would say he was being tough on crime.
He’s done nothing wrong. Get over it.
I don’t care that you protect your writers’ identities, but I certainly discount much of what they say when they don’t reveal their names, especially when they invest such a huge emotional bias in their writing. Nelson going after the writer is silly, and politically unsound.
Hilarious story. Nelson has indeed broken the law here. The bottom line is that Nelson’s campaign is accepting a $20,000 in-kind contribution from a foreign individual. Get our your statute books and start counting how many laws that violates!
Tucson Vice:
If the idea of the man who may one day be county attorney investigating the identity of political critics doesn’t cause you some concern, then you are not being vigilant to protect your freedom.
People who run for office must expect a certain level of criticism, some of it pretty tough. As long as it is not libelous, there’s nothing the public figure can do about it.
And if it’s not libelous, what does Nelson intend to do with this information? That’s a huge question that becomes very pertinent if he’s elected to office. By then, he would have vast resources at his disposal to intimidate people: if he chose to do so.
George of the Desert:
If the idea of the man who is county attorney investigating the identity of political critics doesn’t cause you some concern, then you are not being vigilant to protect your freedom.
People who run for office must expect a certain level of criticism, some of it pretty tough. As long as it is not libelous, there’s nothing the public figure can do about it.
And if it’s not libelous, what does Thomas intend to do with this information? That’s a huge question that becomes very pertinent if he’s re-elected to office. By then, he would again have vast resources at his disposal to intimidate people: if he chose to do so again.
Lighthouse has revealed Pat’s identity!
http://lighthouseblog.blogs.com/lighthouse_blog/2008/10/aclueless-tim-nelson-spends-20000-to-identify-bloggers.html
Running an analysis of publicly posted content is not “investigating” someone. This is really overdramatic.
What this does prove is that Nelson is kind of silly. The report that is linked from the article does not provide any evidence to back up Nelson’s claim. Releasing this at this point in the campaign will most likely just advertise “Pat’s” blog. Pretty clueless on Nelson’s part.
The results of the test will show that Pat wrote two sonnets heretofore attributed to Shakespeare.