- comment
Riley - body
- This is a violation of our civil liberties and our privacy. (Remember what happened when the DSCC obtained Michael Steele's credit report? People were fired. Criminal investigations were launched.)
I SMELL LAWSUIT!!!
- comment Unknown
- body
- That's crap. Prove it!
- comment Terry Carter
- body
- I agree with Eileen. I'd also like to add that from what I've heard, this is becoming more and more of a common practice. In fact, I bet the Allen campaign did it too! Why shouldn't a campaign gather as much information as it can on someone who could potentially (and in Ben Tribbett's case..DID) have a major impact on the campaign....
- comment Kenton
- body
- Oh, utter crap. They left me out!
- comment Not Buck Turgidson
- body
- I'd like to see some proof too. And my file.
- comment Bwana
- body
- I'd like to see proof...I hesitate to ask for my file for fear of finding I am beneath notice. ;-)
- comment Terry Carter
- body
- Oh yeah, I forgot to issue a CONGRATULATIONS to all of those who made the supposed list.
- comment The Squeaky Wheel
- body
- The only part of this that Eileen thinks is crap is that Kellam didn't do this too... and that she was left of of the list... and everyone's list and bookmarks (Can't delete me here, Eileen, so suck it up)
When this is proven, I smell lawsuit... Hmmm, this will be fun.
Tell me again why you lefty's hate Rove?
Ah, the Webb of lies.
- comment Vivian J. Paige
- body
- Another one waiting for the proof. By the way, Shaun - didn't see your name on that list :)
- comment The Squeaky Wheel
- body
- Coomon practice? Doing research and keeping tabs on people practicing free speech? These are the actions of Senator in a new, more ethical Senate? And you are ok with this? Wow. What a hypocrite.
- comment Staff
- body
- Ahem,
it's "Wilmore."
Congrats on the new baby!
- comment Terry Carter
- body
- "Coomon practice? Doing research and keeping tabs on people practicing free speech? These are the actions of Senator in a new, more ethical Senate? And you are ok with this? Wow. What a hypocrite. "
Oh, so them following around George Allen with a camera was "keeping tabs on people practicing free speech" too I guess? The story doesn't say they kept tabs on EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN. It says they researched well known bloggers (whom they obviously felt could have some impact on the campaign). How stupid would a campaign look if a blog was releasing information damaging to it, and the campaign had NO CLUE who the person was....I mean, c'mon.
And Squeaky - on another note, in case you haven't already, please go checkout my response to your comment in Viv's Romney post from the other day. I don't want you to think I was trying to do something I wasn't. :)
- comment Kenton
- body
- We're still eagerly awating our proof here.
- comment Staff
- body
- Actually I believe it's true.
Though it's not Webb that was responsible: my guess is it was Vanden Berg.
- comment Staff
- body
- And it's "Lowell Feld," not "Field."
How are we going to become infamous if you don't get our names right?
How many were there? If there were just the nine of us we could be "The Vanden Berg Nine."
Cool name ='s infamy.
- comment Unknown
- body
- That reminds me. It's always good to snag and file away certain screen captures. Ya' never know when it'll come in handy.
- comment J.R.Hoeft
- body
- I, for one, am honored.
- comment JPRS2010
- body
- I'm guessing this came from research turned up from the Allen campaign's oppo research of the VA blogosphere?
For $15 and 5 minutes, anyone could gain access to publicly available information on pretty much anyone (bankrupcties, criminal records).
I can understand this for hired staff, but I wouldn't see much value otherwise.
- comment Staff
- body
- Shhh Jim!
You're screwing up the lawsuit.
Say: "I feel deeply violated in the core of my being."
- comment Phriendly Jaime
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- Dude, I cannot believe I don't have a file.
It would be the thickest, I guarantee. ;)
- comment Phriendly Jaime
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- JPTERP says: "I can understand this for hired staff, but I wouldn't see much value otherwise."
Yeah, I have a problem with volunteers being targeted. You want to check on people you pay, cool. But volunteers helping you out for FREE? Crappy.
- comment Politicl.Animal
- body
- I want to see the proof. And I want to see my name listed.
Nothing like knowing someone feared you to make your day a little better.
- comment Megan
- body
- Adam, you have as much chance of being oppo'd as I have of getting an apology from Senator Obenshain....
- comment Charles
- body
- I should be on that list, I'm not only a big-time blogger but I'm a published author and columnist.
Stupid incompetent campaign, not knowing whose rights and privacy they should violate. :-)
Apparently, Webb doesn't think we should research terrorists, but bloggers are A-OK. :-)
Being serious for a second, if this is true, I think it is a big deal. I would never have thought that wanting to express my opinion would open me up to having my private life investigated.
And the idea that, if I happened to write something the campaign thought was damaging, they would trash me personally in hopes it would deflect criticism? Hard to imagine though.
If anybody HAD found something bad enough to hurt Webb, and the media had shown any interest at all in covering it (fat chance), I'd imagine that the Webb campaign trying to discredit a blogger would not go over well with the media -- they would understand what it meant.
So if someone in the Webb campaign was doing this, I think they were not too bright, but I'd still be pretty upset about it.
- comment Terry Carter
- body
- BWAHAHAHAHAHAH, sorry, that was just awesome though.
- comment Terry Carter
- body
- "Phriendly Jaime said...
Dude, I cannot believe I don't have a file."
Well, remember, it DOES say "and a host of others."
..I can only imagine what your file would say though...
- comment Politicl.Animal
- body
- Damn it Myron, stop stalking me!
- comment Phriendly Jaime
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- Actually, probaly not much, thankfully. There's not a lot on record.
Now personal interviews and heresay; that's another story altogether...
- comment Charles
- body
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- comment Riley
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- Waldo, credit reports are not publicly available.
- comment Terry Carter
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- Riley, awesome! No one specifically mentioned that they compiled credit reports though.
- comment Phriendly Jaime
- body
- Yeah, but they are readily available. If I wanted to pay for one for you, I could get it in a few minutes, providing I knew a few choice things about you.
If you pay for it, they'll give it up. Which may be the major problem here...
- comment Terry Carter
- body
- Good points Waldo. I hope everyone has noticed that Shaun hasn't sited any specific information that was gathered, still hasn't given sources, and CERTAINLY provided no proof that any information gathered was done so illegally.
Once again, this is a non story (can we say: NEWS HOLE FILLER!) if I've ever seen one.
- comment Rick Sincere
- body
- I guess I didn't make the cut -- and my paper trail is so long, I could never be nominated to the Supreme Court. (Of course, I'm not a lawyer, either, but if I were ...)
- comment The Squeaky Wheel
- body
- You people are hypocritical asses! If there was even a HINT of this being done by Allen, you people would gone ape-Sh** over this.
And as for the argument that Allen most likely did the same it doesn't make it right. DUH!
Credit reports are not public.
Also this argument that it wasn't Webb, but one of his staffers does not wash. Webb did not do a lot of the campaign... No one does, that is why you have a staff, but in the end, the boss is responible for what satffers do... That is why staffers have been fired for doing shady stuff or writing offensive things, remember.
Do no do this whole "Others do it too" crap, becuase all we heard was how Democrats were above this Rove-styale tactics.
You people are worried that this is true and you should be.
If any candidate does illeagle and unethical investigations of public people they should be held responsible. Do people expect background checks to be done on them if they write LTEs? Why is blogging any different?
- comment Alice
- body
- IF anything like this was done, and so far it is all rumor, then there would be some indication of that on Webb's FEC forms under "dispersal's."
I'm too lazy to look, but those forms are all online at FEC.gov.
- comment James Atticus Bowden
- body
- If Hillary gets elected in '08, you can bet there will be files on all the potential domestic terrorists and hate speech criminals on the right.
- comment Phriendly Jaime
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- Wait...I came over here to check on the "bashing" by "libs" as one Republican "blogger" claims.
I don't see any. I'm with you Waldo. Nothing going on.
- comment Matthew Clark
- body
- This is very interesting. I am not suprised to see this. As far as lawsuits with bloggers goes, I have a site http://www.webloglaw.blogspot.com in which I am looking at the legal aspects of blogging. I have not posted in a while, but I will be again soon. What I have posted is just a state of the law in different jurisdictions. It is very much a developing area. I invite you to check it out as you do your research on this topic.
- comment The Squeaky Wheel
- body
- I would say that maybe the Webb camp was worried that the talk of his role in the "Suicide", or alleged Suicide of Admiral Mike Boorda might come back up.
More on that to come; stay tuned... You know where I write.
- comment Chris Saxman
- body
- Oppo research on bloggers would be highly unlikely from Allen campaign. They did not have a blog until, what, September? Of course, i could be wrong...
It is a sign of maturation of the blogosphere and will be part of the future of campaigns to be sure. The REAL question has to be - Do they oppo MSM journalists?
- comment Charles
- body
- Forget that it's bloggers. Forget which party is involved.
Who here is going to say that it's fine that a campaign pre-emptively collects damaging personal information on non-candidates, so that if those non-candidates happen to learn some truth about the candidate, the candidate can destroy the person's life in the hopes that their information will be "discredited by association"?
It's bad enough we do opposition research on the candidates, but at least you could justify that by the concept that the "voters" deserve to know about the candidates. If Webb picked up pole dancers, what do I care, but maybe someone does. If he chased young vietnamese women while they were here for normalization talks, it doesn't matter to me but it might to someone. If Allen spit chewing tobacco and it landed on someone's shoe, that might matter to someone.
But if an enterprising individual finds out that Webb was sleeping with one of his students while teaching at the academy and writing about it being a "horny women's dream", does that individual deserve to have HIS life destroyed just to keep the truth from getting out?
What did YOU do in 10th grade? Any wild parties at college? Does what joe blogger did at the office christmas party in 1987 matter at all to a voter picking between Webb and Allen?
How can anybody justify a political campaign for SENATE collecting information on private citizens with the intent to ruin their reputation if they try to tell the truth the candidate?
Who cares if the "dirt" they found was legally collected and is true? Is any person who did anything in their life that would embarrass them, or hurt them in their relationships, their employment, or in the eyes of their children, now precluded from reporting ANY information that might hurt a candidate for office who has MILLIONS of dollars available to dig up dirt?
The idea that ANY Virginia blogger is willing to countenance such activity is just another reason why I lost so much respect for our "esteemed blogosphere" during this past election.
- comment Jason Kenney
- body
- Funny how some of the folks screaming for proof are the same ones who believe every unverified, anonymous rumor churned up on the left side (and even started some of them themselves).
My problem with this is that they're not only targeting private individuals but they're also targeting the foundation of what is quickly becoming a viable political and journalistic medium while still trying to utilize it themselves. The Webb campaign admits to controlling (or trying to) the M-word story yet they were also preparing to destroy the credibility of not just individual bloggers but all political bloggers if something didn't go the way they liked.
If Michael Shear wrote something negative about Webb, would the Webb campaign then gone after him or the Post's editors personally in an attempt to assassinate their character? If you wrote a letter to the editor that said bad things about Webb, should the campaign have every right to attack your personally?
The Webb campaign created and held onto a nuclear option for blogs should they turn against him and it could very well have lead many people to reconsider blogging or turning to anonymous blogging which does nothing to make this a solid medium. They were ready to target an entire venue of political and public discourse just to save face. Disgusting.
43 Comments:
I SMELL LAWSUIT!!!
When this is proven, I smell lawsuit... Hmmm, this will be fun.
Tell me again why you lefty's hate Rove?
Ah, the Webb of lies.
it's "Wilmore."
Congrats on the new baby!
Oh, so them following around George Allen with a camera was "keeping tabs on people practicing free speech" too I guess? The story doesn't say they kept tabs on EVERY SINGLE CITIZEN. It says they researched well known bloggers (whom they obviously felt could have some impact on the campaign). How stupid would a campaign look if a blog was releasing information damaging to it, and the campaign had NO CLUE who the person was....I mean, c'mon.
And Squeaky - on another note, in case you haven't already, please go checkout my response to your comment in Viv's Romney post from the other day. I don't want you to think I was trying to do something I wasn't. :)
Though it's not Webb that was responsible: my guess is it was Vanden Berg.
How are we going to become infamous if you don't get our names right?
How many were there? If there were just the nine of us we could be "The Vanden Berg Nine."
Cool name ='s infamy.
For $15 and 5 minutes, anyone could gain access to publicly available information on pretty much anyone (bankrupcties, criminal records).
I can understand this for hired staff, but I wouldn't see much value otherwise.
You're screwing up the lawsuit.
Say: "I feel deeply violated in the core of my being."
It would be the thickest, I guarantee. ;)
Yeah, I have a problem with volunteers being targeted. You want to check on people you pay, cool. But volunteers helping you out for FREE? Crappy.
Nothing like knowing someone feared you to make your day a little better.
Stupid incompetent campaign, not knowing whose rights and privacy they should violate. :-)
Apparently, Webb doesn't think we should research terrorists, but bloggers are A-OK. :-)
Being serious for a second, if this is true, I think it is a big deal. I would never have thought that wanting to express my opinion would open me up to having my private life investigated.
And the idea that, if I happened to write something the campaign thought was damaging, they would trash me personally in hopes it would deflect criticism? Hard to imagine though.
If anybody HAD found something bad enough to hurt Webb, and the media had shown any interest at all in covering it (fat chance), I'd imagine that the Webb campaign trying to discredit a blogger would not go over well with the media -- they would understand what it meant.
So if someone in the Webb campaign was doing this, I think they were not too bright, but I'd still be pretty upset about it.
Dude, I cannot believe I don't have a file."
Well, remember, it DOES say "and a host of others."
..I can only imagine what your file would say though...
Now personal interviews and heresay; that's another story altogether...
If you pay for it, they'll give it up. Which may be the major problem here...
Once again, this is a non story (can we say: NEWS HOLE FILLER!) if I've ever seen one.
And as for the argument that Allen most likely did the same it doesn't make it right. DUH!
Credit reports are not public.
Also this argument that it wasn't Webb, but one of his staffers does not wash. Webb did not do a lot of the campaign... No one does, that is why you have a staff, but in the end, the boss is responible for what satffers do... That is why staffers have been fired for doing shady stuff or writing offensive things, remember.
Do no do this whole "Others do it too" crap, becuase all we heard was how Democrats were above this Rove-styale tactics.
You people are worried that this is true and you should be.
If any candidate does illeagle and unethical investigations of public people they should be held responsible. Do people expect background checks to be done on them if they write LTEs? Why is blogging any different?
I'm too lazy to look, but those forms are all online at FEC.gov.
I don't see any. I'm with you Waldo. Nothing going on.
More on that to come; stay tuned... You know where I write.
It is a sign of maturation of the blogosphere and will be part of the future of campaigns to be sure. The REAL question has to be - Do they oppo MSM journalists?
Who here is going to say that it's fine that a campaign pre-emptively collects damaging personal information on non-candidates, so that if those non-candidates happen to learn some truth about the candidate, the candidate can destroy the person's life in the hopes that their information will be "discredited by association"?
It's bad enough we do opposition research on the candidates, but at least you could justify that by the concept that the "voters" deserve to know about the candidates. If Webb picked up pole dancers, what do I care, but maybe someone does. If he chased young vietnamese women while they were here for normalization talks, it doesn't matter to me but it might to someone. If Allen spit chewing tobacco and it landed on someone's shoe, that might matter to someone.
But if an enterprising individual finds out that Webb was sleeping with one of his students while teaching at the academy and writing about it being a "horny women's dream", does that individual deserve to have HIS life destroyed just to keep the truth from getting out?
What did YOU do in 10th grade? Any wild parties at college? Does what joe blogger did at the office christmas party in 1987 matter at all to a voter picking between Webb and Allen?
How can anybody justify a political campaign for SENATE collecting information on private citizens with the intent to ruin their reputation if they try to tell the truth the candidate?
Who cares if the "dirt" they found was legally collected and is true? Is any person who did anything in their life that would embarrass them, or hurt them in their relationships, their employment, or in the eyes of their children, now precluded from reporting ANY information that might hurt a candidate for office who has MILLIONS of dollars available to dig up dirt?
The idea that ANY Virginia blogger is willing to countenance such activity is just another reason why I lost so much respect for our "esteemed blogosphere" during this past election.
My problem with this is that they're not only targeting private individuals but they're also targeting the foundation of what is quickly becoming a viable political and journalistic medium while still trying to utilize it themselves. The Webb campaign admits to controlling (or trying to) the M-word story yet they were also preparing to destroy the credibility of not just individual bloggers but all political bloggers if something didn't go the way they liked.
If Michael Shear wrote something negative about Webb, would the Webb campaign then gone after him or the Post's editors personally in an attempt to assassinate their character? If you wrote a letter to the editor that said bad things about Webb, should the campaign have every right to attack your personally?
The Webb campaign created and held onto a nuclear option for blogs should they turn against him and it could very well have lead many people to reconsider blogging or turning to anonymous blogging which does nothing to make this a solid medium. They were ready to target an entire venue of political and public discourse just to save face. Disgusting.
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