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Hey, Michelle:
You may consider this letter a little strange, because I don't know you, and I honestly don't know that much about you. If I were to bump into you at the downtown bookstore or coffeehouse, I wouldn't be able to tell if it was you or that cute classmate from my honors English class in high school. I know you're a political commentator and author, you frequently appear on FOX News and MSNBC, and you have a blog. That's really all I know about you.
But now I've learned that you shared private information about some anti-war activists in Santa Cruz on your blog, and, in apparent retaliation, someone has posted private information about you and your family on the Internet, perhaps even on a political forum I regularly frequent. And because of that, you have to change your address, your phone number, etc. because of harassment you have endured.
I don't know who leaked your information. I didn't see it, and even if I did without realizing it, I've forgotten it by now. Because your private life isn't important to me. I could tell you what James Dobson's home address is, though; it's - well, hmmmm - come to think of it, I don't remember his address, either. Because his private life isn't important to me, either. I think he lives in a state with a name that begins with a "C." That really narrows it down, doesn't it?
You told the person who leaked your address and phone, "I am not afraid of you." I can understand your desire to move, though, because you and your family deserve to live with a reasonable degree of security and privacy. Same goes for everyone else, including those students you helped out on your blog. I can understand you being upset with some of the actions of those activists. But if you are upset, then I believe there is room for honest discourse about their actions. Don't spread lies about them, don't slander them, and don't post their private info where hotheads can get it and leave threatening messages on their phones, steal their identites and screw up their credit, etc. Because I'm damn sure you don't want that happening to you or someone you care about.
I believe Jesus and Confucius had advice along the same lines: "What you do not like done to yourself, do not do to others." Sounds reasonable enough to me.
But it doesn't stop with on-line wars to "declassify" everyone else's information. It strikes to the heart of the USA PATRIOT Act as well as that Total Information Awareness nonsense. We all talk about the horrors of George Orwell's 1984, so why are so many people in America hellbent on making total loss of privacy a reality? Where does the cycle end?
It could end with you. With me. With all of us, working together.
It could end, that is, if we're brave enough to work together to end it.
Thank you, and sleep well tonight. It's everyone's right to.
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