Dreaming about blogging; on doxxing donors
Lately there have been so many events that cry out for in-depth analysis that I often feel overwhelmed, and I think I’d feel that way even if my task was limited to reading about them – forget about trying to write something intelligent about them.
But blogging is voluntary, and apparently I choose to do it for some perverse reason.
Today I decided to revisit an old topic and to consolidate two past posts into one. I thought it would hardly take any time at all, but of course I had to find them and reread them and think about them and combine them and update them, and all of that took longer than expected.
So now I could write still another post on Trudeau’s tyrannical moves or on the newest Durham revelations, but I think that instead I’ll just say see this and this.
Last night I actually had a dream about blogging. I think that must be a first for me. In the dream I was in a room, a sort of large office, with some other bloggers. I was having tremendous trouble deciding where to set my computer up and then setting it at just the right height. A great deal of the dream was involved in this essentially boring setting-up process, and when I woke up I was astounded that I’d bothered to dream about such a tedious thing.
There also was a part of the dream in which I was talking to one of the bloggers and saying that even though I’m grateful for the internet, and that it’s a tremendous source of fascinating information, I’m worried that it’s also a tool for tyranny (something I’ve written about here). And then sure enough, today we have this completely and utterly predictable event:
After GoFundMe attempted to steal nearly $10 million in donated funds and give it to charities they liked better — leftwing “charities,” no doubt — people who wanted to donate to the Freedom Convoy truckers began using the GiveSendGo Christian alternative to GoFundMe.
The website was hacked, and redirected to another URL.
The donors’ information was leaked online. And then published on Twitter.
Note that while Twitter supposedly bans doxxing, it has permitted a leftwing disgraced former Canadian shock-jock nobody to continue posting the donors’ information with no penalty…
And now, Ezra Levant reports, the state media that Justin Trudeau pays — and which is in his pocket politically — is using the hacked dox materials as a hit list to intimidate the donors.
“BREAKING: Trudeau’s CBC state broadcaster is combing through the illegally hacked database of GiveSendGo donors, and emailing donors asking them to explain themselves.”
Just a little friendly journalism, right?
This sort of thing began quite some time ago. The turning point in my own awareness of it was when Brendon Eich of Mozilla was forced to resign in 2014 after it was revealed that he’d made a small donation to an anti-gay-marriage campaign in California back in 2008:
On Monday, OkCupid sent a message to visitors suggesting that they use browsers such as Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer or Google Inc’s Chrome: “Mozilla’s new CEO, Brendan Eich, is an opponent of equal rights for gay couples. We would therefore prefer that our users not use Mozilla software to access OkCupid.”
Eich, who invented JavaScript, apologized for causing “pain” and promised to promote equality for gay and lesbian individuals at Mozilla. However, the campaign continued to call for his ouster.
It may not have been the first instance of this happening to an individual because of a political donation he or she made, but it was a prominent one that underscored where we’d been heading. Now the practice has proliferated and become commonplace. The goal is of course intimidation in order to prevent groups the left doesn’t like from raising much money to support their causes. How many people have the courage to risk the exposure and its aftermath?
I remember the Eich incident because I stopped using Firefox as my browser after Eich was pushed out.
That Prop 8 campaign created so many good stories.
One of my favorites was how the Federal judge declared it unConstitutional, then retired and married his gay lover.
Just a little friendly journalism, right?
Couple of decades ago, New York (??) area paper published a list of all the firearms owners in a particular area. So, a two-fer: The neighbourhood Karens shun you, plus there’s a handy shopping list for someone looking to steal guns.
A little friendly journalism, indeed.
The price of not organizing and risking exposure to the Mob is the continued reign of fascism.
It’s that simple.
I gave $45 to GiveSendGo for the Truckers a few days ago. I’ll let y’all know if I get an email, and what it says.
Oh, and sonny wayz, the burglars also knew which houses not to rob . . .
As I recall the Brendan Eich resignation, the LA Times had published a weblink which allowed readers to input a zip code to see an immediate list of all donors from that zip who had donated to the Prop 8, anti-gay marriage ballot proposition.
I don’t know if that web page resulted in Eich’s resignation, but it’s a pretty nasty and chilling tactic. I for one am more circumspect about donations with a paper trail.
CapnRusty- I too gave $50 to GiveSendGo for the truckers. I’ll let you know if I receive an email, but if I do I’ll respond by telling them to go f… themselves and quadruple my donation.
Mike K on February 15, 2022 at 4:55 pm said:
Are you sure you are not thinking of some American Catholic bishop or cardinal?
Probably not, since you specified that it “married” its catamite.
Those who engage in doxxing or who support it have revealed themselves to be enemies of ‘civil’ization.
As one cannot reasonably claim to be supportive of civilization, while attempting to gravely harm those whose actions reveal disagreement.
Enemies of civilization fundamentally nullify their claim to citizenship. Formal revocation of citizenship and mandatory deportation is the appropriate consequence and societal recognition of their actions.
Doxxing, like a lot of other noxious political behavior nowadays, is the result of people thinking history has ended with them on the right side. They literally cannot conceive of any possible future when they (or people like them) are not in charge, so there’s no self-preservation instinct that kicks in to stop them from doing something that could blow up in their faces.
Why do you think the Democrats’ last two Presidential nominees were maybe the worst major party nominees of the last century?
Mike
Here’s a post on the “LA Times” database which likely doxxed Brendan Eich:
___________________________
Rumors are floating around Twitter that proof of Brendan Eich’s donation was illegally leaked by people in government sympathetic to the cause of gay marriage. Not so. I’d forgotten about it, but friends reminded me that the LA Times obtained a list of people who gave, for and against, to the fight over the Prop 8 referendum in 2008. They put the whole database online and made it searchable. Search it today and, sure enough, there’s Eich with a $1,000 donation in favor. Under California law, that disclosure is perfectly legal: The state is authorized to provide certain personal information about anyone who donates more than $100 to a ballot measure.
https://hotair.com/allahpundit/2014/04/03/how-did-people-find-out-that-mozillas-ceo-donated-to-support-prop-8-n188847
Here is the story about Walker, the judge in the Prop 8 case. The CA AG at the time was Jerry Brown who declined to appeal. The vote for Prop 8 was 52.4% in favor. I personally knew people who said Brown was gay and claimed to have slept with him. He later married but who knows the details?
Mike,
Very good point about the doxxer’s mind set. That equally applies to a lot of the hard core leftists.
sonny wayz: “Couple of decades ago, New York (??) area paper published a list of all the firearms owners in a particular area.”
Yes, it was the local paper for Westchester and Rockland counties in New York, just north of NYC, that published an online interactive map to find gun owners in your neighborhood. I think (if I remember correctly) it was The Journal News.
The paper argued that this was already public information (true, but, until they put it online you had to go to the Hall of Records and request it which would have raised red flags if someone “fishy” requested it) and that parents had a right to know where guns were in their neighborhood so they could protect their children’s safety.
Critics rightly pointed out that not only did criminals now know where to get guns, but, women who got guns to protect themselves against violent exes along with police officers’ addresses were now doxxed.
As a result of this paper’s publishing gun ownership information, New York state tried to make gun ownership private information. I don’t remember if that became law or not.
What I do remember is that someone got a hold of the paper’s editors, reporters, etc. home information (e.g., addresses and phone numbers) and made those public! Interestingly, the paper took down the gun ownership map less than a month after being doxxed themselves. They claimed that they got death threats. Apparently death threats against them are to be taken serious; but, death threats against others don’t matter.
Maybe the way to fight doxxing is with more doxxing. Good grief, do we really want to go down that road?
“…so there’s no self-preservation instinct that kicks in…”
Well, yes…but it’s more basic than that, I think.
More like “…there’s no ethical or moral instinct that kicks in…”
(Of course this would assume that they possess such an instinct(!)…though I think one would have to make that assumption; otherwise, the only other conclusion is that they’re all psychotic—drunk with power. Well, maybe they are….)
Actually, we’re—only—talking about having a conscience. Only(!)…And listening to it.
…Though the idea of having a conscience “kick in” is kind of interesting…
…OTOH, maybe they DO possess an ethical/moral instinct—except that it’s TOTALLY WARPED. Could one say the same thing about a conscience?…
File under: The Ethics of Psychosis!?
The journalist jackals are on the prowl, they are indeed.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/02/americans-support-trucker-protests.php
Dr. Fauci and his friends will have no lack of newspapers to read in their post-mortal abode.
Barry Meislin,
I had the same thought as you; it’s not self-preservation but ethics that are lacking.
charles, “Good grief, do we really want to go down that road?”
Unfortunately, yes. I’m not a fan of behavior that causes harm, but in instances like this I think it is literal self-defense. I wouldn’t put a knife to someone’s throat, but if someone put a knife to my throat and I were also holding a knife I’d use it in hopes of making myself safe again. I wouldn’t make someone’s private information public, but if someone did that to me I would do it to them in hopes of making myself safe again.
When someone attacks you and demonstrates they will not fight ethically they have chosen the weapons to be used in the duel. You have no obligation to permit them to destroy you.
https://www.thecollegefix.com/professor-resigns-from-apa-says-woke-ideology-drives-organization-to-harmful-policies-garbage-therapy/
The Bitc* McConnell Republican Party won’t even notice this. But maybe we have some Republican state legislators who aren’t asleep at the wheel or devoted to tossing payola at the Chamber of Commerce to the exclusion of every other activity. How about state legislation which (1) debars the counseling and clinical psychology programs at state institutions from seeking accreditation from the American Psychological Association and (2) debars third party payment for sessions with counselors and clinical psychologists?
The whole fight for gay marriage thing seems so much like ancient history. Now it is about convincing your child they are the opposite “ gender” of how they were born. Seems all the people who warned they were not stopping at gay marriage were right.
Prop 8 was shocking on how the Establishment Gutted it, and then allowed people to be doxed. That is so wrong.
And what is going on with the donors to the Canada Truckers is wrong.
I don’t donate because I do have a fear of doxing. The $100 rule in CA is terrifying. People have lost their jobs due to being doxed, or their businesses severely hurt. Eich was just the biggest fish so far, but there were many small ones.
Or the people that donated to Rittenhouse, and got doxed. At least one lost their job.
And the GOP just ignored this injustice.
Just like the people being assaulted at the Trump Event in San Jose, which the police allowed to happen as they stood and did nothing. And even routed the exit through the protesters. Only thing that eventually happened, was the city issued an apology.
So my trust level is VERY LOW.