Mary Beth, thank you for continuing to write your letters. They are cogent, well-written, and much needed.

Truth

Another great one, thanks!

The original link:

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050529/OPINI ON/505290303/1009

Allen G Holder - (601) 371-1030 - 174 Blackmon Rd, Byram, MS 39272 -

Whoa Nelly!

Google is like looking someone up in the phone book - I exposed nothing that was not publically available.  Moreover, I did not suggest that anyone do anything to anyone, unlike your threat of violence towards me.  Lighten up and grow up.

When someone sends a letter to the editor, they have put themselves in the public arena. Anyone with the minimum in internet skills can access the information Angeline posted. If an individual does not like the cost associated with putting themselves in the public spotlight, then stay out of the newspaper. Angeline has not threatened to try to "out" Stop It and I doubt that she will since I have found her post quite reasonable. She is more reasonable than I am, that is for sure. Since Mr. Holder has cast aspersions on me and on the rest of USM faculty, he becomes fair game. Fortunately, he is not very articulate and is a combination of demonstrated low IQ and nastiness. He is not worth more of a response than the accurate evaluation given by Mary Beth Applin

I appreciate Professor Applin's measured, professional response to Mr. Holder. 

Thank you, ma'am.

Will it ever end?

Cossack wrote:

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When someone sends a letter to the editor, they have put themselves in the public arena. Anyone with the minimum in internet skills can access the information Angeline posted. If an individual does not like the cost associated with putting themselves in the public spotlight, then stay out of the newspaper. Angeline has not threatened to try to "out" Stop It and I doubt that she will since I have found her post quite reasonable. She is more reasonable than I am, that is for sure. Since Mr. Holder has cast aspersions on me and on the rest of USM faculty, he becomes fair game. Fortunately, he is not very articulate and is a combination of demonstrated low IQ and nastiness. He is not worth more of a response than the accurate evaluation given by Mary Beth Applin

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I respectfully disagree.

Yes, they have put themselves in the public arena -- and can anticipate a public response. I do not think invading people's personal space (wiritng them at their home address or calling them at home) is the same level of response. I'd call it invasive, frankly - and it is a great mechanisim to intitmidate people into public silence. Who wil write letters to the editor if they then get harrassed at home? And who wants to discourage public response, which is really where debate should take place?

Given the ability of agencies now to drum up phone call lists to call people at home day and night and to knock on doors, I think that this voluntary segreagation of public and priviate discourse is critically important.

 

Robert Campbell wrote:

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I also think it would be better to stop posting addresses and phone numbers of letter writers on this board. Information about the background or institutional affiliation or alumni status of letter writers is fine, and sometimes helps the rest of us understand where they're coming from. But their addresses and phone numbers are useless to anyone who doesn't intend to contact them privately and complain about their letters. And I see little point in doing that. Their letters deserve a public response--and have been getting one. Robert Campbell

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FWIW, I agree.

Cossack wrote:

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Professors Judd and Campbell, The issue of privacy is one that I do not take lightly. As in most issues, this is one of degrees, and where each of us would draw the line. I do not recall that either of you were against the posting of information on how to contact members of the Board. If you were, than I missed it. Again, it is a degree to which one becomes a "public" figure. I feel that a writer who makes public statements in a newspaper that are demeaning to a person or group of persons has made themselves a public figure. How bad does the attack have to be before it crosses the threshold? Would an accusation that faculty belonged to the KKK be enough? Or is there no letter to the editor that could be written that would allow you to be comfortable with posting how to contact this person? I am comfortable if our differences on this issue are of degree. I do not agree with an absolute hands off policy no matter what was said.

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Members of the Board are public figures (and political ones) by virtue of their appointment to public office. They are lobbied privately by those who have access to them. Members of the public, like you and I, have no access to those figures beyond our ability to contact them publically (when possible which is rare) and privately, when we can find out where they are. These people are not just public figures, they are policy-makers -- their opinions matterbecause their opinions are the mchanism by which policy is directly shaped by action.

Someone who writes a letter to an editor is expressing an OPINION. Because they do that publically does not make them  "public figures"  It makes them  private citizens expressing an opinion publically -- and the response should be in kind unless the writer gives permission. To equate members of the Board who are appointed to people expressing an opinion on an editorial page does not work. Even those who might be part of an "orchestrated" campaign of writing are only doing what their right as a citizen entitles them to do.

My concern is that if we all follow Cossack's adivice that we cross a line in which WE who have little protection as private citizens will become potential vicitims of intimidation and harrassment at home. My own feeling here is that it is best to agree to draw the line at that kind of action-- respect a citizen's right to express an opinion in a public forum without having to endure what would constitute an invasion of his or her private life.

There is a big difference here -- many of us are private citizens. Few of us are public figures. Although I agree with many things that Cossack says, this is not one of them and I believe that the potential cost to free expression and democratic process is not worth crossing this line, even though I greatly disagree with these writers. The appropriate response, I believe, is the in-kind response of writing a letter to the editor and not to escalating the discourse into what, for me, is invasion of a citizen's roight to privacy. I do not speak of that in the legal sense, but in the ethical sense, and more important, in the sense of the negative cost to social commity and civil discourse.

Professor's Judd and Campbell,

Thanks for your responses. We do disagree on this issue. I want to clarify one factor in this discussion. The nature of information at this point in time in our society is that almost all individuals' contact information is public. Through the phonebook and the Internet one can find contact information for a vast majority of people. Simply repeating information from the phonebook on a web site is not an invasion of privacy either legally or ethically. There is no additional marginal harm or benefit to an individual whose information is already public if is it is placed on the AAUP website. The exception would be if the website information was not accurate or misleading in some way.

In fairness, I cannot tell from your posts if you believe that the physical act of posting the public information is bad, or if you feel that the intention of the individual who posted the information is bad. Is it bad to post it because it might motivate someone to respond to the editorial letter, or is it bad because it makes it easier to contact them? I guess my question is, "is it the sentiment behind the post that you object to, or the reduction in search costs for someone who would have written a letter anyway and looked up the information on their own? Or, are we talking about an issue of bad manners?

Cossack wrote:

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Professor's Judd and Campbell, Thanks for your responses. We do disagree on this issue. I want to clarify one factor in this discussion. The nature of information at this point in time in our society is that almost all individuals' contact information is public. Through the phonebook and the Internet one can find contact information for a vast majority of people. Simply repeating information from the phonebook on a web site is not an invasion of privacy either legally or ethically. There is no additional marginal harm or benefit to an individual whose information is already public if is it is placed on the AAUP website. The exception would be if the website information was not accurate or misleading in some way. In fairness, I cannot tell from your posts if you believe that the physical act of posting the public information is bad, or if you feel that the intention of the individual who posted the information is bad. Is it bad to post it because it might motivate someone to respond to the editorial letter, or is it bad because it makes it easier to contact them? I guess my question is, "is it the sentiment behind the post that you object to, or the reduction in search costs for someone who would have written a letter anyway and looked up the information on their own? Or, are we talking about an issue of bad manners?

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I'd say just because someone's address and phone number is available (after all, there are phone books)  -- it doesn't mean I should call them. And posting those addresses and phone numbers seems to me to be a tacit way of encouraging people to call or write private citizens who are doing nothing more than expressing an opinion. As I said earlier, my thinking is that a public expression o opinion calls for a commensurate response -- another public expression contra to, or in agreement with that opinion.

Our homes are among the few places where we have the ability (and the right) to feel free from being harrassment. This is, of course, one of the primary issues at stake in legislation to prevent telemarketrs from invading those private spaces -- even though phone numbers are available. In this world, we have few secrets -- including our addresses. I think we would all be happier if there was common agreement to draw the line of privacy at my property line, my mailbox, or my phone when it comes to discourse conducted through public media by private citizens. I think this is called self restraint . . . also the "golden rule."  I don't want my space invaded .  . so I won't invade someone elses.

But, it is just an opinion.

 

 

Voter wrote:


Another angle: we must always be concerned about how people from outside the university community might interpret the intention--since the info is readily available, why give them the opportunity to infer malicious intent? I don't really see why it is important to post the info.

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Voter, I'm with you. I don't like the business of posting names and numbers on the board. Yes, they're available out there, but it looks bad to post them here. On the other hand, if someone unfamiliar writes a letter, I like knowing who they are, but that's not the same as posting their home address and phone. Remember, some of us are out here with our real names too.

After this, I will post no more on the issue of posting information as was done by Angeline. In reading the collection of arguments against Angeline posting this information, I find that the arguments against it are that some people think it invades privacy, it makes some people uncomfortable, and some thinks that it makes faculty look bad. Armed with this information, I could argue that half the posts on this Board fit into one of those categories. However, I will refrain from chastising posters who I feel fit into one of the offending categories.