See original e-mail (on bottom) and my response to same below:
From: Laura Schneider [mailto:Laura Schneider’s personal e-mail address]
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 5:16 PM
Subject: RE: [Yahoo Group members] REPUBLICANS in Sheep’s Clothing
Michael,
The fact that a supposed Democratic group is obsessed with “tracking TCP/IP originating addresses” for the purposes of “keeping republican out of OUR network.” Hmmm. No wonder why Obama voted for FISA. Is this what we can expect from you guys when he gets in the Oval Office?
First of all, I don’t buy your crap for a minute. I am not a Republican and how you determine what the TCP/IP locations of any member are, since most of these Yahoo groups are using Yahoo e-mail IDS, is very suspicious to me. Being an old, retired IT consultant, I’m sure it’s possible, but it would require a level of access to the membership details that you are not supposed to have, not being directly employed by Yahoo and all.
The idea that this “troll patrolling” is such a necessary and worthy goal of THE ONE and his campaign also does not speak well for his respect for our privacy rights.
And, as for “getting our information from” any person in this group: we share information, but anyone, anywhere who takes anything anyone says in any group as gospel without checking the veracity of the statement is an idiot.
And that fully applies to these ridiculous claims you just made as well.
Butt out of my life and the lives of the people here in this group. We will check our own information and don’t need you to play hall monitor for us. We are quite intelligent enough and capable enough of seeing crap when it hits us in the face, and even before it hits the fan..
I am ashamed of my party. Having been a Democrat since 1972, when I was first able to vote in a national (or any) election, I always took pride in the fact that my party was the party of the people. That my party supported and defended the Constitution and my and everyone else’s civil liberties.
Now, after this primary season, where we have seen the DNC intervene in the primary election, promote misogyny, conduct back-room political deals that violate the “Sunshine” aura that used to prevail our party (at least since 1968), manipulate the RBC, and even agree to move the party’s campaign headquarters to the hometown of a candidate before he secured even the presumption of the nomination, much less the official nomination. Release the VP pick at 3 a.m. just to give Hillary the virtual finger. Conduct a rigged roll call vote that was a sham and an insult to all Democrats and to all Americans, not just to Hillary and her supporters. Then play “Addicted to Love” right as Clinton left the stage after giving a speech that encouraged people to vote for the guy who just dissed him. No, this is not the party I joined in 1972.
You Obama thugs are just that — thugs. You have trampled over the Constitution, just like your bosses — Obama and his mentor Dean. You are using what I consider to be privacy invasion to play hall monitor like Big Brother in 1984. And you wonder why even Obama’s supporters were concerned, if not completely infuriated, by his vote for the FISA amendment that made it legal for him or any other president to invade our privacy and take away our 4th amendment rights (and, for all practical purposes, our 1st amendment and other rights, since Freedom of Speech is not likely to happen in an environment where Big Brother is recording your every word). You want us to entrust this power to anyone, much less someone who is already commanding an army of cyberbullies and thugs to track our every move just because we don’t full-throatedly support his inexperienced ass? No, I don’t think I’ll be drinking the “Yes you can!” Kool-aid. You are not welcome to invade my privacy. Nor am I willing to buy any of your poisoned cum-ba-ya cookies, so much for “the new kind of politics” your hypocritical leader has been preaching. I don’t believe in your kind of Change, or that it’s for the betterment of my country or my life.
And the fact that you arrogantly, no, actually, hubristically, used this forum to disseminate your message of intimidation to us that “Big Brother is Watching Us” does your candidate harm, not good. You have killed your own credibility almost instantaneously by stupidly notifying me that you have violated my privacy rights and by attacking the members of my group. I may not agree with all of them, or even many of them, but I will defend to death their right to say what they believe and believe what they want. I will also defend to death my right to argue with them about it!
So what if some are Republicans? You act as if that makes them non-enemy combatants that belong in Gitmo, an attitude of self-righteous, sanctimonious rationalization that is characteristic of our current Big Brother in Chief. You think we are too stupid to know that there are Republicans, Democrats that support Obama, Independents and disaffected Democrats here? Get over yourselves and go spy somewhere else.
If anything, you have reminded us why we are “disaffected” Democrats.
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From: [Yahoo Group] [mailto:[Yahoo Group members]@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Michael P. Fagan
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2008 8:55 AM
To: [Yahoo Group]
Subject: [Yahoo Group] REPUBLICANS in Sheep’s Clothing
Are some [Yahoo Group members] people really REPUBLICANS against any democrat winning?
I have been monitoring this group for many months now and one thing is VERY clear. More than 10% of the email addresses on this group have been traced back to REPUBLICAN operatives in the REPUBLICAN internet center. Their purpose here is to spread discourse in the democratic ranks and to beat the drums against Obama in order to get McCain elected.
I am the National Coordinator of the USDemocrat Network which operates more than 500 Yahoogroups. We have a membership committee which tracks TCP/IP originating addresses in order to keep republicans out of our network. I had the membership committee trace a hundred or so of the most frequent posters to this group and found that more than half of the most vocal posters on this group were traced back to TCP/IP locations and addresses of REPUBLICAN operatives.
So when you think – really think about it – is the person you’re getting your info from a fellow democrat, or a REPUBLICAN acting like a disgruntled democrat?
Just thought you should know.
Michael P. Fagan
USDemocrat Network
——————–
http://www.usdemocratnetwork.org/index.cfm
The USDemocrat Network is supposed to be a volunteer army of moderators and IT specialists that assist in disseminating information among listservs. Yeah, right.
If you go to the above link, it tells you that they do not list their membership by real name (there is no actual listing of usernames, either) because of the possibility of malicious or vindictive acts by employers, etc. (What? These guys are spending company time to “volunteer?”). There is no place to contact the group, list a complaint about a member, etc. There is an address in Slidell, LA.
Michael P. Fagan does, however, have a DNC PB blog profile under same name with Slidell, LA, listed as his home, but NO BLOGS. http://www.democrats.org/page/dashboard/public/gjvmW . Also has a membership in the DNC PB Group: College Democrats at LSU, Joined: Jul 17th, 2008.
Michael also has a profile at mybarackobama.com: http://my.barackobama.com/page/dashboard/public/CC3G
Both the DNC and Obama sites show the same picture of him in some kind of uniform, maybe USCG? i wonder how the USCG would feel about your engaging in political activities on company time and in company uniform? It’s against the DoD rules, don’t know how the DoT regulates political activities of Coast Guard members? Anyone want to follow the links, check the uniform and confirm for me?
And another Democratic Yahoo group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Democrat/messages/99
Also a membership in Citizens for Legitimatet Government (CLG).
So, Michael, two can play this game. Wanna know more? Google Michael P. Fagan and find out the rest of the story for yourselves.
SchneiderView 