Snoskred – Life in the Country

We have a small “Queensland room” – basically a room screened with mosquito screen – at our new place. The kitties have been allowed out there for the last couple of weeks and they have found it very exciting – so much so that they have to sleep for many hours afterwards to recover from the thrill of it all. We thought we would build them a special platform where they could survey their vast kingdom.

If you look carefully you can see a rainbow lorikeet is hanging out in the native tree just outside the screen.

The big kitty is a good jumper and she had no trouble getting up there.

It took the little kitty a while to work it out, but as soon as I went to take a photo she rushed to get down..

I’ve read through the comments here, and I just have a couple of things to point out.

In the case of AKMuckraker, previous to Doogan outing her, there was no connection between her real life identity, and the identity of AKMuckraker. You couldn’t google and find a link between the two. It simply was not possible.

He spent three months obsessively asking people who AKMuckraker was. He did this because she posted this blog post – Are You People Nuts? Lessons In Email Etiquette – this post came about as a direct result of his own actions.

The actions? Rep Mike Doogan replies to emails in a very inappropriate manner as a matter of course, it seems. But in that case he had collected up 30 or so different email addresses, and then emailed them ALL with the email addresses viewable to everyone. That is a clear breach of the privacy of those people who wrote to him.

Now AKMuckraker had a right to inform people about that, in my opinion. If you write an email to your representative, you expect there to be a level of privacy. Apparently this sent Doogan quite over the edge and began his obsession with her.

He chose to send out her identity in a newsletter to his constituents, many of whom may never have heard of AKMuckraker at all. That is the part which is most inappropriate in my opinion.

There are many reasons people want to remain anonymous on the internet. Alaska is a quite a small place in the scheme of things and like a lot of small towns to have true freedom of speech you don’t want to use your real name.

Other reasons someone might wish to remain anonymous –

* Because it is a standard identity- and privacy-protection precaution
* Because they have experienced online or offline stalking, harassment, or political or domestic violence
* Because they wish to discuss sexual abuse, sexuality, domestic abuse, assault, politics, health, or mental illness, and do not wish some subset of family, friends, strangers, aquaintances, employers, or potential employers to know about it
* Because they wish to keep their private lives, activities, and tastes separate from their professional lives, employers, or potential employers
* Because they fear threats to their employment or the custody of their children
* Because it’s the custom among their Internet cohort
* Because it’s no one else’s business

Bear in mind also – remember Kathy Sierra? Remember Dooce? Remember Abby Lee? What person in their right mind would knowingly put themselves out there for the kind of treatment those people went through?

Would you put your hand up to be fired from your job because of your blog? To receive death threats – and the people sending them know where you live? Who knows how far those people who do not like what you wrote might go?

The bottom of the bottom lines is – AKMuckraker would never have written about Doogan if he were acting in a sane manner. He is the politician who was sending the crazy emails to 30 people at once. If he had been doing the right thing and treating the people who elected him professionally and with respect, AKMuckraker would not have exposed his behavior. And NOTE – It is actually his JOB to listen to what the people are saying, and respond appropriately.

I haven’t had time to collect links today but here are some from yesterday – I would like to highlight these –

Picture of Mudflats’ AK Muckraker Posted! <-- do not fear, just go and read it. I would not be posting a link if it infringed on AKM's privacy, and AKM has commented on the post too.

Lorelle Van Fossen, who to me is famous but may be unknown to many of you, is writing a series on this event -

The Outing of a Blogger: Social Transparency or Violation?
The Outing of a Blogger: Is it Legal to Reveal a Blogger?
The Outing of a Blogger: The Fear of Being Found Out

More links will be added to this post once I work out what hasn’t been posted. Apologies for any double ups.

Dear Mr. Doogan (Don’t feed the bears)
A Final Thought About Rep. Doogan and Mudflats
“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
alaskan dem legislator outs blogger
Exposed
Mike Doogan- own version of 1st ammendment
Anonymous bloggers, journalism and politics
The pertinent point
Alaska Legislator Mike Doogan: A Tool Of The First Order
Headline Does Not Match Story, Part 14: “Anti-Palin”?
Mike Doogan was wrong!
Take action on behalf of MUDFLATS
Mike Doogan Fell
My Letter to The Ethics Committee
Anonymous blogging
Open Letter to Alaskan Rep Mike Doogan
Please look for a new book by Alaska writer Mike Doogan: “Indecent Exposure.”
Know Your Blogging Rights and Help Protect Anonymous Bloggers Everywhere
Suck. Suck. Blow.
ADN’s Ear Siding With Doogan – The World Has Gone Mad
Politician Outs Blogger
…it begins.

I honestly cannot believe I am typing this.

Some time ago Alaskan Politician Rep Mike Doogan was sending some crazy emails to people who emailed him and AKMuckraker was one of the bloggers involved in exposing his craziness.

Apparently this did not sit well with Rep Doogan. He has been trying to find out who AKMuckraker was for several months now and he has finally managed to do it. He then sent out a message to people on his mailing list via his official legislative newsletter, advising them of the real name of AKMuckraker. It is possible that when he did this, he broke the law.

Whether or not people support AKMuckrakers opinions, I believe most people would support her right to remain anonymous. I feel it is a right that everyone on the internet is entitled to – people make the decision for their own reasons, some because they have been cyber stalked in the past, some to prevent being cyber-stalked in the future.

This may be the first known case of an anonymous blogger being cyber-stalked by a politician determined to find out their real identity and out them, though!

You can read the full story here -

In Exposing the Identity of Mudflats, Rep. Mike Doogan Exposes Himself.

There are also some other blog posts on this subject -
Progressive Alaska
Shannyn Moore
The Immoral Minority
Mamadance
Palin Gates
Think Alaska
We’re Not That Stupid

I have been supporting AKMuckraker for almost 6 months now – we have been hosting her blog and forums – we have a team of mods and admins who keep the forums running smoothly. I did not need to know her real name to do that (and in fact did not know her real name until today) nor did I care what her name was. I understand anonymous blogging – I do it myself for the reasons explained on my about page.

My support will not change – other than to do whatever it takes to make sure Rep Mike Doogan never wins an election again, and to also inform the worldwide media of what he has done. It is highly inappropriate.

Epic Fail, Rep Doogan. Epic Fail.

I may not be around much for the next week or so, I’ll be busy taking action on this.

We’re pretty used to our favourite little river now. It is our comfort zone. We know what to expect – calm, clear waters, occasional boat wakes which are not too scary, sometimes a little bit of a wave, but for the most part it looks like this -

We’ve talked about going out into the bay a few times – which contains sharks and dolphins and at certain times of the year even whales – but this time the water looked fairly calm so we decided to have a go at it. This is taken from out in the bay looking back towards our comfort zone.

Note to self – it always looks calmer than it actually is, even in photos. Once we got out there it was a bit scary. I didn’t take too many photos because we were concentrating on what we were doing.

Both the dolphin boats were out, packed full of people as it was a gorgeous day. They did not seem very far away when we were out there, but they were a long way away as you can see in this photo. It almost seemed like we could paddle out to them in a few minutes.

Hey, what’s my boat doing out here?

We ventured out a couple of kilometres and it seemed like we were out there for ages but that was the fear making time go very slowly.

I had a sad that no dolphins approached us. Maybe next time we venture out of our comfort zone, they will. It certainly is a good reason to get out there and get used to it.