cross-posted at skippy and a veritable cornucopia of other community blogs.

in an unfortunate waste of legislative time, alaskan rep. mike doogan has "outed" akmuckraker, the writer of the great alaskan blog mudflats. over @ the sideshow, avedon carol sums up the fiasco pretty succinctly:

it was all bound to go wrong once a local elective official responded to e-mails by pretending that constituents who wrote to him had no legitimate business with him. but when alaska blogger akmuckraker of the mudflats suggested that mike doogan’s intemperate and ill-mannered response was out of order, doogan apparently seethed with a lust for vengeance, and has since devoted his time to finding out the identity of this "unaccountable" private citizen. and so in the fullness of time akmuckraker received the following e-mail:

jeanne:

i am reliably told that you are the anonymous blogger who writes mudflats. i am planning to reveal this in the enews i send to my constituents tomorrow, and am writing to let you know this and offer the opportunity to comment.

mike doogan

akm doesn’t tell us of a reply to this astonishing message, but mine would have been, "why? are you hoping one of them will throw a brick through my window? that i or a member of my family will be fired from a job? that someone will harass my kids at school? what purpose does this serve, and is it what your constituents are paying you to do?"


we are most disturbed by this. we followed (and linked often to) mudflats during maggie o’connell’s veep campaign last year. we sincerely hope this turn of events will not slow akmuckraker down (or otherwise disrupt her life. we do admit, we always thought that ak was a guy. imagine our surprise!).

along w/gov. palin deriding bloggers for exercising their legal rights in alaska, rep. doogan seems to think that being in government doesn’t mean that you are accountable to the citizens that got you there; apparently alaskan officials think the reverse: do what we say or else!

and, as avedon points out, doogan is a democrat.

remember, dems can be morons, too.

here’s an idea: why not email rep. doogan and let him know how inappropriate it is for a government official to be wasting time invading a citizen’s privacy, simply because they disagree w/the official’s public platforms?

addendum: big tent armando, over @ talkleft, points out that a couple of guys named alexander hamilton and james madison (and may we remember to add john jay, as well) were all into this pseudononymous thing. tim f. @ balloon juice echoes the sentiment.

and we found that the supreme court, in mcintyre v. ohio elections commission (1995), was, too:

"under our constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. it thus exemplifies the purpose behind the bill of rights, and of the first amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation — and their ideas from suppression — at the hand of an intolerant society."

we’re guessing that ‘anonymous pamphleteering’ and blogging could be construed as the same.

but we’re not lawyers.

double addendum: liberty grape, commenting @ balloon juice, also provides us w/the more important email addys:

by the way, if you want to really express your outrage, you should write an email to the democrats with the real power, the minority leader and minority whip. there email addresses are rep.beth.kerttula@legis.state.ak.us, rep.david.guttenberg@legis.state.ak.us …

if you want to really spread the word, you should email the joint committee on legislative ethics. their emails are representative_john_coghill@legis.state.ak.us,
representative_berta_gardner@legis.state.ak.us,
senator_gary_stevens@legis.state.ak.us,
senator_thomas_wagoner@legis.state.ak.us.