In addition to a lot of effort working on issues related to the Prosecutor Purge, I recently spent a lot of time investigating caging and voter suppression, and with the help of several other people published 2 diaries on the issue that I think are comprehensive (Here and Here), and contributed to a compainion piece on ePluribusmedia. I got started on this issue because of the work of Greg Palast. I owe Greg a debt of thanks and and also an apology to him and his supporters.
See Below the Fold.
I was a lurker on many political sites for several years. DKos was the site I found views similar to my own. I posted a few dumb diaries, but mostly lurked. I got interested in the USA scandal. I started to read the doc dump and saw it needed organization. I tried to do that, recruited help here from many wonderful people at dKos, and helped to make a publicly available search tool for people to use to search the docs, www.trainingdb.com. In April, I read the Palast article "Buffalo Soldiers" in the doc dump. It seemed important, but since I am a novice, I didn't know exactly what it meant. So I started paying more attention. People were talking about Palast's 500 emails and 50 caging lists. I thought those emails would be critical for the doc database we made. I bought Palast's Armed Madhouse. This was mid May. GWB.org had 2 lists from Jacksonville, but only 1800~ caged names. I wondered where the others were. On May 23, Palast posted on dKos. I asked his spokesman who was blogging on his behalf where the lists could be found. I was directed to a Flickr image. I felt this wasn't an informative answer. I impetuously got angry for what I felt was getting the runaround. I sent Palast emails asking what I had asked in liveblogging, but they weren't answered. Palast said that he did not receive them. I use Yahoo, and it is often filtered, and I also am sure Palast gets a lot of email that is hard to keep track of.
So then I went back to gwb.org and downloaded all the attachments and counted the emails, and they seemed at odds with Palast's reporting. I posted "dangerous", because I thought Palast's nonresponse and Zach's prior misdirection indicated funny business. My opinion was based on intuition and a scratch at the surface of Palast's reporting. Basically in investigating something, you have to start somewhere. Ask Mr. Palast or yourself what you would have done if you were in my shoes. I shook some trees with preliminary information and hunch.
Among my mistakes were these:
- I did not wait long enough for Palast to respond.
- I was angry at being "brushed off", and I let this influence my decisions and writing.
- I was disrespectful to Palast in several instances in this diary, in comments I wrote, and in uprecommending other comments that did not encourage reasonable discourse.
These mistakes compelled Palast to write a perhaps equally emotional response to my diary. More importantly I initiated discussions that detracted from the real issues, the truth about caging and voter suppression.
I also published 2 more diaries in the back and forth, that were plagued with my disrespectful comments. They were not helpful to understanding the truth about caging and voter suppression, and to the extent they were insulting to Mr. Palast and his supporters, I apologize for those comments and retract them all.
For these reasons, I apologize to Mr. Palast and all the dKos readers, unconditionally. I retract any and all comments I made that are deemed disrespectful to Mr. Palast.
The Aftermath
Because Mr. Palast continued to stress the importance of caging lists, and I felt that my initial look needed better digging, I did more research. I analyzed the ZIP codes from census data and precincts from the Duval website. I got the neat finding that the letters were sent diffusely- this meant that RNC was not targeting the mailings to black ZIPs- they were avoiding Consent Decree violations (so far). I got the voter rolls from Duval. I loaded them into a database tool and matched the caging names. WOW fact: caging was racially biased. Not to the extent touted or the way described previously, but real, and backed up by good analysis that could be shared publicly. Now I knew RNC caging in Duval was biased, so a violation of Consent Decrees. In the midst of this work was an ability to do more analysis, and some of Palast's claims were not borne out by facts.
But more importantly the racial bias- that Palast and others since 2004 have reported- was definitive proof of Consent Decree violation. The Nevada caging list was in the public GWB files- more RNC caging. The "State Template" document showing plans to cage in Washington and Oregon and probably across the nation- it was in the public GWB.org files. It showed Bush-Cheney '04 running the caging show- WOW, this is how the RNC is trying to skirt consent decree= farming them out to campaigns and state parties so they don't have RNC fingerprints. Working with standingup and others at ePluribus, we got the Ohio caging case court documents. The emails there showed clear direction of caging in Ohio and elsewhere by the RNC and Bush Cheney '04, farmed out to state parties.
Almost all of this research and analysis I discuss was done by me, in the hours before my day job, with the incredible help of standingup at ePluribus. Others at ePluribus saw and edited my drafts and helped direct our thoughts and analysis. I spoke to election experts, Dan Tokaji and Phil Klinkner, and others.
So what you have from me is truth about caging. I am not a caging pioneer in the sense that I had no clue what it was or meant until recently. The DOJ docs and Palast's work helped spark my interest. I just applied my research skills to the publicly available data.
Mr. Palast is an award-winning journalist on many issues important to Democratic principles and justice. He was also the first journalist to bring the issue of caging to public attention. I believe he played a critical role in thwarting caging efforts in 2004. Greg Palast’s focus on the issue of caging indeed may help prevent unethical or illegal voter suppression in future elections. This is admirable, and should be rewarded and I am truly sorry that I posted comments that showed a lack of respect for his accomplishments.
Mr. Palast is also to be admired for the guts it takes to be public persona. He puts his name on the line every day. I am by choice, just an anonymous blogger. I am, in this regard, a coward in pajamas. I really would prefer to remain anonymous, because I have a wife and kids, and when I say things online that make people angry, I get emails that threaten me, and by extension, my children. I am to the core afraid of that, so yes, I am a coward by choice. My skin is thin.
Which brings me to the reason for the GBCW. In conjunction with angry comments directed at me in comment threads, I have also received vaguely threatening emails. I had hoped that anonymity would ensure security for myself and family. Unfortunately, a very effective "Troll Hunter" who posts at BradBlog is researching my identity. While I am fairly certain he means me no harm, that others might pursue my identity with the intent of somehow harming me is a risk I am unwilling to take. It's ironic to me that I feel more threatened by responses to my stupidity in insulting Palast than to the very important work I did on the DOJ scandal and voter suppression issues such as clearing up the truth about caging. I always thought before that it was the Government we had to watch out for.
I am clear that I brought this outcome upon myself by my own poorly considered comments. I am so very sorry for this, because the time I have spent posting on Kos has truly been exciting and rewarding for me, in a deeply personal way. Having volunteers help with an important project used by researchers in the media, encouraging and kind comments responsive to my diaries, getting to work with journalists at ePluribusmedia, and getting invited to direct a workshop at yearly Kos have all been extremely meaningful to me. I also think that despite the mistakes I made in not being more respectful to Mr. Palast and his supporters, the work I initiated on USAGate and Voter suppression will be helpful to the community for a long time to come.
Again, I apologize to Palast, his supporters, and the Kos community for not being more careful with words. I did my best and will miss being an active contributor to this community.
So ends drational.
Update: For the Record
John Dean is the researcher at Brad Blog, and he was kind to me in the email he sent with his research. He noted that he did not intend to share his research into my identity with anyone else but Brad Friedman, so I assume he satisfied his concerns and concluded I am not a troll. This is why I say in the diary, that although he is a Palast supporter, I don't think he intends to harm me other than outing me personally and for Brad. But that he is researching means others will be as well, and based on prior email threats, I can't handle the reality of non-anonymity. John Dean did not out me or threaten to do so, other than as he noted, presenting his research to Brad. I hope the two of them will respect my privacy, and that my ceasing blogging will get other researchers not to pursue me. As for the identity of the person or people who sent threatening emails, I don't know, but considering they came on the day of and after the "dangerous" diary, I suspect it is someone angry about that. People at ePluribus, such as standingup, know my identity and can vouch for my motives if anyone really has concerns that I am a troll.
Update 2:
John Dean scared me, but I now know more about him and am sure he meant no harm. He probably did me a service letting me know how easily I can be identified. I am really grateful for the kind words of so many of you have said. I am going to go away for a bit, let this issue wind down, and figure out how to better protect my identity and security. In retrospect and as I suspected at the time, I think the emails I got were probably benign. But seeing yourself identified by someone you don't know is frightening if you don't expect it, and although I am thick skinned as drational, for many reasons I am not so when identified. Please ease up on John as he meant no harm. And I think we should also ease up on Palast until he has a chance to respond. I think a detailed disclosure by him would do us all good in getting beyond this.
In closing, I have major regrets about my initial insults to Palast, but not for doing the research to find the truth. Based on how he handles power in his books, I think almost everyone will agree that had the roles been reversed, Palast would not have quietly accepted stonewalling, and he would have diaried aggressively at the first hint of it, pulling few punches.
Take care all.