August 22, 2007
FYI
I received this e-mail this evening from Larwyn, a wonderful lady who posts emails loaded with blog info that she gathers and sends out to a lot of people. I'm posting this on the blog because I think that "sensitivity" has gone far enough and we need to fight back against those who have their wittle feewings hurted!
Larwyn,I know that you deal with a lot of posts, but I think the following needs special consideration. Dr. Bruce Tefft, who co-founded the CIA counter-terrorism center in 1985, worked for Orion Scientific (at the time Orion supported the Able Danger program), and then taught the NYPD how to run a counter-terrorism center after 9/11, is being sued for comments that me made in emails which were deemed to be critical of Islam. He fully expects the case to be thrown out of court but has built up over $64,000 in legal fees now and needs help. Imagine if any of us could get sued for making negative comments to an email list and find ourselves in his place!
Mike
Able Danger Blog
Defense Fund web site
Bruce Tefft, who posts to the OSINT yahoo group , has accumulated upwards of $64,000 in legal fees in a lawsuit over messages that he sent to a different email list. I guess free speech really isn't free after all. Please consider visiting the link above and making a donation. If you can add a banner to your own web site or blog that would help, too:NYPD terror adviser sued for 'anti-Islamic' messages
A Muslim analyst for the New York City Police Department is suing the city for workplace harassment, alleging he was subject to a regular stream of "anti-Islamic" messages from an e-mail list run by a former adviser who trained detectives in counter-terrorism.
The contracted adviser, retired 21-year CIA veteran Bruce Tefft, is also a defendant in the suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan last December.
But Tefft – a founder of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Unit – told WND he believes the analyst, who is not named in court papers, has no case against him. Tefft, noting the suit so far has cost him $50,000 in legal fees, cites First Amendment protections and argues NYPD personnel signed up for his e-mail list at their own will and were completely free to unsubscribe at any time.
He also points out his employer at the time, the private intelligence firm Orion Scientific Systems, covered his entire salary and expenses, effectively donating his services to the NYPD.
A hearing is scheduled for next month on a motion to dismiss the case.
Tefft continues to send out about 50 to 60 e-mails a day comprised mostly of unclassified material and news reports from around the world related to terrorism and Islam. In a fraction of those dispatches he adds his own comments, some of which became a focus of the complaint.
"This is a global war we are in," Tefft said, explaining the relevance of the e-mailed reports to domestic officials. "The enemy is a global enemy. Jihadists are all over the world. So whatever goes on around the world has value here."
The suit by the Egyptian-born analyst – who filed as "John Doe Anti-Terrorism Officer" because he works undercover in the Cyber Unit – says the e-mails "ridiculed and disparaged the Muslim religion and Arab people, and stated that Muslim- and Arab-Americans were untrustworthy and could not reliably serve in law enforcement positions or handle sensitive data."
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Best,
LarwynHelp if you can! Posted by GM Roper at August 22, 2007 03:37 PM | TrackBack
Obviously you have the right to say anything as a private citizen, as long as it isn't slanderous. At work, however, you lose some of those rights and especially when you're in a position of power, you aren't allowed to say and do certain kinds of things to make the workplace environment "hostile." Now, I'm no lawyer and don't know too much about the case, but from what I've read, this guy was making anti-arab and anti-muslim statements at work and sending them out to large audiences, impacting the workplace environment. As the CEO of a company should I be able to send out regular emails insulting christians or Republicans? Of course not. Whether this instance crosses some legal line isn't for you or I to determine, but I can't imagine why you would want to put up money to defend some one accused of hate-speech at work.
Here are some other perspectives on this case:
http://www.observer.com/node/36451
http://archives2006.ghazali.net/html/lawsuit_says_nypd.html
Posted by Mavis Beacon at August 23, 2007 10:09 AM
"At work, however, you lose some of those rights and especially when you're in a position of power, you aren't allowed to say and do certain kinds of things to make the workplace environment "hostile."
You lose no rights. There may be significant consequences but you still have the right to say what you want.
I do NOT support hate speech, nor idiot speech, nor... fill in the blank here. Having said that, I support the right of the individual to say what he wants, when he wants to who he wants. The info I have is that the individual suing always had the option to opt out, that he waited some three years when I would have, and I think you would have also made a big deal out of it immediately even if it cost us our jobs. And yes, that happened to me once when I told my boss exactly what I thought of his "supervision skills" full well knowing what it might cost.
I am however, equally sick and tired of mealy mouthed whiners who think they have a right not to be insulted. As you recall Mavis, I'm insulted quite regularly over at Marcs place and Woody gets even worse. Sometimes by quite hateful speech. Should I sue? Or should I fire back and call the idiot an idiot? I'll take the latter thank you.
Posted by GM Roper at August 23, 2007 01:09 PM
Ha! Telling your boss off. I wish I could have seen that. Sounds great.
I agree with your distinction regarding rights and consequences. In this case, I think the responsible party is the employer, not Mr. Tefft. Again, I'm not a legal expert so I don't want to get too involved in the details of the case. I suspect Mr. Tafft has behaved very poorly and the city behaved worse by allowing his nasty comments to be sent to employees under the guise of official business.
More generally, you simply can't compare inappropriate or hostile speech at work to that in regular life. Bosses simply aren't allowed to mistreat people for no reason. And they're definitely not allowed to abuse some one because they don't like her race, religion, or sex. It's a worker protection that I believe in. If you don't, I hope to see a post the next time you hear of Christian feeling insulted at work telling him to pipe down.
Posted by Mavis Beacon at August 23, 2007 02:42 PM
