Vegan Soapbox Receives Take Down Request
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I received this email in my inbox today.
It’s a Take Down Request from the University of Berkeley in regards to a commenter’s post left here at Vegan Soapbox over a year ago.
Clarification: The request was sent to my web host, not to me. My web host forwarded it to me.
The message is copied and pasted here:
> Re: Take down request — Inappropriate personal information posted by
> ThePlanet.com Internet Services customer website Ҕvegansoapbox.comҔ
>
> The Ҕvegansoapbox.comҔ site, a customer of ThePlanet.com Internet
> Services, Inc., is enabling the publication of endangering personal
> information on pages entitled Ҕ5 Responses to CA AB 2296 Stifles Animal
> AdvocatesÃ’Â’ Right To
> Free SpeechҔ under the item ҔJon commented on Apr 16th, 2008 at 6:03
> pmҔ.
> The web page is posted at:
> http://www.vegansoapbox.com/ca-ab-2296-stifles-animal-advocates-right-to-free-speech/.
>
> The material includes personal home addresses and home phone numbers for
> individual researchers, work locations with specific room numbers in
> buildings on campus and work phone numbers for the researchers. The
> posting of such personal and work location information in this context
> clearly endangers these members of our academic community.
>
> Therefore, we request that your company immediately take whatever level of
> action is necessary to remove the material in question, up to and
> including disabling the entire site if required.
>
> This request is also made in light of Government Code section 6254.21
> which protects public officials, such as University employees, and their
> families from the possibility of intimidation and harassment in their
> private homes, by prohibiting the kind of publication of home addresses
> undertaken on the Ҕvegansoapbox.comҔ website.
>
> Your cooperation in this important matter will support efforts to enforce
> legal and appropriate use of the Internet. Absent immediate confirmation
> that you agree to take down this inappropriate personal information, my
> Office will be referring this matter to our legal counsel for their
> action.
>
>
> Sincerely,
>
> (original signed by S. Waggener)
>
> Shelton M. Waggener
> Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technology and Chief Information
> Officer
> University of California, Berkeley
I believe this Take Down Request is just that, a request. I do not believe I have any legal obligation to remove the material.
I do not plan to remove the information.
I urge you to read the post and the comments for yourself and draw your own conclusions:
http://www.vegansoapbox.com/ca-ab-2296-stifles-animal-advocates-right-to-free-speech/
UPDATE: Here are some related articles:
- Regarding The Terrorist Label – “three reasons why the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller isn’t being called terrorism” but animal rights activists are the “number one domestic terrorism threat” despite never killing a human.
- Animal Extremists Are Not A Threat – “animal rights and environmental activists are less a threat to national security than to corporate financial security”
- Oppose The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act – “All you have to do is look at the groups who support the act and the groups who opposed the act to know that the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) isn’t good for free speech, animal rights, or protecting innocent Americans from terrorism.”
The inclusion of request in the title is a misnomer. This is a demand, and rest assured they’ll do whatever they need to to get it taken down if you don’t comply – not that I would comply, nor do I think you should if you feel up to a good fight. At the very least their department addresses and information are legal and publicly available (I can get them by going to the UCB web site) and those things should be left up. UCB is a government funded school, and I damn well better be able to speak my mind to them about what they do since their grants are probably 90% government funded.
~ Recent blog post: Behind “dairy” ~
I don’t agree with this “request” at all… But I do believe they are acting in accordance with Government Code section 6254.21
http://law.onecle.com/california/government/6254.21.html
IF… and it’s a big “if”: this information is about someone who is:
an “elected or appointed official”.
It says nothing about employees working at universities that I could find… These “scientists” aren’t elected or appointed – are they? If not, I don’t see how this code affects you.
You could try to find something relevant at the American Civil Liberties Union site… And from what I understand, if you were to list these phone numbers/addresses in an “artistic” fashion -For example against a creative, colorful backdrop or other picture “visual” illustration – It is then considered “art” and cannot be removed. At least that’s one way around it.
Hope this helps…
~ Recent blog post: Factory Farm Burns Thousands of Live Chickens (again) ~
I figured Waggener would have cited an AETA law. As Bea said, professors aren’t public officials.
I do not believe I have any legal obligation to remove the material
and I’m currently willing to accept the consequences.
Here’s a reminder of why this information is important to make public:
I would definitely seek legal advice. Wouldn’t want to go down the way the Shac 7 did. Laws tend to protect the interests of those in power, not necessarily the interets of those who need need it most.
But if it were me, and I had to remove even one tiny portion of my blog about the cruelty going on at the University of Berkely, I would replace it with ten times as much information about what is going on at Berkeley.
In light of the recent murder of a doctor whose practice offended many people with strongly-held views, I (a liberal vegan who opposes animal testing/experimentation) agree completely with UC Berkeley’s request. The private addresses should be removed.
There is no reason to have these peoples’ home addresses up on your website. Have you learned nothing from the George Tiller incident?
I sort of can’t believe that you are so against taking their information down. Sure, I bet it’s publicly available, but you’re providing it in a place where there are a lot of people who fanatically hate what these scientists are doing. It’s not safe, it’s not justified, and it’s irresponsible for you to act like this.
Ellie,
First, “The George Tiller incident”!?! It was a murder, call it a murder. It wasn’t an “incident.”
Second, no one on the list has been harmed in the year and two months that the info has been on Vegan Soapbox. Why should one murder of a reproductive health doctor in unrelated circumstances cause alarm for animal experimenters now?
Why would your mind even go directly to George Tiller? There is nothing similar about the situations. Why doesn’t your mind go to the tortured animals in laboratories? Or even, why doesn’t your mind go to the human victims of bad animal-based “research”, for example the children of Thalidomide or the people killed by Vioxx. How is Dr. Tiller’s death more related to this issue than those deaths?
For more on that subject, please watch The Human Cost of Animal Testing (available here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A561BDC492A5C62A )
I am disturbed by the implication, in the comments about Tiller, that the publication of the addresses of animal experimenters may lead to their deaths. A person intent on harming another is not going to go over the edge because those addresses are published in a vegan blog. The addresses are easily obtained in other public ways. Not publishing the addresses clearly does not protect those experimenters.
Interestingly, the rights of individuals to publish the full directions to build bombs is protected by our rights to free speech. There are risks inherent in living in a democratic society.
I would be interested in a researched legal point of view on this subject, given that the blog is published in Nevada by Nevada citizens, that the post was made prior to the California government code adoption, and that the addresses are publicly available.
Note to commenters coming from Feministe:
I’m curious on your thoughts regarding this:
http://diaryofananxiousblackwoman.blogspot.com/2008/04/corporate-rapists-in-congo.html
Name a single person ever killed by an animal rights activist. Until we can find one, the Tiller reference isn’t valid.
~ Recent blog post: Behind “dairy” ~
Well, I think every one of your readers should copy that information in case you have to remove it later. And since electronic communications are so easy to trace, a snail mail with no return address would be pretty hard to trace.
I think we should all write nasty letters and mail them weekly or daily to these assholes until they stop their abuse of animals.
~ Recent blog post: Mmm, cheesy ~
I think that the addresses should be taken down. There is no great reason for them to be there, and leaving them up will just antagonize the university and harm the cause.
Whether or not there ever has been anyone killed by animal rights activists, it is a possibility in the future, and ignoring or dismissing it is naive. While it is extremely unlikely, its best not to appear callous about such things.
The link on Feministe… it is odd how no one seems to mind the publication of the names/addresses there. But it’s predictable as it’s “their cause”… and not “just” about animals.
I’m still in favor of replacing the info with “art”… but then again, Warwak certainly had a time with free speech in art too…
Matt’s right – you don’t want to go the way of Shac7 – And these are very strange times…
~ Recent blog post: Turkeys Die in Fire * Inhumane Animal Agriculture – Go Vegan ~
Vegan Soapbox is not SHAC7. But all this talk about SHAC7 demonstrates the chilling effect that the AETA and other anti-animal advocate laws have on our movement.
More reminders of what and who is at stake:
For me the issue is the way Berkeley is approaching this.
Their first communication about this should have been an email to the Vegan Soapbox admin saying,
“We’ve found a comment on your site we’d like you to remove please.”
Instead, they sent a ham-fisted legalish threat directly to the web host saying, “Take this down or else.”
I say legalish because the legal basis they cited to demand the takedown is ridiculously thin. They cited a California state law (Vegan Soapbox and admins are not in California) that protects public officials (i.e., politicians, law enforcement, judicial people, and NOT University professors), and even beyond that there are reasons the law wouldn’t apply to the comment in question.
In other words, Berkeley has made an illegitimate demand to a web host implying that they have a legal standing they simply don’t have. Instead they should have opened with a more reasonable request written directly to the admin of Vegan Soapbox.
The problem is that these legalish threats often work. Web hosts get feverish and make rash decisions to take down sites without warning. This costs people part of their livelihoods. Indeed, our livelihood is directly tied to our websites. If our host were to shut down our webserver today over this, it would be expensive.
In general organizations are given far too much leeway to issue baseless takedown threats with no repercussions and no consequences for the damages they sometimes cause.
I also think that we as a society need to get straight that publishing contact info is not at all equivalent to harassment or intimidation. The context is key. When the post is, “Go vandalize these houses,” then fine. But when the post is, “Please send these people a letter,” well, that needs to be PROTECTED because it is the essence of FREE SPEECH. Laws that prohibit the publishing of contact information are, IMO, directly in violation of the 1st Amendment.
I’m sorry some people are having their lives disrupted by activists, but Vegan Soapbox has had NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with that, and to even think to draw that connection is UTTERLY FALLACIOUS.
If someone from Berkeley reads this… please discontinue the empty legal threats. They could hurt the livelihoods of decent people. Instead, in the future, please submit a respectful request to admins of your targeted websites.
~ Recent blog post: Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em Release in One Week ~
1)In my opinion, the main issue here is censorship and the chilling effect.
2) It should be noted that: The livelihood that Ed mentions comes from other websites we manage that are hosted on the same webserver. Vegan Soapbox earns barely anything (currently VO earns under $20 a month). The income generated by this website goes directly to pay for web hosting or to fund the vegan cookbook giveaways (cost of book and/or shipping). This website is a labor of love, not a money-maker.
3) I am sympathetic to privacy issues. I have been the receiver of harassment and intimidation myself. So when someone tells me that they are being harassed and that information on one of my websites is enabling harassers, I’ve removed the information.
In this case, the information has been on Vegan Soapbox for over a year, no harm has come to the individuals listed, and no one contacted me directly. There is no reason to believe that my decision to leave the comment up will result in any harm to anyone.
Because I am sympathetic to privacy issues, I might support legislation that protects individuals from having their home addresses published on the web. However, I do not support legislation that protects one group of powerful people, but not other groups of less powerful people. And I’m especially repulsed by the idea that animal experimenters deserve special protection… when no true harm has ever come to any of them.
As a child of a rapist, I am more concerned by the real violence happening everyday to real women by their harassers, stalkers, rapists, and abusers than by any of this imaginary violence directed at animal experimenters. If anyone is truly concerned about harassment, intimidation, and violence, let’s get real and focus our energy on the real victims of these crimes, not on those who wear lab coats and cry wolf.
Ed and EV, I agree with everything you have said here. The victims in this situation are the animals in Berkeley’s labs, not the monsters who torture them for profit. That said, it might be much more difficult for you to advocate on behalf of these victims from behind bars. I don’t think you should run and hide from any baseless legal threat you receive, but I do think it would be wise to consult legal council about this. You are dealing with very powerful and vicious monsters after all.
If it makes you feel any better, Matt, I sent emails to:
* The Electronic Frontier Foundation
* The American Civil Liberties Union
* The Animal Legal Defense Fund
No one has responded as of yet.
What I don’t understand is the purpose of posting the home addresses.
If it is simply to give people a physical address to send letters to, you could just give them their university address. They have mailboxes on campus.
Instead you are giving out their home addresses.
So what is your purpose?
Amber, you’ll have to ask the commenter who posted the addresses. I didn’t post the addresses and neither did any of the Vegan Soapbox writers. The addresses were posted in a comment a year ago.