1. If a guy sends me an e-mail saying, "Hey, look what Barrett Brown posted on DKos," is that "collaboration"?

2. The claim that I "actually suggested that would be a funny button to push" -- re: Barrett's GF -- I have no idea where anybody would get that. Brown knows I posted his video about the GF's douchebag roommate, but that was months ago, before Brown got himself mixed up in the Anonymous operation.

3. Brown should consider the possibility that "FakeGreggHoush" is just fucking with his head. Given the multiple layers of hacker bullshit surrounding the Anonymous case, I certainly keep in mind that strangers sending me e-mail might be trying to prank me in some fashion.

4. The proximate cause of Brown's current worries is that he has gotten himself *publicly* involved in Anonymous. As I explained in my (one and only) blog post about this, it occurs to me this might just be Brown trying to do some showoff shit -- an ego-tripping publicity stunt. But considering that Anonymous is reported to be involved in illegal hacking, this would be a kamikaze trip: Brown is practically daring the FBI to investigate him, which would potentially expose to prosecution anything Brown has ever done online, or in real life. Not a smart move.

5. I haven't "blocked" Barrett's e-mails and CC him here. If I failed to reply to one of his e-mails, it's probably because I didn't see it, because I only see a fraction of the stuff that comes into my inbox. When I'm not blogging, I spend most of my time checking Memeorandum and Google News, looking for stuff to blog about, or on Twitter trying to promote my stuff. Barrett's problems are obviously far more important to him than to me, and if my name came up in his online chat activity, Barrett should ask himself who was ultimately responsible for that.

 

After I had spent two weeks at war with Charles Johnson in September 2009 and moved on -- after I came back from covering the Kentucky census worker story -- somebody called my attention to Brown's belated dogpiling on the "white supremacist" stuff. Without acknowledging his unnecessary and uninvited attack (for I had never done Brown any wrong and had no cause to re-start an argument that I had finished to my own satisfaction), I put up a short and purposefully opaque post just to let him know that his aggression had not escaped my notice:

http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/10/godless-americans.html

 

I have no desire to harm Barrett Brown, and from time to time I've offered him useful advice. I consider DON'T FUCK WITH ME to be very useful advice indeed.

 

-- RSM

 

P.S.: I'm just trying to make a living here. I'm a professional journalist, not a fanatical True Believer volunteering as an amateur participant in an ideological crusade. I have my opinions, but everybody has opinions, and an opinion and $1.89 will buy you a grande at Starbucks. To the extent that I make a living at what I do -- and I ain't getting rich -- it is my skill as a writer/researcher/reporter that is my stock in trade, rather than the unquestionable rightness of my opinions. Barrett Brown is also a skillful writer and not bad as a researcher, but what he lacks is news judgment -- an inability to distinguish between (a) what might be of interest to a general readership and (b) his own particular obsessions. His obsession with Anonymous is just the latest evidence of that deficiency of judgment.

P.P.S.: He should create his own blog, and make an attempt to gain at least AdSense revenue for his stuff, rather than scattering it all over the Internet.