Michelle Malkin controversy

i'm sure most blog readers are aware of the recent Michelle Malkin controversy in which she posted the home phone numbers of three UC-Santa Cruz students who led anti-military protests. Orcinus had a very good post about this. Here's a short excerpt:

There is a good reason that using the power of mass media to expose individual citizens' private lives to abuse and threats is considered unethical: It represents unchecked and abusive power. No one interested in holding the public trust should either want or seek it.

Yet this, of course, is exactly what Malkin did this week in publishing, on her blog, the home phone numbers of three students who led anti-military protests on the campus of UC-Santa Cruz.

Predictably, the students were deluged with hate mail and phone calls, including a number of death threats.

Malkin not only refused to take the numbers down -- in response, she reverted to her timeworn victimization schtick, posting some of the nasty e-mails she received in return and pretending there was nothing wrong or unethical in her behavior.

We're all too familiar with this routine. After all, it's what the entirety of her book Unhinged was predicated upon. Malkin, as I said then, is like the lunatic who walks around the public square and pokes people in the eye with a sharp stick, and then is shocked, shocked, that anyone would respond with anger and outrage.

Predictably it was only a matter of time before bloggers retalliated against Malkin by publishing her home address on the internet. Here is Malkin's reply:

You know who you all are.

And if you think I'm going to stop blogging/writing/making a living because you've plastered my family's private home address, phone numbers, and photos and maps of my neighborhood all over the Internet to further your manufactured outrage and pathetic coddling of a bunch of lying, anti-troops punks at UC Santa Cruz...

...you better think again.

This is a case where two wrongs don't make a right. It's just plain wrong to post people's personal information on the internet. Malkin was wrong to post those numbers and should have appologized and taken those numbers down, not dig in her heels. Malkins reply shows the hypocrisy of the right and a disdain for people's Constitutional right to protest in this country. They may in fact be lying, anti-troop punks but as long as they're not breaking any laws they have the right to be. People's lives should not be put in danger simply because they hold unpopular views. Punishing people who hold unpopular or different views by posting their personal information which may lead to physical harm coming to them ain't what america is about. What the bloggers did by posting Malkins address was just as wrong but Malkin gave up all rights to be outraged when she refused to admit any wrong doing by posting the UC Santa Cruz students home phone numbers.