Hey Blenderhead!

(Title taken from this song by Bad Religion.)

Atrios just linked to this post by Glenn Greenwald, and I find myself perturbed at the lack of comprehension involved. Here is the parenthetical comment that makes me wonder if Mr. Greenwald truly understands the concept he is ranting about.

(Incidentally, Instapundit, who claims with great self-satisfaction to be an adherent to the privacy-protecting "Online Integrity" concept, links to Riehl, who currently has posted on his blog satellite photographs of Punch Salzburger's home along with his home address).

Now, please show me where in the Statement of Principles it says that signatories are to police the blogosphere for violations? (Short answer: It doesn't. Compliance is voluntary.) Where does it say that the Statement applies to any blog writer, even those that do not sign on to the concept? (Another short answer: It doesn't. "Adherence to this statement begins at the moment of endorsement[.]")

Now, I was part of the first 24-hour rush to sign on to the Statement of Principles. I found this to be one of the best concepts I have run across. Why? Because I found it disturbing that folks would post the private information of people, simply because they vehemently disagree with them. (Atrios himself has done that many times over the years, as I recall. Yet for some reason, Google Blogsearch doesn't have his site available to search through so I can bring up the specific examples. Odd, that.)

Now, on the off chance that Duncan Black would sully his pointer over a link to my site, he would probably point to this post of mine and proclaim my hypocracy on the issue. Why? Because I linked to the professional e-mail addresses of the FCC commissioners. Yet look again at the Statement of Principles. It only protects private information such as home addresses, personal email, telephone numbers, and the pseudonymous. A member of a governmental agency's professional email would not be considered a violation, particularly seeing as how the right to petition the government for redress of grievances is enshrined in the same First Amendment as the right to freedom of the press that we bloggers use every single day.

So the Cliff Notes version of Online Integrity: Voluntary. Self-policing. Applies only to signatories.

Is that really so hard to understand? I don't see why obviously intelligent, though misguided, people such as Duncan Black and Glenn Greenwald have difficulties understanding this.

[UPDATE: 12:01a MDT]

The impossible has actually happened. I crossposted this over on Creative Destruction on an impulse and... I GOT INSTALANCHED! Does that mean I go from a W-List blogger to a V-list blogger? Only time will tell. But in the meantime, I feel like another rabid squeal.