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Irresponsible, or a legitimate action by the paper and editor. What say you?


Journalists’ Addresses Posted In Revenge For Newspaper’s Google Map Of Gun Permit Owners


Gregory Ferenstein

posted yesterday


A week after the Newtown massacre, The Journal News published an interactive Google Map with the names and addresses of gun permit owners in select New York cities. The bold move has escalated into a transparency arms race, after a Connecticut lawyer posted the phone number and addresses of the Journal‘s staff, including a Google Maps satellite Image of the Publisher’s home. “I don’t know whether the Journal’s publisher Janet Hasson is a permit holder herself, but here’s how to find her to ask,” read Christopher Fountain’s blog post. The double irony here is that open data was heralded as a tool of enlightened civic dialog, and has been co-opted for fierce partisanship, bordering on public endangerment.

The Journal‘s original publication of the map sparked nationwide outrage and thousands of angry comments. Gun permit holding is public information in New York, and can be acquired through a mere request via the Freedom of Information Act. But, coming on the heals of the Newtown shooting, the publication had a clear provocative intent. “New York residents have the right to own guns with a permit and they also have a right to access public information,” said a defiant Hasson.


Journalists’ Addresses Posted In Revenge For Newspaper’s Google Map Of Gun Permit Owners | TechCrunch

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Patters

To me, it's obviously an invasion of privacy and an attempt to stifle the free press, but that's no surprise from the radical right. A legitimate protest would be to campaign for safeguards to protect the the names of gun owners or to organize a boycott or protest against the newspaper.

PatsWSB47

I think the press was irresponsible in this case for a number of reasons. That said two wrongs do not make a right.

Hamar

Wow, what a crap-fest. Why were the names and addresses of people with legal gun permits posted? What possibly could have been the intent? There is a lot of information that is "public information" should people start compiling lists and making those lists public?

I am all for rational gun control such as registering and even required safety classes, but this seems to sent the message that if you buy a gun you are a list that can be used against you. I have no plans to get a gun, but if I do considered it I now will think twice about how I want to acquire said gun.

Hamar

So two people do the same thing and yet you only see one as wrong? Both were wrong for doing what they did. This is is not right vs left it is idiot vs idiot.

The fact that this is being turned into a my side vs your side thing is proof how bad things really are in America, sad

PatsWSB47

I think it's an attempt to punish gun owners and is some kind of an attempt at a statement. Not only does is affect the gun owners but it puts the neighbors that are not on the list at risk. It's broadcasting who does not have a gun to criminals where the lower lying fruit is. Bob Jones has a gun but Bill Smith does not....hmmmm which one should I burglarize?

What the "journalist" did was wrong. So if that is wrong then so is the revenge for it.

Charlotte Pats Fan

People without the permits might as well put " This House is a Gun Free Zone sign in their yard.


NY Senate passed a bill last year making it illegal to do this and it died in the assembly.

Bills

IcyPatriot

They posted public information in the paper ... nothing to see here - public means free for all to see.

This is why we have freedom of the press ... part of their duty is to disclose public information as needed.

In the old days it would be called good journalism ... digging for the story.

Now if only we could get access to government public info so easily.

patsfan13

Funny the left object to the publishing of the names and addresses of registered sex offenders, yet this paper feels free to invade the privacy of legal gun owners who followed all the procedures to get their guns properly licensed.

Serves them right to get a little of their own medicine.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

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Real World

Patters....lol.

Anyhow, I find this to be one of those things that makes you think a little bit. On the one hand, what they did is perfectly legal, but on the other, it doesn't necessarily sit well with me, or seem to be in the spirit of making the information available. I do enjoy the fact that the blogger in question posted the addresses of the newspaper people in question. What's good for the goose... Ultimately this brings me to the question I always like to ask. Just because you can, does it mean you should?


I think making that inforation public as they (the newspaper) did, could actually create more problems, and put more innocent people in danger. Potentially, criminals could see that map, and break into those houses hoping to steal the guns they have been told are there. Were that to happen, those stolen weapons could be used to shoot people elsewhere as well. Conversely, for those properties not shown to have guns on that map, it could be what another post said, an invitation to rob the unarmed. In any event, while I get what the paper was trying to do, I think it was slightly irresponsible to do.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897