Earl is not referring to snail-mail threats

For the usual BS, ignore can work wonderfully.

This isn't the usual BS, and EarlG wasn't addressing what happened to Bravenak.

and I will.

Just figured out how and sent her my support.

I want Bravenak and her family to stay safe, too. I think the culprit is one of those DU-obsessed fools on the site that shall not be named. If that person is here, then absolutely, they need to be IP address-banned from DU forever.

We're just so uber-awesome, we have these admirers. I hope the culprit is caught and faces justice.

to make sure she had some security precautions against a sick individual that would such a thing.

I'm pretty sure her family and herself know how to secure their homes.

I hope they stay safe, and whoever sent that with a Bernie logo at the bottom should realize that it does nothing to support his campaign.

online persona... and gave her really basic personal security tips too.

Her and her family's safety is first and foremost, until this is settled.

family. Thank you for reaching out. I feel so sick about this. Just sick.

If there's anything I can do to help...

It find that quite worrisome.

She is making sure her neighbors, her husband and her dogs are on the look out.

I suspect it's one of the rightwing idiot sites trying to upset our members.

I live alone and would not be without one (I have two, but one is not very intimidating).

Bravenak, I hope you are back soon, and that this culprit is disclosed and banned from any site you participate in.

Be safe and be well, and hurry back.

We don't know who wrote the letters. Things very likely not face value.

She's family. That is what matters.

But, too bad that they're too much of a coward to ever reveal themselves. 

and that absolutely should not be tolerated. It's probably that bunch or freepers or somebody like that who has nothing better to do than screw with Democrats.

Idiots.

Stalky behavior like this should not be minimized or joked about here.
It is really fucked up that people feel the need to do those things here. What one freak does isn't a reflection on good people here or any candidate. Sheesh.

Or wait, people who send anonymous creepy letters to people are probably cowards who wouldn't do that.

We need to support her.

If you're hit by a car, it doesn't matter the make and model, it's that you were hit by a car.

We stand united with her and her family.

knew the letter would be distributed on the internet, so all of it's content and the inferences that will be drawn from it are deliberate and calculated.

I am guessing that it is a from a Republican troll.

Got it.

there are any number of possibilities.

I think it's a real possibility.


And even if it were "real".... threatening to have posts hidden is not too serious.

Knowing where she lives is not too serious ether since she is all over the internet apparently.

But it does make for some nice drama and sounds all persecute-y.... very popular these days.

Misinterpreted to whom the post was replying to.

Writing an obnoxious letter about a message board from FL to someone in AK is stalking?

What about "obnoxious letter" makes you think I'm OK with it?

I don't know that I'm up to "disgusted".... because the facts are few and far between and I think there's a real possibility it's a PR stunt....

But it sure is stupid, obnoxious and sophomoric.

supporters have the most to lose.

Letter 1 has a wingnuttish air about it, as does the name "Mr. Citizen". I rather doubt a DUer or Bernie supporter would call themself out by stating such. Most likely that was to discredit DU or Bernie supporters.
The second letter is a puzzle. I have not seen it posted. The two envelopes in the posted picture have the same postmark date. It's very likely they were mailed together, I wonder why? They were 99% probability in the same mail bag on plane to west coast for forwarding to Ak. It would be unexpected to be delivered on separate days, imo, and if there was a snafu that caused them to be delivered different days, how could the sender know which would be delivered first, or opened first if delivered together? That seems odd.

I agree

I have been trying to say basically the very same thing.

Bravenak is a member of our family — and at a certain point, that is what matters most. I don't want to read that this could not be a DU member or any other excuse/justification —

SHE IS FAMILY.

This one isn't hard.

She deserves better than she received.

letter. Pretty much the same crap.

What the hell?

I hope she is doing something about it

If it's not a DU member then obviously it won't be possible to ban them. But I do hope that we get to hear if the complaints to the USPS and the police bear any fruit.

expletives. That's flat-out impossible for a freeper. He keeps referring to 'we' and 'us' and no physical threats of any sort were made, thank goodness, just general passive aggression and vague threats of 'alerts' and 'hides'.

The little letter writer is a genuinely nasty weak little person, but basically a total wuss who's entire persona is based on the couch he lays on while posting on the internet. He'll expose himself for who he is, soon enough. He's gloating on his little bit of attention right now, but it won't last long.

You can bet he's got a profile at both discussionist and on DU, look for similar writing patterns and vernacular.

unless it involves, sorry, affairs of the heart, so to speak, unless of course they're totally deranged.

Most of the members here are male, so the odds are more likely it's a male aggressor. Look for someone on the Bernie boards who is just a wee bit OTT in their love of all things Bernie.

Absolute speculation based on generalized statistics!

says Mr. Citizen - that's a pretty big clue right there

reveal their gender after sending such a hateful letter!

I would like to think most here are at least as smart as Encyclopedia Brown.

n/t

Most likely a member of RightWingNeanderthalDwellingPlace.com.

That's not the real name of the website. I don't want to give them any free publicity. But you can extrapolate from there.

They are psychopaths. Literally, psychopaths. As in mocking someone who is sick or has died psychopaths. And I only wish I was making that up.

or some other. The Internet is infested with several of them.

they take grave dancing to a new level... but I suspect it is actually from even further afield, still in RW land.

is there a way to get a clue? I have no idea what site you are referring to.

1. People on the right describe themselves as _______ in terms of their political ideology (but not in terms of party label.)

2. Neanderthals and other paleolthic members of the Homo genus were said to live in ____ where they would draw on the walls.

Put those two together and there you have it. I refuse to mention it by name and give them free press. Extremely disgusting members of the human race over there.

Because frankly, most people have more to do in their lives than obsess over the daily postings of another internet message board on their own board. So it takes a true special breed of loser to create a message board pretty much dedicated solely for that purpose.

And these are indeed losers. And possibly psychopaths based on their sickening reactions to other people's illness and death. Does anyone at DU actually care what X poster on Free Republic posted about on a specific topic on specific day, or what illness or misfortune he or she might be suffering? Of course not. We have more important things to discuss.

But there are billions of people on the internet on a daily basis, so it's inevitable that there will be slimy corners of the internet where the sick filth gather, small in number but incessant in their dark obsessions. See child pornography, animal abuse and racial supremacists.

It's probably not worth a visit or giving them the satisfaction of a page view. I've gone over there a couple of times just to see if there's been any mention of me, and there have been a few, but they have mainly focused on a few selected DUers on a regular basis.

It does not matter if it was Rush Limbaugh, Bernard Sanders or some 18yrd old their momma';s basement. It was a threat delivered over the mail , a CRIME, and possibly a FEDERAL CRIME. We want whoever did this to have the law come down on them. In the meantime, this is the time to circle wagons.

Last edited Sun Sep 13, 2015, 05:43 PM - Edit history (1)

And while some may suspect it is a PR stunt, they have nothing to go on and at this point, it's kinda like accusing someone of murdering their wife...yes, it's possible they did it, but what if they didn't...now they have the crush of dealing with a loved-one's death and an accusation of being the perp at the same time, even if there is no evidence to support it.

Save that crap for the police.

Is there a post that explains what happened?

Does anyone know if the Feds can get involved in this? Is there an agency she can report it to?

The feds generally wont deal with harassment issues unfortunately.

Oh it must be some troll or someone from another site.

No one wants to think some cowardly asshole sending shitty letters is from OUR community..it must be one of "them".

I agree with the OP... the person who sent it should be banned and exposed.

But by saying to ourselves that this asshole is not a "real" DUer, is to ignore what too many on this forum have been trying to say for a long time: that there are some nasty people on DU who stalk, harass, threaten and bully others...and yes some of these people are trolls, but sadly some are real DUers. DUers we may have had great conversations with or even liked, who may have had something valuable to contribute to the discussion but for some reason, someone or some issue triggered their inner asshole and they do stupid nasty shit.

The more we call out this behavior openly, the safer we will all be. But we can't hide from it.

And we can't fight over the who's and the why's. It has been happening.
And in Bravenak's case it has escalated and crossed over from Internet world to the real world. We need to support her 100% and be ready to face the ugly in our own community.

Brave lives here in Anchorage, Alaska. Hardly a neighbor.

and sorry if you interpreted my comment that way. I assumed - incorrectly, I guess - that you were aware of where the letters were coming from and where bravenAK lives. My intention was to point out that it is unlikely that this is a neighbor dispute, given the distance involved between where the letter was postmarked and where Brave lives.

My apologies.

Several at the top of the page.

http://upload.democraticunderground.com/118724750

WTF?

LOOK AT THE DATES AND TIMES

Copy me any of the details that I questioned that were posted on the matter on this very page BEFORE my comment on Thursday, Sept. 10 at 11:06 PST.

See, now there is a problem where there wasn't one before. Good job!

Sorry for being snotty, but I think you've harrassed me before.

JFC!

WEAK ASS S**T!

Thank you for making D.U. such a pleasant place!

FACT:: African-Americans are approx 13% of our population, yet..

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/raceinc.html

so even though it's postmarked Florida, it actually could have come from anywhere and some also include "delayed" remail so it could have been sent a while ago.

Here are a few I found:

http://rapidremailer.com/
http://texasremail.com/
http://chicagoremailingservice.com/
http://www.remailing.us/about.html

I still doubt that it was anyone local, though. There just aren't that many DUers in Alaska (assuming the perp is a DUer) and we don't seem to have the racial issues that some places do, especially toward AAs. (Disclaimer - I'm white, so can't verify from personal experience.). Whenever racism comes up here, it's usually directed towards immigrants, young Asian or Samoan gangs, for instance, who get in trouble, or Native street people who have alcohol issues. Over the past few years Anchorage has become much more diverse - in fact, some of our schools are the most diverse in the country - with everybody all mixed up together throughout the city, no pockets predominantly one race or another, so most of us seem to get along pretty well across racial lines and don't even think about it. Even Brave herself has told me that there's a lot less racism here than other places she's lived.

But I do definitely hope that someone gets to the bottom of who did this to Brave. It's really unacceptable.

There are 2 addresses listed for her in whitepages. Whoever sent it addressed it to one address and put the other one in the return address, so it would end up with her one way or another.

Clever, but sick.

or maybe there's a handbook out there.

Hopefully, this will be the end of it, now that they've accomplished their purpose of harassing Brave and sowing discord on the forum. Mission accomplished!

too clever by a half, and very disturbed person.

Only cowards send letters like that, so it's a nasty, lowlife troll, whether from here or "abroad" as it were.

You have our support bravenak. No one should be harassed or stalked by anyone on this site.

Whoever you are, asshole, may karma bite you in your filthy booty.

(I love Bernie, BTW, but I hate this sort of BS.)

If this person were as much a threat as they claim, why are they too chicken shit to admit who they are? That is a real yellow-bellied coward right there, too afwaid to claim their own BS.

Peace and Strength to you, Bravenak.

The only threat in the letter was "you are going to get alerted and suspended again"

Another threat between the lines maybe - we know your name and we know where you live, but really that is a threat known to anybody who ever wrote a letter to the editor, and I have written a number of them.

I found it funny, every time I wrote a letter to the Des Moines Register, I would get an anonymous letter from Sioux City with a couple of Bible tracts in it. When I wrote to the KC Star a couple of times I got letters with cut and paste headlines telling me how great George W. Bush was, and what an idiot I was for not liking him. Anonymous again.

Those are not serious threats like a rock through the window would be. Fortunately it seems that almost all newspaper readers believe in free speech.

As for "hate filled". Well, there are some f-bombs and the l-word, but I kinda think I have seen worse, posted to me on DU.

My funniest anecdote was when I was a newbie with maybe 25 posts, the DUer Wonk called me a 'good little Nazi'.

Because I had used the word 'weltanschauung'.

I replied to him "keiner ist ohne fehler" ( meaning - nobody's perfect, or literally - nobody is without mistakes).

I will not link to the latest dogpile where people were posting that they PMed the admin demanding my head on a silver platter (or is that a bad metaphor for a frozen pizza delivery?)

I actually feel bad about pissing people off, and I know when I am doing it. I have a number of unpopular opinions/points of view.

When the tribe is convinced "X is true", I will often argue that "X is false". Too many times the "counter argument" is "I hate you. Why are you even on this site?"

That's politics on the internet, I guess, and that's on a MODERATED site.

But I always liked Bravenak, perhaps because I always liked Boondocks.

Some random Florida Guy apparently managed to scoop enough info from Bravenak's posts - and who knows what else - to send the letter straight to her. Who knows what else could be sent. Or what other info might has been obtained.

Just the notion that some asshole a literal continent away took the time to dig up her mailing address and used to t o send some piece of shit letter like that is disturbing all on its own. But the rest of what is implied by it is plenty unsettlign as well.

No less scary than an express threat, but harder to take legal action over.

That said, it (still) only takes one search to find her real name, and only a couple more to find her address. This creep isn't a genius. He took advantage of deliberate or inadvertent disclosures she made.

I'm not blaming her - it would take a bit more to find me, but I have no illusions that it would take any experienced sleuth more than 30 minutes to find me.

This comment is more to make people aware that they reveal a lot even by fairly innocuous things like using the same handle on two different sites, linking to a privately hosted photo, copying text from a site on which your real name (or other handle) is used.

Being transparent, or not, is a choice. Being transparent doesn't give creeps (or worse) a license to stalk or threaten you. But you need to know what you are revealing so that you can make the choice rather than doing it inadvertently.

I would recommend everyone go to a computer they have not worked on before (so your past isn't cached), and see what you can find out by yourself using your pseudonyms, texts, and images you have posted online. If you believe you have kept your handles completely separate - do a search with two of them together and see if you ever used one when referencing the other. I consider myself very deliberate in my choices - but had completely forgotten when I used one (now dead) pseudonym from another site on DU. Using that I was able to retrieve pretty detailed medical conversations I had in 1998 on another site that no longer existed on the original site, but existed on a foreign archive of that site.

Those don't link to my real name, but I have made two posts here that will get you my real name very easily. One I deleted after it had been up a month or so. The other is still up. I knew, in making those posts, that it made it trivially easy to find me - and consciously chose to make them. Which is the point of this point: Know what risks you are taking and consciously choose to take them, or not.

If you link to your own domain be sure that you have enabled domain privacy. It's usually only a few dollars more. Otherwise anyone knowing your domain name can get your name, address and phone number.

that she blogs under her own name

So her name, if she has ever linked to her own blog, is no harder to find than William Pitt's.

Of course, I, myself, did not know about her blog, but that does not mean it is not fairly common knowledge, or all that hard to find. Neither is an address all that hard to find in the internet age. I just googled myself, name and city, and what do you know, for some reason the Chamber of Commerce has my name, address and phone number on their website. Plus there are apparently some articles about me that I never read - about my attempts to get elected in 2012.

I am also hearing now about "a continent away" and something about Alaska. Which makes it even less of a real threat if the letter comes from a long way away. Hate mail from Sioux City when you live in Mason City is not as much of a threat as hate mail from Mason City or Forest City.

This is all news to me. I don't see the police wanting to take this on.
Please let logic and common sense prevail here, emotions can really stir the better side of us.

NOW I see why it is a likely D.U. sender. I doubt the crazy person will make the flight to Anchorage from Florida.

Best thing would be to blow it off, who hasn't got flipped off at least once while just driving a car.

Have you ever heard of postal inspectors? This is what they do, ya know, investigate.

were about alerting on a website.

I can find pretty much anyone's address in the world and send them something in the mail. So long as it's not a toxic substance, something that can cause harm or a direct threat of violence or some other type of harm or crime, it's not a crime.

I think that law enforcement can find better ways to spend their time. Could do to dust the letter itself for fingerprints if someone takes an interest at the police station, but given that the person is most likely a DUer, there's not much chance of them being in the database. And I'm not sure that the police are obligated to disclose the name of the person if they turned up in the data base. And the fact remains that the letter in and of itself is not a criminal act. Creepy, but not criminal.

If it escalates, that's different but I'm sure the DUer who wrote that sad little thing is reading every word here with excitement and a little bit of tingling in their happy parts. They're not even interesting, just creepy and sad.

That's just a hunch.

Similar to hfojvt's experience upthread, I've had the experience of writing letters to the newspaper editor and 3 weeks later finding some nasty screed telling me to come to jesus, burn in hell, fuck off, whatever, in my mailbox.

I'd get phone calls occasionally, too.

While I understand Bravenak being upset by this, and condemn whoever did it in the strongest terms possible -- (the takeaway I get here is, this is what happens when people take DU too seriously, which happens all too much) --I suspect a Federal Prosecutor would have a little trouble actually making "if you come back to DU your posts will be alerted on" stand up as a threat of violence in a court of law. Certainly I can understand why she would be really bothered, simply because someone knows where she lives, but that is not the same thing as an actual written threat, so I suspect real legal action is less likely.

Whoever did this has way too much fucking time on their hands, and I'm sure some here can (and will) spend all sorts of time trying to figure out which group is responsible and what it means for DU and what immediate action must be taken by the administrators, usually something that amounts to "everyone who doesn't agree with me is part of the problem and needs to be banned, stat!"

My solution is to suggest that any people inclined to do so, not take a fucking message board so damn seriously.

Personally, I come to DU for political discussion, and not DU-discussing-DU-in-lieu-of-Political Discussion, so that's the extent to which I want to get into what I envision will be the inevitable navel gazeriffic back and forth about "See what you've done, Bernie people" "no we didn't" "yes you did" "you're the problem" "no you're the problem".

If I wanted to hear that type of thing I would take my kids on a long road trip. "He hit me first!" "he took my kindle!"

And to bravenak, nothing but and you have a community of people who condemn this thing.

will depend on a slew of things, including the number of letters, a threat assessment and the rest. If the person who sent them has a history of doing this it raises the possibility by the way.

The most likely scenario is that a file will be opened, and that is the end of it as far as law enforcement is concerned. Filing is critical for that to be opened, in the off chance that this escalates.

If charges are actually filed this is a felony... which you can bet will be pled down to a misdemeanor.

We watch courts too often, but a lot really depend on what the PI finds out. But by procedure they have to do do it.

You sure have learned quickly.

LeftofCool should LOOK UP things before she/he uses them as an OPPOSING argument.

Result: There is a problem now where there wasn't one before - good job!

Dumb, dumber, dumbest.

right over your head.

But unsurprising.

It is the nature of DU-ers to rally, and the implication that someone somehow hacked the mailing address is reason for concern.

I doubt law enforcement will do much, but if our Admin(s) figures out some details, I hope Skinner let's us know.

Skinner can do. I guess he could try to file charges against the person but it looks like somebody else already did that.

But on second thought maybe there is something that Skinner could do. Perhaps he could post an article providing tips to all of us on how to stay anonymous on the Net.

Last edited Fri Sep 11, 2015, 04:26 PM - Edit history (1)

enough to do something.

I am not saying this guy is some serial killer, but then again, when you look at serial killers, they all looked normal, the sort of people that never would have been suspected of picking bar fights, much less killing someone. This person may look stupid, funny, and worthless, but frankly, so did Son of Sam, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. The point is not to assume the worst, but to show that yes, people should be concerned, and that if someone wants to play like being a threat, they need to be treated the same, lest this one turn out to be another of those "I never thought they would be violent" types you read about.

and no, "alerted and suspends" does not seem like a lot, but you have no idea what else this idiot is thinking ion their little mind. I used the examples above because, again, all of those little men looked HARMLESS, one of them famous for being a CLOWN at children's parties.

it's true of you and it's true of me. You cannot extrapolate from a non-threat, like this post, (or that letter) and say "well, it could be a more serious threat" or "it could escalate" or "your toes could all explode".

She was called a "fucking liar"
told to shut her "fucking mouth"

or else

or else, what?

NOT or else you are gonna get hurt
NOT or else you are gonna regret it
NOT or else I am gonna find you and beat the crap out of you

NOT anything rising to the level of a real threat.

The whole threat and nothing but the threat was basically "next time we play mortal dragon combat, your character is toast".

It's about as scary as somebody threatening to throw a marshmallow at you.

And trust me dude, I've got a whole bag of marshmallows here, and I am ready to use them.

might disagree, or any of the many who thought so and so was harmless, until GUNS get involved.

These letters say:

*I know where you live.

*I am a sick person.

*I will invade your home, your privacy, and your boundaries without hesitation or guilt.

*I get my kicks making you afraid and feeling insecure in your own home.

....this is a very sick individual, and there is NOTHING I wouldn't put past him.
His sociopathy will go to the next level when writing anonymous letters no longer feeds his sickness.

that is all reading between the lines

"I know where you live" lots of people know where I live, or can easily find out.

And that's a silly threat anyway. One guy said that to me at work after another guy got fired. He said "he knows where you live" and I laughed at that. I said "so what? He's gonna attack me there? Where do you think I keep all my weapons?" If somebody is gonna come after me, I hope they decide to come to my house, I really do. I don't want anyone to come after me, but I like my chances better in my home than in any place on earth. (Well, my SUV is a pretty deadly weapon too, big enough to not be easily pushed around.)

a sick person? Not much of a sickness. All we know is that they sent an anonymous letter with a few cuss words and a pretty mild 'threat'. It's not like Bravenak woke up with a horse's head in her bed or something.

"I will invade your home, your privacy, and your boundaries without hesitation or guilt."

There was no home invasion, and people do not generally have boundaries to prevent them from getting mail. Privacy? Well, if she blogs under her name, she has pretty much surrendered that already.

"I get my kicks making you afraid and feeling insecure in your own home."

Well, if that is true, then I would say 'don't give him the satisfaction'. To paraphrase Eleanor 'nobody can make you feel afraid or insecure without your consent'.

Seems to me that we played into his hands by hyping and over-reacting. Maybe that is what the internet is for - manufacturing drama.

I'm a big guy..survived some bar fights,
and if someone sends ME anonymous Hate Mail,
I WILL feel that my home sanctuary has been invaded.

Maybe you haven't lived through a situation like that to maintain such a naive viewpoint.
Maybe you can't step into a woman's shoes for a minute to help you understand being stalked.
Maybe you don't understand that this stalking pathology doesn't stop with sending a letter.

I stand by my post.

so I wouldn't worry about it much. It probably starts and stops with that letter.

but bravenak does,
and, like I said above, I would too.
It IS "Stalking",
and it is meant to be threatening.

Perhaps you should talk to some women who have been stalked,
or received anonymous hate mail at their home.

Those who write such things do not contemplate getting caught. When their do get they also fail consequences.

I hope the idiot who pulled this crap is arrested. Period.

Thanks for the thread, Solly Mack.

I think admins should reinstate Bravenak. That letter is proof she was being alert stalked.

Bravenak is family and this is not acceptable. I agree - The coward who did this needs to be exposed and banned. Stalking and threats are not who we are - we are FAMILY. This isn't about primaries and candidates, this is about standing with FAMILY.

To Bravenak, Whatever you need, I have your back. You are a DU treasure.

I just don't even know what to type, I'm so upset.