Bill Ryan's Other Blog

This is very good news and proof that you don’t just have to bend over and take it when the Feds try to screw you over.

Again, I’d remind you to reread the original article. It was just yesterday that this all had to be done to protect liberty and lives of American citizens etc etc etc. Somehow, magically that all changed in just a few hours.

Actually, what happened is that there was a huge public backlash set in motion by citizens who don’t like being bullied. Dr Reynolds at Instanpundit repeatedly points out it’s very stupid, VERY STUPID, to threaten bloggers and in just about every prominent case, such behavior has blown up in the faces of those engaging in it.

Whenever you hear govt spokespeople making official statements, it’s often like they speak in a different language. In many ways, they do. They use incredible ambiguity to make things sound much more serious than they are. A kid writing on a desk with a pencil is “Vandalism of Government property” for example. You can pretty much count on these official statements to sound as bad as possible so to try to turn people against the target as early as possible. If this sort of crap is true (and not intentionally manipulative BS), then how on Earth does something the TSA said was as serious as this, change so quickly?

It doesn’t. The cat’s out of the bag. The real reason this all happened was that the document they published mentioned this as a Terrorist Attack – not just a Christmas Day Event. That embarassed people in high places b/c it contradicts their official lines.

All I can say is, GOOD. I was pretty sure it’d end like this, but really surprised it happened this quickly. That just reinforces the point. If you’re a blogger and you get threatened, post the stuff and tell everyone. Yell and scream as loud as you can. Trust me, the big scary letters lawyers like to send cut both ways. The more ridiculous their demands and threats, the more stupid they look when you publicize it. Although there are factions inside the government that wish it were otherwise, we don’t live in a Police State and you don’t have to take bullying. (BTW, this also extends to idioticly written, typoladen threats from private attorneys making ridiculous claims for even more ridiculous clients in most cases).

Still no word about the “leave” and what’s going to happen to the original 5 employees.  Even less info about any punishments for the thugs that paid these guys a visit

[tags] Transportation Security Administration, TSA, Christopher Elliott, Steven Frischling, Suzanne Trevino [/tags]