The Wayne County Star didn't like the comments posted at the end of a story about the Border Patrol. So it investigated the IP addresses of the commenters, and when it discovered that some comments came from Border Patrol addresses, it removed the comments and called in the prosecutors and the inspector general, who are now investigating the commenters.
For some reason, this reminds me a bit of the Gates-Crowley controversy: I can't help suspecting that the Wayne County Star is so enamored of its first amendment status as presumed victim of government oppression that it sees government oppression everywhere and doesn't see anything odd or ironic about bringing down the full weight of government on one or two blue-collar (well, green collar) workers in the Border Patrol because of, well, what they said. And neither does the New York Times.
The original Star story was implicitly critical of the Border Patrol for stopping a boatload of apple workers whose employer was taking them on an outing; the Border Patrol asked for the workers' papers, and at least one worker turned out to be in the country illegally, but the farmer and others were highly critical of the stop. In turn, some of the comment posts were hostile to the story and to those who criticized the stop.
Of the three comments traced to government IP addresses, one offers a pretty straightforward attack on NY apple farmers for causing the illegal worker problem and then complaining about enforcement: “These farmers have a problem because the gravy train that they were riding for soooooo long is being brought to light.”
The other two are less attractive. One claimed to be from dirtymex@applelover.com, and said “watcha doing to mi wifey, no checky her
papeles. she no legal, but she havey benifit card. oh wait, take her
and I get me a applehog till I go to Mexico. Viva la Raza!!!” (You don't need a real email address to post to the Star's page. Go here
and you'll find my test post, claiming to be from the email address "prettymuchanyname@willdo.com".)
The next post from a government computer was evidently a response to the earlier post: “That sounds like my boyfriend. Leave him alones and get your own. My boyfriend works sometimes but he is really good at getting FREE benefits from the Federal and State government.”
Investigating these comments raises some tough questions.
- How much of the outrage is about allegations of racism and how much is about apple farmers hoping to put an end to enforcement? The NYT quotes one Congressman who seems pretty clearly to think this is about enforcement: “'I’m investigating these reports to make sure that people’s rights aren’t being harmed and that the economy of Wayne County is not being harmed,' said Mr. Maffei, a Democrat."
- Is it really a violation of DHS rules to do anything on line that isn't directly work-related, even if it's a thirty-second detour from work duties?
- Or is the problem that DHS is somehow being associated with offensive views? That seems hard to maintain when the commenters actually went out of their way not to associate DHS with what they said. The connection was made only because the Star was so unhappy at the reaction to its story that it decided to investigate those obnoxious upstarts in the comments section.
- You could say that no one in the Border Patrol should be a racist and that it's racist to think that the crude impersonation in the last two posts is amusing. But that doesn't really justify an investigation of the first post, which is simply criticism of a locally powerful industry. Nor is it plainly unrelated to the commenter's work; it's the kind of thing one can imagine a combative press rep for Border Patrol saying if called by the Star. Nor is it obviously offensive, unless apple growers became a protected class when I was out getting bread and milk this morning.
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