November 28, 2003
KATU Pushes For FBI And Portland Police Bureau 'Hate Crime' Investigation Against Local Website
This might be somewhat convoluted. It also will involve links to websites containing content some readers may find offensive. You've been warned.
Seemingly, this story began with a KATU news report on one local website (note: website down) critical of (or, as KATU had it, "targeting") people who walk their dogs off leash in public areas.
After tying the site to an employee of Multnomah County (in part, it seems, because the website's hosting provider simply up and turned over customer data to KATU), the website reportedly turned into a (presumably fake) pornographic site "with [KATU reporter] Anna Song's name posted throughout it." Song has been covering the Laurelhurst Park dog poisonings for the station
Shortly thereafter, having been contacted again by KATU, the hosting provider took the site down altogether. Then things got stranger still.
Enter the Moynihan Institute, which made the decision to resurrect the website that had been shut down by KATU.
A series of emails involving the pseudonymous Link Hoggthrob of the Moynihan Institute and Mike Rausch, KATU's news director, alleges that KATU is pursuing legal action against the Institute. According to email from Rausch to the Institute:
Please be advised that KATU is currently pursuing a hate crime investigation against you with the FBI and Portland Police Bureau. Both agencies are in the process of investigating the malicious and racially motivated content posted on your site involving our reporter Anna Song. At the same time, we will also be pursuing a civil case against you and your web hosting company, Hostway Corporation, once you are identified by law enforcement authorities.
Outside of having mirrored the content of the website KATU had previously bullied off the Web, the Moynihan Institute also posted a parody assault against KATU reporter Anna Song, premised around the invented Thanksgiving tradition of "fine roasted terrier, stuffed and with all the trimmings."
It is this content, presumably, which prompted KATU news director Rausch to demand that the Moynihan Institute "immediately terminate [its] defamatory practices."
While no one could predict whether a defamation case would be successful, it seems clear that there's a stronger basis for at least pursuing that line than there is for labelling the Institute's online content as some sort of hate crime.
Traditionally, as I understand it, hate crimes tend to involve additional penalties based upon motive for other crimes committed. But in and of itself, speech with a possibly hateful motive cannot be a crime (or, at least, certainly should not be one).
As of this posting, it's unclear just what basis KATU is using to push for a hate crime investigation against the Moynihan Institute. While clearly intended to cause offense, I question whether the Institute's website constitutes some sort of actionable "hate crime."
Also unclear as of this posting is whether there indeed is some sort of active investigation of that type by the FBI, Portland Police Bureau, or both -- or whether the reality is merely that KATU has filed a hate crime report with these agencies and is mischaracterizaing that as an active joint investigation in an attempt to intimidate the website's operators.
All of this is only just coming to my attention via this item on Portland Indymedia. Being a Friday evening, it's unclear whether I'll receive response from Rausch or the Police Bureau before Monday at the earliest. Any such responses will, of course, be passed along here.
Comments (2)
no one in particular on 29 Nov 2003
Boy, the thing about thing about the Moynihan Institute is that, for racist, homophobic, etc. humor... it's not even funny. Oooh, they're calling Mike Rausch "Pig Vomit" and made a joke about Koreans eating dogs. yawn
Unless you're so new to our "anything goes" culture that shock value alone is still funny to you. But that's been done so often it's just boring now.
I guess I'm glad they're standing up to KATU, though.
synpak on 30 Nov 2003
assault against KATU reporter Anna Song I'm glad they're standing up to KATU I'm glad she has cancer