If that bulky headline didn't give you warning enough, prepare to jump down the rabbit hole now. Cast your mind back to a few days ago. Neetzan Zimmerman noted that local New York paper the Journal News' decision to publish the names and addresses of gun owners in Rockland County had come under criticism:
"I guess nobody could object to people putting the newspaper staff's addresses on the Web now, right?" Instapundit inquired, rhetorically.
Because everything that can happen does happen, Dylan Skriloff, the editor-in-chief at the competing Rockland Times ("Rockland's Official Paper Since 1888"), has gone ahead and done so, publicizing the home addresses and phone numbers of the reporter, editors, publisher and CEO involved with the original story. "What You Don't Know About the Agenda-Driven Journalists in Your Neighborhood" points out that a number of other papers have also published personal information of registered gun owners in the last few years.
The Journal News plans to continue running the series and has announced that additional names are forthcoming. According to Reuters:
The original map listed thousands of pistol permit holders in suburban Westchester and Rockland counties just north of New York City.
Along with an article entitled "The gun owner next door: What you don't know about the weapons in your neighborhood," the map was compiled in response to the December 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, editors of the Gannett Corp.-owned newspaper said.
The next batch of names will be permit holders in suburban Putnam County, New York, where the county clerk told the newspaper it is still compiling information.
This, of course, is only the beginning. In the future, having your home address published online will replace the entire criminal justice system. Teenagers who say racist things on Twitter will have their most inflammatory comments tattooed across their forehead and forced to wander the earth, deathless and hopeless, unable either to forget or to atone. Prominent publications will rebrand themselves as "the Yellow Pages for people you disagree with politically." Real estate agents will become grotesquely powerful, offering to divulge the names of interested buyers who may someday reside at particular addresses for a price.
The one bright spot in all of this is that there are still towns in America with not just one but two thriving local papers.
[Image via AP]