At the instigation of First Baptist Church Pastor Mac Brunson, a Jacksonville, Florida detective surreptitiously investigated a blogger who anonymously criticized the pastor.
A blogger critical of First Baptist Church Pastor Mac Brunson wants to know why his Web site was investigated by a police detective who is also a member of the minister’s security detail.
Thomas A. Rich also wants the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office to explain what suspected crimes led Detective Robert Hinson to open the probe into his once-anonymous Web site.
Rich also wants to know why Hinson revealed his name to the church despite finding no wrongdoing. Hinson obtained a subpoena from the State Attorney’s Office requiring Google Inc. to reveal the author of the blog.
The gist of it all is that Thomas Rich, a member at First Baptist, was caused uneasiness by decisions made by Brunson and, in time, anonymously set up a blog and began criticizing Brunson. Blog traffic grew and, or so Rich reports, many readers expressed sympathy with his criticisms while declining to be identified.
In time, Brunson asked a church member who is a Jacksonville police detective to investigate the blog. All parties agree that no threats against Brunson ever appeared on Rich’s blog, but Brunson claimed his mail had been stolen and that his wife was the object of a stalking photographer (no police reports were ever made of either complaint).
The Jacksonville detective got a subpoena ordering Google (which owns blogspot.com, and hosts the blog) to reveal the blogger’s identity, the name was turned over to Brunson though no cause for criminal complaint was ever uncovered, and Rich was thrown out of the church. The detective investigated two other blogs critical of Baptist pastors, and the Southern Baptist Convention, at the same time.
Whew. First things first: Setting up a blog to anonymously criticize the pastor while sitting in his church each Sunday morning, and nodding his head agreeably as the weekly berating proceeds, maybe yelping the occasional “Amen!”, perhaps even shaking the pastor’s hand as he leaves, is unmanly. It is also stupid; anonymous words have nowhere near the weight of the words of a man who has a name and face and is known to be honest.
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
Andrew Jackson
The only thing that might be said in mitigation — and I emphasize, it isn’t much — is this: I’ve sat through enough Southern Baptist sermons to know that little Southern Baptist boys and girls are trained-up from infancy to the belief that the Lord especially cherishes craven weenies. At best, that might explain; it does not excuse. Rich’s anonymity was wrong.
But — seriously, now: Absent any threat whatsoever, the pastor engages a detective to use public resources to identify the blogger? And even as the detective finds there is no illegal behavior at all, he provides the blogger’s name to the pastor? And enlarges his investigation to include bloggers wholly unrelated to the original cause of the investigation but critical of other Southern Baptist pastors?
Gimme a break. It looks to me more like clubby thuggery than bona fide police work. Bottom line: Nobody to like, and a preacher to dislike.
Oh, one more thing: My name is Bob Felton, and this Web site’s registration information is here.
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hmmmm makes you wonder what lie was used to convince a judge to issue a court order for the isp to release the VICTIMS name.
if there was no obvious criminal activity then some one lied to the judge,,, unless the judge was a member of the church also , so, there was obviously some criminal activity here , but on whose part , the lawman ?, who would have had to lie to get the warrant , or the the preacher for getting the lawman to do this unlawful work ?,,
or the judge ? if he was a member , and had no legal reason to issue a subpoena.
hepster
living in beautifull down town ellisville fl.
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I would beg to differ about your characterization of the “anonymous” blogger. You don’t know that he nodded his head in agreement, chimed the occassionaly “amen”, shook his hand or anything. Therefore, picturing him as some kind of cowardly weenie is completely over the top.
Had he not remained anonymous, the reporting of the facts of this pastoral abuse would have dried up. IOW, they would have thrown him out quicker, leaving any reporting he might have done vague and unsubstantiated by facts.
Reporters and investigators don’t walk through ne’er-do-wells front doors with resumes and do-gooder’s mission statements, so why would you hold this blogger to some silly Marquess of Queensberry standard?
Lastly…and most importantly…was anything he reported found not to be a fact? THAT and the fact there has been abuse of power under the color of authority (a felony here in California) are the only two facts that matter.
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