This is a story of conservative hypocrisy, unjustified anger, and hilarity. It begins with a law school class project, and it ends with an epic FAIL on behalf of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
Interested? Read on.
As Kossacks probably know, Scalia has been a staunch critic of privacy advocates, and their attempts to protect individual citizens from unnecessary and intrusive queries has been met with little more than derision from the elderly jurist. Despite facing many questions and much criticism about his position on personal privacy, Scalia hasn't budged. In a speech that he made earlier this year, he even said that he wasn't fazed by the easy availability of personal information. "I don't find that particularly offensive," he said. "I don't find it a secret what I buy, unless it's shameful."
And yet, despite his refusal to protect the privacy of mere commoners like us, Scalia is completely paranoid about his own personal privacy, even trying to bar photographers from taking his picture.
Scalia's efforts to conceal himself are well-known:
In the past, the 72-year-old Scalia, who was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, has cited his "First Amendment right not to speak on the radio or television when I do not wish to do so."
In 2004, his security detail forced two reporters in Mississippi to erase tape recordings of a speech he gave. Scalia later apologized and said his policy was aimed at the broadcast media, not print reporters who record his speeches to write accurate stories.
And in 2006 when a Boston reporter approached him after a mass and asked whether lawyers might question his impartiality in church-state matters, Scalia flicked his fingers under his chin in a well-known dismissive gesture.
Here's where it gets really, really interesting: a Fordham University law professor, apparently unimpressed by Scalia's heaping piles of bull****, decided that he'd take it directly to the old bastard. Hilarity ensued.
Every year, Fordham University Professor Joel Reidenberg teaches a class on Information Privacy Law. As a demonstration of the widespread availability of information on the Web, he usually asks his students to use free, publicly available tools to find out everything they can about him and compile a fact sheet.
But this year, Reidenberg decided to do something different, and give his students a new challenge:
This year, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments that seemingly may have questioned the need for more protection of private information, Reidenberg assigned the same project. Except this time Scalia was the subject, the prof explains to the ABA Journal in a telephone interview.
His class turned in a 15-page dossier that included not only Scalia's home address, home phone number and home value, but his food and movie preferences, his wife's personal e-mail address and photos of his grandchildren, reports Above the Law.
And, as Scalia himself made clear in a statement to Above the Law, he isn't happy about the invasion of his privacy.
The last sentence above completely understates the nature of Scalia's anger. It was absolute rage - in other words, after finding out that what the class had on him, he FLIPPED OUT and immediately issued a pissy statement attacking the good professor.
But wait - I thought that all of this personal data wasn't harmful, Justice Scalia? Why are you so mad about it, then, if it's freely available? Or are you just pissed off that a bunch of law students just kicked your ass around like a worthless tin can?
If you like Schadenfreude, this story gets a hell of a lot better:
"Professor Reidenberg's exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any," the justice says, among other comments.
LOL! In fact, make that a LMAO.
Does anyone else find Scalia's outrage as hilarious as I do? First of all, the notion of Antonin Scalia attacking someone else's judgment is rich, considering his history. Those who live in glass houses, you know, really shouldn't aim cannons like this without stopping to think for a couple of seconds.
Oh, and by the way, buddy, this is all free, publicly available information. It was compiled by a bunch of law students for a class. You'd better hope that nobody motivated ever wants to come after you, because you will be SOL.
You have been a hypocrite on privacy for years, Justice Scalia. You don't believe citizens have a right to it, but you lock down yours. You don't believe the collection of personal data is harmful, but you become a pissy ******* when someone collects yours.
You know what this is, moron? It's a little thing called karma, and it sucks ass.
