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Pastimes : Investment Chat Board Lawsuits -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StockDung who wrote (8840)	8/24/2005 12:01:52 PM
From: Done, gone.	Respond to of 12465

Agree. Expose the message instead of the messenger.

To: StockDung who wrote (8840)	8/24/2005 6:49:58 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Respond to of 12465

"Bob O'Brien" was elevated to a high-profile individual when he put out his full page anti naked shorting ad in the Washington Post last February. At that point, much heed was given to the likelihood he was James Dale Davidson, which, had it been true (IMO it wasn't), would have definitely been considered news and worthy of exposing (given Davidson's checkered past as a stock promoter). When the whole PSaunders stuff was exposed, there was also speculation he was a guy who was a stock analyst, again, something worth exposing if true (which, again, IMO it wasn't). At that point it just became a game of curiosity behind the scenes. No need to post anything publicly unless one could find some basis to claim the public had a "right" to know. Where perhaps the NY Post thought the line was crossed was when O'Brien became the focal point of Overstock's most recent conference call, one that many consider one of the most bizarre calls of all time. Remember, we're talking Nasdaq NM here, not Pink Sheet. And there's Bob answering questions posed to OSTK CEO Patrick Byrne on Bob's web site. This isn't some guy posting on SI or Yahoo, but someone with his own independent site that puts out ads mostly paid for by Byrne. In other words, there's an implied endorsement here which is not present on message boards. But, true, while this makes Bob newsworthy, it doesn't necessarily make him worthy of outing. That is unless you can find something you truly feel is a material event that needs to be disclosed. Linking Phillip Roth Saunders of MCP International to Phillip Roth and Rev. George Saunders via a similar phone number is pretty benign stuff. What you hope people don't do is expose personal stuff (e.g. where he lives, the name of his wife and kids, personal lawsuits, etc.). Sure that's easy enough to do once you know someone's name, but it's the principle involved in distributing that to the masses. And, lastly, as we all know, if someone can make a clear case for libel, all bets for anonymity are off. I think it safe to say that there are those out there who feel Bob has libeled them. Whether this is true or not I guess we'll see in the months to come. - Jeff