J. Hutton Pulitzer has spent part of his day writing emails threatening me with legal action for a blog post that I wrote almost three months ago (September 20, 2015). He began commenting on the post himself on October 23, 2015, with this:
"Hey Andy, yes saw this and me calling you the "4A" made you quite famous. LOL, but yes archaeologists tend to not let themselves be interviewed. We did in fact offer you a spot to go on record with Wayne May, but yes you did decline. However, some of our new recordings are outing people like you and University coverups. BTW, HEY Holly MCFadden nice to see you trolling here as well, other than the Facebook Groups. Thanks for sharing the term."
He didn't express any issues with the original blog post or the comments until yesterday. Last night he specified which comments he thought should be removed, and, as I wrote this morning, I agreed to have a look at them. Apparently he didn't like that answer and has now moved the goal posts and demanded that the whole blog post be taken down or he will sue me.
"No results here after legal notice of intent to sue if not remedied, then step 3 occurs. . . . They [the detractors who comment] basically will cost you a legal retainer, long running legal fees and a judgement. See, takes nothing to file the suit, takes a tremendous amount to get out of one."
Anyway, I'm not in the mood to deal with this kind of stuff over the holidays. I don't think that I've done anything wrong, but I'm not a lawyer and will need some time to seek legal advice on the matter. For the time being, I'm going to take the blog post down. If my legal counsel tells me I'm in the clear, I'll put it back up. I think that's the smart move for the long game.
I'm a strong advocate of free speech. That's why I don't require pre-approval for the comments of others made on my blog, and I don't delete comments unless they are way off-topic or over the line. Pulitzer and I obviously have a disagreement about what constitutes "over the line." The legal definition of "over the line" is what is at issue here. I don't trust Pulitzer's judgment on the matter, but I'm going to err on the safe side until I can get some advice of my own.
I'll keep you posted.
Also . . . I wonder if him accusing me of being part of an academic cover-up constitutes libel? It's certainly not true. Neither are his characterization of where I work and how much money I make. It seems to me that his demonstrably false statements are meant to defame me. Now that's funny.
"Hey Andy, yes saw this and me calling you the "4A" made you quite famous. LOL, but yes archaeologists tend to not let themselves be interviewed. We did in fact offer you a spot to go on record with Wayne May, but yes you did decline. However, some of our new recordings are outing people like you and University coverups. BTW, HEY Holly MCFadden nice to see you trolling here as well, other than the Facebook Groups. Thanks for sharing the term."
He didn't express any issues with the original blog post or the comments until yesterday. Last night he specified which comments he thought should be removed, and, as I wrote this morning, I agreed to have a look at them. Apparently he didn't like that answer and has now moved the goal posts and demanded that the whole blog post be taken down or he will sue me.
"No results here after legal notice of intent to sue if not remedied, then step 3 occurs. . . . They [the detractors who comment] basically will cost you a legal retainer, long running legal fees and a judgement. See, takes nothing to file the suit, takes a tremendous amount to get out of one."
Anyway, I'm not in the mood to deal with this kind of stuff over the holidays. I don't think that I've done anything wrong, but I'm not a lawyer and will need some time to seek legal advice on the matter. For the time being, I'm going to take the blog post down. If my legal counsel tells me I'm in the clear, I'll put it back up. I think that's the smart move for the long game.
I'm a strong advocate of free speech. That's why I don't require pre-approval for the comments of others made on my blog, and I don't delete comments unless they are way off-topic or over the line. Pulitzer and I obviously have a disagreement about what constitutes "over the line." The legal definition of "over the line" is what is at issue here. I don't trust Pulitzer's judgment on the matter, but I'm going to err on the safe side until I can get some advice of my own.
I'll keep you posted.
Also . . . I wonder if him accusing me of being part of an academic cover-up constitutes libel? It's certainly not true. Neither are his characterization of where I work and how much money I make. It seems to me that his demonstrably false statements are meant to defame me. Now that's funny.
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