I got a text last night at 11:55 p.m. from one of my best friends, a man whom I've known for 50 years. We grew up together, went to UT together, were housemates in Austin and later Houston for years. Point being, he wouldn't BS me.
He is now the IT director for a company in Maryland. The jury foreman of the Proud Boys trial works directly for him.
Within an hour of the verdict coming out the jury foreman had been doxxed completely on various social media ---- his full name, his address, date of birth, social security number, wife and children’s names, the address at which he works, the dates of birth of his children etc.. all broadcast out there. My friend said “the threats against him and his family that immediately started coming in, are graphic and terrifying, especially in a world in which every nutjob has a gun and might be looking to make some sort of political statement.”
There’s a program/application called “Signal” that allows for complete anonymity and is a text messenger just like the one you have on your phone, the difference being that when you have Signal on your phone and when I have it on my phone then anything we text to each other is completely encrypted. So last night at 11:55 p.m. my friend texts me about all of this and said he and his team are pulling an “all nighter” and an “all weekender” to get the company staff of 150 or so employees on Signal by Monday morning. I guess that’s step one of trying to give this man some measure of security.
This is pretty disturbing stuff. I think about the impact this might have on future court cases. Who is going to want to find anybody guilty of anything if the repercussions are that your personal information is going to be made available to any weirdo who wants to make some sort of point? We’ve already seen judges shot and killed. And who's going to want to be a judge or to be on the jury for a Donald Trump trial, knowing that a guilty verdict might result in a death sentence for you or your wife or kids?
I think about this poor man and how he’s going to be looking over his shoulder for a long time to come. He’s not going to be able to go out to eat with his kids without worrying that the next guy coming though the restaurant’s door is coming for him.