In a twist worthy of Pravda, the Fullerton Observer has gone all-in with being an arm of the state. Sharon Kennedy retained a computer expert to help the city in their lawsuit against us, a rival news organization here in the City of Fullerton. That “expert” has now written a declaration for the city in their lawsuit against us evil “hackers”.
Sharon Kennedy’s own contracted “expert” is now working in cahoots with the city. In a terrible look for local journalism Kennedy has literally retained somebody to help the government attack the First Amendment. From his declaration (emphasis added):
“I was retained by the newspaper, Fullerton Observer, to analyze the expert declaration of Matthew Strebe submitted by the City of Fullerton and provide an independent opinion on whether a connection could be made between the City of Fullerton’s Dropbox account and the Defendants associated with Friends for Fullerton’s Future Blog, including named defendants Joshua Ferguson and David Curlee. I reviewed the Declaration of Matthew Strebe, summarizing his forensic analysis of the incident involving the City of Fullerton’s private records.”
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press came to our aid, as have multiple other outlets. Meanwhile the Observer is the only, I repeat THE ONLY, media outlet to openly support the City in attempting to limit the first amendment to whatever the government wants it to say.
It’s not often you get to see a journalistic outlet try and tank a rival at the behest of government – well, not often outside of Mother #Russia anyways. Yet, here we have the Fullerton Observer helping attack us with “expert” testimony while simultaneously claiming on every article their desire to “Protect local journalism”.
Thankfully while Fullerton Pravda…. I mean the Observer was carrying City Hall’s water we went ahead and found our own expert who concluded the following [Linked HERE]:
“The evidence presented by the City in no way supports any allegation of “unauthorized access” or “exceeding access” of any computer system. The evidence shows that the City itself placed this information on the internet without access control allowing anyone full permission to download the content. The access logs, even if authenticated, do not substantiate, in the absence of other corroborating evidence, that all Tor, VPN, and foreign traffic belongs to the Defendants. Nor is Mr. Ferguson’s use of PureVPN a sufficient or even suggestive data point to implicate guilt.”
This case just keeps getting crazier by the day. I knew Sharon Kennedy and her Observer had issues with this blog but I never expected her to literally contract somebody who then attacks us in court at behest of the city’s ludicrous and defamatory allegations.