I'm not 100% sure how I got to this site - it began as a search for some SharePoint and SmartPart information, linked through Scoble (is everyone aware of the recent family tragedy he's had?), and got to the MaineWebReport.com.
The story I'm about to share is a disturbing example of government employees and private companies trying to suppress an individual's rights (First Amendment, Freedom of Information, etc) through threats and lawsuits.
Lance Dutson is a web developer in Maine who makes his living designing sites for various clients. In his spare time, Lance examines local politics to see how life in Maine is changing as a result of government spending. Some time ago, Lance noticed that the online efforts of the Maine Office of Tourism fell below his expectations, especially the extreme cost to the taxpayers which he refers to as Pay-Per-Gate (beginning back in February 2006). He begain posting his criticisms online in his blog. His criticisms included an online tourism ad with a phone number that directs callers to a phone sex operator rather than the state's tourism board.
Someone at the MOT (Maine Office of Tourism) noticed the blog entries and began a shameful spiral of communication which resulted in threatening e-mails to Lance, to Lance's wife, and to Lance's wife's employer. Threatening phone calls were received. Blatantly vitriolic blog comments were received. These threats came from officials in the MOT and from private sector subcontractors of the MOT (some hiding behind pseudonyms). Things came to a head with a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Mr. Dutson for alleged copyright infringement and defamation.
The lawsuit has since been dropped as nationwide and international press picked up the story. The people making threats have for the most part owned up and apologized. However, the story isn't over yet as no contracts have been terminated and no public officials have lost their jobs, so keep an eye on the MaineWebReport.com.
This story should sound somewhat familiar to anyone who keeps even a casual eye on local Georgia politics. Think about the the new Hartsfield runway dirt bid and other Bill Campbell scandals. What about Augusta Georgia's own Linda Schrenko? Public sector corruption and incompetence is something every state has to deal with and I hope that Mr. Dutson's example encourages other individuals to examine the actions of their state and federal governments with a critical eye.
Search engines such as MSN, Yahoo, and Google use programs called spiders or bots to automatically read and index web pages for future searches. If you have a website you'd like to have noticed, you'll want to do everything you can to optimize your site's search engine performance. Here is a free tool that can help you out - a Search Engine Spider Simulator. Type your site's URL in to see what kind of meta information you are exposing to the search engine bots.