I’ve done the same thing when folks wouldn’t stop bothering me. I’ve threatened phony legal action and they backed off. It is like MOST Cease and Desist letters I had back when I ran a media business. Most could be distilled down to “If you don’t stop doing what you are doing, we will take the further legal action we can, which in this case is following up with another message”.
It is a threat, but one that anyone with a brain would ignore.
I’ll ask this then…if said reporter ignores said weightless threat and continues to send inquires; are they not in effect now harassing Sean Spicer?
He is now a private citizen, perhaps he has some celebrity status sure; but he has every right to say “no” and not be pursued or face repeated inquires.
It sucks to feel like I am defending Sean Spicer here, but it really is about defending every person’s (outside of public office and the like) right to not be harassed by any “media”.
I feel like if you don’t want to be harassed by reporters, you shouldn’t blatantly lie to the American people with a shitty poker face on behalf of the president for 6 months and then thrust yourself back into the public sphere by appearing at a Hollywood awards ceremony in which you mockingly lampoon the fact that you spent 6 months getting paid to blatantly lie to the American people. Unsolicited telemarketing calls are not the same thing as industry professionals trying to get answers and comments from you on the things you did in full view of the public eye.
“Sean documented everything,” the source said. (per the link)
Sounds like a good little Nazi bureaucrat.
that said he is a private citizen now…and like him or hate him…he has zero obligation to provide any answers to questions unless he is charged with some crime or issued a subpoena to appear before a committee/grand jury, etc.
Like it or not, he has rights.
He deumanized himself the minute he decided he could work for a liar/bigot/Nazi/traitor.
This isn’t the paparazzi going after him, though. These are investigative reporters following up on reporting that Spicer has documentation of what went on in the White House during a period of time that is under investigation by a special prosecutor. The public has a right to know what’s going on in their government, and generally it’s expected that reporters do their job by following up with the subject of a piece to make sure they get their input before going to press. By saying that leaving office or public service is an automatic “reporters can’t bother you about what you did” card, you make it possible for people to cover up a heaping ton of corrupt and potentially criminal activity by saying “well, they’re a private citizen now, you can’t pester them.”
Yes, Spicer is well within his rights to say nothing to reporters, and even ask them to stop calling him. Yes, it’s possible for reporters to cross the line into harassment. But don’t pretend that this is Us Weekly or Aluminum Siding International that’s trying to get in touch with him, or that after throwing himself back into the spotlight by showing up at the Emmys he should expect to be allowed to fade back into obscurity unquestioned. If you don’t want public attention, don’t willingly do things that are going to attract it. Like work for a potentially criminal government administration, or lampoon the fact that you worked for a potentially criminal government administration on national television.
Excuse me. I am not pretending it’s anything it isn’t. The very tone and words used in his reply are not hostile and very simplistic. My comparison was that the mood and feeling of the reply is no different than I would have with a telemarketer. I have no experience with paparazzi or investigative journalists so I cannot attest to how I would feel about them asking me questions.
I am stating my feelings regarding the facts of the situation and the fact is he has every right to respond the way he did and said response is a veiled threat at best, not malicious or sinister.
The word “thug”, like “berserk”, is a commonplace English term that, while once taken from a religiously-associated group, has absolutely no association with them at all. Nobody is using the name of the Thuggees in vain or insulting them when speaking of violent people with that term.
Absolutely, and if he was being harassed, he definitely has the right to ask someone to stop harassing him.
But I think the part of the article that isn’t being mentioned is the reporter’s clarification that he’s known Spicer and his wife for over 12 years and, he claims, was casually asking someone he thinks of as a longtime associate how things are going. It seemed to me that the tone of the article was more surprise and shock at Spicer’s sudden legal shutdown of all communication from someone he’s known personally and professionally for so long.
A thug, but also another conservative crybaby who won’t accept the consequences of his actions.
Please note, I was agreeing with you, and I believe you are agreeing with me. But the internet is weird sometimes 
So with that…yeah…it is harassment, but I believe the question is, does it rise to ‘criminal’ harassment? And if so, when?
I find it funny that so many folks are falling to positions that they wouldn’t have in any other circumstance…I BELIEVE THAT WE SHOULD TAKE ALL RIGHTS FROM THIS GUY BECAUSE FUCK HIM IS WHY. I mean, there is no actual logic or critical thinking, just fuck Sean Spicer.
And there is part of me that agrees with this statement.
But, where does criminal harassment come into play? How many times can you tell someone to fuck off before it becomes harassment? What if there are avenues the aggrieved party could use to take to not be harassed like blocking the email address? Is the bar for harassment set higher for folks that have been public officials vs. those that weren’t? Does it go down once you are out of the public eye? Does going on a national live telecast change this?
I don’t know, and I don’t know if it is that easy.
At one point in my life, I worked in entertainment. I was mostly behind the scenes, but I had friends that were right up in front. Like most of us, it was a job for them. Once they got off stage, the job was over. And folks felt that the public right to know about their private lives were paramount to the individuals right to privacy. And there are no clear rules on this. PERSONALLY, I think once someone says LEAVE ME ALONE, you should have the legal right to beat the living shit out of anyone that doesn’t respect this. But this comes from my time in entertainment.
Who knows. I certainly think continuing to harass (legal definition or not), is scummy. Even if the person you are doing it to is scummy.
Perhaps. I am often told that I expect too much consistency!
That’s the sticky part, though. Bigoted pejoration uses precisely that mechanism, of claiming to be able to use something as an insult, with the justification that it is deliberately removed from its original negative context. By analogy, somebody could call me “nXggXr” and say that it was not a racist insult because I am not black, it’s just a bad name for me personally, so I am applying a race context which isn’t there. I seriously doubt that many people would buy that rationalization! But here the same process gets used and it is played off as OK because it’s a marginal unliked group from another culture who nobody cares about.
I see it more as a matter of principle/procedure/protocol. Maybe nobody else cares, but I hope people can see that if people used the same reasoning applied to a different group, the problematic nature could be obvious. Anything could be excused if we decide that we can reinvent its context!
I am going to avoid discussing it further here, lest others complain that discussing the text presented in the OP is off topic.
I absolutely sympathize with the thought of preventing the misuse of either the proper names or the pejoratives for other races as casual insults or negative terminology. Once someone told me that “gypsy” was really not a good word to use, I’ve avoided using it. But given that the Thuggee cult was completely wiped out around 1870, I don’t think there’s even anyone alive who could possibly see the word “thug” as offensive in 2017.
Why not both?
Oh, I dunno about that; many bigots seem perfectly happy to use the word “thug” as a substitute for ‘nïgger.’
Context matters…
Yes, this is exactly right. There is zero percent chance that Spicer didn’t have regular contact with Mike Allen at Politico in the past.
The biggest issue, though, is that Spicer had been taking copious notes at every meeting he went to during the Trump campaign and in the White House. Those notes are worth their weight in gold to Mueller and, quite frankly, the American people. Haldeman and Ehrlichman’s notes on Nixon meetings were key evidence during Watergate.
People may well go to jail due to Spicer’s notes. Spicer may go to jail if those notes are compromised. There’s a good reason he wants to shut down any press attention to them.
I don’t disagree with your general point, but I was given to understand that the Thugs were actually common-or-garden dacoits, and that the idea of a secret murder-cult was a bit of Orientalist fantasy lapped up by excitable colonial administrators who were eager for anything that could feed into their “criminal tribes” narrative.
I’m happy to be corrected.
This is exactly right. No court in the country would consider a question from a reporter as well known as Mike Allen to a public figure like Sean Spicer on a matter as important as the Trump investigation to be harrassment.
Spicer’s statement is exceedingly vague and carries no weight. If he were, for example, to cite a prohibition imposed on him by a judge due to grand jury testimony, he could make a case. But his email means nothing and he knows it.
