Today is set aside to remember with gratitude those who gave their lives to establish and maintain this great nation. Let us endeavor to be citizens worthy of their sacrifice. Some of us haven’t been, apparently.

Erick Erickson says he was SWATted, although this time cops checked with him first and didn’t call the SWAT team. I have come to understand there is some way a phone number can be hacked or “spoofed” to make it seem it is coming from a targeted person’s house.

As I said yesterday, tomorrow morning there will be a hearing on a “peace order” request filed by the alleged perpetrator of an earlier SWAT, Brett Kimberlin. Note that the evidence against Mr. Kimberlin is way circumstantial. As explained here, some parts of the rightie blogosophere are being harassed by somebody, and they figure Kimberlin must be behind it because who else would be so pissed off at them?

I’ll pause for a while until you are done snickering.

Seriously, actual harassment, not to mention getting SWAT teams called to someone’s house, is very, very bad and not helping anybody, and if anyone reading this has done such a thing, shame on you. Don’t do it any more.

Regarding the peace order — as I said, it’s my understanding that Kimberlin is trying to get the peace order filed against a blogger named Aaron Walker (his blog). And I believe this is happening in Maryland. So I looked it up and learned that to qualify for a peace order, these conditions must be met:

• An act that causes serious bodily harm;
• An act that places you in fear of immediate serious bodily harm;
• Assault in any degree;
• Attempted or actual rape or sexual offense; (go to MD Statutes, and read sections 3-303 through 3-308 for the definitions);
• False imprisonment;
• Harassment (read the defintion at MD Statutes section 3-803);
• Stalking (read the definition at MD Statutes section 3-802);
• Trespass;
• Malicious destruction of property (read the definition at MD Statutes section 6-301).*

Here’s more information explaining the difference between a peace order and a protective order. And I’m pretty sure, based on this, that you can’t get a peace order filed on someone just because he has said nasty things about you on the Internet. So it will be interesting to see whether the court takes the request seriously or throws it out.

(Walker does tell his side of the story, sort of. He has published on his blog an account that goes on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on on and on and on without ever getting to a clear explanation as to what actually happened between him and Kimberlin. I wasted way too much time on it yesterday and only got a headache.)

Little Lulu is in her overwrought best, saying “Don’t let this insane story of online terrorism, which transcends politics, die. Silence is complicity. Et lux in tenebris lucet…”

Yes, but the question is, who are the insane online terrorists? Among other things, Lulu also says “Action alert: Ask Barbra Streisand to answer for funding the work of political terrorist Brett Kimberlin.” WTF?

The Streisand Foundation gives grants to non-profit groups that support environmental issues, women’s issues, civil liberties, civic engagement, education, and civil rights. Apparently the Streisand Foundation has given money to the Justice Through Music project, which allegedly was founded by Kimberlin. “Justice Through Music Project (“JTM”) is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization that uses famous musicians and bands to organize, educate and activate young people about the importance of civil rights, human rights and voting,” their website says. And based on this post, JTM might need a peace order, too.

The Right just loves these guilt-by-association games. They target someone as being “bad,” and then they try to seek out and defame anyone who can be connected to that person, directly or indirectly. Barbara Streisand is a perfect example. What does she have to answer for? Does the Right have any evidence that Streisand’s money was used for anything other than some probably innocuous do-gooder projects? I doubt it.

And R.S. McCain, who says he has had to go into hiding, spent a whole blog post on Kimberlin’s aunt because (1) she is Kimberlin’s aunt, and (2) she once gave $20,000 to the Threshold Foundation, dedicated to the environment and transcendental meditation, and Threshold in turn donated to Justice Through Music. Again, guilt by association. (She’s a witch! Burn her!)

Rightie bloggers claim Kimberlin is harassing them because they are exposing the truth about his criminal past. But the criminal past was not secret. It had been written up in Time magazine and in a book published by a major publisher. If there is any truth to these harassment claims, it’s more likely that someone is retaliating for being unjustly defamed.

If it’s true that Kimberlin or anyone else has been harassing right-wing bloggers, it’s wrong, and it should stop. But it’s really hard to empathize with people who whine about being bullied in the very same posts they are bullying others.

And if you want to see an example of people being targeted just for speaking their minds, go to Atlanta.

See also Cannonfire and Meghan McCain.