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Animal Rights Group Targets NIH Director's Home (sciencemag.org)

Posted by timothy on from the where-do-you-stand dept.

sciencehabit writes: Late last month, hundreds of people in two Washington, D.C., suburbs received a letter in the mail claiming that one of their neighbors was tied to animal abuse at a government lab. Science has learned that the letters, sent by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), targeted U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins and NIH researcher Stephen Suomi, revealing their home addresses and phone numbers and urging their neighbors to call and visit them. The tactic is the latest attempt by the animal rights group to shut down monkey behavioral experiments at Suomi's Poolesville, Maryland, laboratory, and critics say it crosses the line.

21 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. It shows how powerful misinformation is by damn_registrars · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The PETA folks occasionally have valid points, but this is not one of those times. They latched on to some information that is - at best - partially true and now they are trying to destroy someone's career over it. These people are no better than the "Earth Liberation Front" that "released" a bunch of study animals only for them to be quickly run over by cars.

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    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
    1. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Their aims may be noble

      Nope. Not even close.

      PETA is a criminal nut-cult, run for the sole purpose of propping up the ego of its crazy founder. It might as well be scientology.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
    2. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Bullying your critics into submission is the liberal way now. Goodbye old liberal pussies, hello new SJW bullies!

    3. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      So you ok with assaulting people in their homes if they do something you don't like.

      I am glad I live in a country where shit like this does not fly.

    4. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What do you think was the point of posting his address and phone number, at the very least it was to encourage verbal assault. Posting his physical address is encouraging more then verbal assault though, it is encouraging harassment and and possible bodily harm. Seriously what other use is there for posting his physical home address? So people go over there and have a polite conversation with him? Yeah right.

    5. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by phishybongwaters · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Destroy someones career? They are basically asking their followers to murder these people.

    6. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And the irony is that PETA puts down dogs that could otherwise adopted because the head of Peta doesn't believe in pets.

      Peta once "discarded" a dozen dead cats on the cars of a fast food joint I was at. Really creepy that was.

    7. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by Coren22 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Their animal shelters also kill more animals than any other shelter. They are not for treating animals well, they are for destroying things. They love to pour oil on people's "fur" coats, without even checking if it is animal fur or manufactured fur, and without even considering that the people who wear a fur coat will just replace the coat if it is destroyed, therefore killing another animal.

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      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    8. Re:It shows how powerful misinformation is by amiga3D · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This isn't a crime like jaywalking or littering. It's an activity that possibly puts people and their families at risk. Just because you feel animals have equivalent rights to people doesn't make it so. To attempt to terrorize people who are simply performing a legal job because you have some extreme view of animal rights is not acceptable. This is why PETA will never be effective. Their actions discredit their message.

  2. Easy by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All PETA members and their families should be identified.

    If they should ever turn up needing medical services, they should only receive services that were not devised/tested via animal experimentation.

    I expect they'd quickly be whistling a different tune.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    1. Re:Easy by quantaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All PETA members and their families should be identified.

      If they should ever turn up needing medical services, they should only receive services that were not devised/tested via animal experimentation.

      I expect they'd quickly be whistling a different tune.

      I don't think that's entirely fair since their belief is those same medical services could have been produced without animal experimentation.

      I think they're mostly wrong of course, and more than a bit loopy, but I'd rather treat them with well deserved scorn than trying to saddle them with our version of what we think they want.

      --
      I stole this Sig
    2. Re:Easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      > I don't think that's entirely fair since their belief is those same medical services could have been produced without animal experimentation.

      Could have been, but weren't. Do they have courage of conviction?

    3. Re:Easy by grimmjeeper · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think that's entirely fair since their belief is those same medical services could have been produced without animal experimentation.

      Then let the PETA members volunteer to be experimented on in place of the animals.

    4. Re:Easy by Aaden42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Given that PETA’s former director of research Mary Beth Sweetland is an insulin dependant diabetic, I’ll go with a “nope” on that one.

      http://www.humanewatch.org/per...

      That said, she constructed a convenient out for PETA members whose lives rely on animal-tested or derived treatments. Because she’s working for animals, it’s for the greater good. So as long as you’re a PETA member, you can benefit from animal testing and stay alive with modern medicine so you can keep fighting to make sure no one else can. Everyone else has to die though. Wouldn’t be ethical for them to receive treatments that they’re not fighting to prevent anyone else from getting.

  3. Science learning? by keith_nt4 · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Science has learned that the letters ...

    Really, science learned something? Science is an entity now? It goes around learning things?

    --
    "UNIX is very simple, it just needs a genius to understand its simplicity." -Dennis Ritchie
    1. Re:Science learning? by Immerman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, but Science IS the title of a magazine. The one linked to for the article in fact.

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      --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
  4. Hypocrites by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How about you start by treating people ethically, PETA?

  5. This is brushing the lines with actual terrorism.. by RevDisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trying to influence government officials with threats is a very good way to end up with prison sentences.

    Sure, PETA is trying to outsourcing harassment of government officials by misleading information and probably omitting very pertinent information. If anything happens to them, I sincerely hope the responsible folks at PETA are charged as accessories. PETA may or may not have decent points. But the crazies in their leadership negate any possible positives.

  6. Re:Goose meet gander by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is this really what Slashdot has become? Flamebait stories that cause commentators to start doxing people?

    How is this even news for nerds, stuff that matters? It's clickbait of the worst kind.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  7. misinformation by mschaffer · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Gee, I thought that PETA stood for "People Eating Tasty Animals". I guess I was misinformed.

  8. Re:Unbelievable by phishybongwaters · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Considering you'd be putting their lives at risk, I think the law would beg to differ. And that's why Doxing is a big deal and "the gubment" is actively engaged. PETA knows their supporters are batshit crazy. They know exactly what the outcome would be after releasing names numbers and addresses of people PURPORTED to be involved with animal testing (behavioral testing?). Threats, harassment and violence. To follow your analogy, you send out the personal information about your neighbor, enabling their insane internet stalker to find where they live. While you likely wouldn't be liable once that porn start got murdered, I'd hope you'd feel a little guilty.