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Cybersecurity CEO Gets Fired After Threatening To Kill Trump On Facebook (mashable.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Mashable: A San Diego CEO was fired after saying on Facebook that he would get a "sniper rifle" and "kill the president-elect." Matt Harrigan, CEO of the cybersecurity firm PacketSled, posted the comments on his personal Facebook page, but they ended up on Reddit where Trump supporters found the comments and mobilized to contact law enforcement. "I'm going to kill the president. Elect," Harrigan wrote. "Bring it Secret Service." PacketSled said in a statement that it had accepted Harrigan's resignation. "The PacketSled Board of Directors accepted the resignation of President and CEO Matthew Harrigan, effective immediately," the company said. "We want to be very clear, PacketSled does not condone the comments made by Mr. Harrigan, which do not reflect the views or opinions of the company, its employees, investors or partners." In a previous statement, the company said it reported the information to the Secret Service and placed Harrigan on administrative leave. According to The Next Web, Harrigan apologized for his remarks and said the threats were meant to be a joke: "My recent Facebook comment was intended to be a joke, in the context of a larger conversation, and only privately shared as such. Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not engage in this form of rhetoric with any level of seriousness and the comment most certainly does not represent my real personal views in any regard. I apologize if anything that I said was either taken seriously, was offensive, or caused any legitimate concern."
Just not very smart of him, whatever your politics. I'm sure he realizes that now, but he seems a little mature to be learning a lesson like: do not threaten head of state with murder in a public forum.
As a CEO of a cybersecurity firm the first thing you should know is that no comment in facebook is private, regardless of the content. He was correctly fired just on grounds of incompetence, no matter his political stance. NB: I disagree with killing anyone, no matter what.
Choosing not to reveal my political affiliation here, my neutral statement on the state of political discourse in this country is that it has for too long deteriorated into something that is sad, deplorable, innately violent, and frankly shameful. There is no leading political voice in either party who after uttering anything no matter how high-minded wouldn't be skewered for his or her position. The hate on both sides is rabid and irrational, and big thoughts have been replaced by cheap taglines on Facebook meant only to score cheap political points rather than argue for policies and positions that will lift all of us up. The culmination of this behavior has led to a death-spiral that has fake(?) death threats serving as a proxy for joking, or maybe not joking. America has become a nation participating in the Jerry Springer show. We need another enlightenment, and I seriously doubt there's one waiting for us on the horizon or anybody left who is willing to join in it.
Actually, it's rather ironic. You see, we're often told about the Paradox of Tolerance formulated by Karl Popper, essentially that intolerance is the one thing one cannot tolerate. However, how does one decide what "intolerance" is and by what right is it suppressed? Well, just look at what Popper wrote:
From this we can see that the moral justification is based on dealing with those who "answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols." So it's ultimately justified by means of the right of self-defense and anyone using Popper to justify going on the attack has it completely backwards. It's a shield, not a sword.
Instead, it should properly be used against the intolerance and criminal behavior of those particular individual people who promote or are involved in things like large riots or attacking and nearly killing an old man in the street (as well as stealing his car) after a fender-bender when they believed he supported the other political party.
Ok I think Trump is a moron who will probably fuck the country over, but I support the democratic process therefore support him as the elected leader.
One thing I am already sick of is the amount of anti-Trump articles doing the rounds based purely on speculation of what he might do as POTUS.
This sort of thing is bearable during an election when everyone is trying to convince others to vote for their person, but its over, he won, let it go.
He should be given the chance to lead and be judged on his actual decisions, not what we think he might do. All this Anti-Trump hysteria is doing is proving Trump right and feeding the monster.
C'mon, it was just a locker room banter.
You're saying that because he was a fringe actor we shouldn't equate his actions with the right as a whole? That's fine and all, but it does go both ways.
The phrase that bothers me is that the company demanded his resignation.
Instead, he should have been "terminated for cause".
In the latter case, severance is typically not paid.
In the former case, they typically get a severance package.
This guy doesn't deserve a severance package.
One of the things that that I believe hinders civil discourse is the insistence by some on the left that everything Republicans do is motivated by racism, sexism, and bigotry. It honestly gets a bit hard to remain civil against the constant barrage of people leveling those types of horrible charges against you at every turn, but lashing out in turn does no good either. Granted, the right is pretty good at name-calling too (especially Trump, of course), but let's talk about what you just said.
Why do you feel that criticism of Obama is solely because of his race? Are you perhaps somewhat young? Because EVERY president is criticized by political opponents, regardless of their skin color. If anything, I think Republicans were a bit afraid of taking off the gloves, at least early on, precisely for fear of being labeled as such. Bush Jr was described as a war criminal, and Reagan was reviled by the left, who took every opportunity to mock and denigrate him. But with Obama, it's racism?
Let me ask you: does opposing the abuse of the H1B program automatically mean one is prejudiced again Indians? It's a ridiculous notion, right? But why is someone who opposes illegal immigration automatically a racist, simply because most of those illegal immigrants are Hispanic?
Sure, there are Republicans who are undoubtedly racist, homophobic, or bigoted, but I resent it when we all get painted with that very ugly brush. Most of the Republicans I know personally are very nice people, just like most of the Democrats I know are very nice people. Not bigoted. Not racist. Not sexist. But too many of them are all too willing to think the worst of their political opponents.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Bullshit.
Oh it definitely would have been gone. All she would have have to do is get an amendment with 2/3 approval through two houses of Congress that are Republican controlled, then get 38 states to ratify it, even though 32 of the states have Republican legislatures.
Do you notice who isn't involved in that process? The President. Your precious 2nd Amendment wasn't going anywhere.