Sam Harris

MJ,

If you still have the whole message, including the header, you might ask your ISP to investigate.  Some states have laws on the books about hate mail in general and some have or are considering specific extensions to email.  The ISP may be able to determine how your connection was traced and (possibly) where the email came from.  In any case, if you feel threatened or compromised you should report the incident to authorities. 

One more thing, was there anything in the email that you could say uniquely identified (targetted) you individually? Or was it more general and could have applied to anyone who had voiced your kinds of opinions.  That would help an investigation.

Good luck.

g

In the thread i obviously made somebody awfully mad by insisting on the distinction between euthanasia and the right to refuse treatment to prolong life. That’s standard in most ethics classes, which is how I learned it, but such “subtle” moral distinctions are beyond some people’s grasp. In fact, I learned this in a class taught by Jesuits, so it’s standard Roman Catholic doctrine! I’ve also found it on Fundamentalist websites, so there’s nothing “liberal” about it, although the writer of the e-mail assumes I’m an immoral hateful “liberal.”

i posted the entire message except for the header. I don’t find it particularly personally threatening—unless I get more of the same. if I do, I’ll take it all to the police. What would interest me is whether the return address is fake. I could send a test message to find out whether it bounces back. If so, we have a troll with plenty of computer experience who could do a lot of harm. If anyone else on this forum also gets hate mail I hope they’ll also post it. Then we’ll know we have a problem.

I didn’t take this offline (personal message to MJ) because it could concern everyone (even guests) on this forum.  We should all be vigilant.  If anyone else does get hate email, please notify the forum admin immediately.  There may be some security holes in this server.

g

I’m not going to take this off line. We may in fact have a security risk to this server, and for those of us who tend to express opinions not popular with the extreme Religious Right, anyone able to hack this server for information about us is a genuine threat.

Keep in mind that my having posted this could have the effect of keeping him/them silent for awhile, while still hacking away gathering information. Watch your back.