Well done, Howard!

One curious citizen doing his homework. Good for you,sir.

I am increasingly alarmed at Dow Constantine's behavior. Thanks for the hard work that went into this article.

Picking a nit (emphasis added):

When King County Executive Dow Constantine decided on December 23 to pull contracted Metro bus ads stating “Israeli War Crimes—Your Tax Dollars at Work,” I wrote a letter, signed by over 46 members of the Seattle Jewish community, questioning that decision.

By which I assume you must mean exactly 47 members. What other reason would there be to present such a precise number?

Now, had it said over 40 or nearly 50 or even almost four dozen, I'd have no false-precision nit to pick.

Aside from that, a nicely-stated presentation of Constantine's vast overreaction. Had the ad been simply ignored by TPTB, it would have been noticed by a vanishingly-small number of Seattleites. With the ban drawing unwarranted attention to the ad, Dow facilitated achievement of the group's goals.

wow, great post. thanks for doing the research.

First they came for the bus ads.

Then they came for people's tattoos and the t-shirts they wore to cover them.

Then they came for me ...

Impressive take-down. Very well done.

TIFF Files are often used in high speed scanners. I used to work for a health insurance company, in the digital imaging dept, using Kodak Scanners the size of a gas stove to scan every claim or medical document into the network. Once scanned, it was easily accessible by anyone with a work PC. Each document has a julian date printed on them, so just type in the number on your work PC and presto, document comes up. If its several docs, you can type in a range and pull up 20-50-100 pages worth of stuff.

King County may not be a method to archive emails the way it does paper documents. Pulling up hundreds of emails may not be so easy for the entry level employee to do, often IT needs to get involved because SOMETIMES (not always) when emails are archived, its often compressed into one large file, so its digging for a needle in a haystay sometimes. But if you know the general date those documents were scanned, even if you dont know the actual time stamp number, you could type in a range like "032211*.*" and pull up anything within that range, narrowing your search to find the specific doc youre looking for.

I don't understand this. If the threatening letters had names and addresses attached, why were they not investigated? It appears as though free speech extends to "credible" threats of violence but not to political speech.

This is truly appalling.

Rock on, Howard! More power to ya.

What wasn't reported is that Dow also stopped all non-profit advertising so local arts organizations that normally used transit ads to let people know about their upcoming events were also censured. For some this had a significant impact. Not something they could easily absorb during tough economic times.

More power to you Howard, I wish you all success in trying to keep the First Amendment a life. I'll be more than glad to help in some of financial cost associated with this research.

Ziyad Olives
You know how to get hold me!