The right wing has engaged in a new form of quasi-legal activism that violates the fundamental American right to privacy.
Just yesterday, they claimed to have uncovered various smoking guns at ACORN by going through ACORN's trash, which included some private papers. This of course was picked up by Fox News, who is trying to turn some careless record keeping (throwing away credit card receipts instead of shredding them) into a big scandal.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/200911230033Recently they illegally hacked into the emails of scientists who believe in manmade global warming, and the right wing media, including Fox, is claiming the ambiguities of casual conversation amount to a global warming conspiracy. (There is no conspiracy. What they found were a few tacky or unclear comments among thousands and thousands of emails.)
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/Not too long ago, they used video to entrap and embarrass a couple ACORN employees, and they promote that video as if it speaks for all of ACORN.
This is not a lot different than what they did to Bill Clinton, spending $40 million of taxpayer money to uncover a sex scandal.
Their tactics are quite effective, if perverse, and are orchestrated by their political activists. I don't think the Democrats have engaged in that. Foley, Sanford, Ensign, Vitter, and Craig's private lives were all exposed through their own incompetence, not through any form of activism.
Knowing this is going to continue, I wonder how should the left respond.
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