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04/20/2004 Archived Entry: "Verizon's ill-faith dealing with The Hunter goes on"

FIRST, VERIZON FIRES THE HUNTER with no stated cause and none of the required hearings. Then it demands that a Web site maintained by his friend Carl Bussjaeger be censored. Excuse me, I mean "redacted." Then, having gotten what they said they wanted, company officials still stall negotiations with Hunter and his union.

And apparently all this is because of Hunter getting arrested (not even convicted, mind you!) for carrying a firearm, in his own time, in a manner that would have been completely legal in his home state.

What? Does Verizon want to be a government when it grows up?

Read Carl's news release about this latest development, behind the "more" link.

PRESS RELEASE:
Verizon Demands that ex-employee have site operated by a third party censored
For Immediate Distribution
4/20/04

Embarrassed by the publication of the names of two Verizon managers involved in the three month suspension (without pay, without cause, and without a required hearing) of a Verizon employee, and by the release of details of a letter in which one manager subsequently fired the worker retroactively (again, without cause and without the contractually required hearing), Verizon pressured Jeffrey L. Jordan through his union to have the uncomfortable information suppressed, The company demanded that the names and firing details be censored on the Internet website North American Samizdat (http://www.NorthAmericanSamizdat.com/), which is owned and operated by a third party, not Mr. Jordan.

Informed of the pressure placed on a long time friend, NAS's editor, Carl Bussjaeger redacted the information under protest. Mr. Bussjaeger said, "It's a clear free speech case. If the woman had the nerve to threaten me, I'd just refer her to my lawyer. But instead, Verizon made it clear that it would stall any settlement in Mr. Jordan's improper firing. Well, I did what she wanted, and she's still stalling anyway. What's next? Threatening family members if customers complain of lousy phone service?"

NAS redacted the embarrassing information to allow Mr. Jordan a show of good faith in negotiations, and waited for a reciprocal good-faith showing from Verizon. Instead, Verizon continues to stall negotiations. Since the company has demonstrated that complying with its demands nets the same result as not doing so, NAS has opted for free speech and has restored the information which Verizon wanted hidden from public view.

NAS is pleased to report that Internet archiving engines had already permanently archived pages with the names of the managers intact, not only from NAS, but from still other independent sites. Verizon not only lacks an understanding of the First Amendment, they also do not understand the Internet.

RESOURCES:
NAS's explanation of the redacted data
http://www.gbronline.com/cwb/samizdat/redacted1.html

Call for a boycott of Verizon
http://www.gbronline.com/cwb/samizdat/boycott.html

Google cache of offending data from other sites
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:W3tExsVd3IAJ:goodyearfamily.net/
http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:TSMF2BQIquIJ:libertyaction.blogspot.com/

CONTACT:
Carl Bussjaeger
cwb@gbronline.com
379 Amherst Street, #361, Nashua, NH 03063
(no phone at this time due to boycott)

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Posted by Claire @ 10:11 AM CST
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