What Doogan Did and What Alaska's Progressive Bloggers Hope to Do

What Alaska Rep. Mike Doogan (D - Spenard) Did:

1. He lied. In his email to constituents and others, from March 27th, he wrote:

The identity of the person who writes the liberal Democratic Mudflats blog has been secret since the blog began, protected by the Anchorage Daily News, among others. My own theory about the public process is you can say what you want, as long as you are willing to stand behind it using your real name.

For several years, Mike Doogan knew the identity of Anchorage Daily News figure "Alaska Ear." During several of those years, Doogan worked near that person, while that person was anonymous. Many people attempted to find out who that anonymous person was. Doogan, who was also then a writer for the Anchorage Daily News, helped protect that person's anonymity. Alaska Ear, every week, hundreds and hundreds of times, commented on politicians in ways that anonymously criticized Alaska political figures.

Yet Doogan wrote to a constituent yesterday, "I don’t believe in anonymity in the political area. It’s too much like people wearing sheets and hoods for my taste." Did Doogan out Alaska Ear? No. did he protect Alaska Ear's anonymity? Yes.

2. He may have broken Federal Law:

Anonymous speech over the internet is entitled to First Amendment protection. Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997).

Anonymous internet speech in blogs or chat room in some instances can become the modern equivalent of political pamphleteering. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Many participants in cyberspace discussions employ pseudonymous identities. For better or worse, then the audience must evaluate a speaker’s ideas based on her words alone. This unique feature of the internet promises to make public debate in cyberspace less hierarchical and discriminatory than in the real world. Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Silencing John Doe: Defamation & Discourse in Cyberspace, 49 Duke L.J. 855, 896 (2000).

3. He may have broken Alaska Law:

A legislator or legislative employee may not use government assets for his/her own, or another person"s, private benefit, for a non-legislative purpose or for partisan political purposes. Government funds, buildings, equipment, and services should not be treated as the personal possessions of legislators or legislative employees.
AS 24.60.030(a)(2)


Sec. 11.56.850. Official misconduct.
(a) A public servant commits the crime of official misconduct if, with intent to obtain a benefit or to injure or deprive another person of a benefit, the public servant
(1) performs an act relating to the public servant's office but constituting an unauthorized
exercise of the public servant's official functions, knowing that that act is unauthorized; or
(2) knowingly refrains from performing a duty which is imposed upon the public servant by
law or is clearly inherent in the nature of the public servant's office.


Sec. 11.56.860. Misuse of confidential information.
(a) A person who is or has been a public servant commits the crime of misuse of confidential
information if the person
(1) learns confidential information through employment as a public servant; and
(2) while in office or after leaving office, uses the confidential information in a manner not connected with the performance of official duties other than by giving sworn testimony or evidence in a legal proceeding in conformity with a court order.
(b) As used in this section, "confidential information" means information which has been classified confidential by law.


3. He may have broken Alaska's rather easygoing legislative ethics code. i'm still am working on getting the correct citation.

4. He may have violated U.S. and Alaska Civil Rights codes:

This is a violation of federal law and of the state common law right to privacy. The fact that he did it on state time and in his capacity is what is called “state action” for a section 1983 civil rights claim. The Mudflats blogger, who was absolutely entitled to comment on matters of public interest and equally entitled to do so anonymously, has a significant lawsuit against this clown. Were I admitted to the Alaska bar, I’d love to handle it. Since I am not, I very much hope that she finds a lawyer with experience in civil rights claims. In addition to awarding damages, they also award attorneys’ fees. That is the only way to stop this sort of abuse of public position.

5. He may have violated Alaska Democratic Party rules. More on that on Monday.


What AKMuckraker's friends hope to do:

1. We'll help protect AK Muckraker's rights. If we need to raise money to help AKM defend a case or business or position, there will be a lot of us there. If we need to hold fundraisers? - believe me, they will be big, fruitful events.

2. We will help AK Muckraker's family.

3. We will pursue the search for informed legal opinions on what violations Rep. Doogan may or may not have committed by his actions Friday morning.

4. We will pursue the search for his accomplice or accomplices.

5. We will request that the Alaska Democratic Party and Alaska Legislature review the possibility that Rep. Doogan has committed violations of rules governing the use of State of Alaska resources in his Friday morning actions.

Update - 11:50 p.m. Saturday: Sheila Toomey, at the Alaska Ear, may have just penned one of the most meretricious column entries in ADN history.

If the facts about Doogan and Toomey, as I related above and confirmed with several longtime ADN employees today escaped Toomey, it is sad. But if she realized Doogan's duplicity, and then penned her entry on the Mudflats case, she's as truth-challenged as her former colleague and accomplice in her longstanding masked activities, Mike Doogan.

note: Back in 1990, Toomey penned a column at the ADN under her own name that very cruelly and untruthfully hurt a person under my care. I've helped that person grow beyond the hurt. It is quite sad, 19 years later, to now see her as a probable Doogan accomplice.

Update - 12:10 a.m. Sunday: I asked several people who either have worked with Doogan or claim to actually know Billy Muldoon today, if Mike is Billy Muldoon. All said that Doogan is not Billy. Two claimed Billy is "another ex-ADN worker." I didn't take it any further, but the consistency of the statements lead me to believe that Doogan isn't Billy.