I reposted this to ARS because it sounds just so *damned* familiar. (I even Googled for Wayne Mansfield to see if he was a Co$ member.) This concerns some lowlife spammers in Australia who a suing someone who put up a webpage saying that they were spammers. Long story...

Subject: Spammer assults Protestor - T3 Latest
Date: 23 Jul 2002 21:06:09 -0700

Well, you would think by now that Wayne Mansfield would stay away from trouble rather than cause it. Sadly no - as he's assulted a protester (me) this morning at the Perth rally outside the Novatel Langley.

In a nutshell, Mansfield came downstairs from the Conference Floor of the Novatel - with what seemed the intention to cause trouble. While the protest was not very well attended due to the driving rain in Perth this morning, he came downstairs and offered myself a cap and polo shirt for 'the great work we have done helping him publicise his event'. Suffice it to say I refused these as a matter of princial as I do not wish in any way to condone a company which engages in practises I deem unethical and a detrimant to the internet community as a whole.

I proceeded to talk to him about our throughs on spam after he took the schoolyard line of 'where are all the protesters, and what happened in the other capitals' remarks, and used a few lines on privacy from the Tim Berners-Lee book Weaving the Web. "I would like to be able to decide who I will allow to use my personal information and for what" (Pg. 158/9).

None the less I stayed outside and proceeded to talk calmly to him while he kept ranting on.

As he walked off however back into the hotel after being outside for two minutes, he turned around and held two fingers up into the air and said in a voice which could only be described as angry "Don't you follow me back into..." as if to imply the hotel or conference room, then proceeded to knock my left arm to ensure that the flyers which we were distributing were thrown everywhere. He also at this point grabbed a bunch of them and littered them all over the driveway of the hotel. Whilst doing this he then proceeded to further assult my person by phyiscally pushing me back then storming back into the hotel.

I sought of gathered at this point he was unhappy because I was not willing nor did I care to pick a fight with him at all and would not rise and take his bait.

As he was returning to the conference floor, he proecced to stop halfway up the staircase and pasue for a few moments to have a smirk on his face and cleanup the mess which he had caused (Somehow I don't think the hotel would have been happy if they were left there).

Sadly, after discussions with the Hotel I have since discovered they they do not have adequate CCTV coverage of the areas in question which would be able to show that he did exit the hotel to confirm my version of events and as such will not be able to provide police with sutiable evidence to aid a sucessful prosecution.

It's a sad day when business owners feel the need to stoop to the level of assulting members of the public to prove a point - when he feels he need some self-gratification in order to increase his own ego. I look forward to the day where this case is finally thrown out of court and he is shown as the real egomaniac that he is.

Michael Harris

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