Write No Evil, Link No Evil, Post No Evil

The Shelby County Reporter just jumped the proverbial shark.

They have chosen to purposefully suppress all comments on certain recent news stories with high comment logs and factual, previously published media linked stories containing revealing and damaging information on what exactly may be going on in Vincent, Alabama considering the "players" involved.

It seems that the closer we get to "the real truth" of this quarry situation the more "big nerves" we are striking.

THE PUBLIC HAS A RIGHT TO KNOW and no media organization should ever be in the business of willfully suppressing information the citizens it serves need to know on serious issues with real consequences.

Clearly, they do not serve all the people of Shelby County with unbiased and honest reporting for their citizens, and are now actively engaged in dissuading comment on the contentious issues they write about in regard to the Vincent quarry.

The supposed "champion voice for the community" which the Editor, Tim Prince, so proudly pronounced the SCR would be when he was installed as Editor has now become the "champion of the special interests community".

This newspaper has now gone from reading material to premium birdcage liner.

**addendum**the Terms of Service for posting have also been rewritten in the past week in such restrictive and sweeping terms that anything said could fall under "their new violation of terms".

**UPDATE
AS OF SATURDAY APRIL 10, ALL COMMENTS ON THE MOST RECENT VINCENT STORIES HAVE BEEN REMOVED AND THE COMMENT FORUM COMPLETELY DISABLED because of "multiple violations of the terms of service"

The Newspaper is "threatening" under "we reserve the right" to expose the poster's identity, any IP address(s) and any other information we have on you if you violate our Terms of Service.

Expose it to whom exactly?

I presume they intend to just hand you over to the quarry lawyers and quarry people so they can do whatever it is they decide to.

What if any of those people were not scrupulous and something bad were to happen? I am not accusing them of that behavior or trying to be a conspiracy theorist, but stranger things have happened over a lot less and we are talking about powerful individuals and entities with hundreds of millions of dollars in potential profit from this operation.

The newspaper is acting in a dangerous and reckless manner including that language and by stating they would resort to such a violation of a person's privacy.

This is not a CIA agent outing that may have a bearing on national security, these are everyday people from a small town just trying to expose important public information and exercise their right to free speech.

HOW DARE THIS NEWSPAPER THREATEN ITS OWN CITIZENS IN THIS WAY!

It is absolutely reprehensible and a public demand should immediately be made that they drop this "threat" from the Terms of Service, as well as truthfully disclose any violations of privacy THAT MAY HAVE ALREADY OCCURRED in detail to any other party, PUBLICLY.

An additional clause "declares" anything you post from the public domain (links, etc.) in their forum is a declaration by you that you are claiming the original material to be yours and therefore open to copyright infringement.

Furthermore, they warn you of the "prohibited use" of multiple user names and if you have signed up using incorrect information then you are also "subject to violation" of the Terms of Service.

These are only small parts of "their recently revised Terms of Service", which appear to be written by the attorneys for the quarry, with Bradley's influence all over it, in a heavy handed attempt to dissuade all comments on any of the newspapers stories about the quarry, that do not follow the Communistic style restrictions now placed on any individual poster.

It's enough to make Hugo Chavez proud isn't it?

Welcome to the RED county of Alabama, in which a town that was formerly Vincent, is now Cuba, Alabama.