After my
initial post on February 27, Mr. Tamaru began to threaten legal action against FreebieGarden both publicly on our facebook wall and subsequently in a series of emails. In his emails, he makes numerous completely unsupported, vague assertions such as "
what you did research on is not true." He claims that FreebieGarden is harassing him and blames FreebieGarden for the availability and any consequences of the availability of his personal information, which he personally made publicly available and associated with Hydroslim when he registered his domain. He denies any connection to the username sanaa-s-1971 and freebiez.us.
Mr. Tamaru was informed numerous times in the following and similar language that:
"You are hereby further advised that I will not remove any content from freebiegarden.com unless it is shown to be illegal or defamatory, as previously stated. The post presents numerous statements of fact with references to the source of the information and is protected as fair comment on a matter of public interest under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right to voice opinions, criticize others, and comment on matters of public interest. Freebiegarden is concerned with its readers and the general public's well-being, and is not maliciously targeting you or your business. You continue to have the opportunity to refute the validity of any specific statements made on freebiegarden.com, which you have not done, excepting a conclusory denial that you 'had previously tried to scam people.'"
During our discourse I noticed that information that was linked to in my
initial post was systematically being edited or deleted, including information on hydroslim.com, posts by sanaa-s-1971, and WHOIS information for the domain hydroslim.com and freebiez.us, which was edited twice. Unfortunately for Mr. Tamaru, I had previously archived a point-in-time snapshot of the pages as they were shortly after I linked to them (in anticipation of his future attempts to discredit my statements). This was done with
WebCite (
webcitation.org), which allows permanent, on-demand archival of public web information.
The following information has been edited since it was linked in my first post:
hydroslim.com WHOIS:
At time of post -
Current
Hydroslim product usage from hydroslim.com:
At time of post -
Current
Mr. Tamaru discusses nonpayment suspension of safeappleunlock.com:
At time of post -
Current
safeappleunlock.com WHOIS:
At time of post -
Current
Mr. Tamaru discussing facebook contest fraud: At time of post -
Current
freebiez.us WHOIS:
At time of post -
Current
While writing a response to Mr. Tamaru, I noticed that the posts by sanaa-s-1971 were among the items being deleted, so I asked Mr. Tamaru a simple question.
FreebieGarden:
"
Let me make sure I understand you correctly. You're not sanaa-s-1971 and you've never contacted him?"
Mr. Tamaru:
"No that is not me.
how is Randy and sanaa-s-1971 anyway in connection?
I am sorry but your whole post about me is untrue.
I keep telling you that but your not listening to me in any way.
I am not connected with sanaa-s-1971 or freebiez.us.
... I don't know where you got that name sanaa-s-1971."
[ed: Around this time, I was notified by Google of an unauthorized request to reset the administrator password of freebiegarden.com. The source of that request is currently unknown.]
"sanaa-s-1971 is not you and you've never spoken to him, but. . .
He has an account on all of the same sites that you stated you use in previous emails.
He randomly deleted several year old posts that were linked in my blog during our email correspondence.
You're not connected with freebiez.us, but. . .
You were friends with the registered owner on facebook.
You live 4 minutes away from him.
You should have no problem explaining these peculiarities."
[ed: Links were not present in the original email and have been added for reference.]
Mr. Tamaru:
"How can you say that when I own those domains and not sanaa-s-1971. If that persons name happens to be randy than I'm sorry to break it to you I'm not the only randy on this planet. You are simply connecting me to someone else and you have believed that I own that user name. And freebies.us was a page that put up my offer and nothing more. You can draw your own conclusions but don't spread your lies to users."
[ed: At this point, Mr. Tamaru sent a name and mailing address -- not his own -- that I have redacted for this blog post. His reason for doing so is unclear at the present time.]
FreebieGarden:
"The username sanaa-s-1971 listed your exact (and uncommon) full name and city in his profile information.
The username sanaa-s-1971 listed your domains for sale on several occasions.
The username sanaa-s-1971 deleted or edited several-year-old posts tonight as we were discussing them.
No reasonable person would believe that this and everything from my previous email is a coincidence.
Ergo, you are, beyond a reasonable doubt, sanaa-s-1971."
I have not received any reply to this email, which was sent 19 hours ago.
It is FreebieGarden's firm position that Mr. Tamaru is unable to substantively defend against any statements made on freebiegarden.com because they are truthful, responsibly researched, and accurate and that any legal attempts to silence FreebieGarden's protected speech would be completely meritless. FreebieGarden further attests that any reasonable person presented with the full array of facts would reach a similar conclusion. As a blog that posts offers from third-parties, FreebieGarden makes an honest, good faith effort to protect its readers and the general public from any offer or vendor it believes to be dubious and does so with no malicious intent, but acts in what it believes to be the best interests of its readers and the general public. Moreover, FreebieGarden will not remove content simply because its presence is undesirable to the subject of the post, but rather when it is substantively demonstrated to be unlawfully published or false. FreebieGarden enjoys the right to freedom of speech granted by the U.S. Constitution, and will not be swayed by misguided legal threats when exercising those rights to protected speech.
