"Urban Badger"(not his real name) was referred to me by a trusted source. He lives in England and works with people who question the July 7th, 2005 attacks:

 http://julyseventh.co.uk/

An apparently wholesome interest in the public good. Which would mesh with wanting to help stop activist harassment.

"Urban Badger" told my source he knew something about the activist group I asked about. I was investigating a person of interest in this group. This group is like a psycho ex boyfriend: months after members leave, they find their personal information posted on-line as form of personal revenge. Presumably for leaving. No wonder they left in the first place.

"Urban Badger" knew this was a harassment inquiry and claimed he had a contact in this group willing to discuss the group's activities. Not impossible. Even if the group's leaders are jerks, most people aren't. If the activism has anything to do with "social justice", the hypocrisy factor would be enough to make some spill. After some email back and forth, "Urban Badger" said his contact would prefer to me to email him first. Fine.

The reader should know that all attempts to contact the person of interest(technically innocent until proven guilty) had been met with stonewalling. Inquires of group members had been met with the "run around". I was ready to give "Urban Badger's" contact a shot. Worst that could happen was he could waste my time.

Waste my time he did, as detailed in my previous blog:

 http://igotguminmyshoe.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-must-they-cliche-part-2.html

Cutting my losses, I continued digging elsewhere. Truth was, the clients had moved on. This was follow up work. After the arrogant stonewalling, I was ready to do this for free. Checking one thing lead me to double check another. And I found a shocker: "Urban Badger's" contact was "Urban Badger" himself. They had the same IP address(edited to respect TOS):

Received: from [82.70.xxx.xxx] by web46104.mail.sp1.xxxxxx via HTTP; Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:31:01 PDT
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:31:01 -0700 (PDT)
From: First Last


Thu, 3 Apr 2008 04:28:20 -0700
Message-ID:  C2F70@phx.gbl>
Return-Path: urban-badger@xxxxxx
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary=\"_79d8c747-8517-4133-8722-967574d0a61e_\"
X-Originating-IP: [82.70.xxx.xxx]
From: Urban Badger


Hostname

82-70-xxx-xxx.dsl.in-addr.zen.co.uk

Geo-Location Information
Country United Kingdom
State/Region L2
City Rochdale
Postal Code
Latitude 53.6167
Longitude -2.15
Area Code

Why'd you do it, Urban Badger? Why are you helping these people hide? What kind of people attack former members long after they left? And what kind of person helps them get away with it? How do you justify that to yourself?

I don't think that's how they do things in England. Your July 7th buddies are going to wonder: why is "Urban Badger" trying to protect the unethical, and possibly illegal, activities of an American activist group?

Watch out for "Urban Badger". He'll waste your time and his moral compass is off line.

For the record, Saturday, April 12th I gave "Urban Badger" a chance to come clean and make it right by Monday. He never emailed back.

Not taking it personally. I get it:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=399JuXJ9PJM

Why'd you do it, UB?

 http://igotguminmyshoe.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-is-urban-badger-helping-people.html