E-mail Lesson #27: If you are going to forward a YouTube video, watch it first.
An administrative aide to state Rep. Laura Wiley learned the hard way, after she sent out a video critical of President Barack Obama featuring pictures of German SS officers at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp, Joe Neff reports.
The email, sent from a General Assembly e-mail account, eventually landed in the inbox of Adam Searing, the director of the Health Access Coalition at the N.C. Justice Center.
Searing, an advocate for affordable and universal health care, said he was offended for professional and personal reasons.
"My great uncle on my mom's side — Everett Peterson — died on Omaha Beach on June 6th 1944 in Normandy fighting those guys in the photos," Searing said. "He didn't die so that 65 years later somebody could equate the evil he fought and defeated with a policy proposal to expand health coverage."
More after the jump.
—————
The text of the email starts off, "You MUST listen to this - THIS IS GENOCIDE!"
The audio is a talk radio excerpt in which former N.Y. Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey charged that the health care plan calls for mandatory euthanasia counseling every five years for senior citizens. (It doesn't: the AARP has labeled McCaughey's claim “rife with gross, cruel distortions.”)
The video shows a series of photographs from a photo album maintained by SS officer Karl Hoecker, who was the second in command at Auschwitz at the end of World War II.
Edna Pearce, the legislative aide, said she listened to the video but never watched it.
"I clicked on the YouTube, it was a black screen and I was listening to it for a couple of minutes as I checked email, and I forwarded it," Pearce said.
Pearce said she never saw the images until contacted by Dome.
"I almost had a heart attack," she said. "Let me assure you, it was completely innocent."
Wiley agreed, saying her aide would never knowingly send such a stupid video.
"She did not see what was on it," said Wiley, a Greensboro Republican. "I will tell you this about her, she's a very proper woman."




Re: How to recognize a double standard, part 1
Very well said "Double Standard, Part 1"
What a double standard we live with in these times. Everything has to be "politically correct"--what happened to our constitutional right of freedom of speech? What a shame that someone should start such a fuss because someone disagrees with them. Apparently the person that started this is quite feeling his personal and professional "importance." Speaking of how our tax dollars are used, does he have no better thing to do with his time (that, by the way, we as taxpayers are paying him for) than go after a poor individual state worker for having an opposing opinion to his own? I do not know the individuals involved here but it sounds like this poor woman meant no harm to anyone. But let us remember she has a right to free speech, as do we. The fact that it was sent from a state email, I'm sure she now regrets. I am not a state worker; however every place I have worked through the years--everyone I know of has sent personal emails. Whether they are political or something else really is irrelevant. I would imagine everyone on this blog has sent at least one personal email from work at one time or another. Anyone who hasn't let them raise their hand now. All I can say is that if this woman is hurt because of this, what a travesty of justice that would be. I agree with "Double Standard"--grow up people, get over yourselves and your petty differences.