Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) attacks Shale Gas Outrage Website
I received this morning from Shale Gas Outrage:
Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), the industry lobbying group which just held its huge, fancy convention, is threatening to force the Shale Gas Outrage website to be taken down, possibly in a matter of hours. MSC’s attorney has complained to our webhost of “copyright infringement.” We are in the process of deciphering the legal issues, but in an effort to keep our website live we quickly took down the image MSC complained about.
The Marcellus Shale Coalition, the industry lobbying group which has successfully blocked every attempt to regulate this industry, which likes to throw its weight around. It is loaded with serious money. MSC paid Governor Ridge $900,000 — just to name one salary — for promoting shale gas and spinning misinformation about its benefits; and more recently MSC hired State Senator Anthony Williams’ wife to take charge of their community outreach in Philadelphia.
Plainly, MSC does not like us telling the truth. It does not like us bringing impacted people, scientists, energy experts, and people with fouled water, people with sick family members, to Philadelphia or anywhere else. At Shale Gas Outrage, we enabled a farmer with water fouled by gas drilling to tell about her daughter’s enlarged spleen and liver; and her neighbor’s burst spleen. In response, Marcellus Shale Coalition is venting its spleen on us in a petty, controlling, manner.
In case it is taken down against our will in the hours to come, please visit shalegasoutrage.org now. Download all the press releases, especially. That’s what Marcellus Shale Coalition does not like. Fully documented, thoroughly referenced, serious data about Workers at Risk; about Air under Assault: about the Water Footprint of Shale Gas Drilling. They don’t like it that we know what we are talking about. They don’t like our Impacted People page. And they want to silence us.
We pick our battles, and being harassed by a vindictive, irresponsible, rogue industry is not our idea of a good time. We have clean water to send to impacted people. We have serious issues on our hands. We have truth to tell and testimony to give. We have sectors to organize. That said, we think everything on our website is protected speech; we think they do not have grounds; and we know for sure they are a big bully.
Please also enjoy the “Shale Gas Outrage in the News” page — we have far more than that we haven’t even been able to upload yet! Go to shalegasoutrage.org and check out the Press page, the News page, and all the good energy while you can!
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UPDATE: FRIDAY – SEPTEMBER 28, 2012
Gas industry, anti-drilling group in flap over logos
By Andrew Maykuth | Inquirer Staff Writer | Friday, September 28, 2012
Excerpt: The coalition alleged that the anti-drilling activists mimicked the industry’s logo for their protest, and asked the company hosting the website to “disable access to the infringing material” if it was not removed.
After receiving the cease-and-desist order, the protest organizers tweaked the Shale Gas Outrage logo to removed a drop-like shape from the graphic that was similar to the coalition’s. But the threat provided an opportunity for the activists to issue a David-and-Goliath appeal to their supporters that their free-speech rights were under attack.
“MSC, the industry lobbying group which just held its huge, fancy convention, is threatening to force the Shale Gas Outrage website to be taken down, possibly in a matter of hours,” Iris Marie Bloom, head of Protecting Our Waters, told supporters in an e-mail.
