Herald’s Illicit Use of Private Phone Records

From: “Hulten, Kevin”
Date: April 18, 2012 7:02:01 PM PDT
To: “npattison@heraldnet.com”
Cc: “snorth@heraldnet.com”

To Whom It May Concern –

It is my understanding that the Herald is currently in possession of my personal and private phone records emanating from my privately purchased and maintained phone, and that the Herald has conducted an analysis of my private and personal activities. I also understand that the Herald has begun to contact individuals listed on my private call records in an attempt to ascertain what personal, private activities I may or may not engage in as a citizen, voter and elected PCO.

Let me be clear:

I do not consent to the publication or usage of this private information in any form, and I will seek damages for any unauthorized publication or usage of said information. The publication of said information would violate Federal and State statutes and impede on my constitutional rights including the right to free assembly. I will defend these rights vigorously.

*Please see the addendum for further information in regard to factual and legal objections to the examination of the records in question.

With that said, I have been apprised of the inquiries related by Mr. North and Mr. Haglund regarding my
With respect to the arguments and accusations North and Haglund attempted to advance in their meeting at the County this week, here are some details that may be helpful. Much of this has already been reported, and the rest is verifiable.

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Proof of “political” activity

Politics plural of pol·i·tic (Noun)
Noun:
The activities associated with the governance of a country or area.
The activities of governments concerning the political relations between countries, areas or governmental bodies.
Haglund and North create a false premise in which they detail supposed records of “political” activity and then equate this, ipso facto, as proof of “campaign” activity.

I engage in political activities at work and at home.

I represent the Executive Office in the area of government affairs, therefore it is my job to I engage in political activity on behalf of the County.

I engage in political activity outside of work, as a private citizen, which is my constitutional right.

Finally, I engage in political activity as an elected partisan Precinct Committee Officer, an office of local government. It is my duty as PCO to support the election of Democratic candidates.

I work in government affairs – the advancement of the County and the Executive’s political goals. This work involves communicating with a broad spectrum of elected officials, lobbyists, activists, community leaders, voters, and constituents - all of whom are entitled to their own political beliefs and persuasions.

I do not agree with the implied argument that if someone has donated to an elected official’s campaign, then any future contact between individual and elected official or his/her office is therefore evidence of improper campaign related activity.

The false conclusion achieved by this line of reasoning, advanced as “proof” again and again in North and Haglund’s material, is that anyone who donates to a political campaign is then somehow excluded from contacting the offices of any elected officials whose campaign they supported, as this will be reported as “proof“ of impropriety.

Personal Associations

Whom I associate within my free time is none of the Herald’s business, yet again and again North and Haglund have engaged in speculation in print or online, most of which they were forced to correct.

Yet, North and Haglund still hypothesize about whom I associate with in my private life based on conclusions they attempt to draw from private and personal phone records filtered through their flawed data matrix. I owe them nothing in this regard.

However, I’ll offer the following: some of the people that the Herald continues to speculate about have been close friends for over a decade. Some are relatives. Some have no connection to me.

Regardless, each and every one of them is entitled to their own beliefs. What they do on their own time is their business. And just because I might call one individual to see what time I am picking him up for our weekly soccer league match, this is not evidence of some nefarious connection. It is only evidence that I have friends, and that my friends are active people, and that some of my friends have beliefs similar to mine. Some of them don’t.

Either way, most of the friends in question are young lawyers with lots of free time, so I encourage the Herald to continue to engage in false and defamatory speculation at their own risk.

Supposed Campaign Activities

With regard to accusations regarding “campaign” activity, the question has been asked and answered multiple times. The fact that North and Haglund keep asking betrays a tendency to write the story before the facts are ascertained.

For instance, Haglund approached me on campus last month and stated that “We ‘know’ you worked for Aaron’s campaign”. It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer. I’ve already answered. Further, much of what these reporters claim to “know” has turned out to be verifiably false. For the record, this particular accusation, again, was false.

I am an individual as well as a county employee and I have a right to exercise my political beliefs as I see fit.

Did I support the re-election of Aaron Reardon? Did I volunteer for Democratic causes outside of work?

You are damn right I did.

Further, Aaron’s opponent openly stated that I was to be fired if he won, and he also leveled multiple false public accusations (reprinted verbatim in the Herald) in my direction. This did not endear me to his campaign, and it motivated me to use my free time in a manner that led to the discovery of some pertinent information, later published in multiple media outlets.

Conclusions drawn following publishing of defamatory and verifiably false materials (John Chambers story 9/27 )

North and Haglund conveniently abdicate themselves from any responsibility surrounding the false and defamatory information reported under their bylines (since subject to correction) on behalf of Mike Hope’s campaign. They then make the claim that their current analysis of my personal phone records in relation to that date prove “political” (I think they mean campaign) activity. Either way, it’s another false premise. With respect to the Herald’s false and defamatory story – and my response - here’s what happened, as the Seattle Times has already reported:

I was informed prior to publication that North and Haglund had decided to omit evidence invalidating the major premise of their campaign-generated story, and that they had decided to publish false accusations against me.

Prior to and after publication, I worked to make sure that North and Haglund were in possession of clear evidence regarding the false nature of their story.

More than six hours before the defamatory article first appeared online, North and Haglund were provided with a statement and clear evidence from a WSBA certified attorney representing Mr. Chambers – stating that the accusations against me were false, and that Chambers was in fact a real person.

In summary, North and Haglund ignored evidence contradicting accusations against me. They published defamatory material that harmed my reputation. I was falsely accused and defamed by North and Haglund’s reporting. Therefore, I contacted the people who could clear my name and provided evidence to other journalists who later cleared my name and criticized the Herald’s reporting.

After publication of the defamatory story, North and Haglund’s false accusations directly affected my ability to conduct my job.

Haglund and North continued to call me at my desk during work hours, accusing me of the false campaign related accusations they had chosen to report.

North and Haglund harmed me by printing false material despite the fact that they possessed evidence to the contrary. I am in the process of seeking recompense.

It was clear that until I defended myself by doing the fact checking that North and Haglund should’ve done in the first place, I would be under the cloud of the Herald’s defamatory accusations.

After I was falsely accused in print, I did what anyone would do – I corrected the false accusations

North and Haglund now argue that because I located the individual who proved their accusations false— that I therefore did something wrong.

I think the Seattle Times summed it up best:

Hope (via the Herald) was proven wrong last week on his allegations that Hulten used a fake name. He still got plenty of press, though, much of it repeating his false claims….The Herald in Everett followed the story all week, …writing Friday that Hope’s allegations about Hulten using a fake name were wrong.

So yes, after the Herald accused me of impersonating a man named John Chambers, I did prove that their story was false, I did provide to them facts and evidence to back up my retraction request, and in clearing my name, I did speak with the other individual directly harmed by North and Haglund’s reporting.

North and Haglund can’t have it both ways. They can’t falsely accuse me of a felony, repeatedly, during “work hours” and then claim that I am doing something wrong by clearing my name. It beggars belief.

With regard to whether this was “political” or campaign activity, I defer to North and Haglund, as they are the only ones associated with a campaign in this incident. I have no way of knowing how much North and Haglund spoke to the Hope campaign before they printed the false accusations, but it’s flat wrong to say that I did anything other than prove the accusations false.

North and Haglund: Provide identity of individuals listed on private phone records or suffer “embarrassment”

I do not consent to any review, analysis, usage or publication of any portion of my personal and private records. However, after looking at the provided list of numbers North and Haglund are seeking to identify, I can say that the Herald list contains several errors regarding the numbers marked as already identified.

False Premise: “Work hours”

Throughout earlier reporting, North and Haglund put forth a self-styled argument based on the false premise that the individuals whose phone records they’ve obtained must work a rigid 9-5 schedule. This is not true, and is factually unsupported. Further, North has apparently also decided that in my case, I am allowed lunch strictly between 12 and 1. This is apparently always personal time. Anything else, apparently, occurs on “work time”. And while North stipulates that weekends don’t fit into his matrix, he also says that he didn’t remove weekend records from his analysis.

The matrix North and Haglund have constructed that deems personal and private phone activities between 9-5 as occurring on work time and therefore “work” related is patently false, overly simplistic, and simply untrue. Any conclusions they build off this flawed base are also inherently false.

In other words, North is analyzing and drawing conclusions from records based on false, arbitrary constraints.

North is aware that his set schedule matrix is false.

I work a flexible schedule. The legislature convenes on weekends and weekdays alike, and I work in Government Affairs.

I work in excess of 40 hours per week, but often times “work” occurs on the weekend, late at night, or early in the morning. The opposite is also true. Sometimes I am off at 3:00 pm, say at a late lunch, a medical appointment, or maybe just driving around. I am entitled to speak to whomever I want on my own time.

Sometimes, we work seven or ten days straight and then have to take some time to take care of personal business. I am also available to my superiors at all hours as events dictate. For example, natural disasters, special events, community meetings, etc.

This lazy, over-simplification of a complex subject matter is just another example of manipulating results to fit a pre-written headline as opposed to working to report an accurate story.

Addendum: Factual and legal objections to records

It is my understanding that the records were provided in response to a public records request. My attempts to achieve redaction of the strictly private records failed, but I do not drop my objection to the release of my private records, and I do not believe that my personal and private phone records are matters of legitimate public concern. Further, I believe that the public analysis of all aspects of my private life would be seen as deeply offensive to the average person.

It is my understanding that the County informed the Herald that the response contained my personal phone and data records, beginning in February 2011, which are purely personal and private in nature and correspond to my privately owned and operated device. I registered my objection to the release of said records with the county shortly after the Herald request, as I was unaware that my private and personal information had been entered into county record until very recently.

Further, I have issued my objection to the factual accuracy of the records in question. The Herald asked for records relating to any “government issued” devices relating to me, and they received my unredacted personal records relating to my privately owned and maintained iphone 4. On the face of it, the responsive records are inaccurate as portrayed.

In addition, the records responsive to the “desk phone” portion of the request are also inaccurate in as much as they do not represent a record of my activities, but instead reflect the usage of a common phone line over a period of time that extends before my date of employ. While much of the activity on these records is probably accurate, there are also numerous errors and inconsistencies, including a supposed 23 hour phone call.

First, I don’t believe my name is associated with the records at all, so I’m not sure how any link can be drawn. Instead, the heading lists a different employee. Second, I did not have personal control over the phone extension in question, and I can’t speak to who may have placed or received calls on this line. Third, the record is not a billing item but instead a custom made report produced without my oversight or involvement. It contains items that I do not claim.

Viking Captains to CWU

I just spoke to the Seattle Times’ Mason Kelley, and he told me that on National Letter of Intent day, he will be at LSHS to cover the signing ceremony for the four LS Viking captains set to sign scholarship agreements with Central Washington University:

QB Jake Nelson (Star Times athlete, All Area QB)

WR Christian Gasca (First Team AP All State WR, All Area First Team WR, DB, KR)

LB Korey Young (LSHS all time leading tackler, All Area)

WR/S Brady Pahukoa (All Area WR, All Wesco punter/S)