so let me recap the whole Eric Pepin story -- it is unbelievable.

First, the guy barely gets out of the nasty lawsuit with molestation and sexual misconduct charges. He gets aquitted on the "reasonable doubt" shtick -- in other words, the defense succeded in painting his accuser as an untrustworthy character and confuses him into contradicting himself.

Obviously, as it is all occuring, this all is published in mainstream media, people talk about it.

People also talk about it on public internet forums. One such discussion occurs on the SOTT forum. People talk about whether his dubious meditation program works, quote the articles about him, make conclusions.

SOTT, if you don't know, is non-profit, and its whole existence is dedicated to public service of educating people about deviant personalities in politics, business and private life.

Pepin then self-publishes a news release where he describes the details of the court and says that his accusers have made it up -- of course, there is no way to check that independently

http:[..]//www.send2press.com/newswire/2008-02-0219-003.shtml

this appears on February 19th.

On March 5th the SOTT is served a lawsuit.

Around the same time the high-profile links in the guruphiliac blog, in which Pepin's trial is detailed in an unfavorable light, goes dead.

The caches are available for your consideration:

here and

here

Methinks Eric Pepin doth protesteth too much, as he seems to be instituting a total sweep of the dirt on him that's available on the Internet.

If anything has hurt his business and reputation, it is his own frivolous actions and the media attention to them, and not public discussion of those.

Getting together and talking, comparing notes and sharing information is the ONLY THING that people have in the face of corporate lies and deceit.

So yes, it is a free speech issue, and the precedent would reverberate widely throughout the Internet forums and communities.

Pepin seems to act like a bully. He must have been thinking that slamming people at SOTT with a lawsuit will shut them up. And yet, the opposite has happened -- there is more talk now about the whole affair than never before.

Whatever happens now -- he will regret it, because the informational spill can no longer be contained.

Bad call, Master Eric.