No End in Sight to Penny Arcade Saga; Thompson Turns to Feds
There is a new twist in the raging feud between Miami attorney and self-described "anti-game crusader" Jack Thompson and gamer website Penny Arcade.
Thompson has forwarded to GamePolitics a copy of a letter that he faxed to John McKay (left), U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, in relation to Penny Arcade. Local offices of law enforcement agencies such as the FBI are under McKay's direction. Thompson's letter reads, in part:
"I have testified twice before the Washington state legislature on behalf of video game bills authored by Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, who understands the danger posed by these murder simulation games. Governor Locke signed the bill she got passed into law."
"Because of my prominence, for better or worse, on this public safety problem, a 'gamer' a few months ago decided to threaten to kill me via the Internet. I received thousands of e-mails from a kid who was able to blast e-mail me using a service in Ireland that made the death threats appear to come from the following e-mail address: georgewbush@whitehouse.gov."
"Because of the domain name, the Secret Service here in Miami got involved and shut that extortion down."
"Now there is new extortion, and it is coming from a Seattle company called Penny Arcade. I can provide the details to your investigators, but basically this company has been using, I believe I can show, their Internet site and various other means to encourage and solicit criminal harassment of me. This would appear to violate state and federal laws."
"I asked Penny Arcade's attorney to stop this targeting, and he said it was my fault. Maybe he's played too many video games and thinks that flesh and blood people are just pixilated pinatas."
"Please help me if you can... They claim the First Amendment, it seems, applies only to them."
In related news, Thompson told us that his earlier letter to Seattle P.D., a story broken here on GamePolitics, was indeed sent both by fax and snail mail. Previously, there had been some question raised as to whether the attorney's letter was actually forwarded to Seattle P.D. Note that we are not aware of any confirmation by the police department, and some GP readers have claimed that the offices of Penny Arcade are not within the jurisdiction of Seattle's finest.