Avaaz.org vs. Sun TV vs. Unwitting Hill Journalists: And now you know the rest of the story. (Maybe)

You can catch up on the first installment of the ongoing saga of the Great Sun TV Petition Anti-Drive here, but for the link-averse, here's the abbreviated version: Yesterday evening, various  -- Maclean's columnists Andrew Coyne and Paul Wells, the Globe and Mail's Stephen Wicary, and the your humble blogatrix, among others -- were somewhat nonplussed to receive autoreplies from Avaaz.org, thanking us for signed their recently-launched petition calling on the CRTC to "Stop Fox News North," despite the fact that none of us had actually done so. 

A steady stream of puzzled and irate reactions -- tweeted and otherwise -- from other Hill journalists, as well as political bloggers from both the left and right side , and even a handful of card-carrying Conservative staffers, made it clear that we weren't the only ones whose identities had apparently been appropriated by suspect(s) unknown.

The punch line -- or so it seemed at the time -- came a few hours later, when Kory Teneycke -- the PM's former communications director, brought on board by Quebecor with great fanfare earlier this year for the express purpose of getting the very network targeted by Avaaz on the air -- revealed that he, too, had "apparently ... signed the Soros-Atwood petition against Sun TV News as well."

Fast forward, then, to this morning, when a Teneycke-penned op-ed appeared throughout the Sun chain denouncing Atwood -- who had publicly endorsed the petition earlier in the week -- for an "ignorant attack" that, in his view, "confirms just why Canadians need Sun TV News."

Although he doesn't mention the fact that his name -- as well as those of journalists and other individuals -- have apparently been fraudulently added to the list -- an odd omission, come to think of it -- Teneycke notes that, of the "over 45,000 people have signed this petition ... it is safe to assume many, if not most, are Americans" -- not only that, but at least a few aren't just foreigners, but fictional: 

Atwood is not the only A-list "celebrity" that has signed. Dwight Shroot (from The Office), Boba Fett (of Star Wars), Snuffaluffagus (Sesame Street) and Homer Simpson are also signatories. Clearly the CRTC should take note of such distinguished individuals lending their name to this smear job.

I can't speak for the CRTC, but that line made me take note, for one very simple reason: the petition itself isn't actually online, which means it's not possible to view the names of any of the signatories. It was the autoreply that tipped me -- and others -- off to our unwitting inclusion on the list; the only ones who would know that Snuffaluffagus, for instance, was also a victim of the signature spammer would be the petition maintainers at Avaaz, or Snuffy himself.

Hmmm, I thought, then tweeted:

okay, this is weird. how did @KoryTeneycke get a list of *fake* (not fraudulent) sigs on a list that isn't available online?

Less than an hour later, I got a reply from Teneycke himself:

Source emailed me to say they registered Boba Fett, D. Shroot, etc. Petition lacks basic controls. Not sure who signed me up.

Right about the same time that the above showed up on my screen, my phone rang, and it was none other than my twitter correspondent himself. He confirmed that his source was, in fact, the person who had added those names to the petition, apparently to prove "what a joke" it was, what with the complete absence of any sort of verification process that would prevent someone with mischief in mind from doing -- well, pretty much exactly what his correspondent did.

As Teneycke explained it, adding Snuffy, Dwight Schroot (sic) and Boba Fett was all meant in fun - a bit of "shenanigans" to show exactly how meaningless the petition was. But as I told him, while I can appreciate that angle, I still wanted to know who had added my name to the list, since I'm not -- despite what rumours may be circulating out there -- fictional at all; I'm a real person, and a public one at that, and when my name shows up on a petition without my putting it there, I'm going to move heaven and earth to find out who is responsible.

Meanwhile, as all this was going on -- and as those who followed the original post, and subsequent updates, throughout the day, already know -- Avaaz was taking the matter very seriously indeed, posting a statement condemning the "desperate and illegal attack" on the petition, sending out personalized apologies promising to remove the maliciously added names, and vowing to track down the perpetrator, and press criminal charges, if necessary.

This afternoon, I spoke with Avaaz executive director Ricken Patel -- who had just wrapped up a pretape of a debate with Teneycke that will run on tonight's edition of Power and Politics. He told me that, although they still hadn't identified the source, they have "tracked all of the suspect names to a single IP address," and that it appears that "a good number of the journalists who were fraudulently added were from the same source that added the Snuffluphagus" -- which would, of course, be the very same correspondent who tipped off Tenecyke to the fake names in time for him to include them in his column today.

"What's really concerning for us is that this fraud occurred last night, right as he must have been writing his op-ed, so he appears to have almost instantaneous knowledge of the fraud being committed -- before we did or anyone else. How is that possible? And, given that this is potentially criminal investigation, will he disclose that relationship to his source? Was it someone who works for him?"

Oh, and for the record, despite running dozens of similar online petitions on issues around the world, according to Patel, this is the first time Avaaz has been targeted by this kind of online sculduggery. "We have taken on some pretty nasty characters in our three and a half years, everyone from Bush to Burmese dictators to corrupt politicians in Brazil and Germany," he notes. "No one has tried this before."

Just I was writing up the above chronology, I got another call from Teneycke, who told me that he'd asked his correspondent whether he had added the journalists' names as well as the joke submissions, and he denied it. Which means that unless and until Avaaz provides the IP logs from last night -- which could present privacy concerns if done publicly -- it's Patel's word vs. that of Teneycke's unnamed and confessed-fake-signature-submitting source. Over to you, commenters. As anyone who has been watching my twitterings today, I've been following this rabbit trail through the interwebs for most of the day, and my brain is mush.