[tsmith130]

sucked a poster named NCPAC into his confidence, and then got NCPAC thrown out of his government job in Maryland via skullduggery.

I must have missed part of this story. How did MD4BUSH know that poster NCPAC was Joseph Steffen? Had NCPAC identified himself on FR?

[conservative in nyc]

How did MD4BUSH know that poster NCPAC was Joseph Steffen? Had NCPAC identified himself on FR?

Nobody really knows, not even NCPAC, as of the date of the original WaPo article. But NCPAC scattered enough tidbits about himself on this website that an enterprising reporter could have guessed. Kind of like Jerome Corsi (FReeper jrlc).

[AZ_Cowboy]

Probably stuff from FreepMail more than in-forum stuff. Time will tell.

[Southack]

"I must have missed part of this story. How did MD4BUSH know that poster NCPAC was Joseph Steffen? Had NCPAC identified himself on FR?"

No, it went the other way around. Joseph Steffen was well known in his Public office for being a GOP activist. He was also tasked with the non-political job of firing bureaucrats in Maryland's government downsizing effort (somebody has to do it)...but this would clearly make him unpopular.

Steffen posted here on FR that people at his office had been seen using his computer (obviously unauthorized to so do), so the reasonable speculation is that they found out that he was NCPAC and set up a sting to target him (e.g. looked at his browser's History file or set up a keylogger or both or more).

This is further confirmed by viewing MD4Bush's posting history here, as he trolled NCPAC's threads and made his only posts on threads where NCPAC had been. In fact one of his first four posts was to NCPAC directly.

So newbie MD4Bush knew to target NCPAC prior to coming onto FR.

But it goes to reinforce the fact that you shouldn't use your work PC to surf Free Republic.

Don't be dumb.