This document discusses questions and answers related to Chameleon Statement.

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Camille-Specific Questions and Answers

This part answers questions about this site's dis­closure of Camille's identity and rela­ted issues. It may be moved to another page. There is a separate Legal Questions and Answers part further down.

Q. Did you post Camille's name and other infor­ma­tion as part of a re­tal­ia­tory “tit for tat” thing?

A. No.

In 2020, as I approached the 20th anniversary of my High School graduation, I found that I was think­ing more about the past, most im­portant­ly my family and the culture in which I was raised.

I wanted to make sense out of things and to offer advice about what I'd learn­ed to others. So, I started to write the story.

Camille Capaldo aka Camille McDonald was part of the story, but I didn't use her real name. She was the only per­son that I recall using a fake name for. This was a courtesy offe­red with the inten­tion of avoid­ing con­flict.

A year later, in 2021, Camille threat­en­ed me for telling the story of our rela­tion­ship even though I hadn't named her. Due to the nature of her threats, full dis­closure of every­thing was advis­able.

I also certainly didn't have any obli­ga­tion to con­tinue to offer Camille special treat­ment, but that isn't the point.

Q. Why did you disclose a possible street address for Camille? Did you have the legal right to do so?

A. I certainly had the legal right to do so. This is covered in the Legal Q&A section. Regarding why it was disclosed, there were mul­ti­ple legi­ti­mate and rea­son­able pur­poses. Two such pur­poses are discussed below.

1) One such purpose was transparency re­la­ted to pos­si­ble liti­ga­tion.

The street ad­dress was the “To:” street part of a pre-liti­ga­tion docu­ment that was sent to Camille sub­se­quent to threats that she'd made. The PDF has been post­ed and the street address is part of it.

It would be possible to redact the “To:” street address as the “Cc:” email addres­ses have been redact­ed. However, it might be for the best, both in legal con­texts and from a prac­ti­cal per­spec­tive, if things are be post­ed pub­lic­ly and as com­plete­ly as pos­si­ble.

2) Another legitimate and reasonable purpose is, quite simply, that if there are going to be issues with Camille McDonald again, infor­ma­tion will need to be gather­ed for sub­mis­sion to attorneys and pos­sib­ly to law enforce­ment.

In short, it might be necessary to ask people who are familiar with the street address in ques­tion to con­firm that Camille is or isn't resi­d­ing there and – if that is this per­son's resi­dence – whether or not it's a drug house or prosti­tu­tion venue.

Q. Even if it's legal to post Camille's name and other infor­ma­tion, aren't you “dox­xing” ? “Dox­xing” should be ille­gal!

A. There's no such thing as “doxxing”. Not the way that that most people use the term. It's non­sense.

Define the type of “doxxing” that you mean. Try to come up with a defin­i­tion that doesn't come down to this: “Person A doesn't want Person B to post inform­a­tion that is already pub­lic or to talk about things that Person A did to Person B”.

The word “doxxing” is more properly used to refer to the aggrega­tion of inform­a­tion includ­ing points that are not already pub­lic such as the iden­tities of mem­bers of a ter­ror­ist group.

Whether or not actual “dox­xing” is involved, one should have legi­ti­mate and reason­able pur­poses for posting sig­ni­fi­cant­ly about others in per­son­al con­texts.

This said, the use of the word “dox­xing” is usually just another way to say “Don't talk, be silent about crimes and abuse, it's bad to stand up and tell the story of your own life”.

No, it isn't bad to stand up and tell the story of one's own life. More peo­ple should do it.

Q. You've disclosed that one of Camille's mul­ti­ple sur­names is “Mattiola”. Doesn't that dis­clo­sure put her in danger of being tar­get­ed by organ­ized crime groups?

A. Camille was never on the run from organ­ized crime in a serious sense. Her stories about her days as a drug mule were large­ly fan­tasy.

She may have tried to obscure her where­abouts at times for rea­sons rela­ted to a child cus­tody bat­tle. It wasn't a ser­ious effort. The con­tents of legal papers sug­gest that she and her ex-husband each knew where the other was most of the time dur­ing the rele­vant per­iod.

Q. If this was so bad, why didn't you go to the police instead of making a spectacle of it? (a decade later).

A. How is this relevant?

Yes, Camille may have been guilty of prosecutable crimes related to the manner in which she acquired prescription medications. She herself claimed to have been a drug mule a decade earlier, though the story is questionable. She committed minor assault in 2009 as well.

So what? These issues aren't the story or the point. They're background. The larger story is a thread in my life and the point is what I've learned and the advice that I'd like to offer based on that.

This said, I encourage others to confront irresponsible behavior using incremental escalation and to report significant crimes to the police.

I should have gone to the police at the time and that is part of the advice to others. This isn't the complete story, though.

Q. If you're pressured enough, will you go back to being quiet and not talk­ing about things?

A. No. I'm not on a soapbox and I'd like people to be com­for­ta­ble. However, after Spring 2020 – when I started to think more about the past – I under­stand that I do need to talk about things that hap­pen­ed.

It came from inside me as it often does for peo­ple. It was physi­cal­ly uncomfortable. The story had to come out.

Additionally, if it proves to be ne­ces­sary, the site editor, OldCoder, will step in and “fork” the pro­ject. This means that he'll take legal respon­si­bili­ty for the online parts and pres­sure will need to be applied to him as opposed to me.

I should add that OldCoder isn't really as pleasant to deal with as I am.

Q. If a writer puts up a website and tells a story that includes abusive things which people did, isn't the writer just being petty and self-absorb­ed and shouldn't he or she just be silent so that peo­ple don't feel that the writer is like that? Shouldn't the writer just shut up for his or her own good?

A. No.

Kelly Romig, a girl who was in my brother Ray's grade, was abused by John Longaker, a teacher who was supposed to pro­tect her and took ad­vant­age of her in­stead.

Longaker was prosecuted. However, he made a plea bar­gain, served a very short sentence, and today denies any wrongdoing. He's even per­mit­ted to be a pas­tor. He vili­fies people who in­quire about the abuse that he com­mit­ted and states that they ought to be silent.

The case is discussed at this link: https://overcomers.group/doku/xabuse_longaker

It's the failure to talk about abuse that per­mits such things to hap­pen.

In my case, there are things which hap­pen­ed between my parents, Ray, and me that aren't online yet. I'm enti­tled to use the term “abuse” and to write about abuse for such pur­poses as seem appro­pri­ate to me.

You're not enti­tled to judge. My advice to others in a simi­lar posi­tion is to speak. It isn't wrong to do so. It's wrong to tell others that it's shame­ful to speak about things that have hap­pen­ed.

It isn't solely about abuse.

I've written about Camille as well as about my child­hood and youth. Camille com­mit­ted no physi­cal abuse that I present­ly know of other than beat­ing me up on one occa­sion. So what? The story that I've writ­ten isn't a laundry list of abusive inci­dents. It's dif­fer­ent threads of my life. Both posi­tive and nega­tive threads.

There are lessons to be learned from my fail­ure to handle my rela­tion­ship with Camille proper­ly. My deci­sion to speak about this and to offer what thoughts and advice I can is my own and not yours to judge.

I feel that the question works out to lit­tle more than an implied threat. My advice to others is as fol­lows:

If somebody elects not to speak to you because you won't be silent, perhaps they're not some­body that you should miss speak­ing to.

This document discusses the site itself, and reflections on what has been written.

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