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White House E-Mail Hidden From Justice Dept.
TheSimon writes: "A former White House contractor, Betty Lambuth, alleged in court papers unsealed Friday that she was threatened not to reveal a problem with the White House e-mail system that concealed thousands of messages from the Justice Department and congressional investigators.
Here's
the full story from foxnews.com." This makes an interesting counterpoint to the calls for eliminating Internet anonymity by the same adminstration.
White House e-mails are verified
White House issued threats
For a critical analysis of this oft-forwarded spam, check out this page.
They should hire me to do the work, I'll put Debian GNU/Linux and FreeBSD on everything! :)
rbf aka pulsar
So its ok for the elite to have private email, but encryption might be dangerous in the hands of law abiding citizens.
But if you think Bush will be any better take a look at this website: GeorgeBush2000.com. I'm sure a bunch of it is fudging statistics and judging his record based on the current conditions in Texas versus Texas before he became governor. But the insider trading stuff is a little scary and has a ring of thuth to it.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
This has been on the Drudge Report for days. I'm still having a hard time deciphering what the point is. I have yet to see a calculation of the number of E-Mails discovered vs the number turned over to the special prosecutor. Not to mention the number with relevent content.
Without knowing if any of the e-mails had relevent content I'd say this is just a case of drudging up more dirt to use against Gore. As far as this being relevent to a discussion of anonymity it will never be allowed for official government correspondence. There are requirements for retaining documents and security regulations. On the other hand, the use of internet e-mail services would have to be curtailed.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Every once in a while I need a swift kick in the ass to remind me why, for political news, I don't turn to slashdot, Fox News, the Drudge Report, or any of a dozen other sources frowned upon by my friends. That disturbing picture was just the kick I needed.
...."
According to everybody's favorite 'lynx -source http://... > grep Gore', Gore is mentioned five times on that page
1) The indep clause of the lead: "Al Gore's 1996 campaign fund-raising was back in the news Friday."
2) The caption: "Some of the e-mails allegedly involve Vice President Gore's involvement in campaign finance controversies."
3) Once in the article: "Lambuth claims a subordinate told her some of the e-mails deal with 'Vice President Al Gore's involvement in campaign fund-raising controversies'
4) The phrase "Clinton-Gore re-election campaign"
5) The phrase "Clinton-Gore White House"
Very little of the article's substance is actually about Al Gore. Instances four and five are superfluous because "Clinton White House" and "Clinton re-election campaign" are more common phrases. Instance two is a copy of instance three, and both are based on hearsay. Instance one is meaningless media-reporting-on-media fluff.
Certainly, a connection between lost email about legal misconduct and Al Gore would be important, but -- despite all the author's implications -- the article hardly deals with Al Gore on a substantive level. The point may seem obvious, but it must be understood if we are to interpret the picture.
The picture shows an ugly image of Al Gore waving and looking to his right. The blue backdrop suggests that he is speaking at some event to some "Puerto Rican/Hispanic" group. (Of course, you can't actually tell, and the caption doesn't explain the picture.) The article does not tell me a blessed thing about Al Gore's relations with Puerto Ricans or Hispanics, about the event, about hand-waving, or about looking to the right. The picture has absolutely nothing to do with the article, except this: The article weakly references Al Gore a few times, and the picture tells us what Al Gore looks like. And boy does he look ugly!
Thank you Fox News, but I see Al Gore's picture all over the place. I don't really care how long you can sift through wired images to find an unflattering shot.
There are lots of useful ways to avoid gray matter, and that picture was not one of them. Betty Lambuth is a new person to me, and I'd like to know how she looks. I'm not sure I understand who Lambuth's boss is, or how she fits into that strange buraucracy of White House officials and extra-governmental contractors. A diagram would really help. Heck, a timeline comparing the email system to allegations of misconduct would be nice.
Tim
Drilling a hole through the drive will not destroy your data. Even if you chop your hard drive into little one inch squares, with the densities of media nowadays, each chunk will contain a few gigabytes of data. Believe me, those little chunks can be easily read.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Am I the only who cracked up laughing when I read this? Hey, pay attention, they did impeach him...sheesh, these kids today. :)
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Myself, I'm very skeptical of scandals which bubble to the surface during elections...just as I'm skeptical of the fact that NASA announces a new major "discovery" about Mars on the same day a Mars-related movie (for which NASA was a consultant) is making its premiere.
Timing, timing.
W
-------------------
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
look at the picture of Al Gore in the Fundraising article. That's just offensive.
Sorry to offend you, but that's what he looks like. It's not written anywhere that every photo a news org prints has to be of you best side.
Emails from 1996 don't concern me much.
Me neither, considering that there are many more recent alligations of illegal campaign fundraising.
Finkployd
Some 70+ of clinton's business partners and "close" friends have died in very strange events. Would you come forward without being very carefull about it? Besides, perhaps she just waited until election time to come put with this on purpose, does that make what the clinton whitehouse did any better?
Finkployd
Don't forget that David Letterman almost died after Hillary visited. :-)
:)
She must have planted some anthrytax in his coffee
Finkployd
I wonder why the documents were unsealed. I wonder why they were sealed.
:)
As to why they werer unsealed, I have no idea. That is something I would like to have learned in the article, but they made no mention.
As to why they were sealed, I also don't know, but it's in keeping with this administration's policy of complete secrecy. Of course, they are also the most investigated admin in history (assumption), so I'd imagine I'd be sealing stuff too, knowing that everyone is coming after me. However, the actions on each side just fuel the actions on the other.
I still don't see any connection to Internet anonymity (timothy's claim, not yours).
I don't either, I suspect Timothy just wanted to post this and somehow justify it
Finkployd
If you in any way suprised that the Clinton Whitehouse got caught hiding documents from investigators, then you must not have been paying attention for the last 7+ years.
If there has been any consistancy in this administration at all, it has been their willingness to destroy/lose/play dumb about every document that has been requested in their back to back illegal activities. But they tell us the economy is good, so let him do what ever he wants right?
Finkployd
Instead, substantiate your claims with facts. Care to provide references?
Foster - (Suicide, right)
Ron Brown
Now for the ones you don't know about
Kevin Ives & Don Henry: Initial cause of death was reported to be the result of falling asleep on a railroad track in Arkansas on August 23, 1987. This ruling was reported by the State medical examiner Fahmy Malak. Later it was determined that Kevin died from a crushed skull prior to being placed on the tracks. Don had been stabbed in the back. Rumors indicate that they might have stumbled upon a Mena drug operation.
James Milam: Milam had information on the Ives & Henry deaths. He was decapitated. The state Medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, initially ruled death due to natural causes.
Paul Tully: Tulley was on the Democratic National Committee. He was found dead of unknown causes in his hotel room on September 24, 1992. No autopsy
was ever allowed.
Steve Willis, Robert Williams, Todd McKeahan & Conway LeBleu: Died Feburary 28, 1993 by gunfire at Waco. All four were examined by a pathologist and died from identical wounds to the left temple. All four had been body guards for Bill Clinton, three while campaigning for President and when he was Governor of Arkansas. They also were the ONLY 4 BATF agents killed at Waco.
Sgt. Brian Haney, Sgt. Tim Sabel, Maj. William Barkley, Capt. Scott Reynolds: Died: May 19, 1993 - All four men died when their helicopter crashed in the woods near Quantico, Va. - Reporters were barred from the site, and the head of the fire department responding to the crash described it by saying, "Security was tight," with "lots of Marines with guns." A videotape made by a firefighter was seized by the Marines. All four men had escorted Clinton on his flight to the carrier Roosevelt shortly before their deaths.
John Wilson: Found dead from an apparent hanging suicide on May 18, 1993. He was a former Washington DC council member and claimed to have info on Whitewater.
Jerry Luther Parks: Parks was the Chief of Security for Clinton's national campaign headquarters in Little Rock. Gunned down in his car on September 26, 1993 near the intersection of Chenal Parkway and Highway 10 west of Little Rock. Parks was shot through the rear window of his car. The assailant then pulled around to the driver's side of Park's car and shot him three more times with a 9mm pistol. His family reported that shortly before his death, they were being followed by unknown persons, and their home had been broken into (despite a top quality alarm system). Parks had been compiling a dossier on Clinton's illicit activities. The dossier was stolen.
Barbara Wise: Wise a 14-year Commerce Department employee found dead and partially naked in her office following a long weekend. She worked in the same section as John Huang. Officially, she is said to have died of natural causes.
Jim McDougal: Bill and Hillary Clinton friend, banker, and political ally, sent to prison for eighteen felony convictions. A key whitewater witness, dies of a heart attack on March, 8 1998. As of this writing allegations that he was given an injection of the diuretic lasix has not been denied or confirmed. Died on March 8, 1998
There are dozens more, look on the web. Yes, most of this is from right wing sites, but some of the better ones provide news paper and offical document links or images to back this up. Not that Clinton is to blame for any of this, it's just he has had more friends die in suspicious circumstances than I have friends.
Assuming she believed the alleged threats to be credible, what has changed? If there was something for her to fear then, there is surely something for her to fear now. Why the sudden change of mind?
She gave this deposition several years ago (if you read the story), only recently have then been unsealed. She hasn't "come forward" publicly at all. Please read the story before you assume this is just an opportunist trying to hurt Gore, she had nothing to do with the timing of the unsealing of court documents.
Anyways, in this instance, what exactly did the Clinton whitehouse do?
Allegedly, they hid evidence (nothing new). Other than that, I'm not sure what you mean.
Finkployd
the large number of ...'s in the article make me suspicious about the accuracy of some of the statements. Here is an example: ..."
I had heard rumours that we had threated to format the staffer's hard drives, this is simply untrue.
Now after a legal edition:
"... we had threatened to format the staffer's hard drives
Two entirely different statements with entirely different connotations.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Yes, but the American corporation that you're talking about is Loral. The head of Loral, Bernard Schwartz, was the single largest contributor to Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Here's a link to a New York Times article which raises serious doubts, including the doubts within the administration itself, about the legitimacy of the Sudan bombing raid.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
the NSA can recover data 16 rewrites or formats deep on a HDD. I know firsthand of eight layers, while in the Navy we had a HDD with data from two crash investigations stolen by a contractor, who used it for 2 months before it was recovered. We sent it in (I was told later to the NSA labs), and the data was recovered through 8 format/rewrites. Has to do with track edges and the head mechanism not tracking perfectly every time.
:-)
Yes, that's a normal method. You can do it with diskettes too. Even broken ones (as in pieces).
However, give me half an hour with a disk that I want to be sure no-one will ever see, and it will never be seen by any means whatsoever. Could be as simple as running it thru an alternating magnetic flux (with a nice big coil and a lot of juice), depending on the disk. Might even have to build some minor circuts to do some wacky stuff with magnetic fields, but it's not hard to do, if you really really want to. And hell, there's always the rotary sander. Grind that sucker into dust. Let 'em try to read those pieces.
Anyway, the point IS that anyone can remove electronically stored evidence if they want to remove it.
Ah well. I'm rambling now..
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
The photo credit attributes this not to Fox News but to the Associated Press, hardly a bastion of the "vast right wing conspiracy".
:)
The fact I thought it was funny as hell also doesn't make me a card carrying member of the conspiracy, but I've been to a few of the meetings.
-- Rob O'Neal
Check out Largest recipe database on the web.
I can only hope that the guilty party, whichever one it is, gets what's coming to them in the afterlife, because justice is unlikely to be served in this one.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
If we weighed the two on an even balance, I'd be inclined to agree; although I'd rather say that Ms. Broaddrick is (to me) an unknown who gets the default level of credibility, whereas Mr. Clinton has a history which drops his credibility below that level. When it comes to matters of law, though, the balance is put in favor of the accused; and I tend to follow that particular balance in my day-to-day judgments. That's all I'm saying - innocent until proven guilty.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
All I can say is, just because people can blow a lot of smoke doesn't mean there's a fire.
--
Do I look like I speak for my employer?
That is a bold statement... Just look at the last few administrations. I can still not believe Bush (Sr.) could pardon his co-conspirators and not have received a public lashing. (At Christmas time... BRILLIANT!)
As for Gore... Well, I weep for the future. We'll see how well he does without help from the Federal reserve.
And Bush jr.? Why not just eliminate the middleman and vote for Texaco as president?
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
Don't forget that David Letterman almost died after Hillary visited. :-)
[ snip ]
Remember, encryption of drives works better if you don't want to be caught.
If they can recover information after eight formats, do you really think that encrypting your HD will stop them?
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
The decline of English teaching has coincided with the rise of the internet, and it's probably possible to get through "journalism school" and get hired without even being as good at writing as I am (and I'm not great, believe me). It's sad.
JMR
Try e-gold - (contact me). I'm NOT e-
Ya, ya, ya...
;)
Look everyone, I agree that the Clinton administration is FAR from honest. I'm sure they're being as sneaky and underhanded as they can get away with (or can't) in order to do what they feel they 'have' to do -whether you or I believe it's in the country's best interest or not.
Thing is, what has changed? Certainly NOT the integrity of the Presidency (aside from public view of), nor the federal government in general. I have no way of proving this, but history surely indicates that the Fed. Gov't has done such sneaky and underhanded deals since its inception!
What HAS changed is our ability to learn about such things. With all the high-handed morality of the 50's, you think that JFK's mob connections and philandering WOULDN'T have caused national scandal?
Iran/Contra. Watergate. Viet Nam. McCarthyism.Slavery..all the way back to when our government cheated, lied, and mass-murdered the Native Americans two centuries ago...
And fill in here _______ the wrongful government behavior you like to comment on.
Perhaps the ability of our traditional and NONtraditional media will have the effect of restoring the integrity of our government. But until that's true, I'm pretty sick of people saying 'well, THIS administration takes the cake!'. Whatever. They're just as sneaky as everyone else, with better tools. Our job is to make sure our tools counter that as often as possible to keep the balance.
Clinton's Admin sucked, Reagan's Admin sucked, (Carter was a god), Ford/Nixon's Admin sucked...before that I was too young to care
And here's to AL GORE's Admin sucking- but at least it'll keep our water drinkable and air breathable.
---
Kinda like Moe, but just a little more Kool
According to the article, her testimoney was unsealed. There was no mention in the article of when she actually made the statements.
I feel like picking a fight with everyone who thinks they are right. - Rainmakers
I think the bombing of the factory in Sudan ranks up there, as abuse of power, as the stuff done during Watergate and Iran/Contra.
When all ther reporters were making "Wag the Dog" analogys, Clinton said that he would shortly release information showing that the factory was used to make nerve gas. I am still waiting.
During Watergate, Nixon put the military on alert in hopes of taking the pressure off the investigation. He was severly taken to task for the measure. At least he didn't kill innocent third parties.
I feel like picking a fight with everyone who thinks they are right. - Rainmakers
Is your position that there should be a total lack of anonymity for all people or just people in power? I always think of the , "With great power comes great responsibilities line." Do you mean that one of those responsiblities is a lose of privacy? What a goverment employee's personal life? The press seems to follow the idea that high level goverment employees (senators, independent councils, etc.) are like celebreties and have choosen a public lifestyle that precludes privacy. Is this fair? If so, does this include Internet transactions like e-mails and web browsing? Do we have a right to know what is in George W.'s bookmarks?
I agree that people need to have more information about what their government but perhaps the amount isn't the problem. It is the difficulty in getting it. Who really researches voting records? Who watches CSPAN? All of these things take time. I have always wondered why even during an election, the only way to find a simple summary of a canidate's voting record is to check out his competition and then you only see the bad. This ends up making the decision trying to choose the lesser of two evils.
We really need a new style of press that is beholden to no one and gets the answers that people need. The Associated Press is pretty good but all to often many of their stories and others like them are not noted by the major distributers (CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, ect). We have a public television channel and although it has news we need more. We need a public news channel/web site that has all the information sorted and catagorized for easy searching.
-- soldack
If they can recover information after eight formats, do you really think that encrypting your HD will stop them?
um, yes.
i could leave it at that, but what makes you think that the ability to read old stuff on a HDD has anything to do with breaking cryptography? of course, it may be the case that NSA can in fact break all of the known ciphers, but their ability to read old drives hardly provides evidence of this.
cheers,
sh_
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
What do you expect from Rupert Murdoch's Fox News? All the major U.S. news media companies are biased but Murdoch's stuff is so nakedly and vertiginously biased it leaves you dizzy and disoriented. Fox News should not be used while driving or operating heavy machinery.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
So you think that if Clinton/Gore can hide subpoenaed documents for 4 years then they are no longer relevant? This is undoubtably the most corrupt administration we have ever had. But hey, the economy is good.
That's why you're the judge and I'm the...uh...law-talkin' guy. - Lionel Hutz, Attorney at Law
Just wanted to take this moment to recommend David Brin's The Transparent Society, a well supported argument about why accountability is even more important than anonymity. Think about it -- this is a case where a government agency was investigated, and still they missed a lot of stuff. If they were a little better at it, they wouldn't have been investigated at all.
What can we do? Public, highly intrusive, monitoring of all aspects of government. If we (the people, you know) are delegating power, we need to watch how that power is used.
--Kevin
I will, however, smile from ear to ear while I vote Republican.
_________________________
Doing so would require a person of substance, something Algore clearly is not.
_________________________
. . and I expect elected offiacials to obey them like the rest of us. This is something ClintonGore has yet to fully grasp.
_________________________
Me too! To think that someone would do something like this...And right in the middle of the primaries. I think I'll just go out and shoot myself...
big brother is watching you-but you can't watch him back. what's the deal? do they have any idea how hypocritical this makes them look? i am all for internet anonimity, and it appears they are not-unless it deals with themselves. go figure.
The difference between that scandal and the so-called "Clinton scandals" is that Iran/Contra ended up amounting to more than a hill of beans. Power was truly abused in the Iran/Contra scandal.
Let's see how this new scandal plays out. Frankly, Clinton's Republican opposition has gone off half-cocked so often that they have no credibility left. They are just sore losers, IMHO. Also, let's get off the administration's back on encryption and CDA. A lot of techies just have the most absurd knee-jerk response to that. Even if these initiatives are hopeless, they still must be tried. It's just a no-brainer.
Suppose, for example, Clinton had just openly done nothing WRT export restrictions on encryption. The very first time a terrorist used strong encryption in an e-mail, the administration would have been hung out to dry by the same yahoos who now attack him every time he adjusts his tie.
Sure, we all know that such export restrictions are futile, but that's, unfortunately, beside the point.
Don't even get me started on star wars.
Formats, encryption, anything. As you say, the data was recovered 16 re-writes deep. What's to stop anyone from recovering the same data before it was encrypted?
Personally, I've seen drives that were involved in a house fire recovered. I had experience with someone who's doctoral thesis was on his computer, and his machine was in his house when it burnt down. The case, everything was melted! It was soaked from all the water and foam. We sent it off, and it was recovered - completely!
The only way I've seen to totally destroy data, is to take a 3/8 steel bit and drill through all the platters. That is the way my company handles sensitive data. In certain departments, such as HR, if there is a problem with a users machine that requires removing the box from their office, we can ask if they want this to be done. And we do it, on the spot, in front of the user.
No arguing with the fact that the data is G O N E!
Off topic - Navy eh! The best part about being in the Navy is never having to say you're Air Force!
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
They also can recover ancient paintings from under many coats of paint. Burning, however, helps alot if you want something to be completely destroyed.
You can't handle the truth.
Nothing new about the Clinton Administration will surprise me. Its all been lies built upon lies.
The fact that these e-mails were covered up probably has something do to with the Lewinsky affair among other things. The Clinton Admin is all about cover ups... Of course, its only natural considering all the illegal and immoral things they are involved in.
I'm sure the American Public would love to get their hands on this stuff, I know I would.
Let's just hope the next administration will be an improvement over this last one.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
FOXNEWS is known for sensationalizing just about everything. I just watched Sean "Puffy" Combs' attorney being interviewed by O'Riley. O'Riley spent the entire five minutes trying to get the attorney to say something bad about the N.Y. city police department. The P.D. is not the issue, what happened in Sean's particular case is. O'Riley seemed uninterested in hearing about the matter, he wanted dirt. He didn't get any.
As for sensationalism: look at the picture of Al Gore in the Fundraising article. That's just offensive.
It would be nice if they would do some real reporting for once. Emails from 1996 don't concern me much.
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
Who wants to bet that applying "military" methods for data recovery is strictly against the law, so a reformatted hard drive will be considered off-limits? (unless that is, it's not the White House which is being investigated). ;-)
Say, can't you say that since it's encoded on the drive, it's protected by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, since you cannot access it without getting around the encoding scheme (which is totally weak since slapping it to any IDE port will allow access). Hmmm.... maybe I gave the White House an easy out!
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
First off, that pic of Gore is a riot...
:)
Secondly, the NSA can recover data 16 rewrites or formats deep on a HDD. I know firsthand of eight layers, while in the Navy we had a HDD with data from two crash investigations stolen by a contractor, who used it for 2 months before it was recovered. We sent it in (I was told later to the NSA labs), and the data was recovered through 8 format/rewrites. Has to do with track edges and the head mechanism not tracking perfectly every time. Remember, encryption of drives works better if you don't want to be caught.
So... if drives were reformatted, they could have the data recovered. More emails about illegal crap. Hell, you'd think Gore would've thought of this, since he did invent the internet
I wonder if they will ever get to going through the emails to find the real dirt. If they do, it'll get classified as secret so it won't get released to the press. They'll stand by the "it's about national security, stupid" approach, so we'll never get the real story.
I hope the lady who was fired sues, at least she'll get some vindication.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
Give me one good reason why the internet shouldn't be anonmymous.