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DoJ - Making Data Public Would 'Crash System'
orthogonal writes "The Justice Department today denied Freedom of Information Act requests to make public data on foreign lobbyists, claiming that '[i]mplementing such a request risks a crash that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of data, which would be devastating'. The requestor responded that '[t]his was a new one on us. We weren't aware there were databases that could be destroyed just by copying them,' Bob Williams of the Center for Public Integrity said Tuesday. Maybe we should tell John Ashcroft about open source database and copying solutions?"
Hmm, so I guess they don't keep backups of their own data, if making copies of it would cause the data to be lost. I guess we just have to hope (or not) that their computers or hard drives never fail.
Does this mean that they never make backups either? Sounds like just a bad excuse...
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Wow, i think I broke something whilst picking my jaw up off the floor.
If the computer will crash by accessing these records, then this implies the records are inaccessible. Not to mention that if the records magically 'disappear' all they have to say it "look we told you so"
I dont think anyone is gonna believe this for a second. More like a lot of people want this information permanently buried as to avoid letting the public know whats going on.
How will the FBI put all that old information on these new systems then?
Open Source Sushi
particularly because the policy allows withholding information due to "foreseeable harm" to the Administration, and not necessarily to the country.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The government said an overhaul of the system should be finished by December and copies should be available then.
Not available until after the November election, eh? How conveeeenient.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
This paces the Justice Department on par with Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the recently retired Iraqi Information Minister in it's inovation of repartee in the face of fact!
I hope they do not copyright this reason as it is so good I think I will use it (if I can) when the circumstances arise.
Web Sig: Eddy Currents
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Whatever process they use to look at the data could be used to copy it and give it to the FOIA petitioners.
Or maybe they just put stuff in there and don't look at the data, because it would crash. That would make a lot of sense.
WWJD? JWRTFA!
What this is, is perjury, and Ashcroft should be brought to task for it by Congress (*sigh* As _if_ they could be expected to do their job...).
Ashcroft issued a directive upon taking office that F.O.I.A. requests should be obstructed as far as possible, in line with the secrecy that has surrounded this entire administration. This is merely one more crass lie in furtherance of that ideology. The man has lied constantly since taking office and has been allowed to get away with it. Why?
Have we stopped caring about transparancy and republican values at home, whilst at the same time singing the praises of 'democracy' abroad? Are we all content to allow this proud nation to slip slowly but surely into a permanently-militarised social order? Will _you_ accept the suspension of habeus corpus, or of the entire Constitution, and live happily in a police state?
Me, I'd rather die on my feet, with my fist in the air, than my knees. I refuse to trade my freedom for cold comfort.
+++++++
"Look, dear, it's a crazy hairy scary man!"
Hmmm....
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
No, sir. Not a terrorist.
..." doesn't qualify as "Information".
;)
Simply not "+5, Informative"
Moderators, get a clue. Your job, when moderating something as "Informative", is to promote posts which, when viewed with a reasonably objective eye, actual contain (get ready now...) Information.
Perhaps I'm just not enough of a lib-leftie wing-nut, but "ultra-right wing Jesus freak who actively hates gays, black people, non-Christians,
If, to the liberals in the group, this does indeed qualify as "Information", then please accept my humble apology...
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
Read Dean's book. Ashcroft has been pissing on the FOIA since he entered office. There's plenty of evidence that he lied, over and over again. I watched him do it to a Congressional investigation a couple weeks ago. They threatened him with contempt of Congress, but he just sat there glowering. They asked him to submit documents and he refused. They asked for a reason and he refused to give one. They suggested executive privelege and he said no. He forced the Patriot act through congress and suggested that even taking the time to read the bill before signing it would make them unpatriotic. He refused to open gun records of suspected terrorists for fear of pissing off his buddies in the NRA. He refused to investigate anthrax attacks in the US once it became clear that the prime suspect was an American. He refused to investigate the thousands of anthrax hoax attacks targeted at abortion clinics after 9/11. He encouraged government agencies to deny all FOIA requests on principle. He's been having peaceful advocacy groups with no terrorist ties watched and infiltrated, while practically ignoring home grown terrorist threats (including cases involving WMD, such as this one). All the while he wastes our money and resources fighting smut. Now this? A legitimate FOIA request, and his reason for denying it is utter transparent bullshit. He's the Attorney General. The American people deserve better than this.
Hmm. Nowhere in the bible does it say 'abortion = murder' or 'an unborn child is a full fledged human being' or anything like that. If you can find it, let me know.
If you really want to go biblical, lets make male masturbation a felony.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Translation, for any non-techies visiting today:
Seriously folks, I firmly believe that another four years under this administration threatens our physical security, as well as our civil liberties. I'm not one to usualy cry "Special Interests!", but this is exactly the kind of data that must be made public for a democratic republic to work. December is just too late to allow voters to make an informed decision, but I suspect thats the point.
I don't know quite how these things tend to play in the states, but over here I would read this as "that database on which we spent X millions of your money is in fact total crap and we couldn't find our arses with both hands"
While most readers will [probably correctly] take this to be a rather poor government whitewash, it could equally be a sign that the government's IT strategy has been fragmented and piecemeal for ages.
This tends to happen in democratic nations because big IT contracts, like other government contracts, tend to go to companies favoured by the extant administration (despite all the charming fiction about open tendering).
When a new administration is eventually voted in, it's time for them to pay back various favours to certain friendly companies, and so new expenditure will be announced.
The end result of this is government departments and organisations each with their own mishmash of systems with no thought at all given to interoperability.
The chances of them ever getting their shit together enough to collate everything into a massive uber-database with every record on every citizen in the UK is nil, so I'm not that worried.
Like I said, I don't know the situation in the States vis-a-vis government records, but everywhere in the world, governments all share the same founding principles of confusion and inertia.
That, and there's waaay more people in the USA. 5x population = at least 5x records = a lot more than 5x complexity.
All that being said, this remains a transparent and contemptible display of ass-covering by Ashcroft..
It's intended to give the Government full access to information across it's many levels - not so the public can access it..
Really, who are we trying to fool here? The Gov't is not going to release anything it considers useful for at least 50-100 years.
Sorry, I guess I dont have much faith in the legal system when Judges and Gov't officials can outweigh the will of the people - this is not the America I was born in....frankly its more like the Russia I remember as a kid and thinking 'I sure am glad I live here in a Free Country'..... Now I sit here and wonder when an 'honest' Judicial/Governmental system will come around and really think about the people's needs instead of who's lining their pocket book..
I'm not holding my breath on this being released - because the Gov't is more paranoid about giving up data than p2p users are in sharing in public places, lol.
First of all, I can't believe anyone with a brain would try to use an open database during a software upgrade. I know ours won't let anyone log in during the upgrade process. I can't believe how lame this whole discussion is. Even though I *really* don't like some of Ashcroft's decisions, he's still better than the former by far. Anyway...
B A C K U P
Hasn't anyone thought about this??? Good grief. I NEVER work on a live database. We ALWAYS work from backups no matter what we're doing with them. I'm stunned that an excuse like this would even be spoken by someone in IT. "Oh yeah, it'll crash my system if I make that BACKUP/export that information... so I don't make backups or do exports...". Backup, export, whatever. If the system is that unstable whoever's running it should have a backup every hour or a darned good alternative job plan when it does crash.
I'm sorry I sound pissy, but it just irritates me to no end when people don't use simple common sense.
Have you hugged your penguin today?
One of the scariest things about this administration is the sheer lack of transparency. While all governments like hiding things, this one seems to think that the public has no right to know anything, of course for their own good. Even Congress seems to be out of the info loop! Everytime someone tries to ask them for transparency or information they stonewall them sometimes with ridiculous reasons like this (or by swearing at them aka. our vice-president). Combine this with laws that reduce rights of ordinary citizens (aka. Patriot Act) and how they are trying to increasingly concentrate power in the hands of the President (who seems to think that Congressional and Judicial oversight of his activities is a bad thing) who professes the theory that a President is legally allowed to do anything to foreign and US citizens eg. torture, infinitely holding them, invading a country etc. and the only reason he doesn't do it is because he's nice (rather than because it's say illegal to torture someone) and America is heading towards dangerous waters.
why the rest of the world believes you are not living in a "free society". Maybe NATO should invade your country and free you for your opressors.
Perhaps it's not as simple as that. From what the DOJ seems to be saying, extracting and compiling a report of this size using the existing interface could, quite understandably, render the system unstable. In theory, then, such a system may behave unpredictably and could potentially damage the database. That would, of course, imply that the DOJ database is built on unstable, outdated technology--but we already knew that. They're working to improve that, but it will take many years and millions of dollars.
The reporters aren't asking for (nor are they entitled to) a complete backup of the database. That would be comparatively easy to provide, but is obviously out of the question, as it would include much more than just the authorized content.
Perhaps they'd have better luck if they made a whole bunch of small queries: Instead of saying "send me everything you've got", they could say "Send me all relevant content for August 1947", then "Send me all relevant content for September 1947", and so on.
You could argue that the instead of forcing the reporters to take the time and money to make thousands of small, separate requests, they should be able to make a single blanket request and have the government office subdivide it internally. However, such an assumption would not take into consideration the fact that you're working with a government office that is only helping you because they're required to by law. Give them a single excuse to say no and they won't hesitate to give you nothing at all.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
when he said "will crash the system" he really ment "will crash The System" .... ie having the people know more about what the government is doing is inherently bad for having a well run govt. and besides if we find out who's paying off who it might be made to stop
Uh, hello -- The Bush <=> Nazi comparison is not about gas chambers. It is about systematically exploiting public anger/fear (9/11 anyone?) to push through their ultra-Nationalist war-mongering agenda.
There one was a datavault built on compartively unusual hardware which operated post-maintenance for many years, it was an insanity to empty because the vendor did not do Gigabit ethernet for it and the 100 MBit cards were scrounged from the vendor's junk-pile. Sucking terrabytes of data from crappy, second qaulity NICs took months. So negligence rather than conspiracy might be the actual reason.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
Let me tell you sometime about the rows and rows of three-ring binders the FAA uses to keep track of data on its radar sites.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
I believe they misquoted Thomas J. McIntyre at the top of the article. This should have read:
"Implementing such a request risks a crash of our Administration that cannot be fixed and could result in a major loss of credibility, which would be devastating to our hopes of being reelected."
Notice that they will be able to supply this information in December, which is conveniently after November.
This could work out like Nixon's tapes though; the fact that this information exists and the current administration is withholding it from us could be enough evidence to damn them in the court of public opinion.
Wanting Bush gone doesn't make you a Democrat. It makes you sane. Frankly I think Kerry could become one of the worst Presidents this country has ever had to endure, but I'll vote for him enthusiastically because we are currently saddled with the very worst. Ever.
Yes, I'm an independent. Yes, I've voted for Republicans. Just because you are against one group doesn't mean you are a supporter of their largest competitors. I'd rather there were other viable competitors, but there aren't. Sorry Mr. Nader, the risk of Bush getting re-elected is so high that I can bear to swallow my pride and vote for a candidate that I despise.
I'm not voting for Kerry--I'm voting against Bush.
Oh, poor guy. Having to pay taxes on the goods you buy to support the roads you use, the police who protect you, the judges and district attorneys who fight for your rights against much more corruptable institutions than even government.
Taxes don't all go to the same place. Federal income taxes pay for federal programs. State income taxes and sales taxes pay for state programs. Property taxes pay for municipal governments and schools. Each of these layers of government helps you out in some way. Many of them (most probably at the local level) run very efficiently, lest they make some huge mistake encouraging you to vote them out. Personally, I don't find anything "quite terrifying" about government being able to pay for itself. I'm more terrified when it can't.
Don't like taxes? Move. But good luck finding some place to move to. Globally speaking, US citizens pay a relatively low amount of income tax, and our sales tax is much lower than, oh say, Europe or Canada. Here's a little info: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/001201.html, and you can google for more.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Wow, you totally missed the boat.
Of course a fetus is alive.
Of course a fetus has unique DNA (unless its a twin..maybe its ok to kill one of a pair of twins?).
And of course a fetus is a human with human DNA.
However, cancer cells also have unique human DNA. Should chemotherapy be illegal?
Sperm cells have unique human DNA. Should masturbation be illegal? Hundreds of sperm would still die even upon successful conception during sex. There goes all that wonderful unique human DNA.
No, the question is NOT whether fetuses have dna, are human, or are alive. Those are all undoubtably true.
The question is are fetuses valuable, and to whom does that value belong. Until some arbitrary time (birth) we currently say that the fetus is the mother's baby, and she can decide what to do with it. A fetus has very little value - anyone can go have sex and create a living human fetus with unique dna.
Once a baby is born, or shortly thereafter, a lot of other people and organizations in society have contributed to the value of the baby. It is no a parasite of the mother's.
A fetus takes one sweaty night and two people to make.
A 10 year old requires an investment of hundreds or thousands of relatives, teachers, doctors, friends, and strangers. Every one of them contributes to the child, and as a result the child is more valuable, and becomes share property. No longer property of the mother, but instead property of society, and subject to society's laws on murder.
To be realistic, just because fetuses are easy to make, doesn't make them worthless. A piece of blank paper is much cheaper than a book, but it's still stupid to go and buy some and throw it in the trash can.
Oh yeah, and btw...souls dont exist. That dead cow on your plate at dinner is worth just as much as the dead fetus at the abortion clinic. It might taste better with ketchup, but that's the only difference. Unless of course, you think that stupid organisms deserve to be killed and eaten. In which case a fetus is even stupider than an adult cow, so perhaps we should be eating fetus with freedom fries for dinner...
The political excuse of this time appears to be something like "I'm a useless idiot so it isn't my fault - and I didn't know about the money no matter how many people told me". An excuse like that should not be acceptable.
This current excuse that letting people look at things will let all the smoke out of the magic box is just childish.
In the city where I live a state government department (not in USA) has a wharehouse full of boxes with dates marked on them, and no other form of identification. These boxes have been building up for decades, and all of the paperwork is effectively inaccessable.The paperwork involving lobbying is undoubtably a different story - we got to see the Nixon-Saharto connection (Indonesion president - big donation one day proir to the invasion of Timor) when the paperwork was released recently, but the information would have been a tightly gaurded secret back in 1975 since it could have brought down the government sooner.
Wow, that's creative. I've personally never heard of people refer to a human as "departed" except in death Hence the problem with applying modern day euphimisms with a 6,000 year old lawbook.