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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?"
And that's why you shouldn't use Access for your Enterprise Solutions.
In other news, I won't be paying my taxes this year as I firmly believe the influx of cash will "Break the Bank".
Come and see the violence inherent in the system!
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.
What this REALLY means is that they have already suffered a "major loss of data" but never made any backups and have been trying to hide the fact that the database has been GONE for weeks, months, or even years under grade school-level excuses.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
How will the FBI put all that old information on these new systems then?
Open Source Sushi
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
I am sure there are pr0n websites with backend databases more relieable than what the government is using.
Maybe we should tell John Ashcroft about open source database and copying solutions?"
With the Patriot Act in effect, and all of your lines tapped, I'd say John Ashcroft already knows.
That's like a request being denied because the clerk was too tired to go down in the basement to find the files.
If fulfilling the request somehow breaks something, then the response should be to fix the damn thing and then fulfill the request.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
And the MPAA for that matter. The Government has found a truly uncopyable storage media and I'm certain both of these organizations will be overjoyed to put it to good use.
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..
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.
The next remark is false. The previous remark is true.
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
Oooooh, a flame war on a powder keg, I want some. I've been maxed Karma for years, I could use a -1 mod.
Ex 21:22-25
"When men fight, and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other misfortune ensues, the one responsible shall be fined according as the woman's husband may exact from him, the payment to be based on reckoning, But if other misfortune ensues, the penalty shall be life for a life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foor, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."
The fetus is the property of the husband is merely worth a fine if destroyed. If the woman is killed, the person who killed her is to be killed.
I'm pro-life, not a Christian, Muslim or Jew. The Christian Bible is silent on abortion and it can be inferred that at least one source writer of the Tanak saw a difference between the life of a fetus and the mother. Get your religion straight, it's embarassing.
Burn Hollywood Burn
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.
... and then down. And then up a couple of times, then down one more by a stickler for on-topic posts. Then down to zero by one pissed off moderator using all his points at once. Slowly climb back to +3. Down again. Up again. Down. Up. Down. Finally, when the story is 13 days old and the editors have already posted a couple of duplicates, sneak in and mod it up to +5, Insightful.
Hey, if they won't give me mod points, I can at least be a Back Seat Moderator!