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US Democrats Accidentally Publish Whistleblowers' Email Addresses
iluvcapra writes "The US House Judiciary Committee recently emailed all of its potential whistleblowers information about how it was restructuring its whistleblower program. Unfortunately for its sources, it emailed them this information with their addresses in the "To:" field (and not the Bcc: field) It also cc:'d this email to the Vice President.
I'd like to think think this is some sort of ingenious subterfuge, but I'm doubtful."
I'd surely use a free, disposable email account.
Why didn't the person just go the Anonymous Coward route?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Nice inflammatory title line!
Why exactly do we have to make an IT gaff, even as massive as this one, partisan? Do we know who's staffers actually sent out the email? You do understand that the Judiciary committee does have Republican members right? Beyond the fact that Republicans don't seem to do inquiries into the Bush Administration, it's not like this wouldn't have happened if Republicans were in charge of the judiciary committee.
That said, this is absolutely unacceptable.
There are lives at stake here!
...are generally equally both moronic and evil. Each may have their own distinctive traits of evilness and stupidity, but if you placed a numerical value on each trait and then added up the sums to get a score for each, you'd basically have a stalemate.
So here are our options:
1) Incompetence, or
2) Malice.
We're screwed.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
This reminds me of that Army guy who "anonymously" complained about the torture of Iraqi prisoners, only be thanked by name by the Secretary of Defense on TV while in an Army canteen in Iraq. The message is clear: if you are a whistleblower, you will regret it.
Tips were submitted from a web form with no email verification. Some joker likely thought it would be funny to use the public address for the VP's office when submitting a tip. When the mass mailing was sent it out, it got sent to that address as well.
Next year, they can point to Cheney, and screech that he obtained (and implying that he will use) personal information on the whistleblowers. The exact mechanism of how he got it will be brushed away.
Or so my tin-foil hat wearing buddy told me.
Someone should email them an apology. ;-)
I'm kidding, but I'm sure you will find a few comments who aren't.
Or Hillary could just off them in a Park.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to think "profiling is worse than the slaughter of innocent people..."
Because there is nothing better than flaming the opposition when you have done something wrong? Pathetic.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
That's always been the situation with our government.
Palm trees and 8
You meant: US Democrats "Accidentally" Publish Whistleblowers' Email Addresses (Note the scare quotes) Now *that*'s a Slashdot headline.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The White House fires the entire Justice Department.
It's easy to understand infinity, just contemplate human stupidity
Variously attributed to Einstein, Pascal, and the suprevisor of stone cutting at the pyramids
What, you've never heard of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy?
668: Neighbour of the Beast
3) All of the above
1) Incompetence, or
2) Malice.
We're screwed. I really wish I could mod this (+1, Amusing At First But Gradually Becoming Horribly Depressing As You Realize The Implications).
No its not you seem to have missed the key word in the headline: Democrats. If it was exactly the same article but with Republicans, than the slashdot headline would have the scare quotes you added. Remember, this is slashdot, until proven otherwise, all Democrats are good, and all Republicans are evil.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
I'm going with 1 with the addendum of 'this is a new level of stupid.'
http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
Come to think of it, you have me dead to rights there.
I love your handle: a nice mix of the brutal and subtle, but all conveying power. I think it's one of the top three all-time scary names, along with "Dick Armey" and "Rod Johnson".
668: Neighbour of the Beast
It boils down to no options at all: Grey's law.
Software patents delenda est.
Please see one of my favorite quotes below.
Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately attributed to ignorance. -Napoleon
When the Democrats came in in 2006, I was expecting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to be unleashed on us.
Instead we got Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, two of the most ineffectual politicians of all time. My God! Every time Reid opens his mouth, he makes a little man smaller. Pelosi, having failed to install a carer criminal as Whip, finds herself in an ongoing monkey knife fight with Hoyer. Meanwhile Charlie Rangel's prposing that tax rates be raised, as we try to shrug off the economic effects sub-prime lending fiasco. Oh, and troops out of Iraq? No. In fact, the numbers in-country are up.
End result? Completely stalled government, to the point where we don't even have a budget proposal. Better yet, Democrats are looking so imcompetent, they may just lose massively in 2008.
I like it.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
In any system of significance there'll be incompetence and malice, call it Kjella's law if you like. If you develop software of significance, manage a network of significance or something completely different like the Democrat's administration you'll have incompetence and malice. If we were "screwed" for that reason alone, we're all so royally screwed you wouldn't believe it. That's why we build in safeguards to deal with it, to make sure people don't blunder and to keep "honest" people honest.
For example, why make this possible at all? Why not make some sort of interface that'll only send out bcc'd mail? How many had access to this list anyway? Were they just relying on people to do this right every time, never to slip up and forget and make a mistake? Newsflash: People make mistakes. People make huge mistakes. People fall for temptation. Try reading some of the tests they've done, like drop a wallet with money and ID, then see how many returns it without the money or not at all. You have to work with what you have, not some imaginary world where everyone is competent and honest...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
But one may wonder - can it get worse? Well... Jeb Bush may be appointed... Since George W isn't eligible for a third period.
Or shall we wait a few years and see either Jenna or Barbara Bush become elected? Then it's really a family affair and it may be time to rename the office from "President" to "Majesty".
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Well, I know that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real. Hell I even no a member in good standing: http://youtube.com/watch?v=7XrRyqses5U
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Welcome to the bi-party political system.
Voting: Damned if you don't and damned if you do.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If they willing buy me beer and discuss technology, politics, and women, I may not call them friend but I would certainly give them my gmail address!
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
If brains were dynamite everyone on capitol hill would find it impossible to blow one nose!
Regardless of party they are just a thundering herd of dumbass!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I call bullshit on the source of the error. By implicating the technology as the source of the error, the Justice Department is failing to address the real cause -- human error and incompetence in the Justice Department. This single statement alone reinforces the point of the original investigation -- the politicizing of the Justice Department.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
I noticed that your post had been modded as "troll", but you actually are closer to the truth than some of these liberal slashdotters may realize. Several people near the Clintons have mysteriously died or were killed. I hope I don't have to say, "I told you so." after Shrillary is elected. I fear that I may not be able to say much of anything anti-Clinton. Want to be audited? Want her holding your FBI file in her dirty little paws? Wanta go for a walk in a park? The Sopranos have nothing on this bitch and her minions. You want socialism? Boy, are you going to get it in spades!
I dunno, but I'd like to. I'm torn on exactly how far to go. My favorite nick got taken before I got a gmail, so I'm the one with the suffix (not jnr) and the one time I tried to open up a conversation with the owner of the address, I got this "Don't hack me bro!" type response.
I'm close to signing him up for every piece of spam and junk I can. The only thing I want to do is make sure I have enough info to hit every account he ever opens.
Back in my day when we chiseled our bits into stone and sent them by mule train from village to village...
Almost.
So imagine you're some legislator guy who graduated from law school back in the day when lawyers never touched a keyboard because people might think they were a lowly paralegal. You're a damn good lawyer, and at least try to be as good a politician as you can and still be a successful one. You actually know a great deal about things like the Internet, but in general, high level terms. You are well up on its legal, economic, sociological and even philosophical implications. You just don't know a damned thing about how it works, although unlike Sen. Stevens you are smart enough not to venture an opinion.
So, you hand this message to an aide, "get this to all the whistleblowers on our list." The aide has exactly the same background as you, although he has a bit more practical skill at things like making PowerPoint presentations. The order goes down the line through a sequence of people with similar backgrounds and aspirations but increasingly less experience and seniority, until it reaches somebody with so little experience and seniority he actually has to do the typing.
That is the person who has to make the right information security decision.
Contrast this with the executive branch. The executive branch has something at its disposal called a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are notoriously slow at getting things done, because their primary function is to preserve an institutional memory of every mistake that has ever been made and is worth remembering. They do make new mistakes of course, but provided you apply the appropriate feedback, they will remember that mistake and adapt to avoid it in the future. In minor cases they will adjust by simply engraving additions to the relevant procedures they follow. Given severe feedback, they respond by sprouting entirely new organs and body parts whose function is to stop the rest of its body from doing that thing again.
So, in the executive branch, the order goes down the chain of command, but with two differences. The least experienced person probably has a manual which contains a procedure to do these things, a procedure that has provisions for avoiding disclosure of distribution list recipients. Secondly, if the mistake contemplated is grave enough, the work flow is designed so that once a task is complete, it doesn't simply go out the door. It is passed up through multiple layers of review until it reaches somebody senior enough to authorize that. His job is not to check that the proper procedure has been followed; that has been taken care of at a level below him but above the person doing the work. This guy's job is to use his experience in determining whether the standard procedure has failed in its purpose.
When the next administration comes in, and all the people "at the top" of the organizational chart are changed, and all of the political philosophies have been duly stood on their head, the procedure, work flow, and personal memory have all been retained intact. Of course it makes it completely impossible for those politicians to implement the policies they've promised as quickly as they've promised.
It is entirely possible that the bureaucracy has neither a procedure nor a work flow nor a person to prevent any particular problem. But if the problem is sufficiently serious, it will immediately sprout all three features. If you lay aside your well earned dislike of the thing, bureaucracy is actually remarkably quick and effective at adapting to avoid routine mistakes, provided (and this is important) that it is actually ordered to do something about them.
About the only problem a bureaucracy can't quickly adjust to is not getting something fast done or cheaply enough. Fixing that problem requires paring down work flows and streamlining procedures and cutting staff (particularly middle management), which are the very things that embody the institutional memory that is their reason for existence. It is probable that some institutional memory is lost as minor changes are made, which is why bure
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Please....the Bush's don't have a monopoly on either malice or incompetence (and to be completely honest, our problems are more due to GWB taking incompetent action than taking malicious action). If the Iraq War had been prosecuted competently, all we'd have left in Iraq now is a police force training Iraqis on how to police their own country.
No, it wasn't malice that caused this to be a mess -- it was incompetence.
Dick Cheney you clever rogue, is there anyone you can't outsmart?
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
I participate in a Product Testing group maybe once or twice a year and I had to sign a strict Non Disclosure Document and was assured in return that my Identity would also be kept private.
One day I get an email FROM: The President of the Company thanking me for my help in the past year.
The TO: field also had the emails of EVERYONE else who had apparently participated.
Some of the email addresses were work emails or similar with things like: john.smith@example.com
Not difficult to figure out who they were.
After replying and tearing the President a new one, I got a polite email back saying there had been an "error" and they apologized.
"They would never intentionally disclose my personal information."
So I replied again and said that if this was not intentional then it was incompetence and if it was incompetence what plans did they have for ensuring this would not happen again?
If I happened to "accidently" disclose what products I was testing would I be able to use the same excuse? Or would I get sued?
I got no answer to that one.
I like microcars
No shit! Although... I wonder. While it's tempting to say that if the Democrats were so stupid as to have fucked this up, perhaps it's indicative of their overall incompetence and it's no wonder they haven't been able to stop, or even limit, the Iraq war, get SCHIP passed or any number of their bills.
However, maybe it's the technology, e-mail is not exactly a communication system designed with high level security in mind. I've made the mistake, twice now in my lifetime, of hitting "reply" when I meant "forward." Once was a serious foot-in-mouth moment, but fortunately it was no one I knew. Since then I've tried to not to say anything that should not be repeated in an e-mail but maybe everybody has to go through this at least once before they learn.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
No, your options are between a douche and a turd.
At least the campaign signs would be somewhat entertaining.
Dark Reflection
The Dems have controlled the house and senate for a huge majority of that time, who makes laws and spends money? Democratic presidents got us into Vietnam, as for your excuse I suppose if Hillary or Obama win the election (both of whom have said they dont know when they'll get troups out) and things get far worse it will be more Hillaries fault than Bushes? get real..
As for Nixon being over the worst part? " By 1968, the peak of U.S. involvement, there were more than 500,000 troops in the country. During the same two-week period of April that year, 752 U.S. soldiers died, according to a search of records kept by the National Archives."
4. Profit!!!! (See? No '????' needed with politics; there's always profit to be had when you control everything!)
Amazing. A Democrat does something stupid and all you flamers can say is that Republicans are worse or evil. The story isn't about Republicans. They do stupid things by themselves in their own way. IMO, there is plenty of incompetence and malice on both sides (I vote Libertarian). You need to free yourselves from your dogma.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon
Alas, you will have to discover some other law to name unto yourself.
Another point: despite claims of how smart and accomplished she is, a divorce and remarriage are the only reasons Paula Jones or Gennifer Flowers aren't the junior NY senator (and leading democratic presidential candidate) right now.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
That a fact?
US Servicemen killed Vietnam:
Johnson - 35,751
Nixon - 22,041
(information obtained by five seconds of Googling)
If you're talking about Vietnamese casualties, then you've got secret inside sources in the Vietnamese government.
Well, the war criminal's administration has been asking for highly efficient whistleblowers
Some other party? We only have one. The "others" never get more than 1% of the vote.
What?
2008: Please choose wisely America.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
And yes, even though JFK and LBJ are responsible for starting the Vietnam war...
Actually you could say it was Truman who started it. I was fairly confident that Kennedy would have finished it.
What?
That government is best which governs least. - Thomas Paine
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
News Flash: THIS WAS FUCKING INTENTIONAL.
Its either the most despicable action I've witnessed by anyone from this government in the past, oh, several weeks, OR its a really smart way to let them all know in one shot that Cheney already knows who they are and is on to them and its time to get lost in the system. Anyone that wasn't on the list may still be under the radar.
Read Greg Palast's Armed Madhouse, it will help teach you how this government works.
I can see it in the distance, considerable damage has been done to the US economy and Constitutional protections, a bad storm is on the horizon for us. I'm buying canned soup and more water filters.
Cheers.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
The current failure of SCHIP is representative of this: it's designed to fail, so that the Democrats can have a touchy-feely issue to use as ammunition in the upcoming elections. It's not well-designed legislation, it's being horribly rushed, and nobody seems to be interested in doing anything to actually solve the problems that have been brought up about it. I don't think this is accidental. (In fact, I suspect that there are some people voting for the bill who wouldn't be doing it, if it weren't certain to be vetoed later -- it's an easy way to score points at little to no actual cost.)
The Democrats are slinging mud at pigs; the Republicans couldn't care less, because they've been wallowing in it for years now.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
A new organization called "Law Enforcement Against Prohibition" ( leap.cc ) was organized to give a way for (sometimes former) law enforcement and justice personnel to voice their opposition to the "drug war".
Anybody can join, you get a newsletter and you get asked to contribute so that they can afford to send volunteer speakers around to various conferences or on speaking tours to talk about the pointlessness and active harm they saw the "drug war" causing when they were part of it.
Well and good, but they were clearly amateurs at first with the Internet side; the first newsletters were plain text and HTML expertise came slowly. And on November 15, 2006, they sent an E-mail to 5000 addresses with all of them in the TO: line, blowing out the capacity of my webmail service at least to even process it properly; about 3000 of the addresses wound up in the text of the E-mail itself.
Just for grins, I spent about half an hour cutting and pasting the list into a file, and using simple Unix text tools to organize them into a nice sorted text database, revealing how many of them were outright duplicates, how many were obviously for the same guy at two addresses, did a few simple stats on locations and agencies.
I thought of sending them the benefits of my work, so they could clean out the dupes, but decided they'd probably (a) not be pleased and (b) weren't smart enough to use the help anyway.
A good number of people gave addresses that didn't reveal their name outright, others were fully named, along with the government service they worked for, after the "@". I'm sure a number of them were uncomfortable with the thought of their boss or chief knowing they were not solidly behind department policy. Many would not have been law enforcement types, just rank & file citizens like myself - but also not comfortable with the idea of it getting out they were part of an organization that many bosses would tend to assume was joined by stoners. (As opposed to civil libertarians, certainly MY only reason for joining!)
"Only Nixon could go to China", and only 50-something narcotics cops can speak out against the drug war without automatically falling under suspicion of being on drugs.
I haven't donated LEAP any money yet, though I've received a few letters; I'm only slowly coming to the belief that they are bright enough to pound sand.
> You meant: US Democrats "Accidentally" Publish Whistleblowers' Email
> Addresses (Note the scare quotes) Now *that*'s a Slashdot headline.
No, that's a BBC News headline.
It's unfortunate and all, but if you were an informant would you really use an account readily traceable to you?
Were that I say, pancakes?
You seem to have missed the fact that 'Democrats' was actually added by the submitter. The 'House Judiciary Committee' is one that sent the email, which, last I checked, has Democrats and Republican on it.
So, ironically, you're complaining about how it would have been treated different had the Republicans did it and Slashdot is biased against Democrats, when actually an unknown party did it and Slashdot blamed Democrats. (Or, at least, the submitter did.)
Even if we find out that a Republican sent the email, though, it was still probably an accident. If they want a 'mole' looking for whistleblowers, they have it in the congressentities on the committee, they don't need to blatantly email the list to everyone.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The victims, +5 modded:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=341919&threshold=-1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&cid=21139759
"Any request that an e-mail be withdrawn should state in the subject space "PLEASE WITHDRAW E-MAIL," and should include in the body of the request the e-mail address under which your e-mail was submitted"
If only I had a list of all the email addresses used to submit to this form...
"Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there.... How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there?.... I think to have American military forces engaged in a civil war inside Iraq would fit the definition of quagmire, and we have absolutely no desire to get bogged down in that fashion."
I'd reckon that you've effortlessly shown who the dipshit is. Couple that with your inability to state why the situation is not a quagmire, it's clear that you're just another talking-points-memo echo-chamber. Try coming up with an argument beyond "nuh-uh! You're a liberal!", fucktard.
Interviewer to Will Rogers; "Sir, are you a member of an organized political party?"
Will Rogers; "No. I'm a Democrat."
Best regards.
Attributing an aspect of human nature solely to Americans is a sign of ignorance and naiveté.
ResidntGeek
1) Incompetence, or
2) Malice.
We're screwed. I really wish I could mod this (+1, Amusing At First But Gradually Becoming Horribly Depressing As You Realize The Implications).
Part 3 of Slashdot History will talk about how they were going to add that category, but they figured the selectbox would be wider than the 640x480 resolution screen that some people still used back when Slashdot started. it was either drop that category or use 6pt font, and the font won. other dropped categories include:
+1, I Have Points To Burn And Nothing Else On This Thread Is Worth a Damn
+1, It's At Score 4 Now, I Might As Well Top It Off
-1, It's The First Thing Posted, It Can't Possibly Be Interesting or Insightful or Funny
Protip: When you use the I-am-a-political-tard word "quagmire", you raise a really, really big flag that more or less says you're a dipshit. The only people who use it are Democratic commentators and Cindy Sheehan types.
And current vice presidents back when they weren't in power.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Profit without cost is a special case of government economics.
People are expected to just give you money.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
As for spending money, that is almost 100% the role of the executive branch. As for determining how money will be spent, this is also a joint responsibility between the legislature and the executive branch.
You've got to love the two party system...
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.
There is no benefit to letting the whistleblowers know that Cheney *might* be aware of who they are. It is better for Cheney to keep his awareness quiet and let the tips keep flowing in like insider information. He can then take whatever surreptitious actions are necessary.
This echoes the actions of a thousand incompetent secretaries I've seen who have been asked to send a confidential email out to a list of people by a manager who assumed they knew to send them one at a time or assumed they knew how to use the BCC. As I posted elsewhere, neither of those two actions are intuitive to someone who is relatively new to mass emailing or to Outlook where the BCC field is hidden by default.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Was a good thing. LBJ actually tried, for a brief time, to actually win the war in VietNam and used the air campaign to try and bring North Vietnam. Had he pressed the issue that much earlier, in the same way that Nixon would later do, he might have been successful. But ultimately LBJ succumbed to the various peace protests along the way.
That era saw more abuses of federal power than Bush ever could contemplate. LBJ's government was in the full swing of building up FBI files on all manner of subversives - like John Lennon, and while some protest Bush's pre-invasion "lies" today, Richard Nixon wouldn't even bother to even say that the USA had actually secretly invaded two entire countries of Laos and Cambodia.
That's pretty remarkable, when you think about it.
This is my sig.
Actually Ike got us into vietnam with all the treaties he had signed.
As for misdeeds by the Democrats, it wasn't in the 80s, but apparently you're forgetting about that debacle the Vietnam War.
And more than the war:
- The draft was really a social-planning operation, trying to stave off a depression when the boomers graduated high-school and hit the unskilled job market by "channeling" them into government-preferred carreer paths with the threat of conscription if they didn't go on to full-time higher education and/or get work in particular jobs that carried deferments. (See the "channeling memo".)
- The FBI was used to infiltrate antiwar, civil rights, and other outside political organizations (such as civil rights groups) and not merely surveil them for violent/illegal activity, but sabotage their legal activities (for instance: By stirring up marital strife with faked reports and evidence of infidelity, planting evidence of crimes, agent provacateurs, etc.). (See COINTELPRO.) (Other agencies, such as BATF, were also involved.)
I could go on. (Like by describing Title II of the McCarran Act (since repealed) and the perparation for its use...) One of the few good things to be said about both parties of the time is that they didn't actually pull that trigger.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That is a valid theory. But I still say they had no exit plan because they had no intention of exiting this war from the very beginning.
The proper term is "Team-Killing Fucktards"
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Anyone have the full headers from this e-mail? It would be interesting to see the details of who sent it.
I agree. Kuwait was about the liberation of Kuwait. Japan was about the destruction of the Japanese Empire. Germany/Italy about the overthrow of Hitler/Mussolini.
Neither Korea, Vietnam nor Iraq/Afghanistan have had definite goals other than "Stop the spread of Communism/Terorism" and we all know how well those went.
If only the government was bright enough to leave and merely state "If we have to, we will do it again", I think the message would be clear enough. But this is a "joke" that sadly is costing many lives on all sides.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Man -- that's great. I just wish there was a way to make the democrats look dirtier in it cause they're both pigs slinging the mud they're both wallowing in at each other, perhaps something like: Dems and Repubs, mud wrestling pigs.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
It's been shuffled out _way_ too much by the Democrats since the '04 "victory". I'm long past finding the poor, tattled little thing attractive.
Even if it's true and there isn't just one party, the power party, playing games with us, stupidity isn't really that appealing and I'm at a loss for why they think it continues to be a good excuse for us to support them.
A Democrat does something stupid and all you flamers can say is that Republicans are worse or evil.
At this point in history it appears that is the ONLY thing Democrats can say about anything. They have no ideas of their own that aren't warmed-over last centuries bullshit. And since that is apparent to everybody, their only cover is to point and say "ooooh! look at those BAD Republicans."
Truly a bankrupt bunch. That why they can't get a damn thing accomplished in Washington (that, and also because they ran-to-the-middle to get a majority, and have now discovered the middle-road freshmen congressmen they brought in don't buy the standard Democrat party line.)
Either way, e-mail is insecure! It's sent from machine to machine in clear text. Recently I've been realizing that it's a bad idea to use most companies' online features, since they often e-mail personal information like name, address, account number, password via e-mail.
An office sending out emails of this sensitivity shouldn't even *have* the option of listing multiple recipients on a single mail item, no matter what client software they install. The MTA should be splitting all outside recipients into separate mails addressed to one person alone. If necessary, one could set up an artificial reply address associated with an auto-reflector, so that the group could discuss without releaving any direct information, but for this matter, still far too risky.
The whole notion of multiple recipients on a single mail dates back to the use of email as a form of bulletin board. These days, if you want to put out a "hey, everyone" there are better ways to do it, such as a web discussion board or a wiki.
Bah. Think about how SMART this is for the Democrats. 1). Whistleblowers are protected from being fired by law. 2). Now everyone knows who these whistleblowers are. 3). If any of these people are fired, the Democrats can say they were fired for being whistleblowers, instead of for any partisan or job-related reasons, because... 4). The whistleblowers in mundane government positions would conceivably be more sympathetic to Democrats than Republicans. Conceive this. And the election is coming up. All a lame duck can do right now is clean house. Imagine Dick Cheney walking around with a secret list of rats that he procured in some D.C garage for several million dollars, and then seeing this on the news. Now any pretext to potentially fire a whistleblower has to be three times as powerful.
I had a chance to go into the hearing room of the Justice Committee last spring, and see the staff offices and law books. They were working on the same issue then and were thinking of sending federal marshals to bring in Harriet Miers. The paintings on the walls of past chairpeople showed a sense of seriousness about the business of the committee. Nearly all of these folks are lawyers and have a duty to observe due process. Having this happen is about as large a breach as I can think of without malice playing a role. I would not be too surprised if some one ends up being disbarred over this.
Whoa! I'm actually surprised that my post is moderated as 'Funny'. I was actually posting it with somewhat of a "I'm relatively serious/ I would not be surprised if.. " thought than trying to add a joke.
:O :D
Now I'm not sure if being rated 'Funny' is is comforting or scary..
Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq War is a part of his general policy of "non-intervention", which would include the U.S. withdrawing from the United Nations and NATO, withdrawal of all U.S. troops from overseas, and an end to all foreign aid.
And yes, he's earnest. He votes against any non-balanced budget, any tax increase, and any expenditure he doesn't consider specifically authorized by the Constitution. This includes not just health care, but federal education spending, disaster relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, giving Rosa Parks a Congressional Gold Medal, and farm subsidies (despite representing a rural farming district).
.
Seriously, the notion that this was accidental is amusing.
I remember years ago when I worked on the recall campaign for an infamous governor (who is currently in prison) - we tried to oust him from office and had to collect 10% of the voting public's signatures on petition in order to force a recall election. The governor laughed at the recall effort going on television saying, "I do not think these signatures are legitimate. I plan to look over each and every name of whoever signed these petitions just to check" *wink* *wink* This kind of subtle intimidation of activists and people who take a stand against wrongdoing is nothing new. I wouldn't be surprised if the exposure of the whistleblowers was intentional.
Trying to play the historical blame game based on political party is a fool's game. Parties aren't stagnant. The Democratic and Republican parties of the 60s and 70s, for instance, have effectively nothing to do with the present day alignments
Very few of you remember that a good portion of what used to be the Democratic party moved to the Republicans during the Reagan years. Prior to the 80s the South was entirely (very conservative) Democrats. They subsequently turned Republican. The people didn't change, they just changed parties.
Similarly, much of the liberal end of the Republican party moved to the Dems when the social conservatives took over their party. As has been noted many times, it is debatable whether Barry Goldwater would be a Republican today. Certainly the Rockefeller and so-called Eastern Establishment end of the party went Democratic in droves.
Viewing history based on a party label is preposterous. Look at the mindsets, personality types and philosophies involved in historical events for more meaningful analysis. They are the things that endure time, not party affiliation.
Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
Yes, but the staffers who do the activities which are done by "the Committee" are of the party that has a majority membership on the Committee in question. Which is why sometimes an action "by the Committee" will sometimes be refuted by all of the minority party members on the Committee, but you will never see the majority party do the same. So in this case the addition of the Democrats to the headline is appropriate.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
BBC? Wrong country, eh?
And no, I've been watching Michael Moore, (Sicko) which I would recommend to anybody. And my question about Bush leaving is, I hope very much, rhetorical, because the other possibility means shooting and prison camps for those who wouldn't like the idea of him staying on. But thanks so much for your input.
-FL
http://youtube.com/watch?v=B8MePwb6TEk
I think that answers much, for myself.
Good. Cheap. Fast. Pick Two.
illegal weapons (white phosphorus, depleted uranium)
Really was there a law passed that I'm not aware of? Was a treaty ratified by the Senate? From what I remember, and I have been out of the loop a while, was that WP was not being replaced as stocks were consumed or reaching end of life because red phosphorus smoke has better IR suppression than WP and the handling was easier, and I've never heard anything about depleted uranium.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Well your assuming that they did something stupid, if you put your tin-foil hat on, you'll see that the whistle-blowers have already served their purpose except finally being outed and then fired by the big-bad republican giving the Dem's another boost in PR; still the Dem's maybe assuming that they're a shoe-in for office and getting rid of the whistle-blowers now when the republicans are in office will only save them embarrassment later.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
That logic works for actual deliberate actions of a committee.
But this was an accident. It's not like the Democrats voted for it and the Republicans against it.
A much more logical headline would have been that the House Judiciary Committee, or even 'The Democratic-lead House Judiciary Committee', published the addresses. An even more accurate one would have been that a staffer of the House Judiciary Committee did it, because I can assure people 'Committees' do not send email. (All in favor of pushing the send button, say 'Aye'.)
But 'US Democrats' is totally misleading. Neither the Democrats or the Republicans did this. Possibly one of them is at fault, more than likely some HJC staffer is at fault. (IIRC, Committees have staff that's independent of any of their members for exactly this sort of activity, but I could be wrong.)
Although I wouldn't have really said anything about the headline if we hadn't had the assertation that, 'had the Republicans done it, blah blah blah'. The idea that the Republicans would have taken more heat for this just annoyed me when the Democrats are taking the heat right now with absolutely no grounds.
That said, I do blame the HJC for not having more privacy safeguards in place, when they are explicitly looking at 'retribution' in the Justice Department. And I mostly blame the Democrats because I expect the Republicans to be irresponsible. But they aren't the ones who screwed up, they just failed to put safeguards in place to stop screw ups.
Actually, might I suggest that email is a damn stupid communications medium in the first place to use for whistle blowing? Especially when it's not anonymous? (They aren't listening to anonymous people in this investigation.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Any thoughts on Ron Paul? He's against national health care
Well let's see first he's a Doctor, a Medical Doctor, second he's a politician and American Politician; maybe his opposition comes from having a pretty good Idea of what having your Doctor be an employee of the United States Government would be like.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Well, not very.
If you are trying to keep the addressee information private, it shouldn't appear in the body *or* headers of the email at all - the SMTP envelope is the only place it has to appear.
Of course, that would mean not sending an email on the spur of the moment without any precautions or planning, so I suppose that renders it implausibly difficult for people aspiring to an elected office.
John.
..., at least, sounds earnest. It's funny you say that. His full name, Ronald Earnest Paul. I would say that he is earnest in both name and action. If any politician has lived up to their oath of office, they deserve respect. Ron Paul is one of the few who can prove his oath by having never voted for legislation that is not authorized by the constitution.Anyone who is interested in getting out of Iraq must seriously consider Ron Paul in 2008. Like earlier posters have written, both sides are wishy-washy and both seem to be bent on staying put in Iraq, for as long as possible. Ron Paul wants to come home as soon as feasible. Maybe Washington needs a doctor in charge for a change.
"Lame" - Galaxar
How many millions of them died under Nixon? Some are still dying to this day -- thx Agent Orange.
No, since inauguration day is January 20, 2009, I highly doubt Bush will leave office until 2009.
Merde, il pleut encore!
Hmmm. I have a sense that I could take that post and use exactly the same verbiage to "prove" that the President is really not responsible for *anything* that happened on his watch.
Thanks.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The chasm between politicians and geeks just looks narrower today...97% of these people are only good at being elected or chasing ambulances...the other 3% changes at election time. I just have to keep asking; with the myriad failures of this overbloated bureacracy (the stuff of lengends, actually) why do we keep following the shiny pendulum and keep them in power?
Whatever happened to the citizen-statesman? Some of these geezers have been in there 40-50 years!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Who is this idiot, and how quickly can they fire him?
You really think republicans have any chance of winning in 2008? The last time I checked, republicans have twice as many Senate seats to defend as democrats, and the Democratic Party is out-raising the Republican Party by huge margins in every race. In fact, the junior democratic representatives are raising so much money that the GOP is having problems fielding nominees.
It will take a lot more than gridlock for the Democratic party to lose 2008. You can thank the disastrous occupation of Iraq, republican corruption, and the disillusionment of the evangelicals for what's to come.
Tick tock, alarm clock, I'm gonna be late,
When the whistle blows.Porridge, toast, kids, car, bloody school gate.
Factory floor, what a chore, another week's graft,
And fifty times a day I hear "You havin' a laugh?"
Whatever happened to my dreams, is this the life I chose?
The highlight of my ruddy day is when the whistle blows!
When the whistle blows.
... and then they built the supercollider.
But that's not what the Democrats' public health proposals are about. Nice attempt at spinning, though.
... and then they built the supercollider.
You just learn what you can trust your relatives/friends/colleagues/employees/subordinates/bosses with.
;) ).
Nobody can be trusted in everything. Nor is everyone competent in everything.
I do get impatient/annoyed/angry with stupidity and ignorance, but it's malice and dishonesty I find hard to accept in a friend.
So, even dogs could be my friends as long as they're not too malicious or dishonest (stealing a dog treat and pretending not to have done so is tolerable
Anyway on the subject of competence and trust: publishing whistleblowers email addresses really does a lot of damage. Doesn't just affect the present ones. There are already lots of disincentives to be a whistleblower, so in the future more people will just "shut up" and go with the flow.
So the main problem I see is why were people likely to be incompetent in this area allowed access to such addresses? If you want to keep a secret you should minimize the number of people who know that secret.
A sufficiently high level of incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
I believe this case qualifies. They put the whistleblower addresses in To field _TWICE_ (RTFA). The people responsible should be jailed because they are an obvious danger to too many people.
If I'm not a qualified bus driver I don't pretend to be one or even try driving a bus when other lives depend on me doing things correctly.
Change email address to karl.rove@gmail.com
I'm sorry, have you only just realised that this is how bosses and people in power are? a combination of 1 & 2
You must be new here
The Tao that can be named is not the Tao
...except the actual bad plans he made.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Really was there a law passed that I'm not aware of? Was a treaty ratified by the Senate?
your answer was The Geneva Conventions -- we signed on to them
which were you referring?
Well being in a generous mood, even knowing that the Geneva and Hague convention do not cover smoke and flame weapons, I thought that you like the Soviet mistakenly think that the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) but I kept looking I checked List of Schedule 3 substances, Schedule 2 and even Schedule 1 substances but no White Phosphorus.
as for depleted uranium prohibitions so again there is nothing; in short I have to assume your just blowing smoke out your ass.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
After WWII they demanded the allies restore their colonial empire to them as a condition of their joining NATO. Gotta give them credit for chutzpa!
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I think Cheney would be offended to learn he is a Democrat -- or that he has helped them in any way (by acting as a Democrat).
I believe your assertions are wrong, and that The US government did not have bin Laden physically detained during the Clinton Administration. I could be wrong though, and have just not seen the information. Would you be kind enough to offer citations?
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
You are far from reality on this. A primary anti-terror bill from congress during the Clinton administration was the:
It took two years to get passed, and the phrase "Effective Death Penalty" was added to the legislation's title between 1995 and 1996, because it turned out to be a gutted terror prevention bill that primarily rescinded habeas corpus rights of convicted Federal prisoners. Hatch's dream since becoming a US Senator has been to gut Habeas Corpus. Of especially note is the GOP's refusal to allow multi-point wiretaps, approved only after judicial oversight, to be allowed in cases of terror investigations.. This had been already allowed for RICO investigations. When debating the Bill after it had been sent over from The Senate, the Majority GOP members, led by Bob Barr, claimed this was unconstitutional and excised it from the legislation. Orin Hatch defended this. (1, 2 and 3)
The GOP also opposed:
The GOP used this Bill as a launching pad for their attacks on the government over Waco and Ruby Ridge, and their soapbox was comprised of the victims bodies from the Oklahoma City Bombing. None of these arguments were used by the GOP politicians when considering the Patriot Bill, and that legislation went far beyond any proposals offered in the 1996 Bill.
Hatch was still defending the Reagan era policy of arming the Arab "Freedom Fighters" in Afghanistan, even after the Khobar Towers, and Africa Embassy Bombings:
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Most importantly, you fail to comprhened what is the basis of concern regarding the suspension of habeas corpus. It is a preeminent right to the state, and that means it is not just something the the Government must allow for its citizens. To not understand this, is to place liberty at threat. There are human rights which transcend the power of a legitimate state. You defend tyranny.
Your assertions regarding the humans detained at Abu Ghraib in 2004 are wrong and reprehensible. Most of the detainees then had been picked-up in sweeps during the insurgency's infancy:
These persons had been detained under the Colour of Authority Imparted by The United States Flag; my god-damned flag; and for that reason alone, should never had been tortured, irrespective of any criminal act they had engaged with. There was once a time when America actually stood for freedom and liberty, and its citizenry was not rife with cowards and weasels who equivocated upon the Rights of All Humans.
If this makes me a lefty or a liberal, then what refuse now comprises the right-side of the political bipolarity in America?
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
This is almost like that time the Bush Administration "accidentally" leaked the identity of an .
The scary thing is, I put the word "accidentally" in there with quotation marks to suggest full-on irony. But it turns out to really have been spun that way. Look at the Media Matter article: "Matthews, others uncritically reported Novak's claim that Plame leak was 'inadvertent'".
Cripes. This is The Daily Show come to life.
-- haaz.
wondering what is a "potential whistleblower"?
Aren't I a "potential whistleblower"? Isn't everyone? (At least everyone in the US)
No, of course I did not RTFA.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
The veracity of "The Path to 9/11" has been ably questioned in many places. Here's the list from Media Matters for America, and even though they are completely partisan in their choice of topics, they are meticulous in their sourcing.
Where exactly in the 911 Report?
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
The whole purpose of my pointing out the Terror Prevention Buill of 1996 was that the Republicans took out any effective terrorism prevention methods that were proposed. I am aware that it was useless for the stated purpose, but it was the Republicans that castrated it.
Also of not in the 90's Senate was Phil Graham's killing of banking transparency regulations promulgated for offshore transactions, from his position of chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Not only did this hurt terrorist prevention attempt, but it directly aided ENRON, who was a major contributor into his campaign finances. Graham's wife, Wendy, was a board member of ENRON. For financial gain, Phil Graham blocked terrorism preventative legislation.
Again: The Democrats are The lamer of Two Evils.
The claim that we didn't aid bin Laden in Afghanistan is completely erroneous too. The aid was funnelled into the Pakistani Army's intelligence wing, ISI, which in the 80's was headed by current Bush Totalitarian bud, and Pakistan dictator who overthrew an democratically elected government, Pervez Musharraf. The CIA chose this hands-off method, because they were still feeling the pain of the Church Investigations, and did not want to feel the effects from blowback on it.
This is hardly my position. Before 911, it was considered to be a given. Here's a link to a US News and World Report 1998 editorial, hardly a member of the "liberal media":
Fouad Ajami, "Mr. bin Laden's neighborhood: Scorn for Washington, and fissures among fanatics who embrace fire", US News and World Report, September 7, 1998
Don't pitch those Crawford cowchips around me.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
I know your link perpetuates something that just isn't true in a believable fasion. Check the dates on the stories. It is probably one of the stories originally behind the myth that the CIA made bin laden. That is why CIA officials and the government as well as many other people including Bin Laden and his right hand man claim it is false. The article I previously linked to at the government site explains this nicely. I think maybe you should let you prejudices go and let your information be updated. It won't cure your hate for any group or anything like that. Well, that is unless your disdain is rooted entirely in misinformation.
The intent, without just cause or reason, to commit a wrongful act that will result in harm to another.
It all hinges on the intent. GWB had what he believed to be just cause or reason -- the belief, despite the evidence, that WMD's existed in Iraq and Saddam Husein was hiding them well.
Note that I am not an apologist for GWB. He shouldn't have been elected (and, in all honesty, we should have had better choices from both parties).
If you think I'm an apologist, you're sorely mistaken. GWB should be run out of town on a rail. Incompetence isn't any less bad than malice in my book.
I think you should slap yourself repeatedly for jumping to such a wrongheaded idiotic conclusion. Unfortunately, I doubt self-flagellation would cause you to think any more before spouting tripe.