The Ridiculous LexisNexis Search that the Justice Department Used

jamie writes "The politicization of Bush's Justice Department, which this week was officially determined to be illegal, has a funny side too. Sometime in 2005-2006, White House Liaison Jan Williams attended a seminar on LexisNexis searches, and wrote one herself. When she left, she passed it on to her successor Monica Goodling in an email. Justin Mason, author of SpamAssassin, is skeptical about its accuracy:

[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!

Needless to say, when asked about it, Williams first said she didn't remember ever seeing it, then said she'd used an edited version just once. LexisNexis records show she used it, as shown, 25 times." Note that 'sex!' appears twice in the query. Must be VERY important.

Comments

NSFW?

[sm62704]

Note that 'sex!' appears twice in the query. Must be VERY important.

My employer was asked for a list of employees, broken down by age and sex. He replied, "Just mcgrew".

Disappointed in Bush

[tjstork]

For really, being so politically inept. I mean, -everyone- stuffs government with political appointees, even the DOJ. I mean, let's keep in mind that Bill Clinton fired EVERYONE and replaced them with his own people, but Bush couldn't even do that competently with a half a dozen through regular turnover.

The search queries are crazy. They are vetting people based on old issues in the past. Spotted owl is, what, so 1980s, and who cares about the stupid bird anymore. If you are going to vet people for political issues, then vet them based on the decisions you are about to make, not, whether or not they agreed for party doctrine. That way, you can make the argument that such vetting is not political but policy in nature. So, for example, if you are going to have AG's go and prosecute political enemies of the Republican Party, you might go and search for those guys who are gungho on prosecuting the kinds of crimes that align to your enemies...

Should we ever win the White House again, I suggest these kinds of searching:

piracy,dvd,download,bittorrent - really, just find out where your guys are on piracy. If they are lax in enforcing it, that screws hollywood over and takes money out of liberal pockets.

and so forth.

I mean, Bill Clinton's people were MASTERs of this sort of thing. He totally went nuts on right wing institutions, "randomly" auditing the Heritage Foundation every year, etc, but, he always had some legal cover that fufilled an alignment with his policies so he always had that escape trap. Just better politicians. Criminy, when Bill Clinton came over for the holidays, Bush Sr should have invited Bush Jr along just to hear how such political stuffing best be done.

Re:spotted owl?

[Austerity Empowers]

Provably incorrect. My digital watch displays nothing when the battery is dead. When it gets water in it, results vary but usually I see 18:88:88. These watches are wrong all the time.

Re:spotted owl?

[jcwayne]

In response to comment number 24,406,783: time to update your signature

Re:spotted owl?

[ScrewMaster]

I'm in the military you insensitive clod!

Re:spotted owl?

[Enlightenment]

That's the userid, not the comment number.