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State of Alaska Prints Out Palin's E-Mails; Online Distribution 'Impractical'
ZipK writes "Three years after numerous citizens and news organizations requested the release of Sarah Palin's gubernatorial e-mails, the State of Alaska is finally making ready to make them available. In print. In Juneau. News organizations must fly or sail to Juneau and pick up the 24,000 page disclosure in person. The state claims it impractical to release the original electronic versions of the e-mails, so the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Mother Jones, ProPublica and MSNBC each plan to turn some or all of the printouts back into searchable, easily distributed electronic data. Thanks, Alaska." Where's WikiLeaks North?
Do you realize how long that internet tube would have to be to reach Alaska?
Palin's emails were all in comic-sans. No idea how well Google's OCR would work on that...
Trolling is a art,
As we learned during the last Presidential campaign, Alaska is close enough to Soviet Russia that instead of sending emails to Alaska, email sends you to Alaska.
What's even more worrying is that there will be no way to prove anything was redacted or censored, or is or isn't the original unedited email. They will just release 25,000 pages of mundane drivel for journalists to pore through for months while she gets elected, but the really bad stuff was simply <SHIFT>> <DELETE> 'd before printing.
This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
if you or I tried to pull this shit, we'd wind up in jail for obstruction of justice.
the fact that she gets away with this means our system is broken. yet another red warning light that the revolution needs to happen and happen soon.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Maybe she actually IS the sharpest tool in that drawer.
I think just about EVERY person on Slashdot will disagree with the idea that print is easier than electronic. This is simply a lie from the state government. Which citizen's group do I send money to for the purpose of pushing legislation that requires the government is honest to the people. Lies like this should be actionable.
from the statutes and regulations related to FOIA requests of the Great State of Alaska:
Sec. 40.25.115. Electronic services and products.
(a) Notwithstanding AS 40.25.110 (b) - (d) to the contrary, upon request and payment of a fee established under (b) of this section, a public agency may provide electronic services and products involving public records to members of the public. A public agency is encouraged to make information available in usable electronic formats to the greatest extent feasible . The activities authorized under this section may not take priority over the primary responsibilities of a public agency.
I would guess that you could credibly argue that the authorities overseeing the FOIA request did not make into available in electronic form to the greatest extent possible (e.g., provided on CD-ROM).
You don't understand that Richelieu quote, grasshopper.
Ya see, what Richelieu was saying there was basically just flaunting his abuse of power. That's it. It has nothing to do with the usual idiotic interpretations like too many laws, or everyone is guilty of something, or anything.
What Richelieu actually did was employ forgers to write whole contracts with the devil in the handwriting of his opponents. Then have them waterboarded until they confess, and then execute them.
You think I'm kidding? Check out for example Urbain Grandier for a documented case of such a victim of Richelieu.
THAT is what he needed six lines in the handwriting of someone for: as a writing sample for the forgers Richelieu employed.
And while in that quote he's clever enough to not directly say that, it's a very thinly veiled reminder of why it's not wise to cross him. If you can write and ever wrote anything, he can "find" something else in your handwriting to hang you for, even though you don't remember ever writing that.
I hardly think that Palin's emails are in any similar danger. And releasing them as paper is hardly a solution. If they're worried about forgeries in her name, then the sane way would be to release them as a file with a public secure hash value. That way if anyone says they found a damning email in there, you can see if their file actually matches the hash value. If it doesn't, it's been tampered with, and you can ignore the accusation.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
yet another red warning light that the revolution needs to happen and happen soon.
The revolution happened. We lost.
Alaska official: Hey IT guy, we have 24,000 of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin's archived e-mails. That's too many to be stored in electronic form, though, right?
IT guy: Uhm, why, no, not at all. I'm not sure if you know this, but e-mail is short for "electronic mail," and the Internet is also electronic. In fact, e-mail comes from the Internet. So the e-mails you are talking about are already electronic.
Alaska official: Right, but converting all of these would be impossible. There are waaaaay too many, right?
IT guy: No, actually. I could convert them to HTML or PDF format right now if you'd like, and we can post them to the state of Alaska web site immediately.
Alaska official: What I'm hearing from you is that it is possible but very, very, difficult.
IT guy: No, it's quite simple, really. I actually did it while you were saying that sentence.
Alaska official: You're fired.