Calpundit: Dirty Tricks

So they read hundreds of memos over the course of a year and their defense is that they supposedly warned the Democrats they could do this? That's pathetic.

And even if it's true, try this on for size instead: "My window cleaner told your gardener a year ago that you had a loose window in your backyard. You didn't do anything about it, so we figured it was OK to sneak in and take your stuff."

Don't you just love those law-and-order Republicans? And when do we learn just what this "glitch" was, anyway?

The glitch? Probably using Microsoft products. That'll do it.

Posted by: chris at January 22, 2004 09:24 AM | PERMALINK

This is disgraceful. The GOP has become nothing but a party of crooks.

Posted by: JP at January 22, 2004 09:29 AM | PERMALINK

The G. Gordon Liddy Fan Club emulates their hero.

Posted by: "Fair and Balanced" Dave at January 22, 2004 09:31 AM | PERMALINK

That's awful; an embarassment.

Posted by: bj at January 22, 2004 09:33 AM | PERMALINK

dare is no gwater efil den the efil of the demuhkratik partee. bye looking throogh der noats we half struk anuther blow in the war on tewawism.

gawd bwess the twupes and george w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 09:34 AM | PERMALINK

I'm betting that the media, especially the gab fests won't pick up on this tonight. The only exception will probably be The Daily Show.

Posted by: GP at January 22, 2004 09:36 AM | PERMALINK

A better analogy is probably: "We told you a year ago that if you don't close the bedroom drapes, all your neighbors can see everything that you do through the huge plate glass windows you have facing the street. You didn't do anything about it, so we figured it was OK to watch."

Posted by: JB at January 22, 2004 09:37 AM | PERMALINK

Nope JB, thats not a better analogy, assuming the Republican explanation is true, (and I'm not) they had to "open" the drapes.

Posted by: Another Bruce at January 22, 2004 09:43 AM | PERMALINK

I think I read somewhere that the "glitch" was that the documents were stored on a shared drive that wasn't password protected, or something like that. I suspect the flip side of this story will be that the dems looked like fools for not protecting their documents better.

Posted by: AF at January 22, 2004 09:45 AM | PERMALINK

As usual, the information you want is buried, but there:

A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.

It was a simple a configuration problem.

Posted by: Tom Hoffman at January 22, 2004 09:47 AM | PERMALINK

Hey! Look over there! There's something scandalous about accessing non-password protected files!!!

And there's CERTAINLY nothing scandalous about the Democrats' BIGOTRY ("Democrats' race-based characterization of Estrada as 'especially dangerous, because . . . he is Latino'").

Classic misdirection.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 09:48 AM | PERMALINK

I think it is interesting that GOP Judiciary staffers have had access to Democratic memos for over a year and yet the GOP has been totally unable to defeat them on this issue and the Democrats are still filibustering several nominees.

You'd think that, with having access to the other teams playbook, they would have been able to put up a better defense. A 40-hour talk-a-thon was the best they could come up with?

Posted by: Eugene Oregon at January 22, 2004 09:50 AM | PERMALINK

Al = ignorant fuckwad

Posted by: jri at January 22, 2004 09:56 AM | PERMALINK

BIGOTR--

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Posted by: Demetrios at January 22, 2004 09:57 AM | PERMALINK

Think this will show up on the "FoxNews"?

Posted by: Sly at January 22, 2004 09:58 AM | PERMALINK

Al, that duck won't quack. This is a major ethics lapse, and if it happened in a company, would lead to firings. Get a clue.

Posted by: buck at January 22, 2004 09:58 AM | PERMALINK

From this account, it looks like we will be having a real problem with criminals registering Republican in order to get their Republican Get Out of Jail Free Card. I'll bet the 'wingers never expected that they would be setting such a bad example when they stole the election, lied about Iraq, and spent double the country's revenue.

Posted by: jri at January 22, 2004 09:59 AM | PERMALINK

I'll bet the 'wingers never expected that they would be setting such a bad example when they stole the election, lied about Iraq, and spent double the country's revenue.

And yet they have control of the House, Senate and White House. Gee. I wonder how they do it?

Posted by: Diebold at January 22, 2004 10:02 AM | PERMALINK

In event after scandal after outrage, the Repubs demonstrate the corrosive effect of believing that (1) winning is everything, so the end justifies the means and (2) there is no such thing as objective reality, so we can lie all we want; perception is all. Orwell's problem was that he was 20 years too early and looked at the wrong country. We are fast on the way to becoming the one party dictatorship we fought for so long.

Posted by: Mimikatz at January 22, 2004 10:04 AM | PERMALINK

"This is a major ethics lapse"

Oh yeah, it's MUCH more unethical than the Senate Democrats' outright bigotry.

Oooops, I forgot. They're Democrats; by definition they can't be bigots, since only Republicans can be bigots. Never mind.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 10:05 AM | PERMALINK

I can only image that republicans will blame Al Gore for this matter, since he "invtented" the intenet at all.

Posted by: Brad at January 22, 2004 10:05 AM | PERMALINK

Oh, who cares about this stuff? It's just your garden variety political scandal. Don't tell me that Democrats don't do this kind of thing. Yawn.

Posted by: Joe Schmoe at January 22, 2004 10:08 AM | PERMALINK

The only person who will be fired, or ought to be, is the person who set up the network.
The analogy is that the Dems thought the blinds were closed, but they weren't. Ooops.

Posted by: Reg at January 22, 2004 10:09 AM | PERMALINK

Speaking as a Republican since 1978, I've got to say: Al, you're such an obtuse ass that I more than half think you're a Democrat posing as a GOP troll.

But if you really believe what you're posting here, then, dude, you need to be beaten about the head and shoulders with a 10-foot clue stick. "Buck" is correct above; this would be a firing offense at many, perhaps most, private companies.

Posted by: Lex at January 22, 2004 10:09 AM | PERMALINK

This is not new. Republicans, for reasons I don't understand, have been displaying these character traits since Lincoln.

I know it is weird that many different generations, with widely disparate policy positions, can exhibit the same tactics.

But Cambodia/Watergate and Iran/Contra and the current shenanigans don't seem utterly coincidental to me anymore.

Posted by: bob mcmanus at January 22, 2004 10:11 AM | PERMALINK

And there's CERTAINLY nothing scandalous about the Democrats' BIGOTRY ("Democrats' race-based characterization of Estrada as 'especially dangerous, because . . . he is Latino'").

Classic misdirection

LOL! Nobody's taken the bait yet, but keep trying!

Posted by: digger at January 22, 2004 10:12 AM | PERMALINK

Poor Manuel Miranda, the Republican staffer his bosses are gonna pin this on. In the Globe story he's quoted as saying:

"There appears to have been no hacking, no stealing, and no violation of any Senate rule," Miranda said. "Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to a government document. . . . These documents are not covered under the Senate disclosure rule because they are not official business and, to the extent they were disclosed, they were disclosed inadvertently by negligent [Democratic] staff."

In the same breath he says they're government documents, so they're fair game; but also they're not official business (i.e. government documents) so they're fair game.

They're not government property, but they are.

Looks like Miranda missed the Republican's Ethics Seminar because he went to the Republican Double-Speak Seminar twice. Well done.

Posted by: Brendan at January 22, 2004 10:12 AM | PERMALINK

And there's CERTAINLY nothing scandalous about the Democrats' BIGOTRY ("Democrats' race-based characterization of Estrada as 'especially dangerous, because . . . he is Latino'").

Classic misdirection.

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

The Republican record on Hispanic nominees during the Clinton Administration was dismal. In fact, Senate Republicans blocked almost as many Hispanic nominees during the Clinton Administration as President Bush has nominated. The following Hispanic nominees never even received a hearing or a vote: Jorge Rangel and Enrique Moreno in the Fifth Circuit, Christine Arguello in the Tenth Circuit, and Richard Morado in the Southern Texas District Court. Anabelle Rodriguez of Puerto Rico and Sam Paz of California received hearings but no Committee vote.

Clearly, this demonstrates that Republicans are unreconstructed racists who will stop at nothing to keep Hispanics off the bench. Right, Al?

Posted by: Yuval Rubinstein at January 22, 2004 10:13 AM | PERMALINK

Al: aren't you tired of being a good German?

Posted by: Lupin at January 22, 2004 10:14 AM | PERMALINK

Oh, who cares about this stuff? It's just your garden variety political scandal. Don't tell me that Democrats don't do this kind of thing. Yawn.

Wow, when wingers start resorting to moral equivalancy dismissals, you got to wonder whether the evildoers might be brought to justice after all.

Posted by: digger at January 22, 2004 10:16 AM | PERMALINK

When did referring to a judge's race become automatic bigotry?

Posted by: ArC at January 22, 2004 10:17 AM | PERMALINK

Republicans have no shame. As they lie and steal, they will continue to berate Clinton about a blowjob and democratic candidates about morals. Bigotry? That a word your President is trying to get enshrined in the Constitution with the "Marriage Protection Act."

Posted by: Warcraft at January 22, 2004 10:18 AM | PERMALINK

One more thing: After reading a good bit of Kevin Phillips' book on the Bush dynasty and hearing him speak, I have concluded that only Republicans can save their party and with it the Republic, like Nixon going to China. Hopefully O'Neill is the first of many defections, or we are doomed as a country to decades of permanent war, gross income inequality and, ultimately, national bankruptcy and dictatorship.

Posted by: Mimikatz at January 22, 2004 10:20 AM | PERMALINK

Ah, at last the word "blowjob" came into this thread. And not from Al!

Posted by: craigie at January 22, 2004 10:23 AM | PERMALINK

That's strange- Drudge has nothing on this but has a HUGE screaming headline that John Edwards may or may not have flip-flopped on something to do with Social Security five years ago.

Shorter Joe Schmoe, with apologies to RMN:

If a Republican does it, that means it is not illegal.

Posted by: Mr Happy at January 22, 2004 10:23 AM | PERMALINK

Hey, wasn't the door left unlocked during Watergate? Same thing! Oh wait, that led to a genuine Constitutional crisis. Good thing we don't have a real media anymore.

Posted by: scarshapedstar at January 22, 2004 10:24 AM | PERMALINK

Joe Schmoe and Al,

Thank you for confirming my theory that today's conservatives are truly the next generation of postmodernists for this century.

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 10:27 AM | PERMALINK

From Intelligence Failure:

"18 U.S.C. 1030. Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers

[snip]

(2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains--

[snip]

(B) information from any department or agency of the United States; or

(C) information from any protected computer if the conduct involved an interstate or foreign communication;
(3) intentionally, without authorization to access any nonpublic computer of a department or agency of the United States, accesses such a computer of that department or agency that is exclusively for the use of the Government of the United States or, in the case of a computer not exclusively for such use, is used by or for the Government of the United States and such conduct affects that use by or for the Government of the United States;

[snip]

(1)

(A) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(1) of this section which does not occur after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; and

(B) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(1) of this section which occurs after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph"

Posted by: scarshapedstar at January 22, 2004 10:27 AM | PERMALINK

Mimikatz is on to something. We need an honest Republican to occupy a position of real power long enough to diffuse this "win at all costs" mentality. Someone who understands that all monopolies, even (especially) political ones, are dangerous. Someone who understand that the people who didn't vote for you are still citizens of your country and deserve respect. That's the kind of Republican we need.

I'll be sitting by the window, waiting for him and the easter bunny.

Posted by: craigie at January 22, 2004 10:27 AM | PERMALINK

this is funny....

Posted by: jason at January 22, 2004 10:27 AM | PERMALINK

Oh... the link.

http://www.intelligencefailure.com/archives/000023.html

Posted by: scarshapedstar at January 22, 2004 10:30 AM | PERMALINK

shorter gop: third-rate hacking.

Posted by: danelectro at January 22, 2004 10:30 AM | PERMALINK

They were password protected files, the Republicans just figured out a way to get to them without the right password.

When I was in high school I figured out how to read my principal's e-mail without the right password. I also found some messages that showed he was having an affair with a teacher. But I guess under the New Republican Morality, it would have been right for me to distribute the messages to the local newspapers (anonymously, of course). Especially if oral sex was involved.

Posted by: neil at January 22, 2004 10:32 AM | PERMALINK

Actually, the Watergate burglars taped the door to a garage stairwell that gave them access to the building. They picked the locks elsewhere. A security guard named Frank Wills saw the tape and called the cops.
It is pathetic that I still know all this stuff.

Posted by: Jim Madison's Dog at January 22, 2004 10:34 AM | PERMALINK

I dunno -- I'd have to know the details of the "technical glitch" before I got too worked up about this.

If the Democrats are putting sensitive documents into server directories where Republican staffers have access rights -- that's just plain incompetence. I assume the Democrats have access to competent network technicians and are motivated to take reasonable steps to keep their private documents secure.

Sure, when Republicans log on and see a directory called \\Senate\Democrat\Memos\Strategy (for example), they could choose not to look -- but it's hardly hacking if they do. I suppose the analogy would be finding manila envelopes marked "Strategy Plans -- Democrats only!" scattered about the Senate lunchroom and hallways. A scrupulously ethical person would return the packets to their rightful owner without looking -- but it just doesn't seem like a major ethical lapse to look at documents that are treated so carelessly by their owner.

Again, it's hard to know what to think without more details. But my guess is both parties are going to have something to be embarrassed about here.

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 10:35 AM | PERMALINK

Didn't Watergate have something to do with "breaking and entering" and "stealing" confidential files??

Does this crime violate the Patriot Act's cyberterrorism clauses?

Posted by: Jim at January 22, 2004 10:35 AM | PERMALINK

Neil: Where do you get your information? How do you open a "password protected file" without knowing the password?

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 10:38 AM | PERMALINK

The Democrats didn't simply "refer[] to a judge's race", they said that a nominee was ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS because of his race. Clear, out-and-out bigotry. But, of course, excused by the so-called "progressives" here at CalPundit because it was by a Democrat so, by definition, cannot be bigotry.

Instead, we get the "Hey! Look Over There!!" of accessing non-password-protected files.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 10:40 AM | PERMALINK

Oh, who cares about this stuff? It's just your garden variety political scandal. Don't tell me that Democrats don't do this kind of thing. Yawn.

It didn't take long for the objectively pro-criminal posts. That was almost record time.

Posted by: Spinning Tops at January 22, 2004 10:42 AM | PERMALINK

my guess is both parties are going to have something to be embarrassed about here

You know, that's exactly right, and perfectly sensible. But not very interesting as stated. You could get more specific about it:

What Republicans are going to have to be embarrassed about: cheating, dishonesty, violation of public trust, getting caught.

What Democrats are going to have to be embarrassed about: not being paranoid enough about how sleazy the Republicans really are.

You GOP apologists all do have a point. It's time for Democrats to get far more serious about the level of hostility and cynicism represented by the Republican political apparatus. Gee, I hope you won't think we're angry about it, or anything.

Posted by: Demetrios at January 22, 2004 10:49 AM | PERMALINK

If I paint my e-mail on my garage door, I don't deserve any expectation of privacy. Similarly, if staffers put data on a shared computer, and don't use passwords to restrict access, there is no legitimate expectation of privacy. How many people in this forum were yelping when Newt Gringich's cell phone call was taped, and replayed in a public forum?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 10:50 AM | PERMALINK

Scottd
but it just doesn't seem like a major ethical lapse to look at documents that are treated so carelessly by their owner

Except that Sen. Hatch disagrees with you:

After the contents of those memos were made public in The Wall Street Journal editorial pages and The Washington Times, Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, made a preliminary inquiry and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."

Hatch also confirmed that "at least one current member of the Judiciary Committee staff had improperly accessed at least some of the documents referenced in media reports."

Now go study the law

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 121 > Sec. 2701. Sec. 2701. - Unlawful access to stored communications (a) Offense. - Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section whoever - (1) intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided; or (2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility; and thereby obtains, alters, or prevents authorized access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in electronic storage in such system shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section.

It does not matter one iota whether the Dem's were negligent in securing their data. The fact that the access was unauthorized means that it is illegal.

Posted by: digger at January 22, 2004 10:50 AM | PERMALINK

scottd, I believe we can gather from the reports that the server was maintained by the Senate Judiciary Committee's nonpartisan administrative apparatus. Although they shared the server with the GOP members of the Committee, the Democrats were assured that their materials were password protected. The Republicans discovered that these materials were not protected and chose not inform their colleagues. Instead, unethically and quite possibly criminally, they intruded in confidential discussions.

Our democracy depends on the competition between our two great parties. To break the law and rig the game in this way is an offense against our traditions and the spirit of liberty. The members of the Senate judiciary committee who knowingly took advantage of this hack should at least be censured, probably prosecuted, and should certainly resign today.

Tonight at the debate, if Kerry and Edwards do not demand the resignation of any GOP senate colleagues who took part in this (crime), they will rule out my support in the primaries.

Posted by: wetzel at January 22, 2004 10:50 AM | PERMALINK

HA! A couple hours ago I posted my guess as to the Republican response to this at Kos'. After reading this thread I think I nailed every point.

Hey, it's not theft if they forgot to lock the safe. Who can blame us? They would have done the same thing. It's not our fault. It was for the good of the country.

Republicans are invariably unimaginative.

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 10:55 AM | PERMALINK

Sorry, Al, but this was a criminal offense. Hackers go to jail for this sort of thing. Ask Kevin Mitnick about reading and copying other people's electronic files without permission simply because their security wasn't tight enough.

The proper analogy is: the Democrats hired a locksmith to fix their door, but he screwed up and the door only *looked* locked. The Republicans, finding that they didn't need a key, then walked in and photocopied whatever they wanted for a year.

Posted by: Hart at January 22, 2004 10:55 AM | PERMALINK

Demetrios and Spinning, can it be assumed that you were equally outraged when Gingrich's cell phone call was taped, and then replayed in public by a Democrat in Congress? The taping of a cell phone call, by electronic scanning of the airwaves, is much more clearly a violation of legitimate expectation of privacy than is accessing the files of a shared computer, files that are not password-protected. Oh yes, I forgot, when Republicans are harmed, it is far more tolerable. Never mind, carry on....

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 10:56 AM | PERMALINK

I'll pipe in just so that people don't go falling for the rhetorical chaff and flare of Al.

I work for a gobsmackingly giant mega-corporation and my line of work is in corporate network security. I can tell you for a fact that IT DOESN'T MATTER if the person was grossly negligent in securing their data. I have witnessed successfully prosecuted corporate intellectual property theft cases in this matter which bear a striking similarity to what went on here. Many laws over the last few years (thanks to lobbying by technology megacorps like mine) really give prosecuters a hella of an advantage in data theft crimes nowadays, so let's drop the pretense that this wasn't a real crime in every sense of the word.

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 11:02 AM | PERMALINK

Demterios: I have to admit, that's the first time I've ever been called a "GOP apologist". Maybe you should get to know me better before you start calling me names :-)

Perhaps I wasn't clear in making my point. I simply don't know enough details on this case -- and details matter. If GOP staffers somehow broke network security (say, by learning Democratic passwords), then their actions would be equivalent to breaking and entering and would be serious indeed.

It's not the same thing if documents just start showing up in a workspace to which you have legitimate access.

I hope we find out the details soon enough -- until then, I'm going to keep an open mind.

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 11:02 AM | PERMALINK

Seems to me that the analogy is wrong, Hart, since we have a shared server here. The proper analogy is as follows:

The Dems and GOP are sharing the house. The GOP staffers are allowed to go anywhere in the house except places that the Democrats have locked. The Democrats thought they were locking the room, but screwed up. So the GOPers turned the door handle and, viola, the door opened. (When the GOPers got in the room, they saw a whole bunch of papers, some of which showed that the Democrats are bigots.) The GOP staffers told the Democrats that they could get into that room, but the Democrats still didn't lock the door. So the GOPers kept going in there.

Now THAT'S the proper analogy. Seems pretty clear that the statute wasn't violated, since the GOP staffers had AUTHORIZED access to the server.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 11:03 AM | PERMALINK

u libruls doant undastand. look wat happend to newt. becoz u libruls once listened to nutes fone calls republicuns now half da wright to look at every demokkkrat file in da hole wurld.

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 11:04 AM | PERMALINK

I simply don't know enough details on this case -- and details matter. If GOP staffers somehow broke network security (say, by learning Democratic passwords), then their actions would be equivalent to breaking and entering and would be serious indeed.

For more technically-inclined analysis of this piece of news, check out slashdot

Posted by: taktile at January 22, 2004 11:05 AM | PERMALINK

Demetrios and Spinning, can it be assumed that you were equally outraged when Gingrich's cell phone call was taped, and then replayed in public by a Democrat in Congress?

Gingrich's cell phone call was tapped inadvertently by someone outside the political sphere and immediately made public by the Democrats. If the person who discovered they could tap Gingrich's phone had turned the discovery over to the Democrats who then spent the next year tapping the phone and mining confidential information to secretly use against Republicans then you'd have a case. As it is you're grasping at straws.

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 11:06 AM | PERMALINK

Al, the decision to oppose Miguel Estrada was based on ideology -- Dem's simply did not think he would make a good judge.

To make a strategic assessment that it would only be more difficult to oppose him later on down the line for a potential Supreme Court nomination (likely because (R)'s would cry Racism!) is not racist or bigoted, but simply a political calculation. There is no evidence whatsover that Mr. Estrada's race was even a factor in initially opposing him for the Federal bench.

In essence, this was their one shot at defeating an ideologue judge, knowing that later on they'd only get falsely branded as racists under the increased scrutiny of Supreme Court nominations.

Posted by: James W at January 22, 2004 11:07 AM | PERMALINK

They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart [emphasis mine] of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem.

Um, it's not like technical staff on the hill is political or anything. Not to go seeing Plumbers behind every tree but isn't it possible the guy allowed access on purpose? I'm just sayin...

Posted by: KevStar at January 22, 2004 11:07 AM | PERMALINK

Oh yes, the moral outrage here is so precious. A Democratic Congressman can publicly play the private cell phone call of the Speaker of the House, and that is tolerable, but if Republicans access information on a shared computer, it is heinous offense. If the Democrats thought that their files were password-protected, and the Republicans did not tell them otherwise, the Republicans have engaged in an ethical lapse, at the very least. If the Republicans did tell them, and the Democrats didn't rectify the matter, the Democrats should receive the same consideration as somebody who fails to file a patent or trademark, and loses their exclusive right to intellectual property as a result. Compare this to somebody who makes a cell-phone call with full expectation of privacy, and then has the call taped and replayed in public setting by a political opponent.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 11:08 AM | PERMALINK

From the same Boston Globe article:

Citing "internal Senate sources," [Robert] Novak's column described closed-door Democratic meetings about how to handle nominees.

[snip]

Novak declined to confirm or deny whether his column was based on these files.

"They're welcome to think anything they want," he said. "As has been demonstrated, I don't reveal my sources."

Nope. Just the contents of stolen documents. Now that's principled.

Posted by: karog at January 22, 2004 11:08 AM | PERMALINK

If I paint my e-mail on my garage door, I don't deserve any expectation of privacy.

I'll try this one more time. Your analogy does not work, the e-mail wasn't painted anywhere. You have to open it to read it, that is, there is an action taken on your part. If I leave my front door unlocked, does that give you the right to enter my house?

Posted by: Another Bruce at January 22, 2004 11:10 AM | PERMALINK

Hart: Kevin Mitnik took the active step of logging onto computer systems where he was not an authorized user. He did this either by using default user accounts and passwords that had not been disabled by the sys admins, or through "social engineering" where he worked to learn account names and passwords from legitimate users.

If GOP staffers did anything like this, I would agree that they should be exposed and punished.

However, we don't yet know if that happened. If those documents were placed in areas where the GOP staffers had network rights, those staffers wouldn't have had to do anything to gain access to them. The files (and their associated directories) would just be there, along with all the other stuff they normally access. Looking at those files would still be an ethical lapse, but it's not the same as breaking into a system.

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 11:10 AM | PERMALINK

u libwuls r dum. u libwuls wil nefer undastand. remember newt. remember newt. we r wrighting how libwuls ronged nute.

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 11:13 AM | PERMALINK

"Al, the decision to oppose Miguel Estrada was based on ideology"

James W - did you not read the quote in the Boston Globe article we've been discussing? The quote from the Democrats' memo is that Estrada is "especially dangerous, because . . . he is Latino."

See, if the decision to oppose Estrada were based on ideology, as you claim, that line would have read that Estrada is "especially dangerous, because . . . he is right-wing". But it didn't. The Democrats' memo said that he is especially dangerous because he is Latino. You see, the word "Latino" refers to race, not ideology.

Nice try, though.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 11:13 AM | PERMALINK

I have a question for Al and others so blinded by partisanship that they can't see the crime that took place here.

What was the substance that Nixon got from breaking into the Watergate hotel? What did he get on his wiretaps and stolen documents?

Let's talk about that. It is classic misdirection to talk about the break in, duh.

Your position is completely asinine. And completely expected. And we've already talked about the content of the leaked memo. It's time to start talking about jail time for criminals on the payroll of the Republican party.

Posted by: Timothy Klein at January 22, 2004 11:13 AM | PERMALINK

According to thumb, a person who makes a a cell phone call has no expectation of privacy; that as long as the recording is not made by an opponent or an adversary, it can be turned over to an opponent or an adversary, so as to allow the opponent or adversary to play the tape in public. Gosh, we are all so lucky to receive such ethical enlightenment.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 11:14 AM | PERMALINK

Demetrios and Spinning, can it be assumed that you were equally outraged when Gingrich's cell phone call was taped, and then replayed in public by a Democrat in Congress?

Yeah, and I'm still upset about Teapot Dome.

And the XYZ affair? Don't get me started.

Posted by: Spinning Tops at January 22, 2004 11:14 AM | PERMALINK

If someone else did it or something like it also, does that make either individual act acceptable?

Posted by: taktile at January 22, 2004 11:16 AM | PERMALINK

y due u libwuls beleaf dat u can break enny laws in da wurld? remember newt. remember newt.

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 11:17 AM | PERMALINK

Al, Estrada was almost definitely referred to as "dangerous" because they probably felt it would be harder to block a conservative but Hispanic judge. Not "dangerous" as in "oh, I should cross the street if I see him walking by." Again, your comment of bigotry strikes me as disingenous. I'll retract this if and when the full context of the memo bears out your interpretation.

Posted by: ArC at January 22, 2004 11:18 AM | PERMALINK

Now THAT'S the proper analogy. Seems pretty clear that the statute wasn't violated, since the GOP staffers had AUTHORIZED access to the server.

I have a better one. A real life one. Say you have a 1 server which hosts multiple websites. Each website is owned by a different person. Each person is given a passord to the server so that they can make changes to their website. They are only AUTHORIZED to access that portion of the server's resources that involved their website. But, because the server administrator was negligent in securing his box, a website owner found out that he could bypass password security and directly access the other website owners' files on the server. Not only did he discover the security hole, but he EXPLOITED it. It doesn't matter if he and the other people had access to the same box, he was messing around in an area of the server that he shouldn't have been in.

And that is against the law.

Posted by: digger at January 22, 2004 11:21 AM | PERMALINK

Shorter Al: Democrats are rascist since they refuse to support Republican token canidates.

Posted by: Rob at January 22, 2004 11:22 AM | PERMALINK

See, if the decision to oppose Estrada were based on ideology, as you claim, that line would have read that Estrada is "especially dangerous, because . . . he is right-wing".

Right. Because they must include the context of what they are saying in any conceivable ellipses-laden quotation of it.

Couldn't "dangerous" mean "politically dangerous for us"? If not, how could you know?

Posted by: taktile at January 22, 2004 11:22 AM | PERMALINK

OK, let's play on Will's field for a minute.
The Florida couple who taped newt's phone calls were convicted in a criminal trial and forced to pay a fine -- after, I'm assuming, the lengthy discovery process, and depositions, and usual interesting pre-trial stuff that, you know, gets in the papers and everything.
Jim McDermott, who played the tape, got sued by John Boehner, whose appeal of an adverse verdict later was upheld -- after, I'm assuming, everybody rode every ride at Depositionland.
If all of that also happens to the Republicans involved in this little bit of work, I'm fine with it.

Posted by: Jim Madison's Dog at January 22, 2004 11:24 AM | PERMALINK

another Bruce, scottd is correct, the details matter here, and I don't have enough details yet. If you and I share a house, and we agree that any locked room is out of bounds without a key, the fact that you failed to lock a room is very important, particularly if I tell you that you may have neglected to lock the room, and the room remains unlocked. On the other hand, I know that people use cell phones every day with the expectation that the conversations will not be taped by private parties, and then have the tapes turned over to adversaries, so the adversary can play the tape in public. Of course, for many in this forum, when such a thing hapens to a Republican, it is little cause for concern because, well, just because.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 11:25 AM | PERMALINK

honestly, Al...

here's what happens when you rely on the Washington Times and OpinionJournal for your facts...

Read this link: http://www.spinsanity.org/posts/2003_11_30_archive.html
(you'll have to scroll down)

I'm not claiming the Dems are perfect in this instance, but they DID NOT oppose Estrada because he is Latino, per se. They already decided he was unfit for the federal bench, and concluded that the additional fact that he is Latino would make it more difficult -- due to political factors and other realities -- to ultimately prevail against the nomination of someone they thought was unfit for the position.

At least get your facts straight and stop cherry-picking out of context quotes.

Posted by: James W at January 22, 2004 11:28 AM | PERMALINK

You Bush defenders will say anything, obviously.

The next President is going to have to form a new division of the Justice Department just to handle the crimes committed by the Bush Administration. Just the major ones, mind you, we don't have time to cover everything.

Posted by: grytpype at January 22, 2004 11:29 AM | PERMALINK

Speaking as someone who works in IT security, let me say that digger is absolutly correct. Having legal access to a server does not imply you have legal access to everything on the server.

When I worked for an Internet service provider, we had plenty of shared webservers, which multiple customers used, each restricted to accessing their own space. And if one of our customers were to access another customer's data, there would be legal charges.

The "it's their fault for not protecting it" doesn't fly either. People can and have gone to jail and been prosecuted for accessing data on servers that was not protected properly. A mistake does not give up your rights to your property. Does anyone really think that if I forgot to lock my door this morning that they'd have a right to my TV? It may make me foolish, but if you take my TV, you're still a criminal.

Posted by: aelph at January 22, 2004 11:31 AM | PERMALINK

dare is no gwater crime den da crimes agenst nute gingrich. bye looking at da demokkkrat files we r fiting da librul demokkkrat tewawists hoo hurt nute gingrich.

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 11:31 AM | PERMALINK

digger

And if your Aunt had a mustache she would be your Uncle.

Problem with your comparsion is that the server was not owned by a third party.

You need to understand that share drives are meant to share.

This was not a "web site," and it was even separate share drives. It was one share drive.

Posted by: Poker Player (aka Jim) at January 22, 2004 11:33 AM | PERMALINK

ArC - I never said "dangerous" meant "oh, I should cross the street if I see him walking by." Nevertheless, however "dangerous" is meant, the reason that Estrada is "dangerous" (actually "especially dangerous") is his race. Accordingly, the Democrats' opposition is - at least in part - based on Estrada's race. I don't know any other way of characterizing that except bigotry.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 11:33 AM | PERMALINK

Don't bother discussing Estrada with Al. He will continue to resist until the very end any reasonable interpretation of the memo's contents. And, as noted above, it's entirely irrelevant to the matter under discussion.

Digger's analogy is appropriate. Based on the information reported thus far, that is precisely what happened. Unethical? Hell, yes. Illegal? Quite possibly. Should someone be fired? Damn right. Will they be? Not bloody likely (aside from the earlier staffer who simply accelerated his return to school).

Posted by: PaulB at January 22, 2004 11:34 AM | PERMALINK

dare is no gwater kkkriminuls den da kkkriminuls in da demokkkratik partee.

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 11:34 AM | PERMALINK

Really short Al:

"Here's an off-topic strawman. I'm going to post it again and again and again."

Why does anyone respond to this guy?

Posted by: scarshapedstar at January 22, 2004 11:35 AM | PERMALINK

That's fine with me too, dog; I have no allegiance to a political party, I was merely amused about people, like spinning tops, in this forum expressing outrage that Republicans could be so uniquely unethical regarding other people's private communication, when within the past decade (nice try at avoiding the issue by interjecting a scandal from early in the 20th century, tops), a currently sitting Democrat in Congress had engaged in a much more clear-cut (so far) violation. People who try to paint either party as being more immoral than the other are either delusional, or are simply seeking advantage.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 11:36 AM | PERMALINK

It seems to me that digger is on the right track. However, contra digger, we don't know who was authorized to do what. Did the GOP have authorized access to everything on the server except what the Dems had locked away? Who decided on authorization and how is that accomplished? We just don't know all the facts.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 11:36 AM | PERMALINK

To Al--- and all other Repub apologists---you and your moron President are soooo tiresome! Real Americans want their country back and this fraud of Republican "morality" and "honor" is coming to an end!!!!

Posted by: MARTY at January 22, 2004 11:38 AM | PERMALINK

John and Alice Martin, the couple that recorded Gingrich's conversation, plead guilty and were fined $500. Imprisonment was not allowed by the law.

So, if you insist on this analogy, you can, at best, make the argument that a congressman can use this information, though you really cannot make the argument that the people that took these documents should not be prosecuted for the crimes (I would imagine they would be charged for each document they took and/or read) they committed. This really seems like two different issues but if you insist on making the analogy I at least offer this thought on it.

http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/177crm.htm

Posted by: javabuddha at January 22, 2004 11:39 AM | PERMALINK

What digger said. He has it exactly correct.

Sorry, scottd, but you're wrong. What got Kevin Mitnick sent to jail is that he accessed files that weren't his to access. How he accessed them is irrelevant given that no one had legitimately authorized him to do so.

If you don't believe me, I suggest trying to get access to your companies private financial data, copy to your hard drive, send a another copy to Robert Novak, then admit this to your CEO. If you don't do jail time, then you're working for someone who's much nicer--and dumber-- than I.

Posted by: Hart at January 22, 2004 11:40 AM | PERMALINK

There is a central point being overlooked - this is not one instance of opening the drapes or walking through an unlocked door. This is one year of searching through hundreds of confidential memos, and leaking them throughout the year.

"The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November."

Trying to determine legal or maoral culpability has to take into account that this was a long term intelligence gathering project. The information was collected, used in strategy, and leaked to appropriate sources.

Protesting that nothing illegal may have been done overlooks the basic lack of morality involved.

And the word 'imminent' was never actually spoken...

Posted by: canucklehead at January 22, 2004 11:41 AM | PERMALINK

remember nute!!!

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 11:41 AM | PERMALINK

Poker Player (aka Jim)
Problem with your comparsion is that the server was not owned by a third party.
You need to understand that share drives are meant to share.
This was not a "web site," and it was even separate share drives. It was one share drive.

Any links for assertions? I didn't see anything in the Boston Globe article about shared drives between the Dem's and the Repbub's.

I did see this:
A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.

Posted by: digger at January 22, 2004 11:42 AM | PERMALINK

Password Protected Files:

A comment was made about how can you view a password protected file if you don't have the password. You can get this software to open password-protected Word files for only $25.

http://www.softpile.com/Utilities/Password_Recovery/Review_05588_index.html

Also, I'm sure I have seen the same type of software that opens password protected PDF and ZIP files too. I'm sure they exist for all of password protected files.

So, let's remove that little argument from the discussion now please.

Posted by: javabuddha at January 22, 2004 11:49 AM | PERMALINK

Al:

Viola - A stringed instrument of the violin family, slightly larger than a violin, tuned a fifth lower, and having a deeper, more sonorous tone.

Voila - Probably what you meant.

Posted by: qp at January 22, 2004 11:50 AM | PERMALINK

According to thumb, a person who makes a a cell phone call has no expectation of privacy;

BZZZT! Wrong. I said that finding out that your local ATM accidentally spit out an extra twenty and spending it is less of a crime, much less, than to consciously seek, and then secretly exploit, the ATM's security breach over the course of a year. And I sincerely doubt that "But I sent a note to technical support" will work as a defense. Not that conservitards have any concept of nuance. I might as well be talking to al.

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 11:51 AM | PERMALINK

What I, digger and others have brought up is crucial. The current state of the law (thanx to lobbying) is EXTREMELY biased in favor of the victim of data theft.

In fact if the path to the files merely looked like it should be private like this: \\server\share\senator\private

Then this is enough to prosecute a case of data theft on. EVEN IF there was absolutely no real security on those files. It merely requires that the person assumed that the data would be confidential.

So just stop with this tired canard already!

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 11:52 AM | PERMALINK

Hey Will, ya stupid dipshit,

Read the post above yours.

And Al, you ignorant right-wing slut, get the f*** out of here!

Posted by: rover at January 22, 2004 11:52 AM | PERMALINK

Will Allen wrote: "I was merely amused about people, like spinning tops, in this forum expressing outrage that Republicans could be so uniquely unethical regarding other people's private communication, when ... a currently sitting Democrat in Congress had engaged in a much more clear-cut (so far) violation."

Nice try, Will. Unfortunately, your analysis overlooks several key points:

1. The Democrat in question did not try to listen to Gingrich's conversation.

2. The Democrat in question did not spend a year or more listening to Gingrich's conversations.

3. The couple that actually did inadvertently listen to Gingrich's conversation were appropriately charged and sentenced.

4. McDermott was formally charged, as well, and his case was only thrown out when the Supreme Court ruled in a similar case that the kind of thing he had done was not actionable.

In short, there is no equivalence and your example simply fails.

Posted by: PaulB at January 22, 2004 11:52 AM | PERMALINK

The point is not the location, nor the file protection. The key is "Unauthorized". If they didn't have permission, they should not have looked. If it's not your file, and the owner didn't say it was OK, you're not supposed to even open it to see it's contents, much less copy and distribute it.

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 11:55 AM | PERMALINK

Look, Al's a bigot too:

"I don't know any other way ... except bigotry."

It's easy to slime your opponents by misquoting them out of context.

Posted by: Casmir Radon at January 22, 2004 11:57 AM | PERMALINK

The next time Orrin Hatch starts pontificating, someone ought to ask him about the morality of stealing your opposition's memos. Remind him that he is a member of a religious group that has honesty as a cardinal virtue.

Then watch him splutter.

Posted by: Deana Holmes at January 22, 2004 11:59 AM | PERMALINK

I just posted the following in Atrios' comment section. I'm still steamed:

I just phoned the San Francisco and Washington offices of my senator, Dianne Feinstein. I called in order to counsel that she and her fellow democrats adapt the agressive, junk yard dog tactics over this outrage that their GOP counterparts would indisputably employ were the tables turned.

Her staffer in the San Francisco office sounded very, very bored with my advice, took my name and zip code, and assured me she would pass it along to Dianne. Par for the course with advice calls, I know. Still, her attitude annoyed me.

But Feinstein's Washington staffer not only managed to affect a vibe of even greater boredom, but flatly denied the investigation dealt with Senate judiciary committee. When I read him the lede paragraph of the linked article, he explained to me (as though he were speaking with a particularly stupid child) the investigation in question dealt with the senate's intelligence committe. I don't argue with brick walls or idiots, and hung-up my long distance call.

Those people, of That party, simply do not give a shit about the mortal dangers the GOP poses to the liberties of our country.

Posted by: Sovereign Eye at January 22, 2004 12:00 PM | PERMALINK

digger, I am ignorant in this area, so help me out. If the account you provide is correct, and it is true, as some accounts have stated, that the Democrats were told of the open access, does the failure of the Democrats to restrict access give tacit permission to anyone, with legitimate access to the server, to examine the files?

The analogy I would draw is with real estate law, in which if someone nortoriously uses or occupies property for period of time (varying by state, and usually 7-20 years), and the owner makes no attempt to evict, the squatter may gain title. Or perhaps a better analogy, since it involves intellectual property, if Ford and G.M. shared a research center, and owned all the computers therein jointly, with the agreement that other than password protected files, all the data on the computer was jointly owned, would Ford's failure to protect a file with a password give G.M. rightful access, especially if G.M. had notified Ford that some files placed by Ford lacked password protection?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 12:01 PM | PERMALINK

This thread needs another episode of 'al'.

Posted by: hammer at January 22, 2004 12:04 PM | PERMALINK

I was merely amused about people, like spinning tops, in this forum expressing outrage that Republicans could be so uniquely unethical regarding other people's private communication, when ... a currently sitting Democrat in Congress had engaged in a much more clear-cut (so far) violation

I was merely amused that for the umpteenth time, the response to Republican unethical behavior is "But what about [some other thing that I've pulled out of my ass]? Unless, you're outraged by that, we can't talk about what is actually the topic at hand."

How about if you just put up a complete list of everything else that we're supposed to talk about first before we can all talk about the subject of the thread?

Try to keep it down to 50 items or less.

Posted by: Spinning Tops at January 22, 2004 12:05 PM | PERMALINK

PaulB lends yet more moral teachings. You see, because McDermott's behavior could not be prosecuted, it is acceptable to publicly play the illegally taped cell phone call of an adversary, which proves that Democrats are more moral than Republicans. We stand in awe of your ethical insights.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 12:06 PM | PERMALINK

javabuddha: Thanks for the technical update:

A comment was made about how can you view a password protected file if you don't have the password. You can get this software to open password-protected Word files for only $25.

So, is that what happened? I mean, did GOP staffers get access to password protected files and then crack the password?

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 12:12 PM | PERMALINK

It's still illegal if they are accessing files that are authorized to be protected.

Look at a bank.
Even if the safety deposit boxes are all unlocked, it still isn't legal OR ETHICAL to go through the unlocked boxes.

If you work at the Pentagon and enter a room for which you do not have clearance, you are committing a crime. Even if the door was unlocked.

If you aren't authorized for access, you shouldn't be accessing. Period.

And I'd like to see this entire Estrada quote, too. A hispanic conservative nominee is politically similar to a female liberal nominee. Each requires a different "battle" plan. Let's not be naive and pretend like these issues aren't discussed. Please.

Posted by: Frugal Liberal at January 22, 2004 12:13 PM | PERMALINK

Okay, let's turn the tables on the Republican defenders:

Say it had been a group of Democrats getting unauthorized access to a Republican file and leaking memos to the press over the course of a year. Would you be outraged? Even if it turns out that the Republicans hadn't properly protected the files (which at this point is debatable) and were just "asking for it"?

If the answer is yes, then failure to be outraged in this case is pure hypocrisy. And I say this as a lefty who tends to hold other lefties to higher ethical standards because I don't want us giving any ammunition to the opposition.

Posted by: galnoir at January 22, 2004 12:13 PM | PERMALINK

OT - thanks, qp -- it's good to know that the Internet spelling police are on the job.

"The point is not the location, nor the file protection. The key is 'Unauthorized'."

True enough. Again, we don't know who was authorized to do what, how the authorization process worked, or how the Democrats' memos fit into the authorization scheme. It could very well be that the GOPers were authorized to access everything on the server except what the Dems kept in a password-protected area. Or it could be that it was clear that the area that the GOPers were unauthorized to go where they did. We just don't know. And the article isn't very much help.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 12:13 PM | PERMALINK

Spinning, you can talk about anything you want, I was merely curious as to why anyone should take anything that is said on the topic seriously, regarding the relative moral failings between the two parties, when those talking seem to have much varying standards regarding what constitutes a moral offense, all dependent on which party the moral offender belongs to. Just trying to gain some enlightenment, doncha' know....

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 12:14 PM | PERMALINK

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.

The Repub's 'corruption' only costs people their lives, their livilihoods, their savings, their faith in government.

It doesn't have anything to do with getting a blow job! Let's stay focused here, shall we?

Posted by: MattB at January 22, 2004 12:15 PM | PERMALINK

Will
...does the failure of the Democrats to restrict access give tacit permission to anyone, with legitimate access to the server, to examine the files?

No. As Gryn pointed out, the laws that now address system intrusions, communication interception, etc. are VERY broad. In many respects, it is overly broad because some methods of intrusion detection (like using honeypots) could conceivably be in violation of network interception. Just putting a sniffer on the network to analyze and troubleshoot network problems could land you in jail if you don't have the neccessary authorization. And like Gryn also said, the laws are very biased now in favor of victim of data theft. Also as canuckhead pointed out, this went on for over a year, which establishes that this was an ongoing infraction. These guys worked for the Judiciary! How hard would it have been to just ask a lawyer on staff whether their behavior was illegal?

Posted by: digger at January 22, 2004 12:16 PM | PERMALINK

Unless the Repub staffer ASKED the person who made the file, the access was NOT authorized. Authorization requires an affirmative action, it is not the default state.

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 12:17 PM | PERMALINK

qp - if you are policing the grammar on this thread as well as the spelling, note that the grammar in my 3d to last sentence in my previous post was screwed up. Apologies.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 12:19 PM | PERMALINK

OK Will, we're all a bunch of hypocrites. Now that that's out of the way, can we discuss the matter at hand please?

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 12:19 PM | PERMALINK

"Unless the Repub staffer ASKED the person who made the file, the access was NOT authorized. Authorization requires an affirmative action, it is not the default state."

How do you know?

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 12:20 PM | PERMALINK

Will ?

Now you're really reaching.

We don't need to deal in tortured analogies about windows or TV sets or squatters. Settled case law pertaining to exactly this situation already exists. Several people, who sound as if they know what they're talking about, have stated that unauthorized access to computer data is a crime. Note the lack of qualifications in that phrase. Maybe the question of who told what to who and when will be of interest during a trial, but it doesn't make the access legal.

If you don't believe the posters who've informed us of the relevant law, then toddle on over to Google and start researching.

Posted by: nina at January 22, 2004 12:21 PM | PERMALINK

Will,

It wouldn't be so bad if the Republicans were not constantly trying to present themselves as the party of honor and integrity compared to the those liberal moral relativists in the other party.

Posted by: David Perlman at January 22, 2004 12:22 PM | PERMALINK

spork: Unless the Repub staffer ASKED the person who made the file, the access was NOT authorized. Authorization requires an affirmative action, it is not the default state.

Do you use networked computers? I'm asking because I normally determine my authorization on a network by logging into my account and then accessing the resources that present themselves. The notion that a typical network user is going to determine the ownership of each resource (including files) and then personally ask the owner for permission to access each resource is new to me.

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 12:23 PM | PERMALINK

Al, you're way off.

Again, look at the law. To save you some time, here's my post with the relevant sections on what "protected" and "unauthorized" mean.

Posted by: drew robinson at January 22, 2004 12:28 PM | PERMALINK

How do you know?

we can presume it from the fact that Hatch fired a staffer over this when it first came to light last year. of which staffer he said:

"It is with deep regret that I must report today that the interviews conducted to date have revealed at least one current member of Judiciary Committee majority staff had improperly accessed some of the [Democratic] documents"

Posted by: ChrisL at January 22, 2004 12:28 PM | PERMALINK

Will Allen is bore, people. He infests liberal comments sections all across the blogosphere defending even the most egregious behaviour of Republicans. Then he throws out his "I have no allegiance to either party" act, and, I'm sure, sits back and feels morally superior about himself. He rarely adds even the most tangential point to a conversation.

Posted by: Disinterested Observer at January 22, 2004 12:29 PM | PERMALINK

I think something is being missed here:

A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.

That doesn't say access to files, it says access to accounts, which is a whole different kettle of fish. As I read that, the problem wasn't that random Republican staffer A could log in as himself and access files that belonged to the Democrats, but that he could log in as random Democratic staffer B -- without his password -- and access files that B rightfully had access to. This seems even more clearly wrong and illegal; what possible explanation could staffer A have for "accidentally" logging in as B?

Posted by: Mike Jones at January 22, 2004 12:29 PM | PERMALINK

"Unless the Repub staffer ASKED the person who made the file, the access was NOT authorized. Authorization requires an affirmative action, it is not the default state."

The example I gave with the path is a real one, and this only goes a little bit further than that. IANAL, but I'll ask one of our corporate lawyers about this case. I think Spork is most likely correct.

The current precedent for these cases might just be "Would a reasonable person believe that the data was intended to be private". It wouldn't even matter if there were absolutely no security whatsoever on the file itself. If they didn't create the file and a person would "reasonably" assume that there might be questions about whether they had access or not, then you can be prosecuted for that infraction.

The only way I can possibly conceive of that this standard would not apply is if they put it in a folder called "PUBLIC" or "PUBLISHED" something like that. I'm willing to be my wife that there is no chance that this is the case here.

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 12:31 PM | PERMALINK

galnoir, I'm not outraged by anything that Democratic and Republican staffers do to one another. If Republicans broke the law by illegally accessing a computer file, I have no problem with them being prosecuted. I think whether anything illegal or unethical occurred depends on what the agreement was between the Democrats and the Republicans regarding the use of information on a shared computer, and I don't have the information to evaluate it. I know for a fact that surreptitiously taping, and then disseminating, somebody's cell phone call is illegal, and that publicly playing an illegally taped phone call of a political adversary to harm him is extremely unethical, and I am amused by people who think that the behavior of the Republican staffers proves the unique moral inadequacies of the Republicans, while Jim McDermott holds a seat in Congress.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 12:31 PM | PERMALINK

"I'm asking because I normally determine my authorization on a network by logging into my account and then accessing the resources that present themselves."

That's funny. I'm on a home wireless network, and my neighbors wireless router shows up on my list of connections. If I wanted to I could have stolen his bandwidth and perhaps accessed his computer. It was totally insecure, so I told about it and how to fix it. But I didn't know him before then, we had no connection other than proximity within range of his wireless. Are you saying I was authorized to use his high speed DSL because he didn't know how to properly configure his router? Because it was a resource that happened to present itself?

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 12:34 PM | PERMALINK

Actually, Mike Jones, it doesn't look to me as you've characterized it. It looks to me as though GOP Staffer A might have an account that restricted access to the files, but GOP Staffer B (a new staffer) might have an account (a "newly created account", since he is a new staffer) that permitted access to the files. Thus it would seem that GOP Staffer A would not be authorized to access the files but GOP Staffer B would be authorized.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 12:35 PM | PERMALINK

Will wrote: "PaulB lends yet more moral teachings. You see, because McDermott's behavior could not be prosecuted, it is acceptable to publicly play the illegally taped cell phone call of an adversary"

Nice try at completely ducking the points I raised, Will. Care to try again with something substantive? Maybe something that actually requires a little thought rather than a completely braindead knee-jerk reaction?

Sheesh...and I thought Al was bad! This was just pathetic.

Posted by: PaulB at January 22, 2004 12:36 PM | PERMALINK

So according to Will, as long as Jim McDermott holds a seat in congress the Republicans are free to break as many laws as they like.

Yeah, that't the ticket.

Posted by: David Perlman at January 22, 2004 12:38 PM | PERMALINK

Sorry scottd, a little more snark in my last post then I intended.

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 12:38 PM | PERMALINK

Gryn: "I'm willing to be my wife"

How does that work? Details please.

Posted by: nitpicker at January 22, 2004 12:40 PM | PERMALINK

Spork: I'm obviously not talking about accidental connection to a wireless network, and you're obviously technical enough to know when you've accidentally connected to one.

My point was directed to your assertion that you're not authorized to access ANY file until you've specifically asked the owner for authorization. So when you log on at work and see that there are some new pages on your company's intranet site, do you call up the IT department to make certain it's OK to look at them before opening them in your browser? That's gotta get old real fast...

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 12:41 PM | PERMALINK

Whoops, s/be/bet/

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 12:43 PM | PERMALINK

democrat=good; republican=bad.....only republican pull dirty political trick; democrat no pull dirty political trick......left good; right evil.........bush bad; clinton good.......poorandweak good; richandstrong bad.....left compassion=good; right compassion=bad.....my side's ideology forced on everyone=good; the other side's ideology forced on everyone=bad.......blah, blah, blah.

ALL RELIGIOSITY=BAD

Posted by: anonymousius at January 22, 2004 12:47 PM | PERMALINK

Gosh, obersever, I'm really sorry that I inadequately excite you. As far as adding points to a conversation, it was not I who raised the notion that this potential criminal or unethical act was indicative of the unique moral failings or superiority of any entity; it was introduced by other posters, to which I simply responded. Perhaps, in your boredom, your reading comprehension was compromised, or perhaps you are normally impaired in this area, but maybe you should take up the issue of the introduction of points that bore you, or of the issue of moral superiority, to those that did so.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 12:47 PM | PERMALINK

"made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties"

So presumably Democrats could have accessed Republican files as well.

Did they? I'd guess not since that would likely have been detected and disclosed by now.

Why not? Probably didn't figure out they could or else they would have protected themselves.

Which makes me wonder whether the Republicans, upon discovering this, did something to protect their own files but not the files of the Democrats.

Posted by: karog at January 22, 2004 12:49 PM | PERMALINK

Its depressing that the argument has centered around the legality of what the Republicans did.

Is integrity just too much to expect from the people who lead the country ?

Right wingers turn blue talking about the Left's moral relativism but how is defending this kind of behavior any different ?

I always taught my kids that someone else's unethical behavior doesn't provide you with an excuse to act in a simular manner.

Al, how about showing some moral leadership ? Is that too much to ask ?

Posted by: rcman at January 22, 2004 12:54 PM | PERMALINK

I hope the Dems and the media make a "federal" case out of this. The Republicans were wrong but I suspect that in the court of public opinion what the Democrats pursued will be percieved (and spun) as being unethical if not immorral.

Posted by: Timmy the Wonder Dog at January 22, 2004 12:55 PM | PERMALINK

Okay scottd, I see your point. I'm just saying you can't make a presumption of permission. I may have been too broad in my characterization. But, in the intranet instance, you certainly did recieve general permission to use it. You have an appropriate relationship with the corporation, and have been given an account. The equivalent would be if _I_ sign on as you, or otherwise gain access. Even if it's incredibly poorly secured, I would have no reason to think my presence would be authorized.

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 12:56 PM | PERMALINK

Al,

Why would the Democrats authorize the Republicans to look at their memos? That's just stupid.

Enough.

Posted by: scarshapedstar at January 22, 2004 12:57 PM | PERMALINK

You can hardly blame them, because we had a "crisis in judicial appointments" on our hands-Bush was only getting 98-99% of his nominees through.

Posted by: BobNJ at January 22, 2004 12:59 PM | PERMALINK

It really is quite amusing watching all the pots and all the kettles accusing each other of being black.

Such a constructive conversation. Maybe next you'll take on the task of trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Posted by: anonymousius at January 22, 2004 01:04 PM | PERMALINK

Ouch, Will attempts sarcasm. And it seems to be beyond his capacity.

Posted by: Disinterested Observer at January 22, 2004 01:06 PM | PERMALINK

Well, as usual the party of morality, ethics and religion turns out to be (as represented by the able cadre of will allen and al alien) the party of situational ethics, everyone does it, nyah nyah you can't catch me, and who cares, we've got ours so screw you and everyone with you. The more the internet brings me into contact with republicans, the more disgusted I become.

aimai

Posted by: aimai at January 22, 2004 01:07 PM | PERMALINK

Apparently, David is illiterate as well. What part of, "If Republicans broke the law by illegally accessing a computer file, I have no problem with them being prosecuted.", is beyond your apparently limited abilities of reading comprehension?

Paulb., the points you raised, that the illegal taping occurred once, that McDermott did not seek to have the tape made, and that he couldn't be prosecuted, has exactly nothing to do with the ethically illegitimate act of publicly playing an illegally taped cell phone call to harm a political opponent, an ethically illegitimate act which makes contentions that this potential misdeed by Republicans proves their unique moral failings quite empty.

Nina, why is asking questions considered reaching? I don't know the law in this area, along with not knowing the facts of this particular case (not that such ignorance inhibits many), and I was simply asking someone who did seem to know the law.

Scottd and digger, thanks for your insights.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 01:07 PM | PERMALINK

You open a password-protected file without the password the same way you open a lock-protected door without having the key: circumvent the security measure. In my case, through exploiting a bug in a piece of system software that gives you the rights of the user without entering his password; in the case of a door, with a lockpick, credit card, crowbar, etc.

Posted by: neil at January 22, 2004 01:09 PM | PERMALINK

I'm surprised at how poorly the Republicans are faring on this thread.

Simply put - regardless of whether or not you're able to access information on a server, the law says that unless you're authorized to access it, you're committing a crime. Republicans even say they knew there was a problem, but instead of trying to fix it, they continually and in concert accessed the files, unauthorized.

If anyone wants an analogy, it's like a piece of federal property (such as an Army base) upon which one may not intrude unauthorized. Even if the front gate is open and there are no guards, YOU'RE STILL NOT ALLOWED TO BE THERE. It doesn't matter how easily you can intrude, it's still an intrusion.

Posted by: jesse at January 22, 2004 01:09 PM | PERMALINK

Democrats' race-based characterization of Estrada as 'especially dangerous, because . . . he is Latino'

Or because he's basically fillibustered the Senate by refusing to answer questions about his past contributions to legal opinions? There's only one party playing the race card here, and that's not the Democrats. Yawn.

Anyway, what this proves is that the aging members of the Senate are still not that good with computers, in spite of those bright-eyed staffers.

Posted by: ahem at January 22, 2004 01:11 PM | PERMALINK

Perhaps you can read, observer, but it wasn't evidenced by your first post. Now if you have something to add beyond the usual, and, yes, boring, ad hominem invective, fell free to display it.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 01:12 PM | PERMALINK

"I'm just saying you can't make a presumption of permission."

Sure you can. I do it every day, as do most people who work on networks with various level of access. I log on to my network at work, look up some documents, and if I have the appropriate rights, access those documents. Why can I do this? Because someone in IT has set our server up so that certain groups of people are authorized to access certain sets of documents. I don't need to go and get specific permission each time I try to access something.

That, to me, seems to be what happened here. The Democrats mistakenly set up the rights to their documents to include all new users in the group authorized to access them. A new user then doesn't go and ask permission each time he wants to access a document; he either has rights to it or he doesn't. If he does -- up come the documents on his screen. Doesn't look like a violation to me.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 01:14 PM | PERMALINK

My reading, too, is not that the Republicans could just double-click and see the files, but that they were able fraudulently to authenticate themselves. Example: clicking Cancel in the password dialog (not a mistaken password), and having the files show up anyway. (I've seen apps this stupid, although never system software.)

Clearly cybercrime. But no one will care.

Posted by: Andrew Lazarus at January 22, 2004 01:15 PM | PERMALINK

Will,

My reading comprehension is fine, I must have missed that post. Rather than indulge in personal insults however, I will simply amend my statement: Ok so Republicans are not free to break any laws, but nobody can accuse them of impropriety as long as McDermott is in the House. Is that more accurate?

Posted by: David Perlman at January 22, 2004 01:15 PM | PERMALINK

Thanks, Spork. That was my point. If you sign on as me and gain access to my private resources, you know you're doing it, and you're clearly wrong even if I was careless.

We don't know the details about the Senate case, yet. If the Republicans willfully and intentionally bypassed network security to gain access to private Democratic strategy documents, that's big stuff -- maybe bigger than Watergate if it was ongoing.

On the other hand, if Republicans merely took advantage of Democratic sloppiness without bypassing security measures, that's still sleazy and maybe even illegal -- but it's also just hardball politics. Is that something that Democrats want to waste time on? If they do, my guess is that the average voter is going to look at it and think: "There they go again, Republicans and Democrats. Always fighting -- God, I hate 'em both!"

That would be a shame, because the Dems would be wasting their limited bandwidth to the voters. That bandwidth would be better used explaining how Bush's tax cut and spend policies are going to lead to tough times for them while the richest Americans enjoy the lowest tax rates in recent history. Or maybe it should be used to deliver the message about how Bush is eroding civil liberties on a daily basis and wasting lives and money in Iraq while doing so little to deal with the actual threat of al-Qaeada.

Maybe that's a different thread, so I'll sign off for now.

Posted by: scottd at January 22, 2004 01:19 PM | PERMALINK

I'll ask you, aimai, not that I expect any more honesty, but WERE you as disgusted when a member of your party used a illegally obtained and disseminated private phone call to harm someone that you oppose? What? Off topic? Then why did you raise the issue of being disgusted? Could it be your disgust has nothing to do with your sense of ethics or morality, but merely is a function of your desire to win?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 01:20 PM | PERMALINK

Ok Al, let me make this a little clearer. Ability to access does not equal permission to access. On your corporate network, you have implied permissions. I don't, regardless of whether I can log on and see it or not. Refer to my example above, involving wireless networks. In that case, I had access, but not permission. In your example, you have both access and permission given in company rules. If you see your bosses email folder mistakenly unsecured and open one day, would you assume you have the right to read it, simply because you can access it?

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 01:27 PM | PERMALINK

nute!
nute!!
nute!!!
nute!!!!
nute!!!!!
nute!!!!!!
nute!!!!!!!
nute!!!!!!!!
nute!!!!!!!!!
nute!!!!!!!!!!
nute!!!!!!!!!!!

gawd bwess the twupes and george w bushe!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 01:29 PM | PERMALINK

Sorry for the hostile tone, David, but you still aren't reading what I wrote. Object to the behavior all you want, but whan people start making generalizations about how this episode demonstrates moral iferiority of the Republicans vis a vis the Democrats, it is entirely fair to ask why Jim McDermott is still a member of good standing within the Democratic Party, after having used an illegally taped and disseminated phone call to damage a political opponent. So far, the answer seems to be either to object to the issue being raised, nevermind that it was not I who raised the issue of relative moral standings, or to imply that when it is Republicans being harmed, it isn't nearly as important.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 01:30 PM | PERMALINK

Will, you seem to be having difficulty with this concept: if I leave my door unlocked, hell, if I leave my front door open, does that give you the right to walk in and watch my television? Even if you have already informed me that the door doesn?t close when I go out?

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 01:34 PM | PERMALINK

I just gone done with a 4 1/2 year consulting engagement with a Fortune 50 company. I specialize in Essbase databases running on Windows servers and had the holiest of the holy financial numbers in my databases. I just got through with a painstaking Sarbanes/Oxley audit on this very subject.

It is very well understood by network server administrators that while you have access to every single thing on the servers, down to the CEO's e-mail, you don't. Why? Because most of us aren't the morals-free circle of scumbag assholes that Congressional Repubs have morphed into under the leadership of Delay, et al. (no offense to real scumbags, used condoms)

Look at the ethically-challenged response of the Cult of Bush apologists on this thread. I hope you all get plenty of "GOP Teamleader" points for selling your soul to the devil of moral equivalency.

That said, the simple act of browsing the contents of the Dem's folders could easily be construed as "hacking" by a judge. It was still a systematic intrusion of private files.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 01:37 PM | PERMALINK

Spork - I'm not clear on your hypothetical. If I wandered into my boss's office and saw my boss's email on his computer, I wouldn't assume that I can open it. But if I was looking for something on my own computer, which I simply booted up and put in my own login and password, and my boss's email showed up in the search, yeah, I'd think I was authorized to access it. Because somebody must have set up the access rights so that I had access to it. Moreover, if I told my boss "I can access your email" and he didn't do anything about it - I'd feel even more secure that I wasn't doing anything wrong.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 01:39 PM | PERMALINK

Will, did McDermott illegally ?obtain? the tape? Or was that done by someone else who was successfully prosecuted? Moreover, does that single lapse match the kind of sickening repeated behavior we see here: a year of leaking memos? You seem to have a bit of a problem with magnitude.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 01:40 PM | PERMALINK

Let me try this one. As disgusted? No. Why? One was an unintentional intercept that made it's way immediately into the public sphere and the other was systematic, ongoing and covert.

Do you really not see the difference or are you too busy working on your TeamGOP Points?

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 01:41 PM | PERMALINK

If you think, because you can and you?ve told him that you can, that this gives you the right to read your boss? e-mail then you are an ethics free scumbag ? welcome to the modern Republican Party.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 01:42 PM | PERMALINK

Members of both parties have had their trangressions, no doubt. And I don't think that by pointing out that the Republicans were engaged in an unethical and possibly illegal activity for over a year Kevin, or anybody else, is claiming that this exposes some unique moral failing on the part of Republicans.

However, as Kevin points out, there is certainly a smidgen of hypocrisy when we find that the party that routinely tries to present itself as more 'moral' than the other party has been engaged in a year-long binge of unethical behavior. If it is fair to ask about Jim McDermott is it not fair to ask why the staffer who leaked Plame's identity to the press is still a member in good standing of a white house staff serving a president elected claiming to restore "honor and dignity to the White House"?

Posted by: David Perlman at January 22, 2004 01:42 PM | PERMALINK

Perhaps you should open your eyes, then, because the article plainly said "access to accounts", not "access to files". It sounds to me like there was a point after which any newly created account could be accessed (i.e., logged in to) without the proper password. It's pretty plain English. This is well beyond the point of debating what the meaning of "is" is. It's just denying what's obvious. Pretty pathetic.

Posted by: Mike Jones at January 22, 2004 01:43 PM | PERMALINK

The point about network admins is inapposite; there has got to be special rules for admins because of the job they do. We're talking about regular workers logging on and accessing the documents that somebody has (mistakenly, as it turns out) given them rights to access.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 01:43 PM | PERMALINK

But if I was looking for something on my own computer, which I simply booted up and put in my own login and password, and my boss's email showed up in the search, yeah, I'd think I was authorized to access it. Because somebody must have set up the access rights so that I had access to it.

Oh, well I'm sure that's exactly how it happened. Someone within the GOP simply booted up, put in their own login and password and presto, confidential Dem stradigies showed up.

Then they just repeated the process for a year and leaked what they found to the press. Who could have guessed they were doing anything wrong? Or maybe they just told themselves, "Well, this is no different than that time McDermott went public with the intercepted Gingrich phone call."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I don't know how you got to be such a moron but whatever it was, it's working better than you could have hoped.

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 01:51 PM | PERMALINK

So Al, to get back on point, you seriously believe that access = permission? Somebody had NOT given them "rights to access", someone mistakenly gave them ABILITY to access. Do you see the distinction? If ability was all it took to gain permission, what type of hacking would be forbidden?

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 01:51 PM | PERMALINK

Hmm. For Al and Will, I guess, since they're the ones who seem to be defending these actions so much:

What do you do if you find a wallet on the street? Finders keepers, losers weepers?

It's a basic ethics question. Either you fundamentally feel, I don't know, a little uncomfortable keeping the wallet because you KNOW IT REALLY BELONGS TO SOMEBODY ELSE, or you don't.

Don't get bogged down in the technical details of how or why this happened. What does your gut tell you? Was this the RIGHT thing to do? Was it honest? Or was it a case of all's fair in love and war (and politics)?

Posted by: RKB at January 22, 2004 01:53 PM | PERMALINK

Lori, if it has been agreed previously that any unlocked door will allow either party sharing the house to use what is inside the room, then no, no infraction has occurred, particualrly if the door remains unlocked after the party with the key to the door is notified. Now, if the agreement is that any door not labeled "Welcome!" is off limits, regardless of whether the door is locked, or that every room is pre-designated, and there are no shared rooms, then clearly an infraction has occurred. Clearly an infraction has occurred if the facts are as Andrew laid out.

When I first read of this, it seemed to me that there were parts of this database that members of either party had legitimate access to, and parts that had access limited, and that someone among the Democrats had mistakenly put data which should have been access restricted into an area in which access was open. Furthermore, it was said that after being notified of this situation, someone among the Democrats continued to put this data in an open access area. Now, all of this could be inaccurate; I simply don't know, and have no objection to subpeonas being issued in an attempt to determine facts. I also am ignorant of the law, which is why I inquired with people who seemed much less so. If laws were broken, it bothers me in the least if someone is punished. What I objected to most was the contention that this episode demonstrates that Republicans are somehow more morally compromised than Democrats, a contention (along with the opposite contention, by the way) that can only be made by either the delusional or by those simply seeking advantage.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 01:53 PM | PERMALINK

The problem is Al, these individuals quite clearly knew they had no business accessing the documents. They continued to do so and to leak the documents to the conservative press ? in doing so they have now not only taken advantage of the fact that my door doesn?t close but have started sneaking in and taking photos of me while I?m sleeping and posting them on the net - a clear invasion of my rights.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 01:53 PM | PERMALINK

Al, I hope to hell the admins where you work are watching your sleazy ass. Do you have any shame?

God forbid that you are an insider, as I was. You are a menace.

Shorter Al: If it feels good, steal it.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 01:54 PM | PERMALINK

Shorter Will: I'm worried that Republicans might be thought of as ethics-free scumbags after they've been caught being ethics-free scumbags.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 01:58 PM | PERMALINK

In related news:

Identity theft topped the list of consumer complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission for the fourth year in a row, according to data released today by the agency.

Posted by: RKB at January 22, 2004 01:59 PM | PERMALINK

RKB, if I have agreed with someone that whatever we leave in the street can be jointly used, and I find his wallet in the street, and I inform of this, and he subsequently leaves a new wallet in the street every day, then yes, I will feel free to act on our previous agreement, assuming I believe him to be mentally competent.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 01:59 PM | PERMALINK

Will, your analogy is stupid because it presumes you don?t know when you have crossed the line. The Republicans were quite clear that the files were private. How can I be sure? Because I, unlike you apparently, don?t assume they are stupid. These were documents that were clearly intended to be private, if they didn?t think so, they wouldn?t have mentioned it at all.

No one has said this is solely a Republican problem, though once you add in Watergate, Iran/Contra, unprovoked invasions of Iraq, Grenada, Panama, and the rest of the ethical lapses of the Republican Party, it becomes a wonder that anyone with more moral fiber than a rabid weasel would have anything to do with that criminal organization.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 02:02 PM | PERMALINK

But it's not a big ass shared directory, Will, where Rs and Ds agree that whatever's in the shard directory (the street) is fair game.

It's an apartment complex. One building. Lots of locked doors. Just because we live in the same building doesn't give you the right to enter my unlocked apartment.

Except that you learn that your neighbor's lock is broken, and we'll go along with the fact that you tell him is door isn't locked anymore. Every day you walk by and jiggle it again, just to check. And every day you decide that because it's still not locked, you'll go ahead and take his wallet INSTEAD OF REMINDING HIM ABOUT THE BROKEN LOCK?

Of course, you've probably never much cared for this particular neighbor, so it serves him right, I guess.

Posted by: RKB at January 22, 2004 02:06 PM | PERMALINK

Sorry Will, your wallet analogy merely demonstrates that you too, have no moral center. I live with a couple of other people ? if I leave my checkbook in a common area no one writes checks against the account but me. I could leave a purse stuffed with money on the table and be assured that every bill and coin would remain, no matter how long it took my lazy ass to put it back in my room. I guess I just live with people who aren?t quite as sleazy as you are. And there is not a shred of evidence that the agreement was that stuff could be jointly used ? we?ve already established that the Republicans knew this was private information, or they wouldn?t have pointed it out and they wouldn?t have leaked it.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 02:07 PM | PERMALINK

Shorter Ras Nesta:

I'll make up stuff, because I'm incapable of independent thought.

Ras, I'm not worried about either political party. I wouldn't affilitate with one if my life depended on it, because to do so is to nearly invariably fall prey to what is evidenced in this thread; great hue and outcry regarding how a recent offense proves the unique moral failings of one's opponents, while ignoring the same offenses recently committed by people one is allied with. Want to know why most people despise politics? Look no further. Really, what sane person would affiliate with either political party, except for purely utilitarian advantage?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 02:09 PM | PERMALINK

Lori, apparently you are illiterate as well. Is there some sort of disease affecting you? Obviously, you have not previously agreed that whatever you leave in a common area can be used by anyone, whereas my analogy was dependent on a previous agreement that anything left in a common area was available for common use. When you are willing to have conversation in which you actually read what others have written, instead of foaming at the mouth, let me know.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 02:15 PM | PERMALINK

RKB - except it's not an apartment building, it REALLY IS a shared server.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 02:18 PM | PERMALINK

Will ?

You weren't, and aren't, simply asking questions and it's disingenuous to say you are. You posted your squatter hypothetical after at least three people, apparently with relevant experience, had explicitly stated that unauthorized access is criminal activity ? no qualifications. And you're at it still, yapping about open doors and wallets in the street.

We don't know the whole story yet, but based on available info, the Republican staffers committed a series of crimes. Yet you keep coming up with contorted arguments and fanciful analogies to argue that they didn't really break the law, and if they did, it was the Democrats' fault anyway. (Litigators call this "arguing in the alternative" and it's considered an act of desperation to haul it out.) Hence, you're reaching.

Relevant case law exists; if you don't agree with the reading of the law already provided, find an alternative.

Posted by: nina at January 22, 2004 02:19 PM | PERMALINK

"I'll ask you, aimai, not that I expect any more honesty, but WERE you as disgusted when a member of your party used a illegally obtained and disseminated private phone call to harm someone that you oppose?

Let me try this one. As disgusted? No. Why? One was an unintentional intercept that made it's way immediately into the public sphere and the other was systematic, ongoing and covert."

Yes, the intercept of the GOP cell phone call by a pair of Democrat activists with a scanner was covert. They then transmitted the tapes to the Dems. Both of these acts are felonies ! McDermott, with his psychiatrist and lefty background was the perfect one to go public. How many tapes never got disclosed ? These calls were GOP strategy and analagous to the memo business. The difference is that one was a felony.

"Do you really not see the difference or are you too busy working on your TeamGOP Points?"

Yes, I really do see the difference. The Dems action was a felony and has been forgotten. The Repubs action was not a crime and you guys are looking for a rope and a tree.

Posted by: Mike K at January 22, 2004 02:23 PM | PERMALINK

Shorter Will Allen,
I'm a troll, and a stupid one to boot!

Or, shortest will allen,

Republicans no ethics but who cares!

Posted by: aimai at January 22, 2004 02:26 PM | PERMALINK

Will, your inability to read the entire post is quite clear ? there is not a shred of evidence that the ?shared server? entails anything like your agreement (my post said And there is not a shred of evidence that the agreement was that stuff could be jointly used). What there is evidence of is that the Republicans knew that a ?purse stuffed with money? was left in what they had assumed was a common area and they took money out of it. They knew their behavior constituted an ethical breach and your lack of morals has you defending them. Come back when your comprehension matches your snarkiness.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 02:26 PM | PERMALINK

sorry that should have read

republicans *have* no ethics, but who cares!

Its still not short enough.

And thanks, thumb, for handling things for me while I was off doing more interesting things! I love your posts, so I've got nothing to add.

aimai

Posted by: aimai at January 22, 2004 02:27 PM | PERMALINK

RKB, I don't pretend to know the facts here, and as I indicated above, I can think of any number of ways in which the Republicans have committed an offense here. My original post dealt with the possibility (which may not have happened) that the Democrats placed the data in a shared directory, and continued to do so after having been told of the matter. Well, if one puts information out in an arena in which it can be legitimately viewed by others, because the arena is by agreement shared, and one continues to do so after having been notified, it seems to me that one has tacitly agreed to share the information.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 02:31 PM | PERMALINK

Good heavens, I haven't seen spinning like this since the last Valerie Plame thread!

Look, it's real simple. The Republicans knew perfectly well that they were accessing CONFIDENTIAL files that did not belong to them. They could not have been reading these things for a year without realizing that--they would not have been leaking them to the news media if they didn't realize that.

That's illegal, despite all the counterfactual scenarios that people spin trying to find some bizarre permutation of the facts that would provide some semblence of a technical legal defense. (No controlling legal authority, huh? Where have I heard that phrase mocked?)

And even if it is somehow TECHNICALLY legal, it ain't right.

Posted by: rea at January 22, 2004 02:33 PM | PERMALINK

Look, Al, I live and breathe this stuff every day. The concept behind a shared server is one box, a single physical device, with loads of hard drive space where multiple users are able to store files.

And now let's pretend that I DON'T know anything about file servers. I go to Word and type up my memo and save it to the "J" drive. My boss told me that the "J" drive is where I shared documents with my (D) colleagues. We call this our "shared drive." I don't actually know where this "J" thing is, except that when I save something into the "Memos" directory, my boss is able to review it later.

When my (R) friend down the hall logs onto her PC, she also has a "J" drive, but it's not the same as mine.

Get it?

Even though the files exist on the same physical storage device -- the "shared" server -- their contents are most certainly NOT shared between all users of that server.

Posted by: RKB at January 22, 2004 02:36 PM | PERMALINK

Jeebus, are we still fighting over this?

Lissen, Repub no-nothings, there's no excuse for anyone to browse unauthorized files on a network. None. Never.

Can't you get that through your dim little brains?

And Will, you miserable turd, point out where I "made something up".

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 02:53 PM | PERMALINK

So Al, I guess you're gonna stick with Access = Permission? What's your IP address? I'll see what I can do. Don't worry, if I can get into your computer, it means that everything I see on there you gave me permission to read and distribute.

Anyway, this is getting old. How you think of it doesn't really matter, it's how the law sees it. This is the appropriate section of 18 USC 1030, or "Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with Computers":

(2) intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains--

(snip)

(B) information from any department or agency of the United States;

(snip)

(6) the term "exceeds authorized access" means to access a computer with authorization and to use such access to obtain or alter information in the computer that the accesser is not entitled so to obtain or alter;
(7) the term "department of the United States" means the legislative or judicial branch of the Government or one of the executive departments enumerated in section 101 of title 5;

Clearly, the staffer has "exceeded authorized access", as defined in the relevant section, unless Republican staffers are entitled normally to access and alter secret Democratic staff memos and notes, which I highly doubt. Clearly, the Senate Judiciary Committee is a "department of the United States" as defined in the relevant section.

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 02:54 PM | PERMALINK

Nina, why do you pretend to know facts that have not been established? I hypotheisized about gaining access to data from an area in which access was authorized, a hypothesis which may be wholly inaccurate. I have clearly, repeatedly, stated that I have no objection to any efforts being made to get the whole story out, and have no objection to prosecutions if crimes were committed. Why are you so intent on yapping with certainty about matters, when, as you acknowledge, the whole story has not been told?

Lori, I made no representation about what the actual facts are pertaining to this case (because they, in fact, have not been established), and you deliberately changed my analogy, all out of an effort to engage in your usual, tiresome, ad hominem rhetoric, followed by your usual objections when you are treated in kind. Really, once again, I must inquire; are the norms of human interactions so foreign to you that you object to snarkiness after you have called someone sleazy? Are you truly this obtuse?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 02:54 PM | PERMALINK

Some facts seemed to have been missed here, such as that the "shared server" belongs to the Judiciary Committee (JC) and not any political party. The JC itself is a bi-partisan Senate group and, from what I understand, there is a "common desktop" for all those who work on or with the JC. There are not enough details known at this point, but it seems that newer staffers did not have their user permissions restricted such that certain files containing sensitive, Democrat-only docs were accessible to them. I don't know enough about the law on this matter, but I don't think it as cut-n-dried as some of you all are making it out to be. As far as ethics are concerned, I'm not sure how the files being in electronic form somehow gives them more protection and renders an unintended reader/discloser more culpable than if the docs had been printed and thrown in the trash. In any event, it is likely that the Rep. staff knew (ethically) they shouldn't continue to access the files but they did it anyway.

Will et al. raise a good point, however, that the Dems didn't exactly take much care in protecting such sensitive stuff. There is certainly an element of "assumption of risk" involved here. In the intellectual property realm, the failure to take proper measures to protect trade secrets and such can have the effect of removing the protection. I'm not necessarily suggesting that's what happened here, but digger et al. may be trying a little too hard to place a round peg in square hole.

Regardless of the arguments above, this "scandal" will never come to anything because the Dems are just as guilty mining "confidential" info and leaking it to the press -- that's politics and has been for a very long time. Some guffawing in from Leahy about how immoral the Rep. staffers are and how innocent the Dems are is about all this is worth. Too much scrutiny will only serve to hurt the Dems as much as the Reps.

Whatsmore, the only reason to create a stink about the memeo in the first place is because of the contents of that memo -- Miguel Estrada was opposed simply because he was a Hispanic Republican. While I don't buy the "bigotry" angle -- i.e. I don't think the Dems opposed him because they don't like Hispanics -- it is undeniable that Estrada's ethnicity played a huge part in his being opposed. The claim that he is an idealogue and unfit for the bench is pure bunk. He is still one of the most respected lawyers in D.C. Frankly he would make a great judge and it's a shame that both the Reps and the Dems have to play games like this in order to prevent the other side from gaining any favor with a perceived political group.

In any case, the Reps shouldn't have done what they did, the Dems shouldn't have made it so easy, and in the end Miguel Estrada should have been permitted an up or down vote in the Senate. But politics isn't about "should haves".

Posted by: michael at January 22, 2004 02:59 PM | PERMALINK

RKB - Your scenario is a possibility. It's also possible that the government's "shared server" doesn't work that way, but rather the way my company's shared server works -- that is, I can call up any document I have rights to. If someone gives me rights to a document, I don't have to go and ask whether those rights were given to me mistakenly.

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 03:02 PM | PERMALINK

Seems to me that this is really boiling down to two simple positions:

One side says that we don't have enough evidence about what really happened to know whether the GOP staffers did anything illegal or even unethical, although it's possible, depending on the facts, that both illegal and unethical acts occurred.

The other side says that it's obvious the GOP staffers committed an illegal and unethical act because, well, they're EEEEVVVVIIIILLLL Republicans, and, by the way, if our party did something similar like record a private cellphone call, that's justified because our party has to battle those EEEEVVVVIIIILLLL Republicans.

That's pretty much it, right?

Posted by: Al at January 22, 2004 03:03 PM | PERMALINK

Will, are the norms of human behavior so far from your experience that you think that a wallet left in a common area, no matter what the agreement, is yours? Your analogy doesn?t fit with any real world situation where it would be moral to take the wallet; you?ve already established that you know it isn?t yours, and it takes a very special kind of person to get huffy when called on the sleaziness of such behavior.

Oh, and I wasn?t objecting to your snarkiness, I was objecting to your use of it without merit ? you based an accusation of illiteracy on a laughable misreading of my post.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 03:03 PM | PERMALINK

Ras, when the following is written, about me:

"I'm worried that Republicans might be thought of as ethics-free scumbags after they've been caught being ethics-free scumbags."

you are making things up, because, in order for the statement to be true, I would have to diasagree with the contention that Republicans are ethics-free. I do not. Therefore, you are making stuff up. I object to the contention that the Republicans are unique in the their lack of ethics. Try to think a little would ya'? The potty talk is really boring outside of the first grade.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 03:03 PM | PERMALINK

Yep, if the Democrats didn't let their obviously-confidential strategy documents dress so slutty they wouldn't have gotten raped.

Blame the victim. Keep spinning, morons.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 03:05 PM | PERMALINK

Lori:

You say that you live with some roommates. Do you all share a fridge? Do you all have an agreement that anything that goes in the fridge is fair game unless otherwise noted (name on the yogurt, etc.)? Assuming that you do have a similar arrangement, would it be okay if one of your roommates helped themselves to a beer they didn't put in the fridge and was not marked as being off limits? How about if it was a really expensive beer?

Posted by: michael at January 22, 2004 03:08 PM | PERMALINK

Still can't read, huh, Lori? The wallet analogy was introduced by another poster, not by me, and I added the the layer of prior agreement (which removes the unethical aspect to taking the wallet) to reflect the possibility that there was a prior agreement between the two parties in which access was allowed in some areas or circumstances. You convieniently removed that layer in an attempt to engage in your typical ad hominem rhetoric, and then pretended to know with certainty the facts of this matter. You do not. You pretend that you do because it serves the purposes of your tiresome rhetoric.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 03:13 PM | PERMALINK

Will, I don't know of many things more "ethics-free" than stealing.

But that's just me.

You, on the other hand, split hairs to defend stealing, but get your petticoats in a twist about "potty mouth". LOL.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 03:14 PM | PERMALINK

Shorter al/will allen: Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 03:28 PM | PERMALINK

Ras, establish, with facts, that information has been stolen, instead of carelessly placed in an arena that, by prior agreement, made the information available to other parties, and then go ahead and prosecute. No hair-splitting there. Nothing of mine is in a twist about your potty language, but do you really fail to see how such infantile rhetoric reflects poorly on you, and reveals you to be much more moronic in nature?Also, I await your condemnation of your ethics-free ally, McDermott.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 03:29 PM | PERMALINK

I'm skipping down, so if I'm repeating somebody else's point, forgive me.

As a McDermott voter, I want to point out that the CONTENTS of Gingrich's illegally intercepted phone call over the PUBLIC AIRWAVES revealed that he was breaking an agreement with Dems over some scandal or other (sorry, I don't remember the detail of that). Interesting ironies: The D's, who usually go for stricter evidence-gathering rules, popped out the illegally gathered evidence of Gingrich violating the terms of his agreement. The R's, who usually say to heck with evidence-gathering rules, if we find out someone's doing something wrong, doesn't matter how we found out, said, in this instance, "boo hoo, they found out Newt was cheating ILLEGALLY."

Posted by: John S. at January 22, 2004 03:30 PM | PERMALINK

The GOP are the party of hipocrits and crooks.
I'm making another $50 donation to the DNC.

Posted by: ch2 at January 22, 2004 03:32 PM | PERMALINK

"The Democrats didn't simply "refer[] to a judge's race", they said that a nominee was ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS because of his race. Clear, out-and-out bigotry. But, of course, excused by the so-called "progressives" here at CalPundit because it was by a Democrat so, by definition, cannot be bigotry."

OK, Al, one more time about this bigotry thing. And I'll talk real slow, so you can understand me.

Let's say I'm a politician in a two-party government in some fictional country. And let's say I know the other party is weak in minority support, and that they're not above trying to curry favor with various minorities because they're aware that one day they cannot get elected anymore on just the bigot vote. Part of their strategy is to nominate minority judges who happen to have ideological beliefs that match their own. So far so good, nothing wrong here. Now, since I'm in the opposition party, I have different beliefs, and oppose the beliefs of the nominee. Or, more to the point, I believe that ideologues on either end of the political spectrum have no place in my country's judiciary. Also ok - my party and the other party disagree on what makes an appropriate judge. But let's just say that when I oppose this nominee, I know the other party will claim it's because of race. Clearly you can see: 1) that opposition to this nominee is politically DANGEROUS; 2) that his RACE is what makes the opposition DANGEROUS; and 3) that I am NOT a BIGOT. In fact, when my party was in power (and there were civil rights and a surplus), we nominated many judges from this minority, some of whom were opposed by the other party.

It is not a bigotted act to consider the race of a person as dangerous because one knows in advance the other side will, in a very cynical, self-serving way, try to call you a bigot. Get it now, Al? Probably not - you're beyond hope, but we try.

Posted by: peejay at January 22, 2004 03:32 PM | PERMALINK

(just got here haven't read the comments)

The classy move would have been to tell the Dems their systems' security needed an upgrade.

The reasonable move would have been to tell the Dems about this problem so that NOBODY ELSE could get their hands on this data.

The staffers who knew about this should be fired, and the Congresscritters owe their counterparts a public apology and should probably resign from that committee.

Shame on them.

Posted by: spc67 at January 22, 2004 03:34 PM | PERMALINK

Will,

I admire your tenacity, but you must see that your attempts are futile because your trying to argue against these people's faith. They hold to their ideology as religiously as the Pope does to his. There is no reasoning with faith. I'm coming to believe that faith is just an inherent human weakness.

Just let it go.

Posted by: H.L. Mencken at January 22, 2004 03:43 PM | PERMALINK

As I read it, the password protection on newer accounts was broken (e.g., you could enter any string as authenticate, or cancel the authentication dialog). That is, you could pretend to be a recently-added authorized user.

Posted by: Andrew Lazarus at January 22, 2004 03:44 PM | PERMALINK

Yep, Will, one scummy thing McDermott did excuses a year's worth of purposeful theft by the Republican leadership of the Senate!

Sounds fair.

Now, your spin is that the Democrats keep strategy memos in a common area shared with GOP staffers?

Are you for real, or just a Dem trying to make Republicans look stupid? Because if you believe that, you really are stoooooooooooooooooopid!

(Peejay, don't take their troll-bait to threadjack this into another interminable debate about judges.)

SPC, the classy thing would have then been not to access the obviously-private files. Instead, they chose to commit a year-long crime.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 03:47 PM | PERMALINK

Yes, H.L., I do have an ideology about data security. It's part of my job.

People don't accidentally access other's files. These scumbags perpetrated a year-long criminal enterprise to mine an open door in the Dem's file security.

Faithwise, I guess I had "faith" that the Repubs in Congress had at least an iota of character. Guess I was wrong.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 03:52 PM | PERMALINK

H.L., as an admirer of your work, I should have recognized the phenomena myself. You are correct, of course.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 03:53 PM | PERMALINK

You an admirer of H.L. Menken's anti-semitism too?

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 04:06 PM | PERMALINK

Will, smug and supercilious 'til the end.

Posted by: Disinterested Observer at January 22, 2004 04:08 PM | PERMALINK

Yeah, faith in the rule of law. Why doesn't it surprise me that Bush apologists would view such faith as just an inherent human weakness?

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 04:11 PM | PERMALINK

Ras Nesta, most of us live in a world in which Secret Service Agents have been known to leave plans for for the President's security detail on the counter of an airport gift shop. Most of us live in a world in which State Department employees misplace laptops containing highly classified documents. Most of us live in a world in which brilliant scientists at Los Alamos carelessly leave about data devices containing information regarding the construction of the most deadly explosive devices ever devised. You, on the other hand, live in a parallel universe in which it is impossible for a Democrat to carelessly input data into an area in where there is common access shared with Republicans. I have no idea what happened here, and make no defense of any wrongdoing, but I do advocate actually finding out what happened, before making any judgement, and don't engage in such nonsense as parsing the difference between using one illegally disseminated phone tap for political gain, when one was all that could be obtained (to our knowledge), and served it's intended purpose, and using several illegally obtained memos, if crimes have indeed been committed. Yes, the latter may involve several offenses, but to say that one offender is more ethically challenged than another is akin to saying that the guy who robs one 7-11, and then gets caught, is ethically superior to the guy who robs a dozen before getting caught.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 04:11 PM | PERMALINK

I kept mulling over in my head what this paragraph really meant...

A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman, Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties -- even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password.

I think I figured out the sysadmin error that could translate into this paragraph (after first getting munged by a non-techie reporter). I've actually had clueless admins cause a similar problem. I'm not sure what OS they were using Novell, Windows, Unix, but it's they all have similar scenario's. Now this is only an very educated guess, but I do have a lot of experience in this area.

Let's say you want to set up a shared home folder directory (ex: \\server\home\) where everyone can put private files (almost all IT shops provide this service). Like any good admin you want to make sure the permissions for those private folders (ex: \\server\home\gryn\) are restricted to only their individual accounts.

I won't go into the mundane details but it's quite easy to set it up so that if someone fatfingers the permission on the sharepoint folder (\\server\home) that *new* private folders will inherit bad permissions (say, everyone = read perms) without realizing it. These kind of permissioning problems are devilishly difficult to discover on casual examination if you aren't diligent.

I know the wording used in the article isn't precise, but the confusion of password/account/folder is a very common one with non-techies.

So, if true, this would be extremely damning to whoever expoited this since it would be common knowledge that all the folders on that server are explicitly meant to be private folders. There would be no reasonable assumption that any authorization had been given. This is not even counting the fact that the perps knew what they did was wrong: via the nature of the material obtained, that they leaked secretly to Novak, and they persisted for a year.

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 04:11 PM | PERMALINK

Politics is a full-contact sport; don't think the Dems would avoid looking or the Repubs would avoid squawking if roles were reversed. Memo to the Dems: stop acting sanctimonious, fix the problem and shut up. Making an issue about this just makes you look like whiners.

Posted by: Ben at January 22, 2004 04:14 PM | PERMALINK

Thanks for conforming to type, Ras. Yes, unless one is a nitwit with notions of superiority, it is perfectly possible to be an admirer of someone's work, regardless of the fact that the person doing the work has flaws, perhaps even great flaws.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 04:18 PM | PERMALINK

Observer; nearly content-free, yet insipid, right to the end.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 04:20 PM | PERMALINK

Let's put the absolute best possible spin we can on this, from the Republican staffers' perspective, based upon what we know.

Due to a technical screwup, confidential Democratic memos were left in a place where Republican staffers had access to them without going anywhere that they shouldn't.

They knew that the presence of these files there was a technical screwup by the system administrators.

They read the files there for a year, and leaked a bunch of them to friends in the press.

Even by this best possible spin, the behavior is pretty despicable, much as Will taking someone's wallet that got left in a common area by accident would be. (His approach to life certainly seems to be to get away with whatever you can.)

Even by this best possible spin, the behavior also seems to be illegal. I'd have more sympathy for them on this last matter, except they were the ones pushing for the laws to be written so tight on the matter of cybercrime, so they deserve what they get.

Posted by: J. Michael Neal at January 22, 2004 04:28 PM | PERMALINK

Gryn seems to have it right, according to GCN (Government Computer News):

It appears to be a case of using default security settings in which passwords for new users were left blank or access permissions were left wide open, Rouland said. ?It looks like there was a lack of enforcement and auditing of policy.?
The Sergeant at Arms is investigating how Democratic memos got into Republican hands between spring 2002 and April 2003. The documents discussed Democratic strategies for responding to nominations to the federal bench. The breach appears to be the result of a mistake in configuring new Democratic user accounts on a shared server.

Posted by: Sander at January 22, 2004 04:30 PM | PERMALINK

Yes, Ben, Democratic sanctimony can explain away GOP scumbags violating an ethical expectation.

We asked for it.

You guys really are too precious. Keep defending the indefensible.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 04:34 PM | PERMALINK

Okay. Shorter Al: "Let's not talk about Republican crimes because if Republicans do it, it isn't a crime."

Shorter Will: "I am absolutely non-partisan and completely disinterested, with no allegience to any political party, but I will not permit you to say that Republicans are criminals because, because, because they're NOT, okay?"

Shortest Will/Al: "If you leave anything in an area to which Republicans have access, it's okay for us to steal it."

Honestly, this has been the kind of thread which is astonishing to read through. Sensible Republicans simply back off and leave this shit alone: it's obvious that Republican staffers committed a crime, and why defend the criminals when you can adopt the moral high ground?

Passionately devoted Republicans, like Al and Will, have lost all common sense, and spend hours trying to figure out some way they can claim that data theft/unauthorized access isn't "really" a crime. As a result, they make themselves look like a roommate I had once.

This was years ago when I was living in a shared house, working for IBM at co-op student salary (ie, low). This guy could not "get" the concept that if I bought food and put it in the fridge we shared, it was still my food. As far as he was concerned, if he had access, he had a right to it - exactly as Will and Al say they believe. Accusations of theft made him very angry. He wasn't a thief: only dishonest people are thieves, and he wasn't dishonest!

So I bought a chocolate cheesecake, layered it with Ex-Lax, and put it in the fridge.

Yeah, that guy was literally full of shit. Wonder where he's working now?

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 22, 2004 04:36 PM | PERMALINK

As yet another sysadmin, I've got to say that based on the facts available to use now defenses of this are just ridiculous. First, it was apparently accounts that were compromised. No user is going to "accidentally" log into the wrong account for an entire year.

Second, it appears that the staffers in question leaked confidential documents to the press. I expect members of the party of moral clarity to know when something is obviously unethical.

By the way, what the hell does Newt Gingrich's intercepted phone call have to do with this? I don't think it's too much to ask not to see that kind of crap from either party. Politics may be a contact sport, but you go to jail if you club the opposing middle linebacker over the head with a baseball bat in the third quarter.

Posted by: M. at January 22, 2004 04:47 PM | PERMALINK

Apparently, J.Michael can't read, either. The wallet analogy I used, although it wasn't originally introduced by me, explicitly assumed a prior agreement between party A and party B, wherein it was agreed that items left in the street became free for the taking. It also posited one party notifying the other that a wallet had been left in the street, whereupon the notified party continued to leave successive wallets in the street. Now, this analogy may be wholly inapt; as I have repeatedly stated, I make no representation of the facts here. What is a lie, however, by J Michael, is to contend that my approach to life is to get away with whatever that can be gotten away with. Why do you think that engaging in an obvious lie serves your purpose, J Michael? Put another way, J Michael, why are you a liar?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 04:47 PM | PERMALINK

Ras Nesta -- I wasn't explaining away anything (explaining the rationale for it, perhaps). I was simply suggesting that this is not a winning PR issue for the Dems: The Repubs may look sleazy, but the Dems look stupid.

We don't have enough facts to say whether laws were violated or not -- it is very risky to toss around accusations before you know the facts: If you accuse the Repubs of a crime and don't secure a conviction, you lose the PR war again. In terms of publicity, it is difficult for me to see an upside for the Dems in raising this issue; thus, I suggested that they should drop this quickly.

Posted by: Ben at January 22, 2004 04:50 PM | PERMALINK

Well, I for one am not inclined to tar the entire Republican party with the "ethically challenged" brush, Hatch, for example, had the good grace to be mortified, and put a staffer on leave. I could think of dozens of other Republicans in Washington who seem to me to be decent and honorable.

Having said that, I must confess I see nothing decent and honorable about this situation, or indeed about the "win at all costs" gang that seems to be in the ascendent within the Republican party. Remember, this gang has hurt others within their own party, and even driven some party people away. If I were a Republican, I'd be very concerned about that. Politics is a rough game, make no mistake. But some things just cost too much.

Posted by: Jay at January 22, 2004 04:52 PM | PERMALINK

Sander, Thanx for the link!

Looks like I'm right, do I get a prize? I'd have to say the blank password theory is pretty weak since I can't imagine that kind of thing could of gone unnoticed for a whole year. The directory permissions one is a very common one if you don't have lots of security auditing practices in place.

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 04:53 PM | PERMALINK

Wow, what a thread. Straw men, bait and switch, irrelevant hypotheticals, deliberate misreading of plain English, ignoring of a clearly made, often repeated distinction -- and that's just Will. I won't even go into Al's mind-boggling performance.

Guys, read the story again.

A new technician, hired by the Democrats, made a mistake which allowed anyone to access certain (newly created) accounts without supplying the password.

That's the key word. Accounts.

This was not a case of someone logging on to the system using his own account and finding that (surprise, surprise!) he suddenly had access to a bunch of files he wasn't supposed to see. This was a case of someone, or maybe several someones, making use of someone else's account. He or they could do this because the computer was (due to a sysadmin's error) not properly enforcing password protection on those accounts.

There is no way this could have been done innocently.

Accounts are private. They are always private. They are always supposed to be password protected; they are never supposed to be shared. One user, one user id, one password, one account. In this case, some of the accounts on the computer weren't protected. So what? Deliberately using someone else's account without their knowledge or permission is a cut and dried case of security violation. You cannot possibly do it by accident, or without knowing full well that you are trespassing.

These unsecured accounts had been set up to be able to access Democratic confidential files. And these unsecured accounts were accessed, repeatedly, over a period of many months, by at least one Republican who had to have known that he was going where he should not.

Accounts are, in fact, exactly analogous to apartments in an apartment block. They are isolated separate units, they are supposed to be accessible only with the proper key, everyone knows they are supposed to be locked -- and if you find one where you can jigger the lock and get in without a key, that most certainly does not give you a license to sneak into that apartment every day for the best part of a year and root around to read the occupant's diary and go through her letters and bills.

And what defences are offered? Well, Manuel Miranda -- the guy who claims he's on paternity leave, though Frist's office says he's on leave "pending the results of the investigation" -- says, essentially: "I didn't do it; and if I did, it wasn't stealing because we all work for the government; and anyway it's all the Democrats' fault for not stopping me from stealing stuff." An amateur lawyer, talking himself in deeper. Ironic name, too; somebody should have told him about the famous rule derived from his namesake. You can tell from the rest of the story that he's going to be the one to be left to twist in the wind. It certainly won't be either Frist or Hatch who gets in trouble.

Then there's the Republican assertion that the Democratic tech (the same one who made the mistake?) was told of the error. Maybe he was told, maybe he wasn't. Other staffers, you will note, have said that the assertion isn't true.

Putting the best possible construction on this (ie, supposing the Republicans are not simply making shit up) it might be that the Dem tech in question is not only green enough to have made the mistake, but green enough not to have understood what he was being told. If that's the case, I think he should be asked to get his on-the-job training in some other job.

But even if the tech actually did receive, understand, and fail to act upon the warning, that is not a defense. Not even close. No amount of negligence on a technician's part can make those improperly secured accounts legally accessible to anyone except the individuals the accounts were assigned to.

Repeat: the key word here is account. The Republican(s) logged in using accounts they knew they were not authorized to use. That, guys, is against your very draconian law.

If you want it not to be, then maybe you should look into fixing the law.

Posted by: Canadian Reader at January 22, 2004 04:56 PM | PERMALINK

Jay -- I don't disagree with your statement about the merits of an ethical approach to politics: I'm just not sure that there is much of a cost (in PR terms) to playing hardball.

Posted by: Ben at January 22, 2004 04:58 PM | PERMALINK

Canadian Reader -- you put way too much faith in the accuracy of the story. Parsing words to this degree only works if you are absolutely confident in the accuracy of the words used: is anyone prepared to ascribe that level of accuracy to our media?

Posted by: Ben at January 22, 2004 05:01 PM | PERMALINK

it seems that newer staffers did not have their user permissions restricted such that certain files containing sensitive, Democrat-only docs were accessible to them.

Read again. That's not what the story says. It's perfectly clear. The new accounts in question, Democratic and Republican, were all set up with their correct permissions, but the password protection could be bypassed. The Republicans discovered this hole, and started logging in using the Democrats' accounts.

Posted by: Canadian Reader at January 22, 2004 05:02 PM | PERMALINK

Gryn, some sysadmins use a "convention" for new accounts.

In my case, we used "_987654321" appended to the new user's ID as their temporary password.

However, they couldn't get access to anything other than the "password change page" with that password, and they were forced to change their password on the first access. That passed the Sarbanes/Oxley audit.

Probably, the Repubs were waiting until a new user was set up, then exploiting the short period before the new user changed the default set-up password.

A very savvy hacking technique. In fact, the security expert at my consulting company used a variation on it to win a national hacking competition.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 05:06 PM | PERMALINK

Al wrote: "if our party did something similar like record a private cellphone call"

Gee, Al (and Will), when a Congressman or Congressional staffer from the Democratic Party deliberately sets out to record a private cell phone call, I'm prepared to be just as outraged at that as I am at the despicable actions of the Republican staffers. Let me know when that happens, won't you?

And when that same someone deliberately does this recording for a period of a year, why I'll join right in with you at the outrage you will undoubtedly display. Let me know when that happens, won't you?

Until then, since neither of these things has happened, forgive me if I restrain my sense of moral outrage.

Oh, and Will? Nice try at pretending that apples are oranges, but you know something? I'm still going to call them apples. I'll reiterate my earlier comment: pathetic.

Posted by: PaulB at January 22, 2004 05:07 PM | PERMALINK

Jesurgislac apparently is (still!) yet another illiterate. I never once stated that Republicans weren't criminals (I think many no doubt are) and I explicitly stated that Republicans were ethics-free. Nor did I state that it was o.k. to steal that which one had access to. I explicitly stated that the facts have not been determined, but that it was concievable to place data in an arena in which it was, by prior agreement, shared, and that that placing data into such an arena meant that the data was rightly available to those all those parties. Why such willfull and obvious dishonesty?

My larger point was that Gingrich's illegally obtained and disseminated phone call, and McDermott's continued good standing, clearly establishes that Democrats have no inhibition against using illegally obtained data when it serves their purposes, so all the rhetoric regarding this episode revealing the Republicans to be uniquely immoral or unethical, even if illegality is established, is largely pointless. Have some more kool-aid.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 05:08 PM | PERMALINK

This reminds me very much of the Valerie Plame affair, by the way, in which the usual suspects insisted that this was just business as usual and no crime could possibly have been committed and Valerie Plame couldn't possibly have been a covert operative and anyway, everyone knew, and even if they didn't, well, the whole affair was just too complicated, and so on, ad nauseam.

As each excuse proved to be false, they just shifted to new ground, the most recent example being Instahack who decided that because the Wilson's were in Vanity Fair, therefore, the whole thing couldn't possibly have been anything serious.

All you can do is shake your head and move on. There's nothing you can do with people like that.

Posted by: PaulB at January 22, 2004 05:11 PM | PERMALINK

"but that it was concievable to place data in an arena in which it was, by prior agreement, shared, and that that placing data into such an arena meant that the data was rightly available to those all those parties."

Well, no, Will, it isn't conceivable that this could be the case, which is why you are (correctly) getting excoriated.

"Why such willfull and obvious dishonesty?"

I dunno...I suspect it had something to do with your upbringing.

Posted by: PaulB at January 22, 2004 05:13 PM | PERMALINK

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Posted by: Lord Acton at January 22, 2004 05:13 PM | PERMALINK

Will, how the hell can you still desparately cling to this asshat notion that Democrats would knowingly store strategy memos in an area they knew GOP staffers had access to?

It boggles the mind.

(Of course, we won't go into the pathetically weak McDermott's one violation equals a year of GOP malfeasance you're obsessed with. Hell, you can't even get moral equivalency right!)

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 05:14 PM | PERMALINK

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

Posted by: Aesop at January 22, 2004 05:15 PM | PERMALINK

Under every stone lurks a politician.

Posted by: Aristophanes at January 22, 2004 05:18 PM | PERMALINK

If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very, very low crime rate.

Posted by: Mayor Marion Barry at January 22, 2004 05:20 PM | PERMALINK

Good to see that canadian reader now advocates using news accounts to establish criminal behavior. What is it with you people? I have made no representations as to facts. Got it?

Yet more moral instruction from PaulB. It is an outrage to deliberately set out to illegally intercept and disseminate a private phone call, but less so if one obtains a tape of the call, knowing it was originally illegally obtained and disseminated, and then release it to the public for political advantage. Kind of like saying that driving a knowingly stolen Lexus is less morally problematic than actually stealing one. Also, the 7-11 robber analogy holds; Paul B. apparently believes that the hold-up artist who gets caught after one heist is less ethically challenged than the one who gets caught after several. Your right Paul, that's pathetic.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 05:22 PM | PERMALINK

Will, that's even better than the defense my old housemate used when asked why, after I'd put a whole carton of orange juice in the fridge, it was empty a day later and I hadn't drunk any or even opened the carton. He never thought of saying "I explicitly stated that the facts have not been determined, but that it is concievable to place orange juice in an arena in which it was, by prior agreement, shared, and that placing orange juice into such an arena meant that the orange juice was rightly available to all those parties."

Admittedly, it wouldn't have washed if he had tried saying all that to me, because for me the issue was very simple: it was my orange juice, and he'd drunk it.

"Why such willfull and obvious dishonesty?"

Oddly enough, that's exactly what I wondered about my old housemate. And what I wonder now about you and Al. And about those Republican staffers.

God, what a West Wing episode this would make.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 22, 2004 05:24 PM | PERMALINK

Ras Nesta, how can a Secret Service agent leave the plans for the President's security detail on the counter of an airport gift shop? It is plainly documented that people do inconcievably stupid things all the time, and placing information that was meant to be confidential in an area in which there was by prior agreement shared access wouldn't even be close to the most stupid thing. Furthermore, I have stated, repeatedly (do you actually read other posts?) that illegal activity may have occurred, and I am more than happy to find out if it has. What is it about you that makes impossible to say "I don't know" ? Something genetic?

Yes, I know, Ras, when Democrats use illegally obtained data for political gain, it isn't nearly as serious, because it only happened once (really! we know!) and well, just because.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 05:35 PM | PERMALINK

I just wish I were as morally pure and as intellectually superior as Will Allen. That would be keen. As a purely non-partisan observer, I also wish I had as much time to piss away on nonsense as he apparently does.

Posted by: Paul at January 22, 2004 05:38 PM | PERMALINK

Shorter Will Allen, at 05:35 PM: "How can you be so unjust as to suspect me of siding with thieves, just because you watched me do it!"

Will, the simplest thing for any Republican to do following notice that this crime had been committed by Republican staffers would have been to keep your head down and say nothing. (You notice even Joe Schmoe's kept quiet, for the most part?) The best thing to do would be to say "Yes, it was a crime, and the criminals deserve to be prosecuted" - but that much justice is self-evidently beyond the reach of most Republican bloggers.

Having spent an entire thread trying to convince us that it's really not theft if Republicans do it, you now do a "Who are you going to believe - me or your lying eyes?"

Doesn't wash. Look out for the Ex-Lax.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 22, 2004 05:46 PM | PERMALINK

Folks,

I'm a Republican supporter and I will own up to condemning sleazy behavior. Regardless of the legal result of all this the ongoing invasion of presumably confidential material is just wrong.

Staffers should be fired, members should apologize. To the extent members were aware of the shenanigans they should be censured by the Senate.

There are important issues that have to be worked out. Both sides need to be able to present arguments, strategize and contend in the arena for their beliefs - but within the bounds of accepted behavior. Snooping and "gotcha" revelations of private comments and strategies aren't helpful

As for in here - some of you should be embarassed for the name calling and potty language: it is just so immature. Kevin is a bright, thoughtful guy - treat his site with some respect. Let's try to elevate the discussion, ok?

Posted by: stan at January 22, 2004 05:46 PM | PERMALINK

Stan, I blush for myself. Just as I'm saying that much justice is self-evidently beyond the reach of most Republican bloggers you go and make a liar of me.

I apologise to you and to all the other honest Republicans I slandered.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 22, 2004 05:48 PM | PERMALINK

From Government Computer News.

It appears to be a case of using default security settings in which passwords for new users were left blank or access permissions were left wide open, Rouland said. "It looks like there was a lack of enforcement and auditing of policy."

The key fact that makes this theory cogent is that files only for new users were exposed. I know it says accounts, but I think this is just a non-techie journalist confusing a private home folder associated with a user's new account with the account itself. The blank password hypothesis seems weak since I can't imagine how it wouldn't of been noticed for a whole year. Permissions, on the other hand, can be tricky to catch unless you have sufficient security auditing policies in place.

Since the breach gave access to individual users files (which I interpret to mean home directories) I think the fatfingered share directory perms theory is best. It satisfies my criteria: It's hard for sysadmins to notice, it's an easy hole for casual and curious users to find and fits nicely with exposing data only for new users (not existing ones). A democrats only shared directory doesn't meet the last criteria that was explicitly stated in the article.

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 05:49 PM | PERMALINK

Digger says:

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 121 > Sec. 2701. Sec. 2701. - Unlawful access to stored communications (a) Offense. - Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section whoever - (1) intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided; or (2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility; and thereby obtains, alters, or prevents authorized access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in electronic storage in such system shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
It does not matter one iota whether the Dem's were negligent in securing their data. The fact that the access was unauthorized means that it is illegal.

Digger is right - if access was unauthorized it is illegal.

Question:

On a computer system, if the computer is configured to make a directory available to me with no requirement that I do any kind of hacking or appropriate anyone else's password then isn't access to that document automatically authorized?

To use another example, I sometime play around with Kazaa looking for documents from people who did stupid things like share an entire drive. Is that hacking? Or is it just looking at private documents that someone stupidly gave me access to?

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 05:50 PM | PERMALINK

Jeebus, Will, you don't give up, do you?

Must be something genetic.

The story that we are discussing talks about a year-long pattern of trespassing by the GOP staffers. Information from internal Democratic memos were leaked to the press.

Them's the facts, and no spin from an ignorant GOP hack is going to change it.

"name calling and potty language", Stan? Hope you don't collapse from the vapors before you head back to the school marm convention.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 05:50 PM | PERMALINK

Yes, Mike, that's hacking.

The "open door" example is supremely apt in this case. Just because someone's front door is open doesn't mean that you have the right to come on in and rummage through the drawers.

This is just simple ethics, folks. Keep you nose out of other people's business or files.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 05:56 PM | PERMALINK

Also, the 7-11 robber analogy holds; Paul B. apparently believes that the hold-up artist who gets caught after one heist is less ethically challenged than the one who gets caught after several. Your right Paul, that's pathetic.

Except that in the case of McDermott he wasn't caught, he came publicly forward with what he was given that somebody found, not stole (which wasn't simply the Republican congressional strategy, it was a Republican double-cross strategy. Figures.) The Republicans who were stealing Dem files were actually caught . . . a year later.

Jeeze will, for someone claiming to be non-partisan you have an awful lot of Republican jiz on your chin.

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 06:03 PM | PERMALINK

"your nose", dammit!

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 06:03 PM | PERMALINK

Ras,

It seems to me that the use of "name calling and potty language" indicates that the user either

a) enjoys doing it, which says they are immature or have no taste
b) does it to intimidate, which says they aren't totally confident of their argument
c) does it to gloat (they are confident in their argument), which indicates they are a bully

what's your motivation?

Posted by: Stan at January 22, 2004 06:11 PM | PERMALINK

Stan, what's your motivation for engaging in cheap psychoanalytic babble?

Posted by: Sander at January 22, 2004 06:17 PM | PERMALINK

Stan, my motivation to curse is:

1. A government that sat on its hands about terrorism until 9/11, over the objections of the outgoing administration, even after the Cole bombing in October of 2000.

2. That we've spent over $170,000,000,000 and 500 soldiers to find the same thing the UN found in Iraq: bupkus.

3. A government that conceals even the list of names that helped write industry-friendly energy policy.

4. A government that exploits people's ignorance of how averaging works to sell tax cuts that give millions nothing and the few hundreds of thousands each.

Should I go on?

I just think that there are more important things than "potty mouth" in soon-to-be-forgotten blog comment thread.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 06:22 PM | PERMALINK

Stan, welcome to the Internet. Whether it's lack of personal contact or anonymity, lots of otherwise pleasant people will call people names and use inapropriate language. I don't think it correlates well with the quality of a person's argument, or that person's confidence in it. I do think it correlates well with a quick temper. Personally, I tend to swear more in person than I do in email or on-line, but I may be an exception.

This particular forum is pretty mild anyway. If you want to see some real bad language and personal attacks, I could direct you to a number of right-wing sites...

Posted by: M. at January 22, 2004 06:23 PM | PERMALINK

Warning: Ignoramuses at work...

Gryn says:

I have witnessed successfully prosecuted corporate intellectual property theft cases in this matter which bear a striking similarity to what went on here.

Gryn, has it ocurred to you that the only IP rights tied to these documents are copyrights? (If they described strategies to block a confirmation the Democrats might arguably be able to prevent the Republicans from using those same strategies against Democratic nominees, but I somehow don't think the Democrats would want to try to make that case.)

So, unless the Republicans are stupid enough to put the docs in a book or make them publicly available on the Internet I'm curious what kind of IP prosecution you are imagining.

And then of course we have Spork...

Unless the Repub staffer ASKED the person who made the file, the access was NOT authorized. Authorization requires an affirmative action, it is not the default state.

So Sporky, baby, did you ask Kevin for permission to read the files at Calpundit.com? No? Well, "Authorization requires an affirmative action, it is not the default state." Go directly jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Please report yourself to the police.

What a maroon!

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 06:27 PM | PERMALINK

Stan:

How about
d) attempting to communicate in a language the recipient has the best chance to understand.

As to your efforts to point out other's use of language that bothers you, do you do it because

a) you enjoy the superiority that comes with correcting others
b)you feel the need to show yourself more mature than others (classic insecurity)
c) you do it to exercise control over others (passive aggressive)

You have to know that by drawing attention to such language it does nothing to diminish its use. So I ask, what's your motivation?

Posted by: Thumb at January 22, 2004 06:29 PM | PERMALINK

spc67, I disagree with you quite often here. But your post is right on the money. That?s all I want to hear from the Republicans. stan's post is another good one that deserves to be singled out.

All defense of this unethical behavior is hypocrisy.

As to Will Allen's repeated use of personal attacks in favor of arguments in the very posts where he attempts to decry such behavior, the less said the better; as to his laughable argument that stealing a wallet isn't stealing a wallet, well, there are those who believe in morality and those who believe "it's only wrong if you get caught." The question of who originated the analogy isn?t relevant given his propagation of said analogy with such details as to still render the behavior unethical. It still involves knowingly taking something as yours material that manifestly is not. Perhaps in some bizzaro universe this isn?t considered theft, but in the real world it still is.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 06:31 PM | PERMALINK

Sorry Stan, but to Mike I've got to say "For fuck's sake!"

You are the maroon if you can't tell the difference between a public Web site and a server file folder full of strategy memos.

Once the again the utterly stupid, "The Dmocrats purposefully put their strategy memos where Republicans could read them." Blame the victim.

This getting too idiotic.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 06:34 PM | PERMALINK

Warning: Ignoramuses at work

Republicans == Classy!

Of course I wasn't stating this as an IP theft case, but stating that the legal basis that my company uses when detecting unauthorized access to data internally (for which granted permissions to access does not factor) is enough to prosecute on. Usually if nothing was done with the data the company will usually just dismiss the employee rather than threaten to take to court, but nonetheless the opportunity to do so is still there.

What is plain to anyone who has been following this thread is that your interest not lie in getting at the truth of the matter, but in merely scoring cheap partisan points using ad hominum attacks and mischaracterization. You make the case to readers of this thread better than I could at the craven political opportunistic culture that has taken control of the conservative movement of late.

There used to be a time where both liberals and conservatives could participate in a dialectic of healthy discourse. I long for where conservatives reject your ilk so we can return those days.

Posted by: Gryn at January 22, 2004 06:48 PM | PERMALINK

Mike, first off, let me get the ad-hominem out of the way right of the bat. You're a drooling idiot.

With that taken care of, on the point. The difference is in the intent of the owner. If it is only available because of ineffective security, it is not considered a public area. Kevin intends for others to read his site. In his case, implicit permission is given by posting it to the web on a public server, with no access restrictions. I breach no security barriers to get here. If there was password box that came up intended to keep this a private site, and he mistakenly made it so hitting escape would bypass it, he still intended these documents to be private, and I would be "hacking" if I proceeded any further. Or, as the statute says, "exceeding authorized access". In this case the Democratic staffers obviously intended these documents to remain private. They even took the affirmative action of implementing ineffective security. Any attempt to bypass that security, no matter how bad or misconfigured it is, is a crime.

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 06:50 PM | PERMALINK

Sander - I was trying to change behavior because I thought it would help the process.

Ras -

1) You understand this thread of terrorism began at least in the WTC bombing of 1993 - and any gov't is constrained by what action the public will accept based on the perceived threat - which changed on 9/11.
2) The $170B wasn't spent to just "find" WMD - it was to stop a violent regime before it's capability (threat) was imminent.
3) Gov't's been hiding stuff for a long time - Hillary's Health Care Commission never disclosed and didn't even account for the millions it spent.
4) Tax policy is a very complicated discussion to have - it's already top heavy and the bottom 50% already pay no income tax. Shaw described it best: "The gov't that robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul."x

You can go on if you like - but I have to go for now - but I will check in tomorrow...

M - yes, I see it on the right as well - don't like it there either. You're right about the anonymous thing - I think a lot of posters like to be something they are not in real life for whatever reason.

- Ciao

Posted by: stan at January 22, 2004 06:58 PM | PERMALINK

Man, Spork, wouldn't you hate to live next door to some of these Republicans?

You'd have to watch your back all the time, or else they'd steal everything that wasn't nailed down!

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 06:58 PM | PERMALINK

Actually Ras, I do know a few. And, thanks to my ranting, a few less of them are republicans. These guys are just trolls, I go to tacitus to find republicans actually worth arguing with.

Posted by: Spork at January 22, 2004 07:02 PM | PERMALINK

1. I see the potential of a different kind of Plame game at work here: That investigation has sort of fizzled out, and the last I heard it is unlikely there will be any prosecutions. Lesson: Perhaps we should be sure about the facts before we talk about the alleged illegality. Maybe laws were broken, maybe they weren't; we don't know. I don't deny that this was an ethical lapse, but that's a lot different than a crime.

2. Saying that either political party is more ethical than the other is rather like arguing over whether John Dillinger or Baby Face Nelson was a bigger criminal. There are some Republicans who are ethical and some who aren't; the same applies to Democrats. Neither side can claim virtue, so let's drop that argument.

Posted by: Ben at January 22, 2004 07:05 PM | PERMALINK

stan,

1) You understand that this thread of terrorism began at least as early as the Beirut bombing in 1983 that had Reagan pulling out and demonstrating that America could be cowed with a simple truck bomb. A lesson apparently learned by McVeigh and the rest of his merry band.

2) You do realize that there was no threat, there was no ability to make that threat immanent, and there are more than 500 of our soldiers dead because Bush claimed otherwise.

3) Tendentious examples without any sourcing aren?t evidence. They just make you look small and partisan.

4) I?m glad to see that you are honest enough to include the phrase ?income tax? (seriously, many conservatives ?imply? this so that they can mislead, it is good to see someone include this), but unfortunately by limiting yourself to about half of the collections made by the Federal Government, your point is still less than fully truthful. Your quote works though, and that explains why the wealthy are still voting themselves tax cuts out of the overpayments from the working class.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 07:09 PM | PERMALINK

Oh, we'd be so surprised if the GOP-owned government finds that the GOP did nothing wrong in the Plame affair.

Nobody's saying that all Republicans broke into Senate Democratic computer files. The Senate Judiciary Republicans broke into Senate Democratic computer files.

The contents of Democratic strategy memos didn't "miracle" their way into Novak's column.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 07:10 PM | PERMALINK

Ben, I disagree about just letting the matter drop. It may not be good politics, but the Dems need to stop turning the other cheek and send a message to the Republicans. If the facts in this case are what they appear to be, somebody needs to be held responsible.

Posted by: M. at January 22, 2004 07:13 PM | PERMALINK

Ras Nesta says:

Sorry Stan, but to Mike I've got to say "For fuck's sake!"
You are the maroon if you can't tell the difference between a public Web site and a server file folder full of strategy memos.

I can tell the difference. Relevance please?

I'm not the idiot who said that you have to be explicitly told a file is public or else it's unauthorized access. That was Spork. Suggest you discuss the matter with him.

Spork says:

If it is only available because of ineffective security, it is not considered a public area.

I don't think that's correct. Say that Kevin gets fed up with us arguing and goes to his ISP and uses their control panel to shut off access to his blog for everyone except him. But their system is misconfigured so we go in and to us everything looks normal - we get normal access.

Are we guilty of unauthorized access? I don't think so.

Kevin intends for others to read his site. In his case, implicit permission is given by posting it to the web on a public server, with no access restrictions.

Agreed. What about if he put a file on a shared server with no access restrictions? Would that also be implicit permission to other people who are authorized to use that shared server?

I breach no security barriers to get here. If there was password box that came up intended to keep this a private site, and he mistakenly made it so hitting escape would bypass it, he still intended these documents to be private, and I would be "hacking" if I proceeded any further. Or, as the statute says, "exceeding authorized access".

Agreed. But say there was no password dialog? (As there would not have been in this case if directory permissions were misconfigured)?

In this case the Democratic staffers obviously intended these documents to remain private. They even took the affirmative action of implementing ineffective security. Any attempt to bypass that security, no matter how bad or misconfigured it is, is a crime.

Say that there was no security - that all accounts were totally public - and a Democratic staffer put confidential files on the server and a Republican read them. Would that be a crime? Given that there was no security to bypass? Not by my reading of the quoted statutes, even if the Democratic staffer did not realize that there was no security on the server.

Or say that there was security on some parts of the server but a Democratic staffer accidentally put the files in a place where there was no security and a Republican staffer read them. Would that be a crime?

I don't think this behavior was ethical, but I'm not at all sure it was a crime and I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of criminalizing it.

I think that for unauthorized access to files to be a crime there has to be some reasonable security to bypass. If Amazon is stupid enough to leave a file of credit card numbers up where it gets indexed by Google and I can find it through a search I'm not willing to consider accessing it a crime. (What I do with those number may be a crime but accessing it should not be.)

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 07:31 PM | PERMALINK

M. -- If laws were broken, the law should pursue this matter. I have argued above that Dems should stay above the fray for PR reasons. Attacking the Repubs for this may feel good, but it isn't going to help your cause with the public: it makes you look (a) stupid for being duped and (b) whiney for not being able to take a hit.

Lori --
1. Terrorism began before 1983 -- the current round of terrorism was first successfully used in Munich, 1972; our credibility problems in the Middle East date back to at least Iran, 1979, and you could plausibly argue Suez Crisis, 1956. Our problem in the Middle East dates back over a number of administrations of both parties, and I think both sides have to be very careful with their accusations since both live in glass houses.
2. That's a matter of opinion. GWB said that in the post 9/11 world, we had to stop Iraq before it became an imminent threat. There is a credible case to be made that he was right, and I agree with that case. There is also a credible case to be made to the contrary. The point is that each side has a credible case to make, and you should acknowledge as much. The point: Your opinion on the war is just that--an opinion, not fact.
3. See my point #2 in the preceding post. Pots and Kettles.
4. Tax policy boils largely down to matters of opinion. Again, there is a credible case to be made on both sides of the issue; neither can be said to be "right" or "wrong." There are simply different effects for different policies.

Posted by: Ben at January 22, 2004 07:38 PM | PERMALINK

The abject dishonesty here is breathtaking. I never once stated that I knew that no wrongdoing had ocurred. I said that the facts were not undisputed, nor even well known. That happens to be a fact, so assertions to the contrary are lies.

-Jesurgislac; are you truly illiterate, and thus unable to understand the meaning of a statement in support of issuing subpeonas, and prosecutions when evidence of criminal activity is established, or do you normally lie about people being in support of criminal activity? Just answer the question.

Thumb, you are a liar in your description of the Gingrich tape. McDermott publicly disseminated illegally obtained electronic data for purpose of damaging a political opponent, exactly as the case is here, except that it has yet to proven in a court that crime was committed in this instance, and McDermott's case involved one piece of illegally obtained data, instead of several. You seem to think this makes McDermott less ethically challenged, for some reason. Actually, the reason is clear; McDermott is on your side. Thanks for proving my point.

Lori, you are consistently dishonest in your misrepresentation of what types of analogies have been put forth, and thus what those analogies mean. Why does it serve your purposes to lie? No, object A is not stolen if two parties agree beforehand that an object placed in area B is free for either party's use, and object A is placed in area B. The parties have agreed to what conditions will allow either party to take possession of something, and those conditions have been met. Thus, no theft has occurred. Are you truly obtuse, or merely dishonest? As to personal attacks, Lori, feel free to examine every exchange that we have had. In EVERY instance, it has been you who started down that road, and this was no exception. I'd be happy to have an invective-free exchange, but apparently it is the only way you know how to communicate with those with whom you disagree. That and the dishonest misrepresentations, of course.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 22, 2004 07:55 PM | PERMALINK

Sigh. There is no end to the stupid, illogical arguments here. Sure, Will, the Democrats had an agreement with the Republicans for the Republicans to share their strategy memos with Bob Novak. Your capacity for deep thought astounds.

Obviously, none of you morons have ever held a position of responsiblility in an IT organization. If you have, you are completely incompetent or dishonest.

There is absolutely no difference between what happened here and the Judiciary Republicans finding an unlocked office door, letting themselves in, and going through the Democrat's file cabinets. NONE.

Split hairs all you want.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 08:12 PM | PERMALINK

Will, your dishonesty is nothing short of breathtaking. To suggest that a known personal item would not be an implicit exception demonstrates a severe deficit in interpersonal relations. The wallet, purse, or confidential documents (you know, the items actually under discussion) are obvious exceptions to any agreement. To take any of them and, in particular, to disseminate the information contained in the documents is an obvious ethical breach. That you can condemn the behavior of McDermott shows that you can see ethical lapses; that you defend more egregious behavior with tortured analogies merely demonstrates a lack of moral compass when your ox is being gored. Oh, and sorry, but a pattern of unethical behavior is more worthy of condemnation than a single breach.

Ben
1) stan gave a partisan example, mine was merely a reflection of that

2) This is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of record. The inspectors found nothing because there was nothing to find. Tortured intelligence was presented to the American people in order to sell them on an unprovoked invasion. There was no credible case that Hussein presented a threat within the prospective tenure of the Bush White House. Claiming otherwise is merely fantasy.

3) Giving a partisan example without any evidence still isn?t convincing. Ever. I haven?t made any assertion as to the quality of the underlying point, but the example undermines his argument.

4) Tax policy is not merely opinion, and misrepresenting the facts (claiming that the wealthy are being overtaxed by leaving out half of all Federal collections) isn?t a good way to have an honest debate.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 08:17 PM | PERMALINK

I'll do those of you that think nosing around with your computer is hunky-dory a favor.

Some competent admins such as myself have audit logs of file or folder access and if we find you fucking around on our systems, your ass will be fired.

You'll have shown yourself to be untrustworthy, and when you're protecting "holiest of holy" financial info as I do, you'll be seen as a corporate spy.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 08:25 PM | PERMALINK

Let?s use a more instructive example than merely a purse or wallet. Now, Will has left his wallet out again in the common area he keeps referring to (agreement and warning still intact) with the results of his AIDS test (positive) and I take this out, photocopy it, return it, and take out a personal ad proclaiming this for all to see (I would reversed the hypothetical, but Mr. Allen has just been so obnoxious and hypocritical that I thought this was more appropriate). Have I done anything unethical Mr. Allen?

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 22, 2004 08:44 PM | PERMALINK

Ras Nasta says:

I'll do those of you that think nosing around with your computer is hunky-dory a favor.
Some competent admins such as myself have audit logs of file or folder access and if we find you fucking around on our systems, your ass will be fired.

You'll have shown yourself to be untrustworthy, and when you're protecting "holiest of holy" financial info as I do, you'll be seen as a corporate spy.

I don't think Ras Nasta has the position he claims.

I've worked for public companies on their financial reporting. The key worry in this area is not corporate spies but insider trading.

When we got our warnings on this stuff no one mentioned corporate espionage. The lecture was about the SEC and just how badly you did not want them 8 inches up your ass.

I think Ras Nasta would know that if he did what he claims he does.

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 08:49 PM | PERMALINK

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gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bush

Posted by: al at January 22, 2004 09:01 PM | PERMALINK

Mike, for your information, I just finished a 4 1/2 year consulting engagement for one of the largest biotech companies in the world. Since we had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of research records on our computers, we took security seriously.

I was responsible for designing and feeding over 100 GBs of Essbase databases on four very large Windows servers containing the consolidated financial data from over 300 worldwide legal entities. There were line items in my databases for everything from research outlays to payroll. One of my last tasks was managing the Sarbanes/Oxley audit.

One of the control activities in the SarbOx audit was managing access to the files on the database servers.

So before you go demeaning what fellow forum participants know, I suggest you know what the fuck you're talking about before you open your piehole and make an asshole of yourself.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 09:02 PM | PERMALINK

And, Mike, just so you'll know I know, only those high enough in the Finance hierarchy to be given access to the total company's fully consolidated numbers were required to sign an insider agreement. I did.

Hundreds of my users didn't have to because I locked them down to slices of the database. So fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 09:12 PM | PERMALINK

Well, there you go again...

100GBs of consolidated financial data? I don't think so...

Consider... a typical TX record is about 200 bytes at most. Add overhead (which can be considerable) and you get 1K.

100GBs would be 100 million records.

Doesn't sound like consolidated financial data to me.

If you're a credit card company and you have a record for every credit card TX or a retail store with a record for ever line item then I believe it. But records at that level are very rarely consolidated and fed up the chain for financial reporting.

Big data warehouses or a corporate wide financials system often do collect data at that level, but that's not what Ras Nasta says he was doing.

Payroll line items as part of consolidated financial results is highly unusual.

And Ras, let me ask you again, isn't the issue here insider trading, not corporate spying? Why did you get that wrong?

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 09:21 PM | PERMALINK

Essbase is a high-performance MOLAP (multi-dimensional OLAP) database, asshole.

Ever heard of "dimensional explosion"? Go look it up before you make yourself look more ignorant. "Records", such as in an Oracle database are meaningless, density and sparsity define the disk size of an OLAP database. A bulk load into one of my cubes from Oracle would be around 4.5 million records, with 11 fields.

Like I said, the data in my databases could easily be used in corporate espionage. Essbase is extremely high-performance allowing the storage of lots of detail. The dollars spent on research for various products or specific locations could be very helpful to spies.

So again, fuck you and your ad hominen attack.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 09:35 PM | PERMALINK

You know, Ras, most honest people when confronted with something like this politely explain why the other person is wrong.

Liars, on the other hand, usually froth at the mouth to divert attention.

Your hysterical response just helps convince me that I'm right.

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 09:46 PM | PERMALINK

Oh, it's all about politeness, now?

Your non-response to my "hysterical" factual points shows that you don't know what the hell you're talking about, Mike.

I've responded with facts, and that's all that you have?

Smarter trolls, please.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 10:46 PM | PERMALINK

Then again, I guess I should be more polite to ignorant partisan assholes who launch ad hominen attacks on me.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 10:59 PM | PERMALINK

Ras,

I've worked with MOLAP.

And one thing you rarely do in MOLAP is include individual detail records like Payroll line items.

Just doesn't smell right...

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 11:03 PM | PERMALINK

To be honest, at this point my best guess is that you exaggerated for effect rather than making up a completely untrue story and that you're now trying to avoid being pinned down for it.

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 11:05 PM | PERMALINK

Will Allen said: "Similarly, if staffers put data on a shared computer, and don't use passwords to restrict access, there is no legitimate expectation of privacy." - Actually, Will, there is, as was carefully explained to you.

"The taping of a cell phone call, by electronic scanning of the airwaves, is much more clearly a violation of legitimate expectation of privacy than is accessing the files of a shared computer, files that are not password-protected." - Actually, Will, the routine accessing of private files for over a year is much more clearly a violation of the legitimate expectation of privacy than is any one-off incident.

"The analogy I would draw is with real estate law, in which if someone nortoriously uses or occupies property for period of time (varying by state, and usually 7-20 years), and the owner makes no attempt to evict, the squatter may gain title." - Actually, this was the point when I concluded you had gone over line into actual support of criminal activity.

You started out by denying that illegitimate access to obviously-private files is a crime. It was explained to you carefully that yes, it is a crime. From that point, using various silly analogies, you attempted (much as my long-ago housemate attempted) to argue that even if accessing private files is normally a crime, if the owner of the house leaves his door unlocked, it's not really a crime to walk in, look around, take whatever interests you, and keep doing it for a year.

And when people point out to you that you are siding with the criminals and that this makes you look pretty damned dishonest, you accuse them of being illiterate? I'd say the problem is that we read what you wrote. You may wish you hadn't said it, but the solution for that is dead simple, Will: say so, and apologize.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 22, 2004 11:08 PM | PERMALINK

Who are you to critique the level of detail in our SG&A line items? We had over 750 line items in our Chart of Accounts. Anyway, the 100GB figure was for multiple cubes.

As I said before, Essbase's performance allows greater detail. That's why it costs around $3,000/user. (Our maintenance bill was over $40,000/year.) We averaged around 25,000 retrieves (queries) per month at 3.5 seconds per retrieve.

The fact still remains that people should not "fish around" servers at work. You could be caught, with severe consequences. In this SarbOx age, we're watching.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 22, 2004 11:14 PM | PERMALINK

When you say a "payroll line item" I assume you mean an individual line item from a paycheck, such as one worker's May 2003 FICA contribution.

If so, 750 COA items is not nearly enough - you would need one for each employee.

The fact still remains that people should not "fish around" servers at work. You could be caught, with severe consequences. In this SarbOx age, we're watching.

Well, that I'll certainly agree with. But the question here is whether a crime was committed.

Posted by: Mike at January 22, 2004 11:50 PM | PERMALINK

Mike, why do you have any question as to whether illegal accessing of private files is a crime? It's been thoroughly explained further up that yes, it is. Go re-read the thread from the beginning.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 23, 2004 12:05 AM | PERMALINK

This is too much. Mike, we provide the detail the corporate controllership and the Board of Directors need to manage the business. With 10,000 employees, any idiot would see that consolidated payroll reports are required.

That doesn't mean that the summary payroll line items crossed with geographical and product criteria aren't sensitive information.

Quit being willfully ignorant.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 23, 2004 12:15 AM | PERMALINK

Jesurgislac and Lori still can't read. Help is available. If party A and party B have previously agreed that information placed in area C is available to those with legitimate access to area C, the act of placing the information in area C renders the information non-private, rendering Jesurgislac's statement of...

"You started out by denying that illegitimate access to obviously-private files is a crime"

false, because the act of placing information in an area designated public or shared means that it is logically impossible for the information to be obviously private, because the previous agreement defined any information placed there non-private. If it is previously agreed that any information placed in area x is to be shared, then the placement of information in that area logically renders the information non-private.

One more time, if my neighbor and I agree to co-own a detached garage, and all the contents placed in that garage, except for those items placed in individual closets within the gararge, and I place my mountain bike in the garage but not in the closet, my neighbor has done no wrong by using my mountain bike, regardless of the fact that I really meant to put the bike in my closet,but simply forgot. Your analogy with the refrigerator doesn't apply to the circumstances I have hypothesized, becauseyou and the other person did not agree that items placed in the refrigerator were free for anyone with refrigerator access.

So yes, Lori, if I previously agree that if I place any data in an area designated shared, it is then available for others' use, then my placement of personal data in that area means I have given consent for others to use that information. Now, an ethical person would certainly re-check with me upon seeing something as sensitive as an AIDS test result, and medical data may require a more specific release, but I don't know what the specific law is regarding memos placed in a shared file, and believe it or not, I don't think Calpundit's comments section is the place to get top-notch information regarding jurisprudence. Furthermore, as I have already noted, I think most Republicans in positions of power are largely free of ethical restraint. Also, no, we cannot know what items constitute an obvious legal exception without knowing what the previous agreement was. Details matter.

As to relative ethical standards, no I don't consider the person who uses illegally obtained electronic data to harm a political opponent once any ethically superior to someone who does it several times, just as I don't consider someone who engages in premediated murder once ethically superior to someone who does it several times. I do think that the higher up an offender is, the less well it reflects on an organization, and will note that McDermott is a sitting Congressman. We shall see if any elected Republicans are involved with these activities, criminal or not.

Again (sigh) I have no idea what the arrangement was between the parties here, or even if there were files on the computer that the parties had agreed to share access to. I undertand that the words "I don't know" are heretical to you both, but it is a heresy that you might benefit from, particularly when you, astounding and unusual as it may be, are not actually in full possession of all the undisputed facts. Really, I know you can say it, if you really, really, try hard:

I DON'T KNOW

See, I knew ya could!!!!

Finally, before you go on another rant that indicates your inability or unwillingness to read, would you finally note that I agreed (way, way, back) that criminal activity may have occurred, and would be fine with having subpeonas issued to determine whether that was the case?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 12:42 AM | PERMALINK

Jesurgislac says:

Mike, why do you have any question as to whether illegal accessing of private files is a crime? It's been thoroughly explained further up that yes, it is. Go re-read the thread from the beginning.

Duh... illegally doing anything is a crime.

The question, however, is whether or not the access is illegal if the sysadmin accidentally grants you access.

Obviously, if he deliberately grants you access it is legal.

Does the fact that it was an accident change things?

If Kevin wants to shut off access to this blog but he makes a mistake and we all can still read it are we committing a crime? I don't think so...

Posted by: Mike at January 23, 2004 01:17 AM | PERMALINK

Well Will, you certainly have a unique view of ethics. The criminal justice system, for example, seems to place higher penalties on those who repeatedly violate the law. In some states, they even have cute little catch phrases like ?three strikes and you?re out.?

Your silly analogies with mountain bikes, your use of which only harms me for that period of time that you have prevented me from using it, and other such nonsense are nothing more than distractions. The analogy of your AIDS test is much more accurate because it involves sensitive data that we both know is sensitive, it involves my actively disseminating such data expressly to harm you, and we have agreed that it would be unethical. I understand that you are attempting to spin this in such a way as to make this ethical lapse seem small by comparison to one that bothers you because it wasn?t ?your side,? but it doesn?t work. All you are doing is promoting a sort of sliding scale morality; a kind of ?if I do something bad, you can do something worse and it?s okay? ideal. That?s sleazy as is anyone who adheres to such a philosophy. And as much as you try to spin it otherwise, a single event is pretty much never as unethical as a pattern of behavior. And we know this is a pattern because we know that more than one leak occurred.

See, the problem I have isn?t whether you admitted that subpoenas should be granted, it is that you keep pretending there is some situation where ?implicit permission was granted? merely because someone failed to provide adequate security. An unlocked door is not an invitation. Disseminating information I know is sensitive is unethical. Repeatedly doing so goes beyond merely unethical into downright disgusting.

You are right ? I don?t know that an agreement you invented for argument?s sake doesn?t exist. But I don?t agree, even in the unlikely case that any such agreement exists, that this makes the revolting behavior on the part of the Republican Party any less so.

And Mike, the issue is more like you accidentally discovered that you could read Mr. Drum?s financial records. You would know that he didn?t intend for you to have them, and while finding them might or might not be unethical (depends on how ? but if you notified him and he failed to fix the problem then repeatedly using the same method to get them definitely demonstrates malice on your part), posting them elsewhere would be ? especially if you did it with the intent of harming our host.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 23, 2004 02:01 AM | PERMALINK

Apparently "Mike" is another one of the clueless pontificating phoneys that tend to clutter the blogsphere that gets off on claiming professionals don`t know what they are talking about because he can`t understand it himself ("If I don`t know about it must be a lie" in short form)

Ras, among others, really does sound to me, with a background in physical & cyber security, software development & related technical subjects, like they know what they are posting about

Of course, as I mentioned above, people that have never been around the higher levels of this stuff tend to think it is all a big lie when they are in over their experience level

such transparent primate chest pounding...tsk, tsk

"Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know." - M. King Hubbert

Posted by: daCascadian at January 23, 2004 02:45 AM | PERMALINK

Shorter Rethuglican apologists:
"Anything not nailed down is ours.
Anthing we can pry loose wasn't nailed down."

With apologies to Oscar Wilde

Posted by: Dr. Morpheus at January 23, 2004 03:32 AM | PERMALINK

Will, are you really, really, fantasising that Democrat and Republican staffers had an agreement that that confidential files would be "mutually available"?

Again, you beat out my housemate hands down for verbiage, but your attitude to theft is similar: if it was in an "area designated shared" (the fridge we both used), he figured he had right of access to it. You appear to think the same.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 23, 2004 03:53 AM | PERMALINK

Jesurgislac,

The sysadmin who set up the server was responsible for setting access policies.

And he apparently gave the Republicans access to the Democrats' files.

I believe that makes the access authorized...

Was in unethical to take the info? Certainly. Illegal? I'm not at all sure.

Posted by: Mike at January 23, 2004 04:59 AM | PERMALINK

Mike, take the pills, go back to sleep. This has been done to death already: even Will Allen isn;t doing more than fight a rearguard action about how he never said that theft was okay with him if Republicans did it, he just said that it wasn't really theft if you didn't nail down your wallet...

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 23, 2004 05:31 AM | PERMALINK

Will,

A quick clarification: would I be correct in saying that, for you, the number of times a sin or crime is committed has no bearing on the moral or ethical standing of the person? IOW, that committing act X once is morally or ethically equivalent ten times, or a hundred?

And that being said, do you at least recognize -- though whether you choose to accept is, of course, another issue -- that many people do, in fact, distinguish on this datum?

Posted by: Anarch at January 23, 2004 06:20 AM | PERMALINK

And he apparently gave the Republicans access to the Democrats' files.

I believe that makes the access authorized...

Close your eyes and tap your heels together 3 times Dorothy!

This particular horse is so dead and so beat up we should be making a hearty stew out of it by now.

Posted by: Gryn at January 23, 2004 06:32 AM | PERMALINK

Will,

I see you did not heed my earlier post.

Posted by: H. L. Mencken at January 23, 2004 06:42 AM | PERMALINK

Mike,

Glad to see that you agree this was unethical. That's the question Kevin started with, and that's the important one here.

As Will keeps pointing out, with tiresome regularity, this may not be a case of illegal activity (although I'd guess that it is). So what? Plenty of things are unethical without being illegal. In this case, the activity was ethically wrong, the people involved knew that it was wrong -- Orrin Hatch knows that it was wrong, and the Sergeant-at-Arms knows that it's wrong -- and they kept doing it.

Although that's what it sometimes sounds like, I don't think anyone here is proposing that G.O.P. staffers found memos (that were subsequently leaked to the press) and said to themselves "My, my, I just can't tell whether these were meant to be shared files, or whether they were not intended for my eyes?" Of course that's not what they thought, and yet they continued to look through the files for a year. That's behavior I wouldn't accept from my four-year-old, and it's behavior that I wouldn't accept from my elected representatives.

As for me, I think that playing Newt Gingrich's cell phone conversation was also wrong, but not as wrong as this. For what it's worth, if I still lived in New Jersey, I wouldn't vote for Jim McDermott. Will Allen obviously wouldn't, either. I wonder whether he would also not vote for any of the G.O.P. members who took advantage of data gathered unethically in this case?

H.L.: Go back to your eternal rest. Mike Royko was a better writer than you were, was with us more recently, and would have had something more relevant to say than your jibe about faith.

Posted by: Keith at January 23, 2004 07:03 AM | PERMALINK

At this point, it can only be concluded that J and Lori are simply dishonest, in that they have deliberately, consistently, misrepresented the views of people they disagree with. No J, your refrigrator analogy fails because your agreement, while entailing a shared refrigerator, does not entail an agreement to share the contents. My analogy does entail an agreement to share the contents placed in a shared area, which means that anything placed there is automatically non-private . I don't think you are too stupid to understand the distinction, but since you have repeatedly acted as if you are, it can only be concluded that you are dishonest. Why you think engaging in such blatant dishonesty (like saying I don't think stealing a wallet is theft if it isn't nailed down, when what I really said is that it isn't theft if there was a prior agreement that a discarded wallet would be considered shared property) is useful is puzzling, but many things are puzzling.

Lori is dishonest (yet again) in that she claims that I have stated that this affair is less ethically challenged than the McDermott affair. Of course, this flies in the face of my direct language to the opposite, that stated that I could envision any number of scenarios in which the behavior was equally unethical and even illegal. Lori doesn't want to have an honest exchange of views, so she makes stuff up (like the lie she engages in when she states that I claimed that one persons bad act made another person's bad act "okay") regarding what people have written. In fact, my major point, other than the heretical statement (for lori and J) that I didn't know the facts of the matter, was that neither political party could be judged ethically superior to another (which, all Lori's lies aside, is not synonymous with saying tnat any bad act is "okay") regarding this issue, because neither party had inhibition against illegally (certain in the McDermott case, less so in this instance) or unethically obtained electronic data in order to harm a political opponent.

Lori's and J's Faith is dependent on their sense of moral superiority, so when people they are allied with engage in the behavior they decry, well, it flies in the face of their Faith, so rationalizations like "He didn't do it as often!" are pursued, ignoring the fact that Lori and J have no idea how often it was done, and as if tolerating bad acts on the part of one's allies doesn't seriously harm the credibility of moral condemnation issued when one's enemies engage in trhe same behavior.

Yes, I understand that repeated bad acts are usually treated more harshly than one single bad act. However, when one tolerates the deliberate bad acts of one's allies, and, in fact fails to demands an attempt at restitution or acknowledgement to the wronged party, then one has abandoned any reasonable claim to being ethically superior to another entity, even if that entity has engaged in the same bad acts repeatedly, since the failure to attempt to rectify the matter entails an implicit acknowledgement that one has no regrets for having engaged in the bad acts.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 07:17 AM | PERMALINK

No J, your refrigrator analogy fails because your agreement, while entailing a shared refrigerator, does not entail an agreement to share the contents.

Which is exactly the case with Republican and Democratic staffers using the same server to store their files. They're using the same server, as I and my roommate were using the same fridge, but they have made no agreement to share the files they store on the server with each other.

My analogy does entail an agreement to share the contents placed in a shared area, which means that anything placed there is automatically non-private.

And you're seriously claiming the Republican accessing of Democrat memos as an example of bipartisan cooperation, until the Dems welshed on it and claimed the Republicans had been doing it against their will? Really, seriously, Will, is this what you think?

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 23, 2004 07:34 AM | PERMALINK

Will Allen: if I previously agree that if I place any data in an area designated shared, it is then available for others' use, then my placement of personal data in that area means I have given consent for others to use that information.

The plain meaning of this is that you have imagined an agreement (without any factual basis), and have concocted a scenario where this means implicit consent. The fact is I disagree that such a scenario would ever cover data known to be sensitive by both parties, as would any ethicist ? you admitted as much when talking about my telling everyone about your having AIDS. We KNOW (and I know you hate that certain facts are clear at this point, but we do, in fact, know this) that the Republicans used this data more than once. We know that they knew it was not for public consumption. And we know that they released it with malice. Whining about McDermott doesn?t change that. Whining that his position was greater than theirs doesn?t change that. Repeatedly calling me a liar because you can?t defend your unethical position doesn?t change that. There is simply no question that this behavior was unethical.

As to the bizarre assertion that ?ignoring the fact that Lori and J have no idea how often it was done,? let?s go to the tape shall we:

The office of Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle has already launched an investigation into how excerpts from 15 Democratic memos showed up in the pages of the conservative-leaning newspapers and were posted to a website last November.

The article also states ?hundreds of memos,? and mentions ?accounts of private meetings.? Now, do you have some evidence that McDermott (whose behavior doesn?t change the absolute morality of the Republican staffers) engaged in the same kind of pattern? None has been presented. And, where, have you found me defending his behavior, except to point out that it did not constitute a pattern, as this plainly does?

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 23, 2004 08:14 AM | PERMALINK

Lori -- I'm not sure you and I are on the same page regarding the difference between fact and opinion: "The rich are being overtaxed (or undertaxed)" is an opinion any way you look at it. There is no objectively right or wrong answer because whether someone is overtaxed or undertaxed is all a matter of perspective; it makes no sense to speak of this is absolute terms -- overtaxed (or undertaxed) compared to what? On the other hand "it rained yesterday" would be a fact, if true.

Similarly, whether Iraq was a threat prior to the war is an opinion. One's opinion is informed by the actual state of Iraq's arsenal, one's belief regarding the state of that arsenal, one's belief regarding SH's intent, one's tolerance for risk, etc. Your opinion, therefore, depends upon how you evaluate the evidence that is available and what you believe about the areas of uncertainty. Thus, to say that Iraq did or did not pose a threat is purely an opinion -- one opinion may be more or less reasonable than another, but both are still opinions.

Posted by: Ben at January 23, 2004 08:29 AM | PERMALINK

Jesurgislac, I don't know how I can state it any more plainly. I simply hypothesized, while acknowledging that I had no facts to support it, a situation in which party A places data, accidentally, or otherwise, in a file that has been by previous agreement made accessible to party B, with the understanding that all data place therein is for mutual use. Way back when, I put forth another analogy, with two corporations sharing a research facility, with the agreement that all data placed in certain computer files would available for mutual use. If company A accidentally places valuable data, data that it intended to keep secret from company B, into the shared file, does company B have the legal or ethical right to hold A to the agreement? B's legal position is stronger than it's ethical poisition, but if B, acting ethically, notifies A of the situation, and A continues to carelessly place the data into the shared file, at some point it may be fair for B to conclude that A has no real objection to sharing the data, much as a property squatter has the legal claim to a property when an owner makes no attempt to evict the squatter for a period of time.

Now, given the latest facts presented in this thread (which I have no idea regarding their accuracy), it appears that the actions may have been legal but unethical, in that it was not a Democrat who was aware of the data being made available to the Republicans, but a third party. Thus, the Republicans had an ethical obligation, if not a legal obligation, to tell the Democrats what was happening. Now, as I have repeatedly, repeatedly,stated, I think the Republicans in power in Washington D.C. are largely devoid of ethical restraint, so this suprises me not in the least, but the desire on my part to actually know what happened before passing a definitive judgement can only be called advocacy of theft by someone with, ironically, dishonest intent.

My larger point was the the fact that Jim McDermott remains a Democratic Congressman in good standing, after using illegally obtained and disseminated electronic data to harm a political opponent, and making no effort to even acknowledege wrongdoing or make restitution, proves that the Democrats have no real objection to the use of even illegally obtained, to say nothing of unethically obtained, electronic data to harm political opponents. They only have real objections when the practice targets them, which means much of the chatter in this thread about how this episode is illustrative of the relative lesser moral or ethical standing of the Republicans, vis a vis the Democrats, is empty nonsense. Neither party has much in the way of ethical restraint when faced with the prospect of winning or losing. Both parties are filled to the brim with craven opportunists who any sane person would avoid like the plague.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 09:01 AM | PERMALINK

Lori, my reference to how many times was in regard to McDermott, not the Republican staffers. Lets just say I find it tremendosusly coincidental that somebody just happened to be taping cell phone calls in an area where Newt Gingrich just happened to be, taped by someone with an interest in politics, so they just happened to eventually arrive in Jim McDermott's office. But who knows, crazy coincidences occur.

My larger point is this. Jim McDermott used illegally obtained electronic data to harm a political opponent. Jim McDermott remains a Democrat in good standing, unrepentant, and has made no effort at restitution. It can therefore be concluded that the Democrats have no real objection to the use of illegally obtained electronic data for purpose of harming a political opponent, they only object when the practice targets them.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 09:16 AM | PERMALINK

"It can therefore be concluded that the Democrats have no real objection to the use of illegally obtained electronic data for purpose of harming a political opponent ..."

No it can't.

John McCain is supporting GWB in the coming election. Can it "therefore be concluded" that McCain has "no real objection" to the tactics W employed in the 2000 S. Carolina primary?

Of course it can't.

Posted by: ryan b at January 23, 2004 09:46 AM | PERMALINK

I simply hypothesized, while acknowledging that I had no facts to support it, a situation in which party A places data, accidentally, or otherwise, in a file that has been by previous agreement made accessible to party B, with the understanding that all data place therein is for mutual use.

And since this hypothetical situation clearly bears no relation to Republicans and Democrats sharing a file server, why did you bring it up in this thread?

Oh, I see. Because you want to pretend that it does bear some relation to the actual situation, because you can't stand the idea of Republicans being justly accused of committing crimes.

Hence, presumably, your perpetual harping on about a completely unrelated incident in which a crime was committed by Democrats.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 23, 2004 09:52 AM | PERMALINK

J, yesterday, when I first wrote of this scenario, I had no idea what the facts of the matter were, which I clearly indicated. I did object to people pretending to know what the facts were, when they plainly did not. The fact that you are unable or unwilling to read what people wrote (I repeatedly, clearly,explained what my hypothesis was before the light bulb finally clicked on) and instead prefer to pretend to be in possession of facts when you are not, and then proceed to lie about whether someone has advocated theft, is unfortunate. It is also unfortunate that you are unable to grasp (because you apparently are unwilling or unable to read the thread) that I only raised the McDermott affair in response to those who asserted that this latest instance of using electronic data to harm political opponents was indicative of the lesser moral standing of Republicans, when the Democrats were more than willing to tolerate unrepentant members of their own party engaging in the same practice. When one makes a generalization, based upon an observed phenomena, a similar observed phenomena which conflicts with the generalization is not unrelated. Does logic pose as many problems as reading to you, or are you simply lying again?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 10:25 AM | PERMALINK

Christ, we're still fighting with willfully obtuse idiots about this?

Whether or not a sysadmin gave the thieving Republicans access is meaningless. The files didn't belong to the incompetent boob. They belonged to the Judiciary Democrats that wrote them.

I guess this is the "looter defense"--if someone else kicks down the door, free pie for everyone!

Try it in court sometime morons.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 23, 2004 10:26 AM | PERMALINK

ryan b., McCain is the wronged party. If he wishes to forgive those that wronged him, it is his perogative. It is not the place of the wrongdoer, or the allies of the wrongdoer, however, to decide what constitutes forgivable behavior. It can be fairly concluded that Bush has no objection to the use of dishonest, slanderous, and racist rhetoric, assuming it was his people (which I do) who disseminated that rhetoric.

Therefore, if Bush and his allies were to decry such tactics when directed at them, and assert that such tactics proved that those using those tactics were morally inferior, that assertion would be without substance, since Bush and his allies had no objection to using such tactics, and were unrepentant for having done so. Similarly, the Democrats, through their acceptance of the unrepentant McDermott, have demonstrated that they do not object to the use of illegally obtained electronic data for purpose of harming a political opponent, they only object when the practice targets them, and any assertion made that this latest instance demonstrates that Republicans are moral inferiors is empty rhetoric.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 10:47 AM | PERMALINK

Actually, Ras, it has been my position all along that matters of legal fact are best determined in a courtroom, and I have clearly indicated from the beginning that it would please me to see this happen. Why is this so objectionable to you?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 10:51 AM | PERMALINK

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Posted by: al at January 23, 2004 11:16 AM | PERMALINK

What's objectionable to me, Will, is that this will never see a courtroom. I have zero faith in institutional Republican ethics anymore. Even after Watergate, there was still a glimmer of honesty in the party leadership. No more.

This is not a reflection on you. I don't think that you have no ethics, I think that the Delay wing that's seized your party has no ethics beyond self-promotion.

Look at the evidence:

1. The torpedoing of the Iraq War intelligence investigation.

2. The stonewalling of the 9/11 Comittee.

3. The legal contortions to hide even the names of who participated in Energy Task Force meetings "We the people" paid for.

4. The fact that Cheney and Justice Scalia went bird-hunting together 3 weeks after the USSC did Cheney a huge favor by agreeing to take the Energy Task Force case, a 3-time loser of a case. The USSC taking it guarantees that it'll stay out of sight until after the election.

5. Tom Delay extorting money from the Kansas Utility, Westar Energy. An excerpt from an ignored Wichita Eagle news story: "In an internal Westar e-mail dated May 5, 2002, Lake had questioned why he was being asked to give $1,000 to 'Volunteers for Shimkus,' another $1,000 to 'Tom Young for Congress,' and $300 to 'Tom DeLay Congressional Committee.'

'Who is Shimkus?' wrote Lake[a Westar executive]. 'Who is Young? DeLay is from Texas, what is our connection?... I am confused.'"

That's just for starters. So you don't have to say it, I will. Democrats have been scumbags many times (Torecelli, etc.), but I don't see the same institutional rot that seems endemic in the Republican party.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 23, 2004 11:18 AM | PERMALINK

Ras, I'm not a Republican, and only vote with them about half the time. I think there is very little to recommend either political party, and believe the legal corruption in our political culture far dwarfs the illegal kind. Our elections are little more than loosely organized vote auctions, and the principle political activity is the forcible acquisition of wealth, without regard to individual need or public benefit. There are very few negative attributes that I would not assign to either political party, but I do wish to challenge the mindless tribalism that results in people assuming a position of moral superiority, usually based on little more than a deep, deep, feeling that those in the opposition have their moral inferiority proven with their every failing, yet somehow very similar failings displayed by one's allies aren't nearly as representative. Such attitudes are politically immature and, in the long run, destructive, and yes, regularly on display within both major political parties. Anyways, I'm glad we could end on a non-hostile note, and hope that any further conversations we may have can continue in that vein.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 12:28 PM | PERMALINK

Gosh, Will, how many words is that to say "I was ignorant, and therefore wrong"? Ah well, at least you admitted it at last. ;-)

Looking back through the thread, actually, I've spotted an even funnier Republican contender.

Timmy the Wonder Pup woofs: "I hope the Dems and the media make a "federal" case out of this. The Republicans were wrong but I suspect that in the court of public opinion what the Democrats pursued will be percieved (and spun) as being unethical if not immorral"

So Timmy's hoping that the Dems prosecute the Republicans for data theft because he thinks the media can spin it so that the Dems look immoral and unethical for daring to prosecute criminals for their crimes. Typical Timmy: what would we do without woofers like him?

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 23, 2004 12:29 PM | PERMALINK

Jesurgislac wrote: "because he thinks the media can spin it so that the Dems look immoral and unethical for daring to prosecute criminals for their crimes"

I think Timmy's comment was pretty silly, too, Jes, but I don't think that's what he was talking about. I'm pretty sure he was talking about the contents of the memos: that if the Democrats pursue the unethical, possibly illegal, activities of the Republicans, the memo contents will inevitably become part of the story and Timmy thinks those memos are "unethical, if not immoral."

He may be right, but I doubt it. You have to be an Al or a Timmy to read "unethical, if not immoral" behavior into those memos. Look at how far Al has to go to desperately try to spin the Estrada memo. The Republicans already tried this and it merited a big, fat yawn from the American public.

But a hacking story with echoes of Watergate? That could get their attention.

What I find most interesting is that they had unfettered access for a year and this was the best they could come up with to slime the Democrats with? That's a pretty damn good record, in my opinion. I wonder what would have happened in the reverse scenario?

Posted by: PaulB at January 23, 2004 12:42 PM | PERMALINK

Guys, the Republicans are going to get away with the this untouched. Not only because Scott Peterson is getting a change of venue, or Jacko dances on cars, or Howard Dean yelps. They'll get away with it because the quisling, worthless, spineless wastes of DNA known as Congressional Democrats and their staffs will let them.

Here's a blurb from today's NYTimes:
"Another senior Democratic aide on the Judiciary Committee said that while what occurred was objectionable, there was no need for any criminal investigation."

No need for a criminal investigation for a high-tech Watergate break-in. I'm speechless. We really do have some of the stupidest, most-worthless assholes in the world working for us in Washington. And the Republicans know it, and exploit it for all it's worth.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/politics/23JUDG.html)

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 23, 2004 12:47 PM | PERMALINK

A big difference between McDermott's act and the acts of the R staffers, besides those already noted:

The D papers stolen and exposed by the R staffers showed no unethical or illegal stuff by the D's, just politically embarrassing strategizing (and not all that embarrassing, from what I've read).

The Newt conversation given to McDermott and distributed by him showed Newt to be violating the terms of an agreement he had made with the Congress in the wake of an investigation to an ethical lapse. Newt was behaving unethically. It may have been unethical for McD to expose him in the manner he did. But what was McD supposed to do? He had knowledge that a ranking R Congressman was breaking his ethics agreement.

Posted by: John S. at January 23, 2004 12:55 PM | PERMALINK

Oh lord, Ras...that (clickable link) is just disgusting.

Posted by: PaulB at January 23, 2004 12:56 PM | PERMALINK

I just knew somebody would trot out the, "But McDermott was exposing Newt's unethical behavior!" rationalization. Really pathetic. No, the fact that one's opponent is behaving unethically has zero impact on the legitimacy of using an illegally obtained tape of a phone call to harm that opponent. Zero. The Democrats have no objection to using illegally obtained data, they just object when the practice targets them.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 01:39 PM | PERMALINK

Will, as I noted yesterday, it IS ironic that the party of "use any evidence now matter how it was obtained" complained about how the evidence of Newt's breaking his agreement was obtained, and the party of "cross the T's and dot the I's with all evidence gathering procedures" used illegally obtained evidence to nail Newt's breaking his ethics investigation agreement.

Not a rationalization, and not a defense. Call it pathetic if you want.

As someone else pointed out, the people who illegally obtained the information were prosecuted, and McDermott was sued. Let's hope the R's hold their staffers to the same standard. I know you hope they will, and I thank you for saying so.

You may not have noticed, but McD has no sway in the D party. Almost zero influence. Unlike Frist and Hatch in the R party.

Posted by: John S. at January 23, 2004 01:59 PM | PERMALINK

Will, it doesn't look as if you only raised the McDermott affiar in response to yapping against Republicans. Rather, it looks like you raised it as an example of a case where one does not have a legitimate expectation of privacy. See below.

For the record, if it was the Democrats who had spent a year reading G.O.P. files that were clearly meant to be private, then leaking their contents to the press, would you be even a little more upset than you are about the current case -- regardless of whether any sitting Republicans had previously used data that was supposed to be private?

Will sez:
I only raised the McDermott affair in response to those who asserted that this latest instance of using electronic data to harm political opponents was indicative of the lesser moral standing of Republicans... (10:25 a.m. today)

Will said:
If I paint my e-mail on my garage door, I don't deserve any expectation of privacy. Similarly, if staffers put data on a shared computer, and don't use passwords to restrict access, there is no legitimate expectation of privacy. How many people in this forum were yelping when Newt Gringich's cell phone call was taped, and replayed in a public forum? (10:50 a.m. yesterday)

Posted by: Keith at January 23, 2004 02:42 PM | PERMALINK

Yes, Keith, and my first post came after reading posts like this, among other examples:

"In event after scandal after outrage, the Repubs demonstrate the corrosive effect of believing that (1) winning is everything, so the end justifies the means and (2) there is no such thing as objective reality, so we can lie all we want; perception is all. Orwell's problem was that he was 20 years too early and looked at the wrong country. We are fast on the way to becoming the one party dictatorship we fought for so long."

As I said, there were others that were commenting, prior to may first post, on the awfulness of Republicans, as revealed by this matter, so it was entirely reasonable to inquire what McDermott's use of illegally obtained electronic data fit into these grand moral pronouncements. Well, 300+ posts later, and the dancing continues.....

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 04:07 PM | PERMALINK

You are correct, however, Keith, that I should have provided a paragraph break between my first point, which raised the possibility that the Democrats had entered data into an area in which there was no expectation of privacy, a hypothesis that has now been discussed and explained far too often, and my second point, which involved McDermott's behavior. I agree that a paragraph break would have more clearly dilineated the two ideas I was putting forth. I will endeavor to prevent such a phenomena from ever occurring again. Now, I will leave the forum, having conceded the error of my ways.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 04:15 PM | PERMALINK

I didn't mean to avoid your question, Keith. I have for some time lost the ability to be outraged by what these craven opportunists do to one another. I think the moralizing that they engage in when the other party gets caught is obnoxious, but I reserve my limited amount of outrage for those acts they engage in that damage innocent third parties, from some aspects of the Patriot Act, to the even worse RICO statutes, to the the absolutely hideous drug war, and all it's attendent abuses, to the abuse by litigation phenomena that our politicians have allowed to develop, to various regulatory nightmares that are inflicted without much thought, and on, and on, and on. What these weasels do to themselves doesn't gain too much of my attention, given what they inflict on people who just wish to be left alone.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 04:29 PM | PERMALINK

The problem is that these "craven opportunists" run the most powerful country in the world.

We expect more, including the ablility to see the difference between an isolated event (McD) and a year of covert spying.

It is possible to see the difference.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 23, 2004 04:35 PM | PERMALINK

And you dance so well Will. The Republicans have engaged in a pattern of behavior. That pattern of behavior can be seen, not just in this latest outrage, but also in Watergate, Iran/Contra, and the invasions of Grenada, Panama, and Iraq. Over the last three decades we have seen the Republicans demonstrate a fealty to power that allowed them to cry ?Rule of Law? over a ?lie? in response to a question that had no merit and no basis in law, but to ignore lies to the American people over substantive issues like war and death.

That?s the context of the statement you were ?responding to.? A pattern of dishonesty, corruption, and malfeasance that is unparalleled in the Democratic Party. Your whining about McDermott?s single episode as a response to a pattern of outrageous conduct merely demonstrates a serious lack of perspective. Finally (because it is obvious that you aren?t willing to engage in substance so I have no business coming back again) I will point out that, no matter my response to any individual crime, I can still point to criminal behavior disapprovingly. Being a shoplifter does not disqualify you from condemning a bank robber, having run a red light does not disqualify you from sitting in judgment of vehicular manslaughter, having shot someone in an argument does not prohibit you from condemning a serial killer. Any other position is moral relativism gone amok.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 23, 2004 04:38 PM | PERMALINK

Yes, Lori, and people who yelp about the use of illegally or unethically gained electronic data, while they ally themselves with people who are unrepentent for engaging in exactly the same act, are to be ignored, for they are either craven opportunists themselves, or blind adherents to the Faith.

Ras, until McDermott makes an honest attempt to acknowledge his wrongdoing, and gain some measure of repentance, it is entirely reasonable to assume that those who ally themsleves with McDermott have no principled objection to the use of illegally obtained electronic data, and their current outrage is entirely situational.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 05:03 PM | PERMALINK

Sorry Will but since McDermott isn't my fucking representative, I don't give a shit. He's not my "ally".

Your cute little guilt-by-association trick makes you sound like a Limbaugh listener I know. He's always spewing "Your leader Tom Daschle just said blah, blah, blah, Clinton, blah, blah, blah, Pelosi, blah..."

God it gets old, even after the tell the dense asshole how much I think of Democratic leaders, which is, not at all. I think that almost all of the Congressional Dems are spineless cowards.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 23, 2004 05:20 PM | PERMALINK

I'd like to sum up this thread, if I may:

Lori: Politicians in general suck, but the Republicans are especially bad.
Will: Nah, the Democrats aren't any better.
Ras: Politicians in general fucking suck, and but the fucking Republicans are especially fucking bad.

Tongue in cheek of course, but I don't think anyones position has changed much from the above. :)

Posted by: Haplo at January 23, 2004 05:55 PM | PERMALINK

Will,

Good explanation about the separation between the assumption of privacy and the McDermott-Gingrich issue. However, if you've lost the ability to be outraged by what these craven opportunists do to each other, why are you so bothered by the fact that McDermott played the tape of the Gingrich phone call? What I was getting at is that you do seem to have the ability to feel outrage, just not in this case.

I'll have to disagree with both you and Ras_Nesta about our elected representatives in Washington. I worked there for a year after I graduated from college, near the end of the Reagan administration, and I found that when you get to view the process and the people who run it first-hand, very few of them look like either craven opportunists or spineless cowards. I really hoped to find people like Jesse Helms despicable, but that just wasn't the case.

FWIW, my employer (a Democratic Senator) was working on a project with a Senator from the opposing party. I'm quite sure that if either of them had found material that was supposed to be private in a file that they weren't supposed to have access to, or that otherwise contained shared information, they would have looked away. Moreover, Senators and staff would have reacted quite negatively to anyone on either side who took advantage of a situation like this.

Sure, politics is a rough sport, but there are still rules of behavior, and pretty much everyone knows what they are.

Posted by: Keith at January 23, 2004 06:08 PM | PERMALINK

Keith, I'm not outraged, I simply find moralizing about how one party is morally inferior to be obnoxious, because these people will tolerate just about anything if the stakes are high enough, your story to the contrary. When push comes to shove, everything is driven by the need to win, and almost all other principles will be abandoned, if necessary. So no, absent all the "The Republicans are just so awful!" tripe, I wouldn't have raised the issue of McDermott. I am
as outraged about this, and McDermott's behavior, as I am reading about an embezzler being arrested. Collect the evidence, and indict if the evidence warrants it.

Ras, if you identify yourself as a Democrat, McDermott is your ally. Perhaps you don't identify yourself as such, but why anyone would identify himself as a Democrat or Republican, beyond strictly utilitarian reasons, is a puzzle.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 23, 2004 09:53 PM | PERMALINK

God, more McD! What are you a stalker?

Well, Will, I guess if you identify yourself as an American, you must be an ally of Timothy McVeigh. This is your asinine logic.

I must now retire to my lookout, to await marching orders from some politician I don't know.

Posted by: Ras_Nesta at January 24, 2004 12:14 AM | PERMALINK

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bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe

Posted by: al at January 24, 2004 01:02 AM | PERMALINK

Ras Nasta says:

Here's a blurb from today's NYTimes: "Another senior Democratic aide on the Judiciary Committee said that while what occurred was objectionable, there was no need for any criminal investigation."
No need for a criminal investigation for a high-tech Watergate break-in. I'm speechless. We really do have some of the stupidest, most-worthless assholes in the world working for us in Washington. And the Republicans know it, and exploit it for all it's worth.

Ras, get a clue.

If the Democrats say that there is no need for a criminal investigation it's because they know that they can't make any charges stick.

In other words, the people who have the most incentive to demand prosecutions if they are really deserved are clearly of the opinion that I'm right and no crime was comitted.

Posted by: Mike Friedman at January 24, 2004 02:19 AM | PERMALINK

Ah, sweet vindication!

"An unnamed Republican source tells Kane that the memos were available to "a handful or more" staffers from both parties via the "My Network Places" icon on their computers. (Most Windows users can easily access My Network Places by clicking "Start" or by locating the icon on their desktops.) Once entering the My Network Places area, users can root around all sorts of unrestricted files stored on their local network's computers. Try this at work! You'll be astonished at what you find.

If the Democrats' files weren't password-protected?and I've yet to see anybody report that they were?it's hard to imagine that the Republican clicking his way to them committed a computer crime. Naughty and unethical, maybe, and maybe deserving of a Senate sanction. But the criminal outrage of the century by political dirty tricksters engaging in surveillance, no.

Byron York advanced this opinion and more last month in the Hill. He complains that the leaks inspired anger from the Times editorial page, which decried "partisan hacking" in early December but neglected to note the very newsworthy substance of the leaks. (Times reporter Lewis also neglects to mention the intriguing information contained in the leaks. In its coverage, the Washington Post has not shied from printing the info.) York writes, "One might expect most journalists?normally the recipients of leaks and protectors of leakers?to be more interested in what the documents say than in who leaked them."

I agree almost entirely with York. I wonder how the Globe would have covered the story had a Democratic staffer stumbled upon a stack of incendiary strategy memos by Republican staffers. If she shared them with her colleagues and then with the Globe, would the Globe have eagerly printed excerpts of them? You betcha. And would Republicans scream holy hell and demand an investigation after the Globe went to press? You betcha. And would the Globe and the Times be editorializing about the investigation's "chilling effect" on dissent and free speech? You betcha, again.

Clearly, whenever the Senate investigates itself, it's news. Likewise, the identity, motivations, and modus operandi of these leakers is news, too. But, like York, I can't help but think there's a journalistic double standard operating here in which partisan leaks to conservative journals and journalists (the Novak-Plame incident, for another example) are treated as capital crimes, but partisan leaks that wound Republicans are regarded the highest form of truth telling."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2094333/

Posted by: Al at January 24, 2004 06:48 AM | PERMALINK

No, the fact that one's opponent is behaving unethically has zero impact on the legitimacy of using an illegally obtained tape of a phone call to harm that opponent.

But it's perfectly okay to go break into your opponents computer files and drink up their orange juice? *grin*

Al sez: "An unnamed Republican source tells Kane that the memos were available to "a handful or more" staffers from both parties via the "My Network Places" icon on their computers.

Ah, lovely, Al. And you know and trust the word of an "unnamed Republican source"? *grin harder*

You guys are cracking me up today. It's lovely to watch you squirm, but I've got things to do. Still, thank you for the moments of humor that will keep me grinning.

But, one word of warning. Al, you're a very funny guy and I'd miss you if you got sacked and had to sit on the street with your cup out in front of you begging for other people's hard-earned dollars, so I wouldn't try out your "unnamed Republican source"'s advice to "root around all sorts of unrestricted files stored on their local network's computers at work!" Really. Trying to access other people's files is a good way to get sacked, if not prosecuted.

Posted by: Jesurgislac at January 24, 2004 07:07 AM | PERMALINK

2 awl u libwuls let mee eksplane

da fials r in my network pwaces. if u kan get tue da fials in my network pwaces u half da wright tue da fials. all network adminustwators agrwee with me.
wen wil u libwuls undwastand?

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 24, 2004 08:03 AM | PERMALINK

Uh Ras, you're an American by virtue of having been born in this country, or choosing to emigrate here, and living elsewhere is an extraordinarly high price to pay for having one person behave criminally. Being a Democrat or a Republican is purely a matter of choice, and nearly a third of the country gets by without sacrifice without being either. Oh, and by the way, you may have missed it, but McVeigh? He's been executed, because the people of this country, through self-government, decided that he was no longer fit to live in this world. In other words, the American people have effectively dealt with McVeigh's behavior, lest any anyone get the notion that such behavior is tolerable.

The Democrats, on the other hand, allow McDermott remain a member in good standing, despite the fact that McDermott is unrepentant, and won't even acknowledge wrongdoing. Therefore, it is entirely reasonable to conclude that the Democrats have no principled objection to disseminating illegally obtained electronic data for political advantage, just as it could be concluded that the American people have no objection to mass murder if McVeigh was known to have been the bomber of Oklahoma City, and yet had never been arrested or prosecuted. That you would employ such an inapt, indeed, idiotic, analogy demonstrates that you have abandoned reason, amd are simply adhering to Faith. How many times a day do you pray to your God?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 24, 2004 08:18 AM | PERMALINK

Geez, Jesurgislac, do you ever, ever, represent your opponent's views in an honest fashion? If an file is shared by agreement by two parties, then it is logically impossible for one party to "break into" the area. Why do you think that being dishonest strengthens your position?

Posted by: Will Allen at January 24, 2004 08:28 AM | PERMALINK

Lest Jesurgislac lie about my assertions yet again, I think it likely that the Republicans behaved unethically in this instance, if they did not fully notify the Democrats that their memos were being placed in an area in which the Republicans had legal access. If the Republicans did not have legal access, then, obviously, a crime has occurred.

Posted by: Will Allen at January 24, 2004 08:36 AM | PERMALINK

One other interesting point that doesn't seem to have been mentioned (I have not read all 350+ entries, so please excuse me if I am being repetetive): How stupid can the Dems have been to put this in writing AND on a computed connected to a network accessible to the other side? If they absoutely HAD to put it in writing, they should have AT LEAST kept it on a computer that had no connection to the network. What fools.

Posted by: Ben at January 24, 2004 11:36 AM | PERMALINK

u libwuls doant undastand.

da demokkkwats put da files on a komputer connected to da internet. but since its connected to da internet anyone kan get to it. if u doant want files to be looked at doant put it on a komputer connected to da internet. wen wil u libwuls undastand?

gawd bwess da twupes and jorge w bushe.

Posted by: al at January 24, 2004 12:11 PM | PERMALINK

Yes Ben, lots of attempts at the ?did you see how short her skirt was? defense have been made. They were dumb when they were presented before, and your latest version isn?t any better. Your example would work if we were talking about illegal behavior (My list of contacts for my drug business really shouldn?t be anywhere but in my head). But we aren?t. The Democrats were engaged in ordinary political behavior, not racketeering. The Republicans were engaged in political espionage ? what thugs.

Posted by: Lori Thantos at January 24, 2004 08:12 PM | PERMALINK

Some points about the McDermott tape incident...

1) "John S." claims that Gingrich's illegally intercepted phone call were "over the PUBLIC AIRWAVES". Eh... but it was illegal then (and still is) to intercept cell phone conversations.

2) The Martins' tale about "just happening" to overhear the call is pure cowflop. They MODIFIED their Radio Shack scanner to pick up cellphone frequencies; they just happened to be in the area of Boehner's car; they just happened to have a tape recorder jacked into the scanner; and so on. Anyone with any scanner know-how knows theirs was a premeditated act.

3) McDermott is not off the hook yet. The Supreme Court did not "dismiss" the case... they remanded it to the DC Circuit Court, where it has been languishing.

4) Will Allen has the facts right. His opponents are mostly hypocrites when they excuse McDermott -- period, end of sentence.

Posted by: John D'oh at March 8, 2004 11:30 AM | PERMALINK