GOP Stealing Senate Democrats' Files: What's the Reaction? Does Character Count?
The Pizza Parlor
Dancer's Image From today's online Boston Globe ( http://www.boston.com/news/nation/ar..._as_extensive/):WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
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.
With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and seized more than half a dozen computers -- including four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives.
But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staffers and others familiar with the investigation say. I don't know whether this business constituted a crime, and that is NOT the issue I'm raising here. What this conduct IS about is character and integrity - or, rather, their absence on an ongoing basis.
To me, this sort of thing is an opportunity for those on the right who claim that "character counts" to demonstrate that it counts just as much when Republicans and conservatives display a substantive lack of character, as it does when Democrats and liberals do. And that, dear friends, is what this OP is about.
I don't follow the Pat Robertsons, the Rush Limbaughs, the Cal Thomases, the William Bennetts of this world particularly closely; doing so would give me indigestion. But I know that many posters here do regularly read and hear what they have to say.
So, what I'm asking you to do is tell me what, if anything, they're saying about this one. Links would be helpful. Then we can see if character really does count with them, or whether it only matters in one direction.
Navigator I think they should subpena Novak, and at least put the guy in jail for contempt, just so he keeps his trap shut...
Call me a bit skeptical that all the facts are known about this... there seems to be a fair amount of spin on both sides, it seems that Hatch was/is taking steps that the practice of peering into others files shouldn't be continued.
There is a dilemma here. If say a file was left on a conference room table, and you open it up to find out who it belongs to, upon reading you find something unethical, is it unethical to report what you found?
Reminds me of an incident where a conference room had an open mike and 'secret conversations' were being broadcast to the outer rooms.
I certainly wish that both sides would be more upfront and get rid of secret planning meetings, and such. The whole judicial process is being held up (by both sides) in this silly bickering. Perhaps if there were more oversight over the judiciary, there would be less 'need' for extreme scrutinty prior to confirmation.
Dancer's Image Call me a bit skeptical that all the facts are known about this... there seems to be a fair amount of spin on both sides, it seems that Hatch was/is taking steps that the practice of peering into others files shouldn't be continued. I've got to give kudos to Orrin Hatch for being a stand-up guy on this one. I disagree with him about practically everything, but he's not saying the equivalent of "this really wasn't much, and besides, the other guys do it all the time." He's saying he's mortified that such a thing could happen on his watch.
There is a dilemma here. If say a file was left on a conference room table, and you open it up to find out who it belongs to, upon reading you find something unethical, is it unethical to report what you found? I don't know. But this didn't happen once; it went on for nearly a year. And whether the matters revealed in those documents were unethical themselves, is something you need to show. Noting that a particular nominee is going to be more challenging to oppose on account of his ethnicity is hardly unethical; it simply demonstrates an awareness of political realities.
I certainly wish that both sides would be more upfront and get rid of secret planning meetings, and such. And maybe someday the 'Christian' Coalition will publish their 'voter guides' on their website a week or two ahead of the election, so that people can point out errors in time for them to be corrected. I'd love to see ol' Pat set a good example for the politicians.
The whole judicial process is being held up (by both sides) in this silly bickering. Perhaps if there were more oversight over the judiciary, there would be less 'need' for extreme scrutinty prior to confirmation.About a year ago, Time noted that we now have the smallest number of Federal court vacancies in over a decade. (I'll get you a cite on that if you want.) So nothing's being held up; you must be thinking about the GOP Congress in the late 1990s, which was holding up scores of nominees. Compared to that, the Dems are being pussycats, blocking only a few of what they regard as the most extreme appointments.
As for oversight over the judiciary, the confirmation process is all there is, per Article III, Section 1 and Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution - and the Dems' modest exercise of it apparently troubles you.
At any rate, this is a digression. Hopefully, over the next few days, persons will be kind enough to notice how certain voices who have preached the importance of character and integrity happen to react to this matter.
Navigator oh.. I'm sorry, I thought you wanted to have a discussion instead of playing it is okay for my guys to do it because your guys are doing it...
I don't want to play.
Navigator here is a link... enjoy ( http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003098.html) (note, it is NOT a conservative link)
this ( http://www.lt-smash.us/archives/002561.html#002561) is a conservative link...
To me it is odd, that when something happens either side jumps on the 'worst thing since Watergate... this will be sure to sink the ship... man they have no _____________'
hardly ever pans out... I feel like a villager with a lousy shepherd screaming in the middle of the night...
Dancer's Image Well, I'm not sure what it is that you don't want to play, 'Gator.
Next time a Dem or lefty does something that Dems and liberals, by their stated principles, should jump all over, but you think they're about to give him/her a pass on, by all means say so. Hypocrisy lives on both ends of the political spectrum, of course. But I honestly don't know that predictable hypocrisy does.
And you've got a sticky up top about how to respond to that. Go to it, guy.
Navigator for example, I said "I certainly wish both sides..."
and you come back with 'and maybe the 'Christian' coalition...'
Okay... sure... I hope they do too...
number of times I've used the CC voter guides = 0
trouble seeing the aplication of your comment to the 'both sides' stop the stuff...
If dems were against the repubs for blocking 'scores' of nominees... then shouldn't they be against the same thing. I don't track it much, so I might be listening and responding to spin... but let the senate floor vote, up or down on a nominee... don't hold it up in committe... I'll hold that on both sides of the aisle.
If there was a staffer that was hacking into the dems computer (it seems it might have been a shared server) they should be fired. but to equate that a server in the Senate Majority leader's office == Bill Frist was in on it... then I'd think people are getting a bit ahead of themselves. The first question I have is what is being called a server, and how many of them are in the SML office to begin with, and how often does Bill Frist login with 'Administrator' - 'administrator' and tear down the shared directories.
Methinks this will amount to a hill of beans.
Dancer's Image 'Gator, I believe there are one or two honest conservatives out there; heck, maybe hundreds of them. And there are honest Democrats and liberals too.
Consequently, producing one or two bloggers that I've never heard of, doesn't mean much to me. I don't know what they've said about character in the past, and I don't know who they speak for, besides themselves.
I know that Pat and Cal and Rush and Bill have had things to say about the importance of character. And judging by the size of their respective audiences, they speak for quite a few people. Not every time they open their mouth, but in general they do. If they didn't, they'd be as anonymous as those bloggers. So what they say is important; it makes a difference. They have a responsibility to use their position to set an example; to demonstrate that character matters even when it's one of their own.
But I'm not holding my breath while I wait.
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P.S. What's this about the 'worst thing since Watergate'? Once again, I'm sure someone somewhere in the known universe has said that (you'll notice I sure didn't), but someone somewhere is always going to say something ridiculous.
Now if Tom Daschle said it, then you've got something, and I'd be the first person to tell you that if he did say it, he was completely out to lunch, and you'd expect the leader of the Senate Democrats to have a brain cell or two to rub together.
But if some nobody-in-particular said that in a blog, then that just demonstrates that, statistically speaking, given a large enough number of people, a few of them are going to be ten fries short of a Happy Meal. That's not news.
Dancer's Image for example, I said "I certainly wish both sides..."
and you come back with 'and maybe the 'Christian' coalition...'
Okay... sure... I hope they do too...
number of times I've used the CC voter guides = 0
trouble seeing the aplication of your comment to the 'both sides' stop the stuff... I'm afraid I'm just plain having trouble following you here. Sentences and paragraphs are your friends.
If dems were against the repubs for blocking 'scores' of nominees... then shouldn't they be against the same thing.I agree. It would seem reasonable that either party would find the occasional judicial nominee to be unacceptable. That's what the Dems have done. But there's a difference between blocking an occasional individual nominee from the bench, and blocking them wholesale, as the Pubbies did during the previous Presidential administration. And I would hope the Dems would continue to be against that.
I don't track it much, so I might be listening and responding to spin... but let the senate floor vote, up or down on a nominee... don't hold it up in committe... I'll hold that on both sides of the aisle.That's consistent, certainly, but let's face it - in Congress, most things that don't get approved, don't ever get voted down on the floor of one house or the other. They get voted down in committee, or never even get to a committee vote, or are filibustered, or whatever. You can make a floor vote your standard, but both sides would fail it. Or you can say it shouldn't be the standard for everything else, but it should be the rule for judicial nominees. But both sides would fail that standard too, and such failure would be standard procedure, with no complaint to be made by either side.
If there was a staffer that was hacking into the dems computer (it seems it might have been a shared server) they should be fired. but to equate that a server in the Senate Majority leader's office == Bill Frist was in on it... then I'd think people are getting a bit ahead of themselves.I didn't say that, nor did I see that in the cited article.
Navigator Expecting the talking heads to make a retraction... yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath either... Begala...
Alan Colmes would probably be straight.
Read the first link. It has a good conversation going. I meant them as informational to the topic. If we are thinking that spin machines will stop spinning.. well I'm as doubtful as you are.
but partisans will be partisans.
Seriously, I'm wanting to know more of the technical details of the 'break-in'... Not sure if the Boston Globe reporter has an axe to grind or not, but assuming his report is truthful and without any bias, then the staffers have something to answer two. If the staffer on a break is stating some truth, then it might have been a SNAFU IT problem.
Right now I'm trying to get two Windows XP computers to share directories on the backside of a router... pretty hard to do without a knowledge of the passwords... But if my time in government tells me anything they are probably still using CPM or TRS-80s in the Senate building, and I'm not sure security is the same... (big ol tounge in cheek wink)
I wonder if it was something like a shared Notes or Exchange Database, and the Administrator never locked up what would be considered a private newsgroup. The user may or may not know it was privledged. There is some questionable ethics about had they known it was privledged, if they were still out of line in leaking that out... and even then the actual leak is hard to prove (perhaps not so hard) if a another staffer on the opposite side, knew of the hole, knew that they were reading the mail, and leaked something to the press. (wild-††† theory... but read The Cuckoo's Egg sometime about a real-life scenario similar to that...)
Had the other side been reading the strategy of the other side for a year and still the nominees are locked up in committee... not sure if those people would be good recruits for the CIA or FBI...
Navigator To clarify an earlier point, I'm unsure why you projected the Christian Coalitions voting guide. I have no idea what that has to do with the question at hand. Was it meant to be a jibe?
Navigator on the tangential subject... this is a good read on Confirmation Gridlock ( http://www.ualr.edu/~appj/maltese.html)
Fair and Balanced, (not of the FOXNews type) at first glance, I think the author does a good job of presenting both sides.
Tinker Grey I am guessing that Dancer's Image views the Christian Coalition as representative of the many conservative's who he notes get on their high-horse about integrity.
As such, if they are consistent, then even tho' they are conservative they should not the unethical behaviour in their voting guides.
Forgive me, Dancer's Image, if I have it wrong.
Tinker
gripped-by-grace I don't even bother with the CC voter guides, but what unethical behavior is used in them?
As for the OP. Yes, it was wrong and it appears there are steps, particularly by Hatch, to correct it. Judging by the description of the problem, it appears the contractor (General Dynamics?) who set up the computer systems didn't do a very good job with file and network security.
And as Jon said, it's very much akin to someone leaving a file folder laying on a table and walking away. Natural human instinct is to look inside that folder when no one else is looking. What is more wrong - looking at the folder when it isn't yours, or the fact that the folder contains unethical actions by the owner?
Of course they are both wrong. Both sides have egg on their face (as well as the contractor who set up the systems). I think both sides are willing to quickly brush this one under the rug.
longhair75 friend gbg,
as a poll worker, i find it sad when someone brings in a voter's guide from some organization or other and fills out their ballot in accordance with the guide.
gripped-by-grace I understand that, friend LongHair, and agree with you. But two different posters here have mentioned or implied unethical actions by the Christian Coalition in creating the voter guides. I'm curious as to what those unethical actions are.
Tinker Grey I don't even bother with the CC voter guides, but what unethical behavior is used in them?I'm sorry that I wasn't clear. If the CC decries the unethical behavior and said behaviour is ascribable to people running for office, then even if those people are republicans whom the CC generally support, they should, at minimum, note this a demerit of sorts on their report card.
Better?
Tinker
gripped-by-grace Yes. Thank you.
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