D'Oh: House Panel Screw-Up Reveals Whistleblower Email Addresses

[librechik]

Source: Talking Points Memo

snip

Here's a whoops with a capital W.

This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort to collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department. The U.S. attorney firings scandal had shown that much was amiss in the Department, and with the danger of retaliation very real, the committee had set up a form on the committee's website for people to blow the whistle privately about abuses there. Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence."

But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline. The committee email was sent to tipsters who had used the website form, including presumably whistleblowers themselves, and all of the recipients of the email were accidentally included in the "to:" field -- instead of concealing those addresses with a so-called blind carbon copy or "bcc:".

Only the email addresses were exposed; none of the names or other identifying information of the whistleblowers was revealed. The blunder, however, was noticed by a number of people who had used the website form and received today's email. One disgruntled recipient replied to the entire list of whistleblowers angrily complaining about the snafu; two others forwarded the committee email to TPMmuckraker with similar complaints.

Compounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second email attempting to recall the original email; it, too, included all recipients in the "to:" field, according to a recipient of the emails.

snip



Read more: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004576.php

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no comment!

[OnyxCollie]

1. Fer chrissakes!

Bullet meet foot.

[truthisfreedom]

2. People! Get a clue! It's called a computer! It computes! It DOESN'T DO YOUR THINKING FOR YOU!

[Lasher]

3. Not once, TWICE!!!!

They need to make sure this person can not procreate. This is beyond stupid, and the negligent disclosure is an absolute violation of trust. I just decided that I will never count on confidentiality in the unlikely event of becoming a whistleblower myself.

[liberal N proud]

5. It wasn't received by the right people the first time

Mistake?

[tom_paine]

8. No mistake. None at all. Like that spate of massive "data thefts"

Data thefts, my ass! It's Bushie Black Ops, OHS and SS folks "clearing out the stovepiping" so that they can have Total Information Awareness on their subjects.

[lonestarnot]

9. Never count on it ever. LOL

[JTFrog]

4. Better than anthrax.

Who needs enemies with friends like this?

[Ian David]

6. Remember that the Democrats and the Republickers launched separate, competing tip lines?

Was this the Democratic or Republick tip line?

[Ian David]

7. Oh, this is bad...

<snip>

Some of the email addresses appear to be transparently fake, but there's also, much more troubling, a [e-mail] carbon copied on the email, which is the public email address for Vice President Dick Cheney. In other words, an email containing the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to public email address of Vice President Cheney.

The purpose of today's mis-sent email was, ironically enough, to announce careful new procedures about to be put in place by the committee for reviewing the tips received through the committee's website. No one on the committee or any staff has reviewed any of the tips, pursuant to an agreement reached between committee Democrats and Republicans. Only "Members of the Judiciary Committee, and Committee staff specifically designated by the Democratic Chairman or Ranking Republican Member, will have access to the e-mails, and they are prohibited from removing any e-mail from Committee offices," today's email read. "This message is also to advise you that you have three business days...­ to notify us if you wish to withdraw your e-mail rather than have it reviewed by the Committee under these procedures."

More:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004576.php

[tom_paine]

10. Anyone who thinks this was mis-sent hasn't been paying attention

I don't kow exactly how it was done...Bushie Mole, Total Information Awareness or the fact that the Busheis now possess back doors into anyone's computer because Microsquish installed them for "national security"? Maybe something else, who can guess the details?

But Dick Cheney just got a list of people to be destroyed (perhaps a couple of them suicided or killed by Right-Wing Death Squads to provide extreme examples...you know those botched robberies where the second-tier Dem gets killed but the thieves mysteriously don't take anything (if I recall correctly, the Bushies did their test runs in 2004-6) and those people WILL be destroyed.

Wait for it. And all those lives are too "small" to have their destructions and deaths even noticed by the Bushie Media and the Toadying MSM that dances to it's tune.

Dear God, the people on that list should flee the fucking country NOW.

[OnceUponTimeOnTheNet]

11. This will get nasty.

[tyne]

13. Huh.

"In other words, an email containing the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to public email address of Vice President Cheney."

Veddy interesting. "Which" tipline, indeed.

[Massachusetts]

12. Keystone Cops!

[Doctor_J]

14. Um, this was a "mistake"?

Sure. :eyes: