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20071031

US - Global - Ron Paul - Criminal - E-Mail - Internet - Hacking - 2008 Election - Politics - Texas - "'Criminal' Botnet Stumps for Ron Paul, Researchers Allege." ... "If Texas congressman [and 2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] Ron Paul is elected president in 2008, he may be the first leader of the free world put into power with the help of a global network of hacked PCs spewing spam, according to computer-security researchers who've analyzed a recent flurry of e-mail supporting the long-shot Republican candidate." ... ""This is clearly a criminal act in support of a campaign, which has been committed with or without their knowledge," says Gary Warner, the University of Alabama at Birmingham's director of research in computer forensics. "The question is, will we see more and more of this, or will this bring shame to the campaigns and will they make clear that this is not a form of acceptable behavior by their supporters?" Warner pointed to provisions of the federal Can-Spam Act." ... "Ron Paul spokesman Jesse Benton says the campaign has no knowledge of the scam. Warner himself says that he has no reason to believe that the Paul campaign had anything to do with these messages." ... "Some participants in the online political world have long suspected Paul's technically sophisticated fan base of manipulating online tools and polls to boost the appearance of a wide base of support. But the UAB analysis is the first to document any internet shenanigans." -By Sarah Lai Stirland -Wired

20071029

US - Iraq - Military - Government - Politician - EMail - 2008 Election - Computer - Web - Hacking - "Gen. Petraeus' Spokesman Denies Sending Angry Email -- Plot Thickens." ... "A disturbing email allegedly sent by a top U.S. military spokesman to a leading blogger at Salon.com this past weekend is just starting to draw mainstream attention. Howard Kurtz at The Washington Post mentioned it today, for example. It requires a good deal of background information to fully appreciate it, so I will provide a link to Glenn Greenwald’s blog page at Salon where he offered extensive postings (and updates) Sunday [*] and today [*] about the email purportedly from Army [Colonel] Col. Steven Boylan. But E&P has its own correspondence from Boylan, and I want to focus on that." ... "The long and short of the Greenwald postings: For months the popular blogger -- a former attorney and author of the recent bestseller "A Tragic Legacy" -- has criticized the growing “politicization” of the military attached to Iraq, starting earlier this year and peaking around the appearance of [General] Gen. David Petraeus before Congress (and the media) in September. This was even before William Safire declared, this past weekend, that the general ought to be considered as a running mate for a [2008 Election] Republican candidate for president next year." ... "In the past, Greenwald had received, and printed, emails from Boylan, a public affairs officer and chief spokesman for Gen. Petraeus, denying this trend and/or defending the general. So when he received an angry email from Boylan yesterday, he posted much of it on his blog (and linked to the entire message), while asserting that the views and language in it proved his point about “politicization.”" ... "Then it got really interesting. Boylan in another note to Greenwald seemed to deny that he wrote the email, while denouncing Greenwald for publishing it. But he did not state this clearly and refused to respond to Greenwald’s subsequent request for clarity. Meanwhile, various purported computer experts compared past and present emails from Boylan to Greenwald and suggested (to the latter) that they did seem to come from the same military email address. But no one was certain and, at the least, it raised troubling questions about someone "hijacking" the email account of Gen. Petraeus's chief spokesman. " -By Greg Mitchell -EditorAndPublisher.com

20071017

Mitch McConnell - Media - Surveillance - Intelligence - Politics - Children - Health - E-Mails - Kentucky - "McConnell knew staff encouraged media to look at boy's background." ... "Senate Minority Leader [Kentucky Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell knew his staff had sent e-mails encouraging reporters to look into the background of a boy recruited by Democrats to support expansion of a children's health-care program - even as he denied involvement by his aides, a newspaper reported Wednesday." ... "The Kentucky Republican told a WHAS-TV reporter last Friday that his staff had not been involved in trying to push reporters to look into the financial situation of the 12-year-old boy's family." ... "But McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told The Courier-Journal of Louisville [Kentucky] that he informed McConnell about the Oct. 8 e-mails sometime around Thursday, the day before the interview with the television reporter." -AP via -Kentucky.com
Mitch McConnell - Children - Health - Politics - E-Mails - Media - Radio - Ad - Money - Kentucky - Maryland - "McConnell knew of e-mails about boy: TV interview included denial." ... "Senate Minority Leader [Kentucky Republican Senator] Mitch McConnell knew last week --at a time when he was denying it -- that his staff had sent e-mails encouraging reporters to look into the background of a 12-year-old boy used by Democrats to support expansion of a health-care program." ... "In an interview Friday with WHAS-TV reporter Mark Hebert, the Kentucky Republican said his staff had not been involved in trying to push reporters to look into the financial situation of the boy's family." ... "But McConnell's communications director, Don Stewart, said in an interview Monday with The Courier-Journal that he had told McConnell about the Oct. 8 e-mails sometime around Thursday, the day before the interview with Hebert." ... ""The initial e-mails sent by Stewart were aimed at alerting reporters that bloggers were raising questions about the boy, Graeme Frost of Baltimore [Maryland], and his family's financial circumstances. He backed off that claim in his subsequent e-mails, he said, based on a report from a blogger whom he respected." ... "Stewart said he informed McConnell of his personal role in the matter around Thursday." ... "The next day, Friday, Hebert asked McConnell about the e-mails. The exchange was broadcast Sunday night and again last evening." ... "Hebert asked the senator whether his office was attempting to get reporters to look into Frost's background." ... ""No," McConnell answered." ... "The senator was then asked, "What was the deal with the e-mail from your staffer?"" ... "McConnell replied: "There was no involvement whatsoever."" ... "The boy and his family's circumstances became an issue after he was recruited by the Democrats to respond to [Republican] President Bush's Sept. 29 radio address regarding the expanded health program, which Bush vetoed Oct. 3." ... "Graeme and his sister, Gemma, suffered severe injuries in a 2004 car crash and were beneficiaries of the insurance program." -By James R. Carroll -Courier-Journal.com

20070920

Secret - Phone - E-Mail - Surveillance - Company - Consumer - Lawsuit - Politics - Terrorism - Government - Intelligence - San Francisco - California - "Case Dismissed? The secret lobbying campaign your phone company doesn't want you to know about." ... "The nation’s biggest telecommunications companies, working closely with the [Republican President Bush] White House, have mounted a secretive lobbying campaign to get Congress to quickly approve a measure wiping out all private lawsuits against them for assisting the U.S. intelligence community’s warrantless surveillance programs." ... "The campaign—which involves some of Washington's most prominent lobbying and law firms—has taken on new urgency in recent weeks because of fears that a U.S. appellate court in San Francisco [California] is poised to rule that the lawsuits should be allowed to proceed." ... "If that happens, the telecom companies say, they may be forced to terminate their cooperation with the U.S. intelligence community—or risk potentially crippling damage awards for allegedly turning over personal information about their customers to the government without a judicial warrant." ... "But critics say the language proposed by the White House—drafted in close cooperation with the industry officials—is so extraordinarily broad that it would provide retroactive immunity for all past telecom actions related to the surveillance program. Its practical effect, they argue, would be to shut down any independent judicial or state inquires into how the companies have assisted the government in eavesdropping on the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. residents in the aftermath of the September 11 terror attacks." ... "Among those coordinating the industry’s effort are two well-connected capital players who both worked for President George H.W. Bush: Verizon general counsel William Barr, who served as attorney general under 41, and AT&T senior executive vice president James Cicconi, who was the elder Bush's deputy chief of staff." ... "Working with them are a battery of major D.C. lobbyists and lawyers who are providing "strategic advice" to the companies on the issue, according to sources familiar with the campaign who asked not to be identified talking about it. Among the players, these sources said: powerhouse Republican lobbyists Charlie Black and Wayne Berman (who represent AT&T and Verizon, respectively), former GOP senator and U.S. ambassador to Germany Dan Coats (a lawyer at King & Spaulding who is representing Sprint), former Democratic Party strategist and one-time assistant secretary of State Tom Donilon (who represents Verizon), former deputy attorney general Jamie Gorelick (whose law firm also represents Verizon) and Brad Berenson, a former assistant White House counsel under President George W. Bush who now represents AT&T." (1, 2, 3) -By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball -MSNBC /Newsweek

20070914

Mark Foley - Gay - Teenage - Student - Electronic - Mail- Internet - Messages - Florida - Enforcement - Politics - "Foley Unlikely to Be Prosecuted; Lewd Internet Messages Too Old." ... "Disgraced former [Florida Republican Representative] Congressman Mark Foley, whose e-mails and instant messages to teenage former congressional pages shocked the country, may avoid criminal prosecution in Florida because of the state's three-year statute of limitations." ... "The Florida Department of Law Enforcement did not start a criminal investigation of Foley until November 2006, making it nearly impossible to prosecute what some officials regarded as the best case, an explicit instant message sent by Foley to a 17-year-old high school student in February 2003, when Foley was in Pensacola, Fla." ... "Under Florida law, it is a third-degree felony both to use the Internet "to seduce, solicit, lure or entice" a minor "to commit any illegal act...relating to lewdness and indecent exposure" and to transmit any "information or data that is harmful to minors...via electronic mail," which includes instant messages." -By Vic Walter and Krista Kjellman -ABCNEWS.com

20070912

US - Intelligence - Politics - Terrorism - Germany - Overseas - Telephone - E-Mail - Secret - Electronic - Surveillance - Law - Connecticut - "Spy Master Admits Error: Intel czar Mike McConnell told Congress a new law helped bring down a terror plot. The facts say otherwise." ... "In a new embarrassment for the [Republican President] Bush administration's top spymaster, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell is withdrawing an assertion he made to Congress this week that a recently passed electronic-surveillance law helped U.S. authorities foil a major terror plot in Germany." ... "The temporary measure, signed into law by President Bush on Aug. 5, gave the U.S. intelligence community broad new powers to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications overseas without seeking warrants from the surveillance court. The law expires in six months and is expected to be the subject of intense debate in the months ahead. On Monday, McConnell—questioned by [Connecticut Independent Democratic Senator] Sen. Joe Lieberman—claimed the law, intended to remedy what the White House said was an intelligence gap, had helped to “facilitate” the arrest of three suspects believed to be planning massive car bombings against American targets in Germany. Other U.S. intelligence-community officials questioned the accuracy of McConnell's testimony and urged his office to correct it. Four intelligence-community officials, who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive material, said the new law, dubbed the "Protect America Act,” played little if any role in the unraveling of the German plot." ... "Late Wednesday afternoon, McConnell issued a statement acknowledging that "information contributing to the recent arrests [in Germany] was not collected under authorities provided by the 'Protect America Act'."" ... "The developments were cited by Democratic critics on Capitol Hill as the latest example of the Bush administration's exaggerated claims—and contradictory statements—about ultrasecret surveillance activities." (1, 2, 3) -By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball -MSNBC /Newsweek

20070905

US - Iraq - Military - Hurricane Katrina - Historical - Secrets - Archive - Electronic - Messages - Presidential Records Act - Government - E-Mail - Politics - "White House sued again over e-mail." ... "The [law]suit by the National Security Archive, a private group, is the latest effort to find out whether the [Republican President] Bush administration lost millions of electronic messages." ... ""The period covers the period beginning with the Iraq war until the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; it doesn't get more historically valuable than that," said Tom Blanton, director of the private organization, which advocates public disclosure of government secrets." ... "The Federal Records Act and the Presidential Records Act require that e-mail be preserved." -By Pete Yost -AP via -SeattlePI

20070831

E-Mail - Computer - Tech - Company - Government - Communications - Archive - Presidential Records Act - Law - Politics - California - "Bush E-Mail Mystery Deepens: White House Won't Name Tech Contractor." ... "The [Republican President Bush] White House will not identify a private company which appears to be involved in the disappearance of millions of White House e-mails." ... "According to the White House, at least five million e-mails were not properly archived and may be lost forever, in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act. The post-Watergate law states that communications relating to official activity in the offices of the president and vice president are owned by the American public and cannot be destroyed." ... "The firm worked for the Information Assurance Directorate, under the White House chief information officer, [California Democratic Representative Henry] Waxman said he was told." -By Justin Rood -ABCNEWS.com

20070816

Government - Intelligence - Wiretap - Secrets - Phone - E-Mail - Internet - Messages - Technology - Companies - Politics - San Francisco - California - "Classified evidence debated: Court likely to allow suit against AT&T, reject wiretap case." ... "A federal appeals court holding a high-stakes hearing Wednesday in San Francisco [California] on President Bush's clandestine eavesdropping program appeared inclined to keep alive a lawsuit accusing AT&T of illegally letting the government intercept millions of Americans' phone calls and e-mails." ... "At the same hearing, however, the panel appeared skeptical about a suit by a defunct Islamic charity that said it had evidence that it and two of its lawyers had been wiretapped - the only such case in the nation filed by an alleged target of the surveillance program. The snag is that the evidence, a document that the government inadvertently released to the plaintiffs in 2004, is classified top secret and thus can't be used in court to prove that the calls were overheard." ... "The two-hour hearing by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involved two different cases with a common theme: the Bush administration's argument that the details of the program were so sensitive that a lawsuit challenging any aspect of it would pose an unacceptable risk of exposing state secrets." ... "The AT&T suit, like several cases pending against other telecommunications companies, accuses the firm of giving the National Security Agency unlimited access to customers' phone calls, e-mails and message records. Plaintiffs in the AT&T case have submitted a declaration by a former company engineer who said he helped install equipment at the company's San Francisco office that would divert Internet messages to a room reserved for government-cleared employees." -By Bob Egelko -SFGate.com

20070812

Americans - Global - Communications - Liberty - Politics - Law - Secret - Government - Intelligence - Electronic - Surveillance - Tech - E-Mail - Terrorism - History - "How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won." ... "For three days, Mike McConnell, the [Republican President Bush's] director of national intelligence, had haggled with congressional leaders over amendments to a federal surveillance law, but now he was putting his foot down. "This is the issue," said the plain-spoken retired vice admiral and Vietnam veteran, "that makes my blood pressure rise."" ... "McConnell viscerally objected to a Democratic proposal to limit warrantless surveillance of foreigners' communications with Americans to instances in which one party was a terrorism suspect. McConnell wanted no such limits. "All foreign intelligence" targets in touch with Americans on any topic of interest should be fair game for U.S. spying, he said, according to two participants in the Aug. 2 conversation." ... "McConnell won the fight, extracting a key concession despite the misgivings of Democratic negotiators. Shortly after that exchange, the [Republican President] Bush administration leveraged Democratic acquiescence into a broader victory: congressional approval of a Republican bill that would expand surveillance powers far beyond what Democratic leaders had initially been willing to accept." ... "Until September -- and possibly for much longer -- the new law will enable the high-tech collection of foreign communications without judicial scrutiny on a vastly larger scale than previously possible, allowing billions of phone calls and e-mails inside as well as outside the United States to be routinely screened for possible links to terrorism and other security threats." ... "What McConnell wanted most from Congress was to be able to intercept, without a warrant, purely foreign-to-foreign communications that pass through fiber-optic cables and switching stations on U.S. soil. That provision was meant to restore a U.S. capability that existed three decades ago, when a 1978 law allowed warrantless surveillance of foreign calls that were overwhelmingly relayed wirelessly." ... "Since then, advances in technology have caused 90 percent of global communications to pass through wires -- mostly optic fibers capable of carrying 6,000 calls in a strand. That development has been a boon to the National Security Agency, which has worked hard to monitor the traffic with U.S.-based taps and concluded it was doing so legally." ... "But in a secret ruling in March, a judge on a special court empowered to review the government's electronic snooping challenged for the first time the government's ability to collect data from such wires even when they came from foreign terrorist targets. In May, a judge on the same court went further, telling the administration flatly that the law's wording required the government to get a warrant whenever a fixed wire is involved." (1, 2, 3) -By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus -WashingtonPost

20070807

Alberto R Gonzales - US - Government - Foreign - Intelligence - Surveillance - Law - Politics - E-Mail - Communications - Secrecy - "Same Agencies to Run, Oversee Surveillance Program." ... "The [Republican President] Bush administration plans to leave oversight of its expanded foreign eavesdropping program to the same government officials who supervise the surveillance activities and to the intelligence personnel who carry them out, senior government officials said yesterday." ... "The law, which permits intercepting Americans' calls and e-mails without a warrant if the communications involve overseas transmission, gives Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales responsibility for creating the broad procedures determining whose telephone calls and e-mails are collected. It also gives McConnell and Gonzales the role of assessing compliance with those procedures." ... "The law, signed Sunday by President Bush after being pushed through the Senate and House over the weekend, does not contain provisions for outside oversight -- unlike an earlier House measure that called for audits every 60 days by the Justice Department's inspector general." ... "Central to the new program is the collection of foreign intelligence from "communication service providers," which the officials declined to identify, citing secrecy concerns." -By Walter Pincus with contributions by Joby Warrick-WashingtonPost

20070806

Secret - United States - Government - Foreign - Intelligence - Surveillance - History - Electronic - E-Mail - Telephone- Law - Language - Politics - Terrorism - "Bush Signs Law to Widen Legal Reach for Wiretapping." ... "[Republican] President Bush signed into law on Sunday legislation that broadly expanded the government’s authority to eavesdrop on the international telephone calls and e-mail messages of American citizens without warrants." ... "Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States." ... "They also said that the new law for the first time provided a legal framework for much of the surveillance without warrants that was being conducted in secret by the National Security Agency and outside the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the 1978 law that is supposed to regulate the way the government can listen to the private communications of American citizens." ... "“This more or less legalizes the N.S.A. program,” said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington, who has studied the new legislation." ... "Previously, the government needed search warrants approved by a special intelligence court to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, e-mail messages and other electronic communications between individuals inside the United States and people overseas, if the government conducted the surveillance inside the United States." -By James Risen -NYTimes

20070803

Secret - US - World - Intelligence - E-Mail - Communications - Spying - Government - Law - Politics - John A Boehner - Ohio - Illinois - California - New York - "Ruling Limited Spying Efforts: Move to Amend FISA Sparked by Judge's Decision." ... "A federal intelligence court judge earlier this year secretly declared a key element of the [Republican President] Bush administration's wiretapping efforts illegal, according to a lawmaker and government sources, providing a previously unstated rationale for fevered efforts by congressional lawmakers this week to expand the president's spying powers." ... "House Minority Leader [Ohio Republican Representative] John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) disclosed elements of the court's decision in remarks Tuesday to Fox News as he was promoting the administration-backed wiretapping legislation. Boehner has denied revealing classified information, but two government officials privy to the details confirmed that his remarks concerned classified information." ... "The judge, whose name could not be learned, concluded early this year that the government had overstepped its authority in attempting to broadly surveil communications between two locations overseas that are passed through routing stations in the United States, according to two other government sources familiar with the decision." ... "The practical effect has been to block the NSA's [National Security Agency's] efforts to collect information from a large volume of foreign calls and e-mails that passes through U.S. communications nodes clustered around New York and California." ... ""There's been a ruling, over the last four or five months, that prohibits the ability of our intelligence services and our counterintelligence people from listening in to two terrorists in other parts of the world where the communication could come through the United States," Boehner told Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto in a Tuesday interview." ... "Commenting on Boehner's remarks, [Illinois Democratic Representative] Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), the House Democratic Caucus chairman, said yesterday that "John should remember the old adage: Loose lips very much sink ships."" (1, 2) -By Carol D. Leonnig and Ellen Nakashima with contributions by Dan Eggen, Barton Gellman, and Paul Kane -WashingtonPost

20070802

US - Foreign - Intelligence - Surveillance - Government - Terrorism - E-Mail - Telephone - Politics - "Court puts limits on surveillance abroad: The ruling raises concerns that U.S. anti-terrorism efforts might be impaired at a time of heightened risk." ... "A special court that has routinely approved eavesdropping operations has put new restrictions on the ability of U.S. spy agencies to intercept e-mails and telephone calls of suspected terrorists overseas, U.S. officials said Wednesday." ... "The previously undisclosed ruling by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has prompted concern among senior intelligence officials and lawmakers that the efforts of U.S. spy agencies to track terrorism suspects might be impaired at a time when analysts have warned that the United States is under heightened risk of attack." ... "One official said the issue centered on a ruling in which a FISA court judge rejected a government application for a "basket warrant" — a term that refers to court approval for surveillance activity encompassing multiple targets, rather than warrants issued on a case-by-case basis for surveillance of specific terrorism suspects." ... "The recent FISA court ruling was a blow to the [Republican] Bush administration, which had bypassed the court when it launched the NSA program in 2001. The White House moved it back under the FISA court's supervision last year after Democrats won control of Congress and appeared poised to challenge the constitutionality of a program that monitored U.S. residents' communications without warrants." ... "The issue has become the center of a fierce new debate on Capitol Hill over how to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a special court's approval before monitoring communications of people in the U.S. Public records show that the court rejects few of the government's requests: In 2005, for example, it approved 2,072 applications and denied none; in 2006 it approved 2,176 and denied, in part, one." -By Greg Miller with contributions by Richard B. Schmitt -LAtimes
Karl Rove - Scott Jennings - US Attorneys - Political - Government - E-Mail - Internet - Presidential Records Act - Vermont - "Rove a no-show at hearing, aide skirts questions." ... "The top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove refused to answer at least a dozen questions from a Senate committee Thursday about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys last year, asserting -- as expected -- a claim of executive privilege by [Republican] President Bush." ... "Scott Jennings, who also is a special assistant to Bush, arrived at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with his attorney, Mark Paoletta, to avoid a contempt citation." ... "The panel had subpoenaed both Jennings and Rove, but Rove refused to show up, angering [Vermont Democratic Senator] Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont." ... ""I consider that blanket claim (of executive privilege) to be unsubstantiated," Leahy said he told Jennings before the meeting." ... "The senators sought answers about e-mail sent by dozens of White House staff using e-mail accounts provided through a Republican National Committee Internet address." ... "In March, congressional investigators found evidence that White House staffers had used those e-mail accounts to discuss government business -- including the firings of the U.S. attorneys -- in violation of the Presidential Records Act. The law is aimed at keeping government business separate from partisan political activities." ... ""Mr. Rove has given reasons for the firings that have now been shown to be inaccurate, after-the-fact fabrications," Leahy said in a statement issued Wednesday evening. "Yet he now refuses to tell this committee the truth about his role in targeting well-respected U.S. attorneys for firing and in seeking to cover up his role and that of his staff in the scandal."" -CNN

20070726

Alberto Gonzales - Karl Rove - Monica Goodling - US Attorneys - Terrorism - Phone - E-Mail - Surveillance - Intelligence - Law- Politics - New York - "Rove Summoned as Democrats Escalate Fight With Bush (Update2)." ... "Senate Democrats sought a special prosecutor to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lied to lawmakers and they subpoenaed [Republican] President George W. Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, to testify about the firing of U.S. attorneys." ... "Charges by four Democratic senators that Gonzales repeatedly lied under oath, plus the latest subpoena, raised the stakes in the congressional fight with Bush over his refusal to allow aides to testify about the firing of nine prosecutors last year." ... "``The attorney general took an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,'' New York [Democratic Senator] Democrat Charles Schumer told reporters today. ``Instead, he tells the half-truth, the partial truth and everything but the truth. And he does it not once, and not twice, but over and over and over again.''" ... "The lawmakers said Gonzales's testimony that he never talked to other colleagues about the prosecutor firings after the controversy erupted was contradicted by former aide Monica Goodling. She told Congress in May that she felt ``uncomfortable'' when Gonzales raised the subject." ... "The Democrats also said they found ``deeply troubling'' Gonzales's assertions in 2006 Senate testimony that ``there has not been any serious disagreement'' in the administration over the interception of suspected terrorists' international phone calls and e-mails without court warrants." ... "The attorney general's statement was contradicted in congressional testimony earlier this year by former Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, who said there had been dissent at the highest levels of the Justice Department in March 2004." -By James Rowley -Bloomberg

20070706

Spying - Lawsuit - Politics - History - US - International - Phone - E-Mail - Intelligence - "Court dismisses lawsuit on spying program." ... "A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday a lawsuit challenging the domestic spying program created by [Republican] President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks must be dismissed, in a decision based on narrow technical grounds." ... "The surveillance program was authorized by Bush to monitor the international phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens, without first obtaining a court warrant. A lower court had ruled in August 2006 that the program was unconstitutional." ... "But the two judges in the majority opinion said the plaintiffs had failed to prove they were under surveillance." ... "In the previous ruling, a U.S. district judge in Detroit ruled the program violated the Constitution and a 1978 law prohibiting surveillance of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without the approval of the special surveillance court." ... "The two judges in the majority, Julia Smith Gibbons and Batchelder, are Republican appointees, named by Bush and his father [former Republican President George H. W. Bush], respectively." (1, 2) -By Andrea Hopkins with contributions by James Vicini and Matt Spetalnick -Reuters

20070628

US - International - Dick Cheney - Secret - Military - Surveillance - Telecommunications - E-Mail - Companies - Intelligence - Law - History - Politics - "Panel pushes for files on spy program: White House, Cheney get subpoenas." ... "The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday issued subpoenas to the Bush administration for documents related to its warrantless surveillance program, elevating a long-simmering dispute between Congress and the [Republican] White House over classified national-security information into a possible constitutional showdown." ... "Specifically, the committee is seeking documents related to White House authorization and reauthorization of the warrantless surveillance program, internal memos analyzing whether the surveillance is legal, agreements with telecommunications companies that assisted in the spying, orders by a secret national-security court regarding the program, and papers concerning [Republican] President Bush's decision to shut down an in-house Justice Department investigation related to the program." ... "The program dates to the weeks after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when [Republican President George] Bush signed an order authorizing the military's National Security Agency to monitor Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without a judge's approval." ... "A 1978 statute makes it a felony to conduct such surveillance without a warrant, but the president's legal team secretly asserted that his wartime powers include an unwritten right to bypass such laws at his own discretion. Cheney and his counsel, David Addington , were the leading proponents of the program and the controversial legal theory supporting it, former administration lawyers have said." ... "The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which polices compliance with legal ethics, opened an investigation into whether department lawyers knowingly signed off on a faulty interpretation of the law to give the program legal cover. But Bush shut down the investigation by refusing to grant the office security clearance." -By Charlie Savage -Boston/Globe

20070618

Karl Rove - Susan Ralston - Government - E-Mail - Presidential Records Law - Computer - Politics - Business - "Missing White House e-mails may have violated law, panel says." ... "[Republican President George Bush] Presidential adviser Karl Rove sent more than 140,000 e-mails through the Republican National Committee's computer system, circumventing a federal law intended to guarantee the preservation of presidential records, House of Representatives investigators have concluded." ... "While 88 White House aides used the back-channel system, Rove was its biggest user at the White House, and more than half of his communications dealt with official business, according to an interim report by the House Oversight Committee." ... "Susan Ralston, a former aide to Rove, told congressional investigators that Rove sent almost all of his e-mails through the RNC system and used a Blackberry that he received from the Republican Party from his first day at the White House." -By Ron Hutcheson -McClatchyDC.com
Jack Abramoff - Ralston - Alberto Gonzales - Karl Rove - Political - Government - E-Mail - Communications - Presidential Records Act - Law - US Attorneys - California - "Report: White House aides used GOP e-mail to skirt law." ... "E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House aides with Republican Party accounts, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reported Monday." ... "The White House says the accounts were set up to keep political work separate from official business, but investigators concluded White House officials used the accounts to conduct official business in a way that circumvented the Watergate-era Presidential Records Act." ... "The committee, led by California Democrat [Represenative] Henry Waxman, began looking into the GOP e-mail accounts after messages from the accounts turned up in two cases -- the case of imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the 2006 firings of eight U.S. attorneys by the Justice Department." ... "[Susan] Ralston told investigators that [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales, now attorney general, knew [Karl] Rove was using his party e-mail account for official business, "but took no action to preserve Mr. Rove's official communications," the report states." -CNN
Alberto Gonzales - Government - Electronic - E-Mail - Politics - Presidential Records Act - "White House aides' e-mail records gone." ... "E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 [Republican President George Bush] White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday." ... "The Bush administration may have committed "extensive" violations of a law [the Presidential Records Act] requiring that certain records be preserved, said the committee's Democratic chairman, adding that the panel will deepen its probe into the use of political e-mail accounts." ... "The administration has said that about 50 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts during Bush's presidency. But the House committee found at least 88." ... "The report especially criticized Alberto Gonzales, now the attorney general, for actions when he headed the White House Counsel's office. There is evidence that under Gonzales the office "may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records," the report said." -By Charles Babington -AP via -BostonGlobe
Karl Rove - Government - Historical - E-Mail - Archives - Presidential Records Act - Law - Politics - California - "Bush aides may have illegally lost e-mail, Dems say." ... "Karl Rove and dozens of other White House staffers appear to have illegally routed official e-mails through a Republican group that subsequently deleted them, a congressional report said on Monday." ... "By using Republican National Committee e-mail accounts for official business, senior White House aides may have broken a law [the Presidential Records Act] requiring them to preserve presidential records, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said in an interim report." ... ""This should be a matter of grave concern for anyone who values open government and the preservation of an accurate historical record," said committee Chairman [Representative] Henry Waxman, a California Democrat." (1, 2) -By Andy Sullivan -Reuters
Government - E-Mail - Archives - Presidential Records Act - Law - History - Politics - "Report: Bush aides may have circumvented records act." ... "The destruction of e-mails from top White House officials “could be the most serious breach of the Presidential Records Act in the 30-year history of the law,” according to an interim report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee." ... "The committee is investigating the use of non-White House e-mail accounts issued to senior staffers and whether these violate the Presidential Records Act. According to the interim report, which was released Monday, there is “evidence of potentially extensive violations” of the law." -By Klaus Marre -TheHill.com
Government - E-Mail - Politics - Presidential Records Act - "'Extensive Destruction' Of White House E-Mails Found." ... "Using campaign accounts for official White House business and destroying administration records are violations of the Hatch Act and Presidential Records Act, respectively. The committee's report can be found here [PDF]." -TheGate -NationalJournal
Alberto Gonzales - Government - E-Mail - Communications - Politics - Presidential Records Act - "Lawmaker claims 'extensive destruction' of e-mail records." ... "White House use of Republican National Committee e-mail accounts is more extensive than previously known, while the "extensive destruction" of e-mails points to widespread violations of the Presidential Records Act, according to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee." ... "The evidence has prompted the committee to open yet another front in the investigation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who as White House counsel may have known about the use of RNC accounts for official communications but did nothing to ensure the e-mails were preserved, according to the report." -By Keith Koffler -GovExec.com
Karl Rove - Sara M Taylor - Scott Jennings - Government - E-Mail - 2004 Election - Presidential Records Act - Law - Calif - "Bush Officials Used RNC Server for Private E-mails." ... "Almost 90 White House officials have maintained private e-mail accounts on the server of the Republican National Committee, including top advisers such as Karl Rove and former White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card, according to a House committee report released today." ... "The RNC has preserved more than 140,000 e-mails sent or received by Rove, but only 130 were written before President Bush won re-election in 2004, according to the report. The committee has preserved another 100,000 e-mails from two of Rove's top lieutenants, former White House political director Sara M. Taylor and deputy political director W. Scott Jennings, according to the House Oversight Committee." ... "The committee, chaired by [California Democratic Representative] Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), has been investigating whether the e-mail accounts run by the RNC and the Bush-Cheney '04 [2004 election] campaign committee violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires that every White House official "assure that the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance of his constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties are adequately documented."" -By Paul Kane -WashingtonPost
Karl Rove - Susan Ralston - Government - E-Mail - "D.C. Notebook: Mr. Rove, you've got mail." ... "In a deposition, Susan Ralston, Mr. [Karl] Rove's former executive assistant, testified that many of the White House officials for whom the RNC has no e-mail records were regular users of their RNC e-mail accounts. Although the RNC has preserved no e-mail records for Ken Mehlman, the former Director of Political Affairs, Ms. Ralston testified that Mr. Mehlman used his account "frequently, daily." In addition, there are major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails. The RNC has preserved only 130 e-mails sent to Mr. Rove during President Bush's first term and no e-mails sent by Mr. Rove prior to November 2003. For many other White House officials, the RNC has no e-mails from before the fall of 2006." -By Charlie Pope -SeattlePI.NWsource

20070614

Government - Surveillance - Phone - EMail - Internet - Financial - Terrorism - Intelligence - Law - Politics - "FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data." ... "An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism." ... "The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling." ... "The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities." ... "But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have, according to the audit results provided to The Washington Post. Only two such examples were identified earlier in the smaller sample." (1, 2) -By John Solomon -WashingtonPost

20070613

Karl Rove - Sara Taylor - Kyle Sampson - Alberto Gonzales - Paul McNulty - Tim Griffin - Ark- US Attorneys - Law - E-Mail - "Officials rebuked for disclosing Rove's connection to firing of U.S. attorney." ... "The White House's former political director was furious at Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, [Republican] President Bush's political adviser, according to documents released late Tuesday." ... "Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales." ... "She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wasn't fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former Republican political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim U.S. attorney, then announced that he wouldn't seek confirmation to the Arkansas post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else. Griffin has since resigned." ... ""Tim was put in a horrible position; hung out to dry w/ no heads up," Taylor lashed out in the e-mail, which was sent from a Republican Party account rather than from her White House e-mail address. "This is not good for his long-term career."" -By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor -McClatchy via -RealCities
Secretive - Harriet E Miers - Karl Rove - Sara M Taylor - D Kyle Sampson - Gonzales - US Attorneys - Law - E-Mail - Calif - "Bush Aides Helped Respond to Firings, E-Mails Show." ... "Several high-ranking White House officials were closely involved in crafting a public response to the uproar over the firing of a group of U.S. attorneys, according to documents released late yesterday." ... "Then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers and aides to presidential adviser Karl Rove were deeply enmeshed in debates over how to respond to the controversy as early as mid-January, when [California Democratic Senator] Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) questioned the spate of prosecutor departures in a Senate floor speech, according to e-mails that the Justice Department turned over to the House and Senate judiciary committees." ... "The 46 pages of e-mails show that Miers and others --including her deputy, William Kelley, and the White House political affairs director at the time, Sara M. Taylor -- were involved in spirited and sometimes angry e-mail exchanges as the secretive firings operation began to unravel in public. Many of the exchanges also included D. Kyle Sampson, who coordinated the firings as Gonzales's chief of staff." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost

20070607

Cheney - Secret - Surveillance - Politics - Phone - E-Mail - United States - - Intelligence - Liberty - Law - Health - "Official: Cheney Urged Wiretaps: Stand-In for Ashcroft Alleges Interference." ... "[Republican] Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday." ... "The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey." ... "Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas." ... "Comey said that Cheney's office later blocked the promotion of a senior Justice Department lawyer, Patrick Philbin, because of his role in raising concerns about the surveillance." ... "The disclosures also provide further details about the role played by then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. He visited Ashcroft in his hospital room and wrote an internal memorandum on the surveillance program shortly afterward, according to Comey's responses. Gonzales is now the attorney general." ... ""Mr. Comey has confirmed what we suspected for a while -- that White House hands guided Justice Department business," said Sen. [New York Democratic Senator] Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). "The vice president's fingerprints are all over the effort to strong-arm Justice on the NSA program, and the obvious next question is: Exactly what role did the president play?"" (1, 2) -By Dan Eggen with contributions by Amy Goldstein -WashingtonPost

20070510

Karl Rove - Timothy Griffin - D Kyle Sampson - Alberto Gonzales - Harriet Miers - US Attorney - E-Mail - Law - Politics - Arkansas - "Administration Withheld E-Mails About Rove." ... "The [Republican President] Bush administration has withheld a series of e-mails from Congress showing that senior White House and Justice Department officials worked together to conceal the role of Karl Rove in installing Timothy Griffin, a protégé of Rove's, as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas." ... "The withheld records show that D. Kyle Sampson, who was then-chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, consulted with White House officials in drafting two letters to Congress that appear to have misrepresented the circumstances of Griffin's appointment as U.S. attorney and of Rove's role in supporting Griffin." ... "In one of the letters that Sampson drafted, dated February 23, 2007, the Justice Department told four Senate Democrats it was not aware of any role played by senior White House adviser Rove in attempting to name Griffin to the U.S. attorney post. A month later, the Justice Department apologized in writing to the Senate Democrats for the earlier letter, saying it had been inaccurate in denying that Rove had played a role." ... "Brad Berenson, an attorney for Sampson, said in an interview that his client did not intend to mislead Congress. Sampson, he said, signed off on the February 23 letter based on representations made by the White House that it was accurate." ... "The withheld e-mails show that Sampson's draft was forwarded for review to Chris Oprison, an associate White House counsel, who approved the language saying that Justice was not aware of Rove having played any role in supporting Griffin. But an earlier e-mail from Sampson to Oprison that has already been made public indicates that the two men discussed Rove and then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers as being at the forefront of Griffin's nomination." ... "Two senior administration officials told National Journal they were frustrated with decisions by Gonzales not to release some of the documents held by the Justice Department. One of the officials charged that "Gonzales is doing this to save his own neck," at the expense of the administration. The same official said that senior aides to Gonzales have been refusing to turn over many relevant documents to Congress, and that the attorney general's top aides have been selectively leaking portions of them to the media to portray themselves in a favorable light." -By Murray Waas -NationalJournal

20070502

US - Government - Military - Family - Free Speech - E-Mail - Online - Surveillance - Politics - Foreign - Intelligence - History - "Army Squeezes Soldier Blogs, Maybe to Death." ... "The U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say." ... "Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home." ... "Active-duty troops aren't the only ones affected by the new guidelines. Civilians working for the military, Army contractors -- even soldiers' families -- are all subject to the directive as well." ... "The U.S. military -- all militaries -- have long been concerned about their personnel inadvertently letting sensitive information out. Troops' mail was read and censored throughout World War II; back home, government posters warned citizens "careless talk kills."" ... "Military blogs, or milblogs, as they're known in service-member circles, only make the potential for mischief worse. On a website, anyone, including foreign intelligence agents, can stop by and look for information." -Noah Shachtman -Wired

20070424

Scott J Bloch - Karl Rove - Government - Employees - Investigation - 2004 Election - Travel - Politics - E-Mail - US Attorney - Hatch Act - Law - Mass - "Rove Investigator Faces Own Allegations." ... "The senior government official who says he is investigating [Republican President Bush's aide] Karl Rove for allegations he influenced government activity for partisan purposes is himself facing allegations of similar behavior." ... "In interviews yesterday with reporters, Scott J. Bloch disclosed that his Office of Special Counsel was opening a broad probe of the White House political office and its interaction with government agencies. The investigation will cover the use of private e-mail accounts by White House aides, the firing of at least one U.S. attorney and presentations of political data by White House aides to other officials in government, Bloch told the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post." ... "But government watchdogs have accused Bloch himself of similar behavior. In April 2005, they and others complained the White House appointee had allowed his office to "sit on" a complaint that then-White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice used government funds to travel in support of President Bush's [2004] re-election bid." ... "By contrast, they said, Bloch ordered an immediate on-site investigation of a complaint that Bush's challenger for the White House, [Massachusetts Democratic Senator and 2004 Presidential Candidate] Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., improperly campaigned in a government workplace, which had been filed around the same time." ... "Bloch's obscure but important office investigates violations of a law banning the use of public resources for partisan political purposes, known as the Hatch Act. In January, his office said Kerry did not violate the act." -By Justin Rood -ABCNEWS.com

20070417

E-Mail - Politics - US Attorneys - Mich - Gonzales - "White House seeks to review GOP e-mails." ... "President Bush's lawyers told the Republican National Committee on Tuesday not to turn over to Congress any e-mails related to the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys before showing them to the White House." ... "Democrats and Republican critics of the administration said the move suggests that the White House is seeking to develop a strategy to block the release of the non-government e-mails to congressional investigators by arguing that they're covered by executive privilege and not subject to review." ... "Judiciary Chairman [Michigan Democratic Representative] John Conyers, D-Mich., who'd asked the RNC to turn over any applicable e-mails by week's end, characterized the White House's stance as an "extreme and unnecessary" effort to block or slow the release of the e-mails." ... "Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration Justice Department official who's been critical of the administration and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, said the existence of the RNC e-mails is worrisome for the White House." ... ""The situation is very awkward for the administration because they don't know exactly what e-mails are there. What does seem very clear is that the e-mails did concern government business, which would include firing U.S. attorneys. Otherwise there would be no plausible claim," he said." -By Margaret Talev -McClatchy via -RealCities

20070413

Rove - Miers - Gonzales - Political - Government - E-Mail - Communication - Archive - US Attorneys - "Missing E-Mail May Be Related to Prosecutors." ... "The White House said Thursday that missing e-mail messages sent on Republican Party accounts may include some relating to the firing of eight United States attorneys." ... "The disclosure became a fresh political problem for the White House, as Democrats stepped up their inquiry into whether Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush used the e-mail accounts maintained by the Republican National Committee to circumvent record-keeping requirements." ... "Mr. Rove uses several e-mail accounts, including one with the Republican National Committee, one with the White House and a private domain account that is registered to the political consulting company he once owned. Mr. Waxman said Mr. Kelner reported that in 2005, the national committee adopted a new policy, specifically aimed at Mr. Rove, which “removed Mr. Rove’s ability to personally delete his e-mails from the R.N.C. server.”" ... "Mr. Waxman also said he now had “serious concerns about the White House’s compliance with the Presidential Records Act,” a 1978 law that requires administrations to keep records of deliberations, decisions and policies. The congressman asked for an inventory of all communications by White House officials on nongovernment e-mail accounts." ... "The Democrats’ investigation into the political e-mail accounts grows directly out of the inquiry into the firing of the United States attorneys. When the Justice Department turned over documents to Congress, they showed that, contrary to the White House’s initial assertions, Mr. Rove and Harriet E. Miers, the former White House counsel, seemed to be involved in planning the dismissals." ... "The documents also revealed that a deputy to Mr. Rove, Scott Jennings, who works in the White House Office of Political Affairs, had used his Republican National Committee e-mail account, ending in gwb43.com, to communicate about the dismissals with a top aide to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales." (1, 2) -By Sheryl Gay Stolberg with contributions by Scott Shane and David Johnston -NYTimes

20070412

Rove - Ralston - Abramoff - Government - E-Mail - Electronic - Communication - History - Archive - Law- US Attorneys - Politics - "Countless White House E-Mails Deleted." ... "Countless e-mails to and from many key White House staffers have been deleted -- lost to history and placed out of reach of congressional subpoenas -- due to a brazen violation of internal White House policy that was allowed to continue for more than six years, the White House acknowledged yesterday." ... "The leading culprit appears to be President Bush's enormously influential political adviser Karl Rove, who reportedly used his Republican National Committee-provided Blackberry and e-mail accounts for most of his electronic communication." ... "Until 2004, all e-mail on RNC accounts was routinely deleted after 30 days. Since 2004, White House staffers using those accounts have been able to save their e-mail indefinitely -- but have also been able to delete whatever they felt like deleting. By comparison, the White House e-mail system preserves absolutely everything forever, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act." ... "In an afternoon conference call with reporters, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel spread the blame all around. "White House policy did not give clear enough guidance," he said." ... "But when I asked Stanzel to read out loud the White House e-mail policy, it seemed clear enough to me: "Federal law requires the preservation of electronic communications sent or received by White House staff," says the handbook that all staffers are given and expected to read and comply with." ... ""As a result, personnel working on behalf of the EOP [Executive Office of the President] are expected to only use government-provided e-mail services for all official communication."" ... "The handbook further explains: "The official EOP e-mail system is designed to automatically comply with records management requirements."" ... "And if that wasn't clear enough, the handbook notes --as was the case in the Clinton administration -- that "commercial or free e-mail sites and chat rooms are blocked from the EOP network to help staff members ensure compliance and to prevent the circumvention of the records management requirements."" ... "Stanzel refused to publicly release the relevant portions of the White House staff manual and denied my request to make public the transcript of the call, which lasted more than an hour but which -- due to Stanzel's refusal or inability to provide straight answers on many issues -- raised more questions than it answered." ... "The use of non-government e-mails first became an issue about four weeks ago, when some of the e-mails turned over in a congressional investigation of the firing of eight U.S. attorneys showed that Rove deputy Scott Jennings repeatedly used an RNC e-mail address (sjennings@gwb43.com) in his official communications. One e-mail to Rove was sent to a kr@georgewbush.com address." ... "Since then, it's been pointed out that some of the e-mails released in the congressional investigation of now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff indicated that former Rove aide Susan Ralston made a point of keeping her communication with Abramoff off the White House e-mail servers, and on either her RNC or AOL e-mail accounts." (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) -By Dan Froomkin -WashingtonPost
Karl Rove - Government - E-Mail - Archive - Politics - History - Internet - Computer - Science - Investigation - "White House E-mails: Gone, But Not Forgotten?" ... "The White House set off a miniature firestorm Wednesday when it revealed that years of e-mails belonging to White House political aides were deleted, apparently in violation of federal law requiring presidential documents to be preserved." ... "In an 80-minute conference call with a select group of print reporters yesterday, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said that e-mails from 2004 and earlier sent and received by 22 White House employees, including chief political aide Karl Rove, had been deleted." ... "Without knowing the technical details of how the e-mails were deleted, computer forensics expert Rob Lee said he couldn't say with certainty if any of the communications are recoverable. But from his experience working with the FBI and other criminal investigators, he knows one thing: Unless the hard drives containing the e-mails were physically destroyed or lost, "the only way someone could claim something has been destroyed is if the e-mails themselves have been wiped" from a hard drive or tape backup, he said, "overwriting every piece of data." That requires special software designed explicitly to cover any trace of deleted information." ... "The Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires all White House documents be preserved if they "relate to or have and effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President."" -By Justin Rood-ABCNEWS.com
Karl Rove - Government - E-Mail - Law - US Attorneys - Politics - Internet - Archive - VT - "Leahy Says Bush Aides Lied About E-Mails." ... "[Republican] President Bush's aides are lying about White House e-mails sent on a Republican account that might have been lost, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy [Vermont Democratic Senator] said Thursday, vowing to subpoena those documents if the administration fails to cough them up." ... ""They say they have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor." ... ""You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers," said Leahy, D-Vt. "Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."" ... "Democrats say the firings might have been improper, but that probe yielded a weightier question: Whether White House officials such as political adviser Karl Rove are purposely conducting sensitive official presidential business via non-governmental accounts to evade a law [the Hatch Act] requiring preservation — and eventual disclosure — of presidential records." ... ""E-mails don't get lost," Leahy insisted. "These are just e-mails they don't want to bring forward."" ... "The revelation about the e-mails escalates a standoff between the Democrat-controlled Congress and the White House over the prosecutor firings." -By Laurie Kellman -AP via -SFGate.com

20070329

Julie A MacDonald - Government - Animal - Water - Environmental - Science - Law - Investigation - Oil - Industry - E-Mail - "Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists." ... "A top-ranking official overseeing the Fish and Wildlife Service at the Interior Department rode roughshod over agency scientists, and decisions made on her watch may not survive court challenges, investigators within the Interior Department have found." ... "Their report, sent to Congress this week by the department's inspector general, does not accuse the official, Julie A. MacDonald, the deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, of any crime. But it does find that she violated federal rules when she sent internal agency documents to industry lobbyists." ... "The inspector general also found that Ms. MacDonald had sent internal government documents by e-mail to a lawyer for the Pacific Legal Foundation — a property-rights group that frequently challenges endangered-species decisions." ... "She twice sent internal Environmental Protection Agency documents — one involving water quality management — to individuals whose e-mail addresses ended in chevrontexaco.com, the report said." -By Felicity Barringer -NYTimes

20070328

Telephone - E-Mail - Finances - Intelligence - Surveillance - Enforcement - Politics - "Officials may face firing over 'security letters'." ... "Democrats and Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday called for sweeping changes in how "national security letters" are issued and tracked, including firing and prosecuting FBI officials responsible for allowing hundreds of such letters to be issued without authorization." ... "The reaction came during a hearing on a March 9 inspector general report that found that the FBI issued over 143,000 NSL requests from 2003 through 2005, including many that appeared to violate laws and the bureau's own guidelines. The letters, authorized by the Patriot Acts of 2001 and 2006, allow the FBI to access subscriber information for telephone and e-mail accounts as well as some credit information in national security investigations without resorting to a subpoena or a court order." ... "The report, by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, blamed sloppiness by individual agents and their supervisors and the lack of an internal tracking system for many of the errors. Fine also criticized the bureau's communications analysis unit, an element created after the Sept 11 attacks, for permitting 29 unauthorized officials to sign "exigent" letters that demanded information on a speeded up, or emergency basis." -By Richard Willing -USATODAY

20070327

US Attorneys - E-Mail - "E-mail Controversy Prompts Many Aides To Stop Usage." ... "The growing controversy over the firing of federal prosecutors and what administration officials knew about it is renewing concerns among Bush aides over the less-than-secret aspect of E-mails. Those concerns were elevated this week when a House chairman asked that all aides retain their E-mails." ... "But just a week after E-mails in the U.S. attorneys case became a main focus of congressional Democrats probing the firings, several aides said that they stopped using the White House system except for purely professional correspondence." -By Paul Bedard -usnews.com
Secret - Terrorism - Intelligence - Surveillance - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Phone - E-Mail - Internet - Companies - "FBI Provided Inaccurate Data for Surveillance Warrants." ... "FBI agents repeatedly provided inaccurate information to win secret court approval of surveillance warrants in terrorism and espionage cases, prompting officials to tighten controls on the way the bureau uses that powerful anti-terrorism tool, according to Justice Department and FBI officials." ... "The errors were pervasive enough that the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, wrote the Justice Department in December 2005 to complain. She raised the possibility of requiring counterterrorism agents to swear in her courtroom that the information they were providing was accurate, a procedure that could have slowed such investigations drastically." ... "The department's acknowledgment of the problems with the FISA court applications comes nearly two weeks after a blistering inspector general's report revealed widespread violations of the use of "national security" and "exigent circumstances" letters, which allow FBI agents to collect phone, e-mail and Internet records from telecommunications companies without review by a judge. The problems included failing to document relevant evidence, claiming emergencies that did not exist and failing to show that phone records requests were connected to authorized investigations." (1, 2) -By John Solomon -WashingtonPost

20070323

Rove - Gonzales - Miers - US Attorneys - Law - Enforcement - Politics - Arkansas - E-Mails - "E-Mails Show Machinations to Replace Prosecutor: Administration Worked for Months to Make Rove Aide U.S. Attorney in Arkansas." ... "Two months before Bud Cummins was fired as U.S. attorney in Little Rock [Arkansas], a protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove was maneuvering with the Justice Department to take his place." ... "Last April, Tim Griffin, a Rove aide and longtime GOP operative, sent the attorney general's chief of staff a flattering letter about himself written by Cummins, the prosecutor he was trying to replace, internal e-mails released this week show. Rove and Harriet Miers, then the White House counsel, were keenly interested in putting him in the position, e-mails reveal." ... "New documents also show that Justice and White House officials were preparing for President Bush's approval of the appointment as early as last summer, five months before Griffin took the job." ... "The e-mails show how D. Kyle Sampson, then the attorney general's chief of staff, and other Justice officials prepared to use a change in federal law to bypass input from Arkansas' two Democratic senators, who had expressed doubts about placing a former Republican National Committee operative in charge of a U.S. attorney's office. The evidence runs contrary to assurances from Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales that no such move had been planned." ... "By June 13, about a week before Cummins would be told he was losing his job, Sampson wrote to Monica Goodling, senior counsel to Gonzales, to tell her that a colleague had the necessary pre-nomination paperwork for Griffin. He said that he would speak the following morning with Michael A. Battle, chief of the office that oversees U.S. attorneys, and make sure that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty's office "knows that we are now executing this plan."" ... "Sampson's note suggests the plan was not new: "I did tell them this was likely coming several months ago."" (1, 2, 3) -By Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein with contributions by Michael Abramowitz -WashingtonPost

20070315

Rove - Gonzales - Miers - Law - Enforcement - Politics - E-Mails - "E-Mails Show Rove's Role in U.S. Attorney Firings: Unreleased E-Mails Contradict White House Assertions That the Firings Originated With Harriet Miers." ... "New unreleased e-mails from top administration officials show that the idea of firing all 93 U.S. attorneys was raised by White House adviser [Republican] Karl Rove in early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than the White House previously acknowledged." ... "The e-mails also show that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discussed the idea of firing the attorneys en masse while he was still White House counsel, weeks before he was confirmed as attorney general." ... "The e-mails directly contradict White House assertions that the notion originated with recently departed White House counsel Harriet Miers, and was her idea alone." ... "White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters Tuesday that Miers had suggested firing all 93, and that it was "her idea only." Snow said Miers' idea was quickly rejected by the Department of Justice." -By Jan Crawford Greenburg -ABCNEWS.com
Gonzales - Rove - Law - Politics - E-Mail - Arkansas - "Statements On Firings of Prosecutors Are Key Issue." ... "In testimony on Jan. 18, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Justice Department had no intention of avoiding Senate input on the hiring of U.S. attorneys." ... "Just a month earlier, D. Kyle Sampson, who was then Gonzales's chief of staff, laid out a plan to do just that. In an e-mail, he detailed a strategy for evading Arkansas Democrats in installing Tim Griffin, a former GOP [Republican] operative and protege of presidential adviser Karl Rove, as the U.S. attorney in Little Rock [Arkansas]." ... ""We should gum this to death," Sampson wrote to a White House aide on Dec. 19. "[A]sk the senators to give Tim a chance . . . then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith,' of course."" ... "Democrats and Republicans are demanding to know whether Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and other Justice officials misled them in sworn testimony over the past two months." ... "The inconsistencies between Justice's positions and the documents are numerous. On Feb. 23, for example, a Justice legislative affairs aide wrote to [New York Democratic Senator] Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) that the department "was not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin." But internal Justice e-mails show that "getting him appointed is important" to Rove and was closely monitored by political aides in the White House." ... "Last week, senior Justice official William E. Moschella told a House Judiciary subcommittee that the White House was not consulted on the firings until the end of the process." ... "But the documents released this week show that the plan began more than two years ago at the White House counsel's office [Harriet Miers], which initially suggested firing all 93 U.S. attorneys. Gonzales rejected that idea, and Sampson wrote back in January 2006 that Justice and the White House should "work together to seek the replacement of a limited number of U.S. Attorneys."" ... "McNulty told the committee that there was no plan to use Gonzales's appointment powers to evade Senate oversight, that accusations of "politicizing" the hiring and firing process were "completely contrary to my daily experience," and that the dismissals of everyone but the Arkansas prosecutor were purely "performance-related."" ... "Each of those contentions is called into question by the 143 pages of internal e-mails and other documents turned over to the House and the Senate on Tuesday. Most had been sent or received by Sampson." ... "Political considerations, for example, figured prominently in who was chosen to be fired. Sampson ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys in part on whether they "exhibited loyalty" to Bush and Gonzales or "chafed against Administration initiatives etc."" (1, 2) -By Dan Eggen with contributions by Julie Tate -WashingtonPost

20070215

Secret - Government - Military - Computer - Money - Enforcement - Politics - Jim Gibbons - E-Mail - Nevada - "Nevada governor facing FBI probe of classified federal contracts." ... "Federal authorities confirmed Thursday that [Republican] Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons is being investigated for failing to properly report gifts or payments from a software company that was awarded secret military contracts when he was in Congress." ... "Gibbons said he had not been contacted by the FBI regarding his contacts with Warren Trepp, a longtime friend and owner of eTreppid who contributed nearly $100,000 to Gibbons' campaign for governor." ... "The evidence cited includes e-mails to Trepp discussing a payment or gifts to then-Rep. Gibbons. The e-mails also show Gibbons using his congressional office to help the company seek classified military and civilian contracts, the newspaper said." ... ""Please don't forget to bring the money you promised Jim and Dawn," Trepp's wife, Jale Trepp, said in a March 22, 2005, e-mail days before Trepp and his wife embarked on the Caribbean cruise with Jim Gibbons and his wife, Dawn, a former Nevada state assemblywoman." ... "According to the [Wall Street] Journal, Trepp responded minutes later saying: "Don't you ever send this kind of message to me! Erase this message from your computer right now!"" ... "Gibbons said he knew nothing about the e-mails." -By Brendan Riley with contributions by Lara Jakes -AP via -LasVegasSun.com

20061013

Abramoff - Doolittle - Family - Business - E-Mail - California - Military - "E-mail adds fuel to the fire: It suggests Doolittle wanted wife to work for Abramoff in 2000." ... "A day after a hot campaign debate in which [California Republican] Rep. John Doolittle said there was nothing unethical in his relationship with Jack Abramoff, a new e-mail surfaced Thursday indicating he was hoping his wife could go to work for the disgraced lobbyist as early as 2000." ... "The e-mail released Thursday was written by Kevin Ring, an Abramoff associate and former Doolittle staffer, to his boss. In it, Ring relates that Doolittle is "very very excited and appreciative" about the possibility of his wife, Julie, going to work for an Abramoff nonprofit group called Toward Tradition." ... ""JTD knows of the group and would like to talk to you about it," the e-mail says." ... "The e-mail suggests Doolittle was trying to get a job for his wife two years before she ultimately took a position working for Abramoff at his law firm, Greenberg Traurig." ... "[Democrat Charlie] Brown, a retired Air Force officer, is seeking to unseat Doolittle, who is running for a ninth term representing the 4th Congressional District. Republicans outnumber Democrats in the district 48 percent to 30 percent." -By David Whitney -SacBee.com

20061011

Jim Kolbe- Arizona - Gay - Foley - Florida - E-Mails - "Rep. Kolbe visited Grand Canyon with pages: Park Service workers, office staffers accompanied group during 1996 trip." ... "[Arizona Republican Jim] Kolbe is the only openly gay Republican congressman. He has been active with the congressional page program for years, and was himself a page in 1958 for Sen. Barry Goldwater." ... "This week, Kolbe got dragged into the controversy surrounding disgraced Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla. Republican-Florida). In a statement on Tuesday, Kolbe acknowledged that he had known for years about e-mails from Foley that had made one former page "uncomfortable."" -By Jim Popkin and Aram Roston -MSNBC
Gay - Foley - FL - Teenage - E-Mail -2004 Election - "Page scandal exposes GOP's gay identity crisis." ... "At a State Department ceremony this week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warmly acknowledged the family members of Mark Dybul, whom she was swearing in as the nation's new global AIDS coordinator." ... "As first lady Laura Bush looked on, Rice singled out his partner, Jason Claire, and Claire's mother. Rice referred to her as Dybul's "mother-in-law."" ... "The celebratory moment for a gay couple was emblematic of the political identity crisis facing the Republican Party, two years after an election the GOP won in part by making gay marriage an issue and less than two weeks after revelations about a Republican House member's advances toward teenage boys." ... "For Republicans, the most difficult problem posed by the e-mail exchanges that former [Florida Republican] congressman Mark Foley had with pages is not necessarily the flagrant misbehavior of one member. Rather it's the fact that the investigation is exposing a politically awkward fact of life: some GOP leaders practice a more tolerant brand of politics in their office hiring than some in the party have preached on the campaign trail." ... "The revelations have disturbed some conservative activists, who believe that Republicans owe their victories in the 2004 elections to the thousands of "values voters" who trooped to the polls to vote for anti-gay-marriage measures on the ballots of 11 swing states." -By Kathy Kiely -USATODAY

20061009

Foley - Hastert - Shimkus - Alexander - Fla - Ill - La - Ariz - Gay - Lawmaker - Internet- E-Mail - Communication - Messages - "Lawmaker Saw Foley Messages In 2000: Page Notified GOP Rep. Kolbe." ... "A Republican congressman knew of disgraced former representative Mark Foley's inappropriate Internet exchanges as far back as 2000 and personally confronted Foley about his communications." ... "A spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz. [Republican-Arizona]) confirmed yesterday that a former page showed the congressman Internet messages that had made the youth feel uncomfortable with the direction Foley (R-Fla. [Republican-Florida]) was taking their e-mail relationship. Last week, when the Foley matter erupted, a Kolbe staff member suggested to the former page that he take the matter to the clerk of the House, Karen Haas, said Kolbe's press secretary, Korenna Cline." ... "The revelation pushes back by at least five years the date when a member of Congress has acknowledged learning of Foley's behavior with former pages. A timeline issued by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill. [Republican-Illinois]) suggested that the first lawmakers to know, Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill. [Republican-Illinois]), the chairman of the House Page Board, and Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La. [Republican-Louisiana]), became aware of "over-friendly" e-mails only last fall. It also expands the universe of players in the drama beyond members, either in leadership or on the page board." ... "A source with direct knowledge of Kolbe's involvement said the messages shared with Kolbe were sexually explicit, and he read the contents to The Washington Post under the condition that they not be reprinted." ... "Kolbe, the only openly gay Republican in Congress, is retiring at the end of the year." -By Jonathan Weisman with contributions by James V. Grimaldi -WashingtonPost

20061007

Rove - Abramoff - Ralston - Sports - Entertainment - Money - Government - Intelligence - Northern Mariana Islands - E-Mail - Safavian - "Rove Aide Linked To Abramoff Resigns: Scandal Claims Its First West Wing Job." ... "A top aide to White House strategist Karl Rove resigned yesterday after disclosures that she accepted gifts from and passed information to now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming the first official in the West Wing to lose a job in the influence-peddling scandal." ... "Susan B. Ralston submitted her resignation to avoid causing political damage to President Bush a month before the midterm elections, officials said. "She did not want to be a distraction to the White House at this important time," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino." ... "A congressional report showed last week that Ralston accepted sometimes-pricey tickets to nine sports and entertainment events from Abramoff while she provided him with inside White House information. The bipartisan report said there is no evidence that Rove knew of or approved of Ralston's actions, and sources said yesterday that the White House was surprised by the report's revelations." ... "The only other White House official caught up in the probe has been David H. Safavian, the procurement chief for the Office of Management and Budget, who was convicted in June of lying about his ties to Abramoff." ... "As a former Abramoff assistant, Ralston played intermediary between the lobbyist and Rove. The congressional report found 66 Abramoff contacts with the White House, more than half of them with Ralston. In addition, Abramoff's lobbying colleagues contacted Ralston 69 times." ... "On Oct. 21, 2001, Ralston e-mailed Abramoff that Rove had read an Abramoff memo about a political endorsement in the Mariana Islands governor's race, a little-noticed election but one important to Abramoff because he had lucrative clients there. Ralston reported to Abramoff that Rove had agreed, writing the next day: "You win :)."" (1, 2) -By Peter Baker and James V. Grimaldi -WashingtonPost

20061006

Foley - E-Mail - Politics - Fla - "Watchdog Group Disputes FBI's Claims on E-Mails." ... "The watchdog group that first provided the FBI with suspicious e-mails from then-Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla. [Republican-Florida]) said yesterday that FBI and Justice Department officials are attempting to cover up their inaction in the case by making false claims about the group." ... "Law enforcement officials said the allegations by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) are without merit, and they stood by allegations that the group had refused to provide some information to the FBI." ... "CREW held a news conference Monday to announce that in July it had provided the FBI suspicious e-mails between Foley and a former House page. The group criticized the bureau for not taking more aggressive action and asked Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine to investigate the FBI's handling of the case." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost

20061005

Foley - Internet - Communications - E-Mail - Messages - Florida - "Three More Former Pages Accuse Foley of Online Sexual Approaches." ... "Three more former congressional pages have come forward to reveal what they call "sexual approaches" over the Internet from former [Florida Republican] Congressman Mark Foley." ... "The pages served in the classes of 1998, 2000 and 2002. They independently approached ABC News after the Foley resignation through the Brian Ross & the Investigative Team's tip line on ABCNews.com. None wanted their names used because of the sensitive nature of the communications." ... "All three pages described similar instant message and e-mail patterns, with remarkably similar escalations of provocative questions." ... ""This was no prank," said one of the three former pages who talked to ABC News today about his experience with the congressman." -By Brian Ross, Rhonda Schwartz, and Maddy Sauer -ABCNEWS.com
Hastert - Foley - E-Mails - Messages - Teenage - Election 2006 - Mil - Illinois - Florida - "Under Siege in D.C., Hastert Is at Least Safe at Home." ... "After maintaining a rather low personal profile for most of his tenure as House Speaker, 10-term Illinois Republican Rep. J. Dennis Hastert is getting a dose of unwanted publicity, stemming from his handling of the scandal involving resigned Florida Republican Rep. Mark Foley’s inappropriate e-mails and instant messages to teenage male pages. The furor has put Hastert’s continued service as Speaker at serious jeopardy." ... "But — at least at this juncture, more than four weeks out from Election Day [2006] — Hastert’s continued hold on his seat in Illinois’ Republican-leaning 14th District appears far less at risk. CQPolitics.com, though carefully watching developments, is holding its rating on the race at Safe Republican." ... "That does not mean the Foley scandal is not of some potential benefit to Hastert’s longshot Democratic challenger, 32-year-old U.S. Navy veteran John Laesch. It has drawn the kind of attention to him and his bid to be a political “giant-killer” that the underfunded candidate certainly hasn’t been able to buy." ... "As of June 30, Laesch had raised a minuscule total of just more than $91,000 to Hastert’s roughly $3.6 million." ... "Laesch said he was motivated to enter the race because of his views against the war in Iraq. His brother, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, is currently serving in Baghdad." -CQ.com via -NYTimes

20061004

Shimkus - Foley - Hastert - Teen - E-Mail - Photograph - Media - Illinois - Florida - Lawmakers - "Defiant Shimkus says he'll keep post." ... "[Illinois Republican] Rep. John Shimkus mounted an intense media offensive Wednesday, saying he has no intention of resigning from the House Page Board and angrily lashing out at the press and Democrats who have questioned him about his role investigating [Florida Republican] ex-Rep. Mark Foley's contact with former House pages." ... "Shimkus said he had no knowledge of and no comment on new reports that Foley's former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, told House Speaker [Illinois Republican] Dennis Hastert's office three years ago that Foley had improper contact with House pages." ... "Shimkus, R-Collinsville, serves as head of the board that oversees the page program, and he has said he confronted Foley last year about a set of e-mails that Foley, R-Fla., sent to a former page. In a telephone interview Wednesday with the Post-Dispatch from his Collinsville office, he maintained his actions were sufficient." ... "The news that Fordham may have alerted the GOP leadership to Foley's conduct more than three years ago raised new questions about both Hastert's and Shimkus' role in the scandal. On Wednesday, Hastert's chief of staff said he had no such warning from Fordham." ... "And the two Illinois lawmakers said that they only knew about one set of e-mail messages, in which Foley asked a former page how he was doing, what he wanted for his birthday, and for a photograph of the teen." -By Deirdre Shesgreen -SLTrib.com
Hastert - Foley - Alexander - Teenage - E-Mail - Messages - 2006 Election - Illinois - Florida - Louisiana - "[Illinois Republican] Hastert clings to power as scandal swirls: Top Republicans question speaker's inaction on [Florida Republican] Foley sex messages." ... "House Speaker Dennis Hastert [Illinois Republican] was fighting for his political life Wednesday after new disclosures surfaced that his office knew that a Republican House member was sending sexually provocative messages to underage congressional pages as long as three years ago." ... "Pressure on Hastert has built since it was reported that an aide to Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La. [Republican-Louisiana], complained last year to Hastert's office about an "overly friendly" e-mail message that Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., had sent to a teenage male page sponsored by Alexander. Alexander said he did not ask for any specific action at the request of the boy's parents." ... "The scandal has reinvigorated the campaign of Hastert’s Democratic challenger in the November [2006] election, John Laesch, who said Hastert was “absolutely” guilty of a cover-up Wednesday." ... "Asked whether he believed Hastert was a man of integrity, Laesch told MSNBC-TV’s Chris Matthews: “I think that this issue has defined the clearest difference between myself and Mr. Hastert, that being I stand for honesty and integrity, and I’ll let the voters decide where he stands.”" ... "The scandal has energized his supporters, said Laesch, 32, a former naval intelligence officer. “Our phone has been ringing off the hook, and this is they only thing people want to talk about.”" (1, 2) -Contributed to by Alex Johnson, Chris Matthews, and Joe Scarborough -AP -MSNBC

20061001

Reynolds - Hastert - Foley - Boehner - E-Mails - Louisiana - Teen - Noteworthy - Lawmakers - Enforcement - Secrets - 2006 Election - NY - Ill - Fla - Ohio - Mich - "GOP Leader Rebuts Hastert on Foley: [New York Republican Thomas] Reynolds: Speaker Knew of E-Mails in Spring." ... "House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert ([Republican, Illnois] R-Ill.) was notified early this year of inappropriate e-mails from former representative Mark Foley ([Republican, Florida] R-Fla.) to a 16-year-old page, a top GOP House member said yesterday -- contradicting the speaker's assertions that he learned of concerns about Foley only last week." ... "Hastert did not dispute the claims of Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.), and his office confirmed that some of Hastert's top aides knew last year that Foley had been ordered to cease contact with the boy and to treat all pages respectfully." ... "Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, became the second senior House Republican to say that Hastert has known of Foley's contacts for months, prompting Democratic attacks about the GOP leadership's inaction. Foley abruptly resigned his seat Friday." ... "House Majority Leader John A. Boehner ([Republican] R-Ohio) told The Washington Post on Friday that he had learned in late spring of inappropriate e-mails Foley sent to the page, a boy from Louisiana, and that he promptly told Hastert, who appeared to know already of the concerns. Hours later, Boehner contacted The Post to say he could not be sure he had spoken with Hastert." ... "Yesterday's developments revealed a rift at the highest echelons of House Republican ranks a month before the Nov. 7 [2006] elections, and they threatened to expand the scandal to a full-blown party dilemma." ... "Republicans appeared to have kept the matter under wraps. Rep. Dale E. Kildee (Mich.), the only Democrat on the House Page Board, said yesterday: "I was never informed of the allegations about Mr. Foley's inappropriate communications with a House page, and I was never involved in any inquiry into this matter."" (1, 2) -By Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington with contributions by R. Jeffrey Smith and Magda Jean-Louis -WashingtonPost
Mark Foley - Secret - E-Mails - IMs - Lawmakers - Dennis Hastert - Thomas Reynolds - New York - Illinois - California - Florida - "Dems Slap GOP for Keeping E-Mails Secret: Democrats Slap Republicans for Keeping E-Mail Scandal a Secret, Demand Thorough Probe." ... "House Republican leaders should have kept Democrats in the loop and now must conduct a thorough investigation about the inappropriate e-mails that led to [Florida Republican] Rep. Mark Foley's resignation, a top Democrat said Sunday." ... ""This should be investigated objectively. I think the Democratic leadership should have been told 10 months ago," said Rep. Jane Harman of California, top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. "I gather that basically nothing was done except that Foley was warned."" ... "Foley, R-Fla., quit Congress on Friday after the disclosure of the e-mails to a teenage boy who was a former congressional page and the lawmaker's sexually suggestive instant messages to other pages." ... "House Speaker [Illinois Republican] Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said at first he had learned only last week about the e-mails Foley sent to a page. Hastert later acknowledged that aides referred the matter to the authorities last fall." ... "[New York Republican] Rep. Thomas Reynolds, head of the House Republican election effort, said Saturday he told Hastert months ago about concerns Foley sent inappropriate messages to a teenage boy. Reynolds, R-N.Y., is under attack from Democrats who say he did too little to protect the boy." (1, 2) -By John Heilprin -AP via -ABCNEWS.com
Mark Foley - Computer - E-Mail - Messages - Laws - Children - Politics - Dennis Hastert - Illinois - Florida - Nevada - California - Louisiana - "FBI looking into Foley computer exchanges." ... "The FBI is looking at whether former Florida [Republican] Rep. Mark Foley's computer exchanges with underage House pages broke any laws, an FBI spokesman said late Sunday." ... "Under fire from Democrats, House Speaker Dennis Hastert [Illinois Republican] also asked Sunday that [Republican] U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement - look into the case." ... "Foley, a Florida Republican, gave no reason for leaving but said he was "deeply sorry" and resigned Friday after the subsequent, sexually explicit instant messages were disclosed by ABC News." ... "Earlier Sunday, Democrats in both chambers, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, called for investigations." ... "Hastert's office said Saturday his office was contacted last fall by a staff member in the office of Louisiana Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander, where the page once worked. The boy said in an e-mail to Alexander's office that the computer exchange with Foley "freaked him out" and was "sick..sick..sick."" -By Lesley Clark -McClatchy via -MercuryNews

20060929

Mark Foley - E-Mails - Florida - Parents - Enforcement - Politics - 2006 Election - La - NY - Ill - "[Republican] Foley Resigns From Congress Over E-Mails." ... "[Republican] Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., abruptly resigned from Congress on Friday in the wake of questions about e-mails he wrote a former teenage male page." ... "His departure sent Republicans scrambling for a replacement candidate less than six weeks before midterm [2006] elections in which Democrats are making a strong bid to gain control of the House." ... "Foley, 52, had been a shoo-in for a new term until the e-mail correspondence surfaced in recent days." ... "[Louisiana Republican] Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., who sponsored the page from his district, told reporters that he learned of the e-mails from a reporter some months ago and passed on the information to [New York Republican] Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Republican campaign organization." ... "Carl Forti, a spokesman for the GOP campaign organization, said Reynolds learned from Alexander that the parents did not want to pursue the matter. Forti said, however, that the matter did go before the House Page Board — the three lawmakers and two House officials who oversee the pages." ... "It was unclear what the officials did." ... "The board currently is headed by [Illinois Republican] Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who did not respond to requests for an interview." -By David Espo and Jim Kuhnhenn with contributions by Brendan Farrington, Larry Margasak, and Natasha Metzler -AP via -SFGate.com
Mark Foley - Florida - Children - Enforcement - Politics - E-Mail - "[Republican] Rep. Foley resigns from Congress." ... "[Republican] Rep. Mark Foley, a six-term Florida Republican, resigned from Congress and apologized to constituents Friday after questions arose regarding e-mail and other electronic exchanges with former Capitol pages under the age of eighteen." ... "ABC News on Friday said that earlier in the day it had read to Foley excerpts of instant messages provided by former male pages who said the congressman made repeated references to sexual organs and acts." ... "Foley was the chairman of the House caucus on missing and exploited children and had authored legislative language signed into law by President Bush this year designed to crack down on sexual predators." -By William L. Watts -MarketWatch

20060817

Secret - US - International - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Free Speech - Telephone - E-Mail- Privacy - Politics - Michigan - "Judge strikes down the warrantless eavesdropping program." ... "In a scathing rebuke, a federal judge ruled Thursday that the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program is unconstitutional and should be shut down, but legal scholars said the administration has a good chance of reversing the decision on appeal." ... ""There are no hereditary kings in America and no power not created by the Constitution," U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of Detroit [Michigan] said in a 43-page opinion blasting the program." ... "Taylor said that the program, which President Bush secretly approved after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, violated the rights of free speech and privacy and went far beyond the president's authority. Administration officials say the surveillance program targets telephone calls and e-mails between the United States and suspected terrorists overseas." ... "The Justice Department immediately appealed the ruling, and all the parties agreed that the Bush administration is free to keep eavesdropping without warrants pending the Sept. 7 appeals-court hearing." ... "While the ruling was a clear victory for Bush's critics, it didn't end the legal battle over the government's secret eavesdropping. Legal scholars said the administration had a good chance of winning its appeal to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which handles cases from Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee." -By Ron Hutcheson and Margaret Talev -McClatchy-RealCities

20060803

DCI - Marketing - Psychology - Oil - Corporation - Politics - Opinion - Internet - Video - California - Entertainment - Media - Search Engine - Computer - Communications - EMail - Environmental - Science - Global - Climate - Al Gore - "Where did that video spoofing Gore's film come from?" ... "Everyone knows Al Gore stars in the global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." But who created "Al Gore's Penguin Army," a two-minute video now playing on YouTube.com?" ... "Like other videos on the popular YouTube site, it has a home-made, humorous quality. The video's maker is listed as "Toutsmith," a 29-year-old who identifies himself as being from Beverly Hills [California] in an Internet profile." ... "In an email exchange with The Wall Street Journal, Toutsmith didn't answer when asked who he was or why he made the video, which has just over 59,000 views on YouTube. However, computer routing information contained in an email sent from Toutsmith's Yahoo account indicate it didn't come from an amateur working out of his basement." ... "Instead, the email originated from a computer registered to DCI Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp [Corporation]." ... "The anti-Gore video represents a less well-known side of YouTube. As its popularity has exploded, the public video-sharing site has drawn marketers looking to build buzz for new music releases and summer blockbusters. Now, it's being tapped by political operatives, public relations experts and ad agencies to sway opinions." ... "DCI is no stranger to the debate over global warming. Partly through Tech Central Station, an opinion Web site it operates, DCI has sought to raise doubts about the science of global warming and about Mr. Gore's film, placing skeptical scientists on talk-radio shows and paying them to write editorials." ... "Internet videos could prove particularly potent, because they may influence watchers in ways they don't realize. Nancy Snow, a communications professor at California State University, Fullerton, viewed the penguin video and calls it a lesson in "Propaganda 101." It contains no factual information, but presents a highly negative image of the former vice president, she says. The purpose of such images is to harden the views of those who already view Mr. Gore negatively, Dr. Snow says." ... "Traffic to the penguin video, first posted on YouTube.com in May, got a boost from prominently placed sponsored links that appeared on the Google search engine when users typed in "Al Gore" or "Global Warming." The ads, which didn't indicate who had paid for them, were removed shortly after The Wall Street Journal contacted DCI Group on Tuesday." -By Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey with contributions by Jeffrey Ball -WSJ.com via -Post-Gazette.com

20060531

E-Mail - Searches - Law - History - Internet - Telecom - Business - Law Enforcement - Terrorism - "U.S. asks Internet firms to save data." ... "Top law enforcement officials have asked leading Internet companies to keep histories of the activities of Web users for up to two years to assist in criminal investigations of child pornography and terrorism, the Justice Department said Wednesday." ... "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller outlined their request to executives from Google, Microsoft, AOL, Comcast, Verizon and others Friday in a private meeting at the Justice Department. The department has scheduled more discussions as early as Friday." ... "It wants records such as lists of e-mail traffic and Web searches, he [Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse] said." -By Jon Swartz and Kevin Johnson with contributions by William M. Welch -USATODAY

20060524

Michael Hayden - Secret - Military - Intelligence - E-Mail - Phone - Privacy - Law - "Senate committee endorses general as new CIA chief: Full confirmation is expected soon." ... "The Senate Intelligence Committee voted yesterday to approve General Michael V. Hayden as director of the CIA, endorsing a veteran intelligence officer who has pledged to push the troubled agency to take more risks and work more closely with other US spy services." ... "But Hayden's standing among some lawmakers has eroded in recent months amid disclosures of domestic spy operations mounted by the National Security Agency, which Hayden led from 1999 to 2005." ... "During his confirmation hearing last week, Hayden acknowledged that he was a leading architect of a surveillance program launched shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in which the NSA intercepted international phone calls and e-mails of US residents without prior court approval." ... "Some lawmakers have called the program illegal and said that it was kept secret from all but a handful of members of Congress for four years before it was exposed in news reports last year." ... "More recently, Hayden has had to fend off questions about whether the NSA also assembled phone records on tens of millions of Americans in an effort to identify suspicious calling patterns." -By Greg Miller -LAtimes via -BostonGlobe

20060514

Dick Cheney - Michael Hayden - Government - Terrorism - E-Mail - Phone - Privacy - Law - Politics - "Cheney Pushed U.S. to Widen Eavesdropping." ... "In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney and his top legal adviser argued that the National Security Agency should intercept purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without warrants in the hunt for terrorists, according to two senior intelligence officials." ... "But N.S.A. lawyers, trained in the agency's strict rules against domestic spying and reluctant to approve any eavesdropping without warrants, insisted that it should be limited to communications into and out of the country, said the officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the debate inside the Bush administration late in 2001." ... "The N.S.A.'s position ultimately prevailed. But just how Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the agency at the time, designed the program, persuaded wary N.S.A. officers to accept it and sold the White House on its limits is not yet clear." ... "As the program's overseer and chief salesman, General Hayden is certain to face questions about his role when he appears at a Senate hearing next week on his nomination as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Criticism of the surveillance program, which some lawmakers say is illegal, flared again this week with the disclosure that the N.S.A. had collected the phone records of millions of Americans in an effort to track terrorism suspects." (1, 2) -By Scott Shane and Eric Lichtblau -NYTimes

20060508

Secret - Health - Consumer - Drug - Industry - Legislation - E-Mail - Bill Frist - Tennessee - "Vaccine makers helped write Frist-backed shield law: E-mails reveal private meetings." ... "Vaccine industry officials helped shape legislation behind the scenes that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist secretly amended into a bill to shield them from lawsuits, according to e-mails obtained by a public advocacy group." ... "E-mails and documents written by a trade group for the vaccine-makers show the organization met privately with Frist's staff and the White House about measures that would give the industry protection from lawsuits filed by people hurt by the vaccines." ... "The communications were made public in a report released this week by the group Public Citizen. Its study follows a February story in The Tennessean that Frist, along with House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., ordered the vaccine liability language inserted in a defense spending bill in December without debate and in violation of usual Senate practice." ... "The group, called the Biotechnology Industry Organization, wanted such language in the bill, the e-mails reflect." -By Bill Theobald -Tennessean

20060411

Jack Abramoff - Money - EMail - Government - Law - Michigan - "E-mails show Abramoff's donation leverage." ... "When Jack Abramoff's lobbying team wanted to press Republican leaders for help with a tribal client, they minced no words. The help was deserved because Abramoff's clients overwhelmingly donated to Republicans." ... "E-mails that have become important evidence in the Abramoff corruption probe state the lobbyist's team bluntly discussed with a Republican Party official using large political donations as a way to pressure lawmakers and the administration into securing federal money for the Saginaw Chippewa of Michigan." ... "The e-mails have become evidence in a federal corruption probe into whether lawmakers, congressional aides and administration officials helped Abramoff's clients in exchange for gifts and donations." -By John Solomon and Sharon Theimer -AP via -SeattlePI.NWsource

20060406

Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Phone - E-Mail - Privacy - Law - Opinion - North Carolina - "Bush refuses apology for surveillance program: President told during speech he should be 'ashamed' for eavesdropping." ... "President Bush, told by a critic he should be ashamed of his policies, defended the government's secret eavesdropping program Thursday and said he would not apologize for listening in on the phone and e-mail conversations of Americans talking to people with suspected al-Qaida links." ... "A man who identified himself as Harry Taylor rose at a forum here [Charlotte, North Carolina] to tell Bush that he's never felt more ashamed of the leadership of his country. He said Bush has asserted his right to tap phone calls without a warrant, to arrest people and hold them without charges, and to revoke a woman's right to an abortion, among other things." -AP via -MSNBC

20060304

Ralph Reed - Jack Abramoff - EMails - Internet - Law - Politics - Georgia - Connecticut - "E-mails undermine Reed claim." ... "[Georgia Republican lieutenant governor candidate] Ralph Reed has said he didn't know it until last year, but emails suggest he was informed that eLot — a firm then in the online lottery business — was behind his effort to fend off a ban against internet gambling in 2000." ... "The e-mails passed between Reed and Jack Abramoff, the now disgraced Washington lobbyist. Abramoff was lobbying for eLot Inc. of Connecticut, parent company of eLottery Inc., against a bill in Congress that would have banned most online betting. ELottery opposed the bill because it wanted to help states sell tickets online." ... "Reed, a lifelong opponent of gambling, said last year that he did not know in 2000 he was actually working on behalf of eLottery." ... "But e-mails obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show Reed was offered the name of the company at the beginning of his involvement in the campaign, in May 2000. The e-mails emerged as dozens of federal investigators have increased their focus on events surrounding the defeat of the Internet gaming ban." -By Jim Galloway-AJC

20060105

Secret- Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Phone - E-Mail - Civil Liberty - Privacy - Politics- "Surveillance Court Is Seeking Answers: Judges Were Unaware of Eavesdropping." ... "The members of a secret federal court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases are scheduled to receive a classified briefing Monday from top Justice Department and intelligence officials about a controversial warrantless-eavesdropping program, according to sources familiar with the arrangements." ... "Several judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said they want to hear directly from administration officials why President Bush believed he had the authority to order, without the court's permission, wiretapping of some phone calls and e-mails after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Of serious concern to several judges is whether any information gleaned from intercepts by the National Security Agency was later used to gain their permission for wiretaps without the source being disclosed." -By Carol D. Leonnig with contributions by Dafna Linzer -WashingtonPost

20051231

US - International - Iraq- Secret - GOV - Terrorism - Intelligence - Telecommunications - E-Mail - Privacy - Politics - Media - Enforcement - "US investigates leak of spy program: Prosecutors focus on disclosure to New York Times." ... "The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into recent disclosures about a controversial domestic eavesdropping program that was secretly authorized by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said yesterday." ... "Justice Department prosecutors will focus on whether classified information about the program was unlawfully disclosed to The New York Times, which reported two weeks ago that Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to monitor the international telephone calls and e-mails of people in the United States without court-approved warrants, officials said." ... "The case is the latest in a series of clashes between the media and the Bush administration, which has aggressively enforced restrictions on classified information and has frequently complained about media disclosures related to terrorism or the war in Iraq." -By Dan Eggen -WashingtonPost via -BostonGlobe

20051227

UK - EMail - Business - EU - Privacy - Telecommunications - "Businessman wins e-mail spam case." ... "A businessman has won what is believed to be the first victory of its kind by claiming damages from a company which sent him e-mail spam." ... "Three years ago the EU passed an anti-spam law, the directive on privacy and telecommunications, which gave individuals the right to fight the growing tide of unwanted e-mail by allowing them to claim damages."-BBC /News

20051222

Secret - Government - Terrorism - Intelligence - Telecommunications - EMail - Privacy - Politics - "Judges on Surveillance Court To Be Briefed on Spy Program." ... "The presiding judge of a secret court that oversees government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases is arranging a classified briefing for her fellow judges to address their concerns about the legality of President Bush's domestic spying program, according to several intelligence and government sources." ... "Several members of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said in interviews that they want to know why the administration believed secretly listening in on telephone calls and reading e-mails of U.S. citizens without court authorization was legal. Some of the judges said they are particularly concerned that information gleaned from the president's eavesdropping program may have been improperly used to gain authorized wiretaps from their court." (1, 2) -By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer with contributions by Julie Tate -WashingtonPost

20051220

Government - Telecommunications - EMail- Intelligence- Law - West-Virginia - Cheney, Dick - "Democrats: Briefings weren't approvals for wiretapping." ... "Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program, undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisers that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings." ... ""I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities," West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, said in a handwritten letter to Vice President Dick Cheney in July 2003. "As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney."" ... "Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration's four-year-old program to eavesdrop — without warrants — on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside the United States with suspected ties to al-Qaeda." -AP via -USATODAY

20051219

Secret - Intelligence - Telecommunications - EMail - Privacy - Law - "President Bush Defends Secret Wiretaps, Urges Patriot Act Renewal." ... "In his final news conference of the year, President Bush offered a stern defense of his ordering of secret wiretaps within the United States and made a spirited plea for the renewal of the Patriot Act." ... "The president's top priority was to quell the growing outrage over the revelation on Friday by The New York Times of a widespread, ongoing domestic eavesdropping program by the National Security Agency that has targeted phone conversations and e-mail exchanges within the U.S." ... "Though the disclosure of the covert domestic spying program has caused concern among both Democrats and Republicans, with some calling for hearings into whether it violates the Constitution, Bush vigorously defended his right to order the program, which he said he has renewed more than 30 times." -MTV.com /News

20051216

Secret - Government - Military - Terrorism - EMail - Telecommunications - Law - Politics - History - "Bush Authorized Domestic Spying: Post-9/11 Order Bypassed Special Court." ... "President Bush signed a secret order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and foreign nationals in the United States, despite previous legal prohibitions against such domestic spying, sources with knowledge of the program said last night." ... "For more than four years, the NSA tasked other military intelligence agencies to assist its broad-based surveillance effort directed at people inside the country suspected of having terrorist connections, even before Bush signed the 2002 order that authorized the NSA program, according to an informed U.S. official." ... "The effort, which began within days after the attacks, has consisted partly of monitoring domestic telephone conversations, e-mail and even fax communications of individuals identified by the NSA as having some connection to al Qaeda events or figures, or to potential terrorism-related activities in the United States, the official said." ... "It has also involved teams of Defense Intelligence Agency personnel stationed in major U.S. cities conducting the type of surveillance typically performed by the FBI: monitoring the movements and activities -- through high-tech equipment -- of individuals and vehicles, the official said." -By Dan Eggen with contributions by Dafna Linzer and Peter Baker -WashingtonPost

20051215

IP - Microsoft - Wireless - EMail - Computer - Net - Business - Texas - "Microsoft Sued Over Mobile E-Mail Patents: Mobile E-mail vendor Visto has sued Microsoft, claiming Windows Mobile violates its patents. Visto also teamed with NTL, which sued RIM." ... "Mobile e-mail technology vendor Visto Thursday claimed that Microsoft's Windows Mobile 5.0 platform violates its patents and has signed a licensing agreement with NTP, which has sued Research In Motion for alleged patent violations." ... "In addition, NTP has acquired an equity stake in Visto, the company said in a statement." ... "Visto said in a statement that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft in U.S. District Court in Texas that covers three specific patents owned by Visto. The complaint asks the court to prohibit Microsoft from improperly using Visto's intellectual property and asks for compensation." -MobilePipeline.com via -InformationWeek

20050822

Hacking - EMail - - "Hacker underground erupts in virtual turf wars: A chain of warring virus attacks last week fits an emerging trend." ... "In the early days of computer attacks, when bright teens could bring down corporate systems, the point was often to trumpet a hacker's success. No longer." ... "In today's murky world of digital viruses, worms, and Trojan horses, the idea is to stay quiet and use hijacked computers to flood the Internet with spam, spread destructive viruses, or disgorge e-mail to choke corporate systems. Not only can networks of these compromised computers be leased or sold, experts say, they are becoming more valuable as the number of vulnerable computers slowly shrinks." ... "That's a major reason that turf wars are emerging among hackers." -By Peter N. Spotts -CSMonitor

20050512

Massachusetts - - EMail - - "Massachusetts fires legal broadside at spam gang." ... "Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly obtained an emergency court order on Wednesday shutting down dozens of websites allegedly operated by a sophisticated ring of Boston area spammers. The group [of seven] are allegedly behind millions of unsolicited, deceptive email messages touting unapproved counterfeit drugs, pirated software, and pornography that have plagued email users for months." ... "The suit accuses the unmagnificent seven of violations of Massachusetts' Consumer Protection Act and the Federal CAN-SPAM Act and seeks the imposition of a permanent injunction and unspecified damages against the defendants."-By John Leyden -TheRegister.co.uk

20050422

- - - Psychology - EMail - "E-mails 'hurt IQ more than pot'." ... "Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana, a British study shows." ... "The constant interruptions reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic, according to a survey carried out by TNS Research and commissioned by Hewlett Packard."-CNN

20050409

- - - - Virginia - "Man gets nine years for spamming: A man has been sentenced to nine years in jail by a Virginia judge for sending millions of junk emails, or "spamming"." ... "Jeremy Jaynes, 30, is the first person in the US to get a prison term in a spam case. He is said to have been the world's eighth most prolific spammer." ... "By selling sham products and services advertised in his messages, he earned up to $750,000 (£398,000) per month." ... "Jaynes has appealed, and the court has put off the start of his prison term because the new law raises questions." ... "Under Virginia law, sending bulk email using fake addresses is a crime."-BBC /News

20031216

- - Consumer News - "It's not called 'Can' Spam for nothing." ... "After six years of wrangling over legislative ways to stop spam, Congress was still faced with a fundamental choice: Give consumers control over the growing flood of unwanted spam e-mail that fills their in-boxes, or give in to the powerful advertising and marketing industries who want to be the ones filling consumer in-boxes." ... "In the end, consumers lost." ... "The Can-Spam Act, signed into law Tuesday, is being touted as relief for the millions of consumers beset with unwanted e-mail. But careful readers will notice that the law is not called the "Can't-Spam" Act. There's a good reason: The law is little more than an instructional guide for how to keep pumping out millions of e-mails per hour while avoiding legal liability." -By Ray Everett-Church -CNET/News

20031124

- - "House Approves Antispam Bill: First nationwide antispam law expected by year's end." ... "Lawmakers are one step closer to enacting the first nationwide antispam law. The House of Representatives on Saturday overwhelmingly approved a bill that would fine spammers who violate restrictions on unsolicited commercial e-mail." ... "The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act was approved by a vote of 392-5. The move follows the U.S. Senate's approval of its version of the CAN-SPAM Act in October with a 97-0 vote." -By Rita Chang and Laura Rohde -IDG.net via -PCWorld.com

20031023

- - "Senate votes unanimously for do-not-spam list: A registry would block unwanted e-mail solicitation." ... "The Senate voted unanimously Wednesday to build on the new do-not- call registry's success by adopting a plan for a national do-not-spam list to block the tidal wave of e-mail solicitations for everything from get-rich schemes to pornography that threatens to engulf the Internet." ... "But the effort faces an uncertain future in the House and the marketing industry pledged to fight the creation of an anti-spam registry -- even if it is technically feasible." -By Edward Epstein -SFGate.com

20030421

- "Fake hate emails mar activists' reputations: Arab-American activist Nawar Shora checked his e-mail one day and found scores of angry messages asking why he hated Americans and Jews. The messages were responding to e-mails marked as coming from him. Only one big problem: Shora never sent the hate mail." ... "Shora, a legal adviser to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was the victim of a new form of harassment in which fake e-mail is sent using real addresses." -AP via -CNN

20021217

Christmas - - "The gift of virus: In the spirit of the holiday season, a tale of one man who clicked too soon but discovered that missent e-mail can still lead to a wonderful life." ... "This holiday season, when thoughts turn to family and friends, we are all perhaps a little more trusting, and maybe a little more gullible. This is not necessarily a bad thing. That's my one excuse for falling prey to a software virus that disguises itself as an e-card." -By Nick Altebrando -Salon

20021216

- - TIA: Total Information Awareness - "The web bites back." ... "Protesters are turning the tables on government officials and businessmen who they say are making the web less pleasant to use." ... "The web activists have found the personal details of the man behind a federal surveillance system [John Poindexter] and an e-mail spammer [Alan Ralsky] and are giving them a dose of their own medicine." -BBC/News
Google Search:

<"Alan Ralsky">
<"John Poindexter">

20021011

"Technology Shapes Get-Out-The-Vote Efforts: Candidates, Parties Using E-mail and Wireless Devices To Organize Supporters." ... "Keenly aware that the role of the World Wide Web in the 2000 elections fell far short of the hype, campaign consultants now are selling the Internet less for its vote-getting power than as a command-and-control tool to reach out to the faithful." ... ""The Internet is a medium that's best used to preach to the choir, not to convert," said Dan Manatt, director of YDemsCan.net, a Democratic political action committee that supports candidates aged 40 and younger. "The political landscape online is changing subtly in that it's really starting to tilt toward the medium's strengths."" ... "In Iowa, a state hosting several pivotal and tight races, both parties are counting on technology to gain that extra edge." (1, 2) -By Brian Krebs-WashingtonPost>TechNews

20020803

"US government slow to pass anti-spam measures." ... "The European Union has a law banning unsolicited junk e-mail. Japan has one prohibiting spam to random addresses." ... In the U.S. "several bills are pending in Congress, but the legislation with the best chances for passage has been so watered down that leading anti-spammers no longer support it." -By Anick Jesdanun-AP via -Boston/Globe

20020725

"Hotmail clean-out catches members out." ... "As part of a series of new storage policies aimed at driving more people toward its paid services, Microsoft has instituted a plan to delete sent Hotmail messages that are more than 30 days old. On Tuesday, it began erasing all messages in subscribers' Sent file transmitted before June 16." -By Lisa M. Bowman -CNET /News

20020719

"Yahoo admits mangling e-mail." ... An attempt by Yahoo to minimize e-mail viruses has led to altered words within html e-mail messages. Simple text e-mail viruses are reported to avoid the problem. ... "This has led to the appearance of strange words such as "medireview" instead of "medieval" and "reviewuate" instead of "evaluate"." -BBC /News

Google Search: medireview

20020717

"Meet the Nigerian E-Mail Grifters." ... "... sources close to some of the so-called Nigerian e-mail scam's perpetrators insist that those overwrought messages fuel a thriving industry, employing thousands of people around the world who successfully manage to extract money from a multitude of Internet pen pals." (1, 2) -By Michelle Delio -Wired

"Nigerian Letter Scams." -IFCCFBI.gov

20020715

"Email security filter spawns new words." ... Yahoo's "security filter automatically deletes web code that could be used by hackers and replaces it with innocuous words. For example, "eval" is converted to "review", "mocha" is changed into "espresso" and "expression" replaced with "statement". The substitutions are made even if the phrase appears within a word." ... "The UK internet site NTK recently found that 640 different web sites contain the word "medireview", in place of "medieval"." ... "Hiding code in email written in HTML or a web page is called cross-site scripting, and was first identified in 1997." -NewScientist.com

"medireview" is not a word but a by product of filtering software that changes "eval" to "review" in HTML e-mail messages as a security measure to stop cross-site scripting.
Google Search: medireview
Discussion - "A Medireview Approach To Stopping E-Mail Attacks." -Slashdot

20020711

- "China To Offer Hand Delivered E-Mail." ... "China Post, the official postal service for the world's most populous nation, said Thursday it will introduce a new service enabling people to write mail on their computers, send it to the post office over the Internet like e-mail, then have it delivered anywhere in China by human mail carrier." -AP via -WashingtonPost

20020326

"The father of modern spam speaks." ... "On April 12, 1994, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, two immigration lawyers from Arizona, flooded the Internet with a mass mailing promoting their law firm's advisory services." ... "In doing so, this unknown husband and wife team changed the Internet with one keystroke." -By Sharael Feist -CNET /News

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