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Re: Whitehouse "dissident" web site monitoring?
>To: [email protected]
>From: [email protected]
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>Organization: Anonymous forwarding service
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 17:17:15 UTC
>Subject: Whitehouse "dissident" web site monitoring?
>
>- ----------------------------------------------------------
>
> WHITE HOUSE MONITORING OF DISSIDENTS ON THE INTERNET
>
>
> The National Security Agency presumably can monitor
>subversive communication on the Internet without leaving any
>trace by "sniffing packets" at traffic nodes. For purely
>political purposes, however, the White House may be forced to do
>the monitoring in-house, which means that they leave traces
>everywhere they go.
>
> With just a superficial search for such traces, The
>Washington Weekly has uncovered intensive monitoring of
>"dissident" Internet sites by the White House.
>
> It turns out that computers from inside the White House have
>kept pretty good tabs on information available on Whitewater,
>Vince Foster, and Mena at a few key repositories on the World-
>Wide Web, a subset of the Internet.
>
> Just three such sites: "The Washington Weekly, "The
>Whitewater Scandal Home Page" and "Whitewater & Vince Foster,"
>were accessed 128 times by four computers from the Executive
>Office of the President between August 28 and August 31. If the
>White House is showing a similar interest in other sites on the
>World Wide Web, that would amount to a monitoring operation of
>considerable magnitude. Tim Brady of the Yahoo! World-Wide Web
>index says that his company alone has indexed approximately 725
>political sites. That monitoring effort would be nothing,
>however, compared to the effort required to follow all anti-
>Clinton discussion on the Usenet, another subset of the Internet.
>
> The White House did not respond to an inquiry (attached
>below) asking for an explanation and asking whether this
>constituted "casual browsing."
>
> Interestingly, the week after the White House snooping of
>files, which included a series of articles by J. Orlin Grabbe on
>Vince Foster's ties to the NSA, the following little piece
>appeared in Newsweek Magazine:
>
> "Conspiracy theorists perked up when Deborah Gorham told Senate
> Whitewater investigators in June that her boss, the late deputy
> White House counsel Vince Foster, asked her to put two secret
> notebooks from the National Security Agency in a White House
> safe. The suggestion that Foster dealt with the NSA sparked
> feverish speculation on the Internet that he was involved in
> espionage. The reality appears more prosaic. The White House
> won't give details, but sources say Foster's files dealt with
> legal questions about national emergencies...."
====================================================
During the Waco Hearings, Charles Schumer said he'd seen Foster's missing
file and all it had in it was a memorandum about "Linda Thompson and THAT tape."
Now, put that with the "sources say Foster's files dealt with legal
questions bout national emergencies . . . ." and I will presume that "THAT
tape" and I constitute a "national emergency."
Harumph.
At any rate, we've (AEN News) had a number of military-based sniffs here.
-- Linda
================================================
> Does the White House follow anti-Clinton discussion on Usenet
>newsgroups just as closely? The White House posts press releases
>to Usenet in collaboration with the Artificial Intelligence Lab
>at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But MIT System
>Administrator Bruce Walton says that the White House does not use
>the same server for reading netnews. It would be difficult -
>although not impossible - to find the server that the White House
>uses for reading or receiving netnews and check for traces on
>that server.
>
> Readers may be tempted to post a threat to the President on a
>newsgroup just to see if they get a visit from the Secret Service
>the next day. That experiment is not advisable. It is a criminal
>offense. But Usenet just might be a faster conduit for getting
>the attention of the administration than the email address that
>the White House has published for the president.
>
>Attachment:
>
>
> THE WASHINGTON WEEKLY
>_________________________________________________________________
>
>August 31, 1995
>
>Virginia M. Terzano
>White House Office of the Press Secretary
>The White House
>
>
>Dear Ms. Terzano:
>
> It has come to my attention that several dissident sites on
>the World Wide Web have been visited by White House computers
>this week. Apparently, all information regarding Whitewater,
>Foster, and Mena has been transferred to White House computers.
>
> Specifically, the sites,
>
>"Washington Weekly" (http://www.federal.com),
>"The Whitewater Scandal Home Page"
>(http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~crow/whitewater/)
>"Whitewater & Vince Foster"
>(http://www.cris.com/~dwheeler/n/whitewater/whitewater-index.html)
>
>have been visited by White House computers ist1.eop.gov,
>ist6.eop.gov, ist7.eop.gov, and gatekeeper.eop.gov between August
>28 and August 31, and a total of 128 files have been transferred
>to those White House computers. For all sites, this constitutes a
>significant increase over previous access by White House
>computers.
>
> In light of this information, I have the following questions:
>
>(1) Does this constitute "casual browsing" by White House staff, or
> is it, in light of the considerable time and effort spent during
> regular business hours, part of a monitoring or intelligence operation?
>
>(2) For what purpose is the information transferred to the White House used?
>
>(3) Does the White House keep information from these web sites on file,
> and does the White House keep a file on the persons responsible for
> these web sites?
>
>(4) Is the April 9 statement by David Lytel of the White House Office of
> Science and Technology to Amy Bauer of Copley News Service that the
> administration does not monitor anti-Clinton activity on the web still
> operative?
>
>
> Thank you very much for your cooperation in this matter.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Marvin Lee
>The Washington Weekly
>
>Copyright (c) 1995 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
>
>
>
Linda Thompson
American Justice Federation
Home of AEN News and "Waco, the Big Lie" "America Under Siege"
3850 S. Emerson Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46203
Telephone: (317) 780-5200
Fax: (317) 780-5209
Internet: [email protected]
"When even one American -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear
to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril."
Harry Truman