Monthly Archives: March 2004

Our Dime-Store Machiavellians

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Via Dan's Washpost column, a link to a valuable but depressing compilation from the Center for American Progress: White House Intimidation, a list of folks the Bush team has tried to silence or punish for speaking. Proving they at least understand that it's better to be feared than loved.

Bill Clinton's greatest failing as a President may be that he never really understood that lesson and tried to reward his enemies too often, emboldening congress and others to walk right over him. (No need to mention his second greatest failing, although it may be related to the first.) This is the other extreme.

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 2 Comments

Clarke, Day 3

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Daily Kos on Clarke — it's not that he's new so much that he's credible and impossible to ignore. And, oh yes, the administration appears to have no substantive response in its arsenal. None. None.

By their own right, the Clarke stuff is not that significant. Or at the very least, not too original. He has said little that we didn't already know around these parts.

But what Clarke has done is simply add fuel to charges alredy floating around — from Paul O'Neil, from David Kay, from others. One person making charges might be spun as the rantings of a disgruntled former employee, or the machinations of a political enemy. But as more of these former officials come out, the damage they wreak on the administration rises exponentially.

We are seeing confirmation upon confirmation upon confirmation. The numbers of whistleblowers are too many to easily dismiss. The news media is no longer doing so, and the administration is reduced to calling in Rush Limbaugh to plead their case (Cheney: Our top counter-terrorism official was “out of the loop” on terrorism matters. And that's their defense!)

If there is no substantive response in the arsenal, that leaves the politics of personal destruction. But how many skeletons can there be in the closet of a guy who held all the highest clearances we have for 20+ years?

Posted in Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 1 Comment

Unerasing Data as a Hobby

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

My friend Simpson Garfinkel, the award-winning journalist and author, had, it seems, a fairly odd hobby. It started when he spotted piles of cheap used hard drives on sale in a local computer supply store:

I took the drives home and started my own forensic analysis. Several of the drives had source code from high-tech companies. One drive had a confidential memorandum describing a biotech project; another had internal spreadsheets belonging to an international shipping company.

Since then, I have repeatedly indulged my habit for procuring and then analyzing secondhand hard drives. I bought recycled drives in Bellevue, Wash., that had internal Microsoft e-mail (somebody who was working from home, apparently). Drives that I found at an MIT swap meet had financial information on them from a Boston-area investment firm. Last summer, I started buying drives en masse on eBay.

Continue reading →

Posted in Sufficiently Advanced Technology | 1 Comment

Have I Met ‘Laplace’s Demon’?

Posted on March 23, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

A Technorati link tickle to my culinary commentary via the new discourse.net links feed clues me into a new blog entitled Laplace's Demon.

Here's some of what the proprietor has to say about him/herself:

Well, here it is. I've been following weblogs of various kinds for years because of my work. In fact, I would venture to guess that I have one of the longer reading-to-writing ratios among bloggers. The reasons for not keeping a blog have been easy.

I am a freelance purveyor of difficult to locate and valuable information. I know that is not exactly precise. One of the things I will need to do is work out how vague I must remain in terms of the kind of work I do. I don't break laws unless I really have to, and I try to remain ethical in the jobs I take, though once I agree to a job, I feel obligated to do almost whatever it takes to maintain my obligation to my client. I would say that I am a “troubleshooter” or maybe simply a “process consultant” (I've used both of these titles in the past.) But basically my job is to provide a client with the means to make a decision, and sometimes to help coordinate the solution.

Anyway, since my work involves providing an informational advantage to clients, a public blog doesn't mesh well with that. I don't advertise: my clients come to me because of a very strong reputation within various circles. I do have business cards, but that's about it.

And the person has a sport, probably a martial art. And s/he's seriously into crypotgraphy (“I've always liked to think about information through the lense of crypto.”)

Add to this s/he reads my blog, and I figure it's someone I know, at least vaguely, back from the cypherpunks list or CFP days.

I'm guessing male, maybe a little younger than me, just going on the braggadicio. And has lived somewhere where croc was on the menu…

Give me time, I could walk this cat. But that wouldn't be nice, would it?

Posted in Discourse.net | Comments Off on Have I Met ‘Laplace’s Demon’?

Clarke Ripples

Posted on March 22, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

So far the best comment on the Clarke fallout I've seen is Billmon, who points out how bad it looks for Dr. Rice to refuse to testify to the 9/11 commission. Even if there is a valid separation of powers argument, isn't it the case the “9/11 changes everything”? Or so we've been told… [A commentator on the Billmon site says that not only did the NYT assign Judith Miller to the story, a very weird choice indeed, but it apparently buried the story on page 17! Surely not? The Post, at least, front-paged it.]

Apparently there's also a great 9/11 article in the Wall St. Journal, showing all the inconsistencies in the administration's story about what it did on 9/11, but that's subscription only online so I'll have to chase up a hardcopy…

And, White House Reels From Insider Expose.

And, today's event, the Center for American Progress website publishes newly revealed internal FBI and Justice Department documents that it says substantiate several of Clarke's charges of Bush administration inattention to terrorism in the face of “repeated warnings”.

Posted in National Security, Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | Comments Off on Clarke Ripples

Want to Know What’s Wrong With US Intelligence?

Posted on March 22, 2004 by Michael Froomkin

Here's a little item deep inside Barton Gellman's story on Richard Clarke that encapsulates so much of what's wrong with the Bush administration:

On the same broadcast, deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley said, “We cannot find evidence that this conversation between Mr. Clarke and the president ever occurred.” In interviews for this story, two people who were present confirmed Clarke's account. They said national security adviser Condoleezza Rice witnessed the exchange.

So either unless Clarke and two other anonymous witnesses are lying, the folks in charge of our intelligence and national security apparatus are either (A) completely incompetent, or (B) complete liars. Does it really matter which?

Posted in National Security, Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals | 3 Comments