Did A Prank Domain Registration Open Up The Administration's Email Secrets?

from the questions-questions dept

Tue, May 29th 2007 5:33pm — Mike Masnick

Not being a political blog, we're not so interested in the latest political scandal brewing from the administration, which supposedly involves a leaked email that highlights some more potentially illegal actions out of our Justice Department. However, what is interesting is what David Cassel pointed us to about how those emails were leaked. The details aren't entirely clear from this interview with the reporter who has the emails, but it looks as though some web pranksters who registered domains like whitehouse.org and georgewbush.org have been collecting emails that are sent to those domains. Occasionally, people who think they're emailing someone at whitehouse.gov or georgewbush.com address their emails to the .orgs instead. In the latest example, it involves an email from Tim Griffin on the subject of "caging" (which apparently is the practice of kicking voters off the voting rolls through questionable and illegal means). Unfortunately for Griffin, it appears he sent a somewhat incriminating email to a bunch of people -- including one email address at georgewbush.org. Oops. The reporter later asked administration officials about the emails, the administration didn't deny the content -- but just took issue with the interpretation, effectively admitting that the emails were real. Again, we have no clue about the political issues involved -- but find it amusing that the email leaks were due to someone typing in the wrong top level domain and having the emails go to some pranksters. The reporter in question claims to have about 500 such emails.

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7 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 29 May 2007 @ 5:40pm

Why would you send an email advocating illegal de-registration in the first place? Much less to a large group of people, or not double-check the addresses? Is georgebush.whatever the best way to communicate with the president of the united states?

A government full of buffoons across the board.
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- aiken, 29 May 2007 @ 6:05pm
  
  Re:
  Yes, georgebush.whatever is the best way to communicate about questionable or illegal election activities. Actual whitehouse.gov email is archived by law for posterity (and is therefore very subpoena-able). It's well known that Bush, Rove, and cohorts use Republican party email systems (including georgebush.com [or georgewbush.com, I forget]) for any extralegal business they might have.
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  - Trey, 29 May 2007 @ 10:05pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Let's not forget to mention that democratic leaders (or lack there-of) do exactly the same thing...
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Stuart, 29 May 2007 @ 11:10pm

No!
Dont try to be fair aroung those that know for a fact that GW is a major demon and a war criminal and stupid and mean and ...

They cant hear attacks that are not against him that is evil.

:)
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bewildered in America, 30 May 2007 @ 12:58am

This explains Bush being elected
hey cant hear attacks that are not against him that is evil.

:)

Can I play too?
What say did sentence you here for wow destruct self BOOM.
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James, 30 May 2007 @ 6:52am

Ok...
...who let "W" post # 5... stop that. Go back to pretending to govern.
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Phil, 30 May 2007 @ 9:23am

Did A Prank Domain Registration Open Up The Admini
georgewbush.org is really quite hilarious.
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