HHS' New Spokesman So Good At Communications Strategy That He Thinks He Can Delete Tweets From The Internet

from the noooooooope dept

It never ceases to amaze me how often people that really should know better seem to think that they can simply remove their own histories from the internet effectively. It seems the be a lesson never learned, be it from major corporations or even the Pope, that the internet never forgets. Thanks to tools like The Wayback Machine and others, attempts to sweep history under the rug are mostly fruitless endeavors. And, yet, people still try.

Such as Michael Caputo, the new spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services. That department is just a tad important at the moment, given the COVID-19 pandemic we're all enduring. Well, Caputo got the job and decided he better get to Twitter to delete all that racist and conspiratorial shit he said so that we all don't find out about it.

The new spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services in a series of now-deleted tweets made racist and derogatory comments about Chinese people, said Democrats wanted the coronavirus to kill millions of people and accused the media of intentionally creating panic around the pandemic to hurt President Donald Trump.

Michael Caputo, a longtime New York Republican political operative who worked on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, was appointed last week as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at HHS, a prominent communications role at the department which serves a central role in the federal government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Caputo, a prolific user who often tweeted insults and profanity, recently erased nearly his entire Twitter history from before April 12. CNN's KFile used the Internet Archive's "The Wayback Machine" to review more than 1300 deleted tweets and retweets from late February to early April many of which were regarding the rapidly spreading coronavirus.

If you feel like wallowing in the muck, you can see more of Caputo's once-musings from Twitter here, where someone saved them. Now, I know precisely what you're thinking: But, Tim, how can we go and see these tweets when Caputo very smartly and correctly deleted them?

Great question, Michael Caputo, and thanks for coming to Techdirt to read this. See, the internet isn't a piece of paper in front of you that you can crumple up and light on fire after you've finally written down all the hateful stuff you've wanted to say but never had the guts to say out loud. Instead, it's made up of computers and servers and probably lots of other things too! Like transistors or something, who knows! But what I do know is that there are ways to go back and capture things that are deleted on the internet. And then, you know, discuss them out loud like we are now.

It's called The Streisand Effect. It's how you go from "Hey, I'll just delete these tweets" to "Holy shit, CNN now has an article discussing those tweets I didn't want anyone to see!"

In Caputo's defense, his comments to CNN after the publication amount to him telling CNN he doesn't really mind if anyone sees the tweets he went and deleted.

After publication, Caputo responded to CNN's request for comment by saying that reporting on his past tweets is "fair game, dude. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me at all." He claimed that he deletes his tweets "every month and I do it because it drives people mad."

He added "when you tweet in spirited fashion, KFile is going to have them. I've known that all my days. So I don't mind what you've done." Caputo defended his past Twitter behavior saying he was "a defender of the President" tweeting in a "spirited manner" that included calling out reporters, but he said he's "now a servant of the American people and some might be disappointed, but my tweets will be different."

And we'll look for those different tweets to get deleted every month on the month, too, I'm sure.

Filed Under: deleting tweets, erasing history, health and human services, hhs, michael caputo, tweets

Trump Muzzles Federal Employees; Reporters Start Asking For Leaks

from the we'll-see-how-this-goes... dept

Reports started coming out this morning that the new Trump Administration had told the EPA that it needed to stop doing anything publicly without first getting approval from the White House (in addition to freezing grants and contracts). According to a memo that was sent around to EPA staff:

If you can't read that, the key parts say:

• No press releases will be going out to external audiences.
• No social media will be going out. A Digital Strategist will be coming on board to oversee social media. Existing, individually controlled, social media accounts may become more centrally controlled.
• No blog messages.
• The Beach Team will review the list of upcoming webinars and decide which ones will go forward.
• Please send me a list of any external speaking engagements that are currently scheduled among any of your staff from today through February.
• Incoming media requests will be carefully screened.
• No new content can be place on any website. Only do clean up where essential.
• List servers will be reviewed. Only send out critical messages, as messages can be shared broadly and end up in the press.

Why yes, such messages may end up in the press.

Of course, it quickly became clear that this was not just for the EPA. The USDA received similar marching orders. Same with the Department of Health & Human Services and possibly others as well, including the Department of Commerce, being told it can't even publish the basic research it releases for US companies.

It's possible to say that this is just the Trump administration hitting the pause button to figure out what's going on before moving forward again, but many in these agencies are quite worried that they're going to be muzzled for political reasons. Most of the people working in these agencies are civil servants, not political appointees, and their work is not at all political. The press releases and blog posts are generally to release new findings, research and data from taxpayer funded studies. This shouldn't be controversial or reviewed for political motives.

Of course, this kind of thing is hardly unprecedented. For many years, we wrote about the ridiculousness of then Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper gagging Canadian scientists from talking about factual research that was politically inconvenient (including a study on fish stock). This kind of gagging on "politically sensitive" but factual science was only lifted last year once Justin Trudeau came into office. Of course, just a few months before that, the UK similarly started muzzling scientists to stop them saying anything the politicians didn't like.

One hopes the Trump administration will not be putting in place similar policies.

Of course, if that is the plan, it should be a huge boon for investigative journalists. And they're already hunting for sources. As the reports on the gag order came out this morning, lots of reporters stepped up on Twitter with notes on how to contact publications with information:

So, perhaps this kind of gag order will lead to a golden age of whistleblowing. Unfortunately, it may also lead to further crackdowns on whistleblowers. Once again, as we've explained over and over again the past few years, the Obama administration was the most aggressive and proactive in cracking down on whistleblowers and the press, and they've now handed off that power and precedent to the Trump administration, which will have a pretty big opportunity to use it.

Filed Under: commerce department, donald trump, epa, gag order, hhs, leaks, reporters, usda

Healthcare.gov Is A Security Disaster... And Those Working On It Knew It, And Tried To Stop Independent Security Review To Hide It

from the well-that's-not-at-all-comforting dept

We've written before about how problematic the technology is behind the federal healthcare.gov website, pointing out that the federal government hired political cronies rather than web development experts to build it. There was an effort to open source the code, but after the feds put the code on github, they removed it after people started pointing out just how bad it was. Then, just about a month ago, we noted that the government turned down a FOIA request from the Associated Press concerning the site's security practices, arguing that it might "give hackers enough information to break into the service." As we noted at the time, if revealing the basic security you have in place will give hackers a road map to breaking into the site, the site is not secure at all.

A damning new report from the Goverment Accountability Office (GAO) more or less confirms this is the case. This is further backed up by an even more astounding "Behind the Curtain of the Healthcare.gov Rollout" released by the House Oversight Committee. To be fair, the GAO is non-partisan and known to be even-handed and fair. That's not always the case with Congressional committee reports. Still, the two are worth reading together. The level of mess behind the project is rather astounding and it appears that the site still is not particularly secure, which obviously explains the refusal to do that FOIA release.

Here's the GAO basic summary of the security situation for the site:

While CMS has taken steps to protect the security and privacy of data processed and maintained by the complex set of systems and interconnections that support Healthcare.gov, weaknesses remain both in the processes used for managing information security and privacy as well as the technical implementation of IT security controls. CMS took many steps to protect security and privacy, including developing required security program policies and procedures, establishing interconnection security agreements with its federal and commercial partners, and instituting required privacy protections. However, Healthcare.gov had weaknesses when it was first deployed, including incomplete security plans and privacy documentation, incomplete security tests, and the lack of an alternate processing site to avoid major service disruptions. While CMS has taken steps to address some of these weaknesses, it has not yet fully mitigated all of them. In addition, GAO identified weaknesses in the technical controls protecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the FFM. Specifically, CMS had not: always required or enforced strong password controls, adequately restricted access to the Internet, consistently implemented software patches, and properly configured an administrative network. An important reason that all of these weaknesses occurred and some remain is that CMS did not and has not yet ensured a shared understanding of how security was implemented for the FFM among all entities involved in its development. Until these weaknesses are fully addressed, increased and unnecessary risks remain of unauthorized access, disclosure, or modification of the information collected and maintained by Healthcare.gov and related systems, and the disruption of service provided by the systems.

That failure to restrict access to the internet was for test servers, one of which got infected with malware recently.

But the really damning story is that CMS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which was in charge of the product, seemed totally incompetent throughout this process -- and directly chose to kill off an independent security review by MITRE, knowing the results would be bad and that they might get out:

Once MITRE completed their September Security Assessment, Mr. Schankweiler’s FFM development team was unhappy with the report and sought to have it changed. On September 26, 2013, Darren Lyles, one of the IT security officials assigned to the FFM development team, wrote Ms. Fryer:

The Draft SCA [security control assessment] Report has been called into question by CGI [primary contractor building the FFM] and CIISG [Consumer Information Insurance Group, the team within CMS that works with contractors to develop the FFM and other Healthcare.gov components] Stakeholders. There are assertions made in the report that are deemed to be erroneous and misrepresentative of what actually occurred. I have attached the report that has been commented on by CGI and would like to submit this for your review.

Michael Mellor, Ms. Fryer’s deputy, responded to Mr. Lyles: “Keep in mind – that the purpose of the SCA is to provide an independent assessment of the security posture of a system. As part of that independent assessment, the maintainer of the system likely will not agree with all of the findings and the SCA report.”

Mr. Schankweiler, Mr. Lyles’ superior, then responded to Mr. Mellor, insisting that the report should be reviewed by senior CMS officials and worried the report would be seen by others outside CMS: “We need to hit the pause button on this report and have an internal meeting about it later next week. It is important to look at this within the context of the decision memos and ATO memo that is going up for Tony [Trenkle, CMS Chief Information Officer] and Michelle [Snyder, CMS Chief Operating Officer] to sign.” Mr. Schankweiler then wrote the report was “only partially accurate, and extremely opinionated, false, misrepresentative, and inflammatory.” Mr. Schankweiller noted that “It is very possible that this report will be reviewed at some point by OIG, and could see the light of day in other ways.” Mr. Schankweiler offered to “look at the report from the government perspective and provide ... analysis.”

On October 7, 2013, the lead security tester for MITRE, Milton Shomo, wrote Jane Kim, a CMS official on Ms. Fryer’s EISG team, “CCIIO [Centers for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, one of the divisions at CMS responsible for running the exchange] and CGI Federal had some issues with some of the information in our Marketplace … draft SCA report from the assessment we did in August and September. MITRE stands behind everything in our report as an accurate description of the assessment.

There were a number of other similar problems, but it becomes clear that choices were made for political reasons, rather than technological or security reasons.

Filed Under: cms, gao, healthcare.gov, hhs, politics, security

Health And Human Services Apparently Unable To Recognize Satire; Sends Bogus Legal Threat

from the because-shut-up dept

Another day, another story of someone with skin way too thin not comprehending satire and dashing off an angry legal threat. In this case, it's worse than usual because the bogus legal threat is coming from the US government. Popehat has the full story of how some of the legal geniuses at the Department of Health and Human Services have sent a bogus cease-and-desist letter over a pair of obviously satirical posts on the site AddictionMyth.com. While we've long been skeptical of the medical profession's desire to label all sorts of things "addictions," that particular site takes it to extreme levels, arguing that there's nothing that's addictive, and all talk of addictions (including drug and alcohol addictions) are just a big scam "perpetrated by law enforcement, rehab groups and the entertainment industry." I think that's nuts, but they certainly have their right to say so.

They also have the right to post a satirical conversation with a so-called "addiction guru." As Ken at Popehat points out, there's no way to read this without realizing it's satire:

AM: According to your research, blackouts occur not just in middle age alcoholics, but in young college students who may not have built up much tolerance for alcohol. Their drinking often ended up in unprotected sex, vandalism, and fights, of which they had no memory until cued by a friend. What was their response to their memory? Regret? Horror? Delight? Glee? A little of each?

AW: I wasn’t the author of the research. But I would say a little of each, at least based on my own experience. I suspect they remembered more than they wanted to admit. Though one time I got really drunk at a party and my friend told me that I was talking to his sister in French, and I had absolutely no recollection of that. It was surprising to me as a brain scientist because alcohol has been shown to suppress activation of the inferior frontal region (Broca’s area also known as the ‘language center’). I probably shouldn’t have been able to talk at all, let alone French, given my BAC. But what was really weird was that I don’t even know French!

Following this, AddictionMyth posted a bogus mocking satirical cease-and-desist, which pretends to be angry about the satirical interview. This too, is obvious satire. I mean, the letter includes this line:

Do you realize how psychotically insane that sounds? In my field we have a term for it: CRAY-CRAY!

Either way, this bogus cease-and-desist appears to have stirred up the attention of a lawyer at the real US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which apparently has some extra time on its hands now that Healthcare.gov's website is kinda, sorta working. Lawyer Dale Berkley sent a cease-and-desist in which he argues both that (1) the interview is clearly not true and (2) that it might be defamatory. You can't really have both of those things be true.

We recently became aware of two items that you posted on your website directed to two employees of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (“NIAAA”)--one which purports to be an interview with NIAAA Project Manager Dr. Aaron White, and the other a letter from NIAAA Director Dr. George Koob.

Of course Dr. White did not in fact participate in the interview and Dr. Koob did not write the letter attributed to him.

We are concerned that, especially with respect to the mock interview, the public could be deceived and misled into believing that Dr. White in fact contributed to the interview. Those items are defamatory, and expose you to potential liability.

We therefore request that you either remove the articles from your website, or provide a prominent disclaimer indicating that Dr. White and Dr. Koob did not participate in the interview or write the letter.

As noted above, by admitting it's obviously fake, Berkley undermines his own legal argument. Ken White summarizes it nicely:

When the target of satire complains that it is defamatory, the relevant question is whether the satire can reasonably be taken as a statement of fact about its subject. Dr. Berkley, by saying that "of course" the satirical articles do not reflect the actual words of the subjects, has just proclaimed that the satire he is complaining about cannot be taken as a statement of fact.

You paid taxes for that.

White goes into a more in-depth legal analysis of just how preposterously bogus the letter from HHS is, and questions if Berkley was even remotely aware of the law before sending the letter, or if any other lawyer at HHS bothered to look it over. In the meantime, we're wondering if HHS has any programs for helping with the tragically satire-impaired?

Filed Under: addiction, cease and desist, defamation, free speech, health and human services, hhs, satire, threats

Can Health And Human Services Copyright New Smoking Package Warnings?

from the copyfraud? dept

As you hopefully know, content created by the US federal government is supposed to automatically go into the public domain. There are a few exceptions, mainly having to do with work created for the government by others. But Dave P. reasonably asks why the highly publicized new graphic (in more ways than one) "warning" labels for cigarette packages appear to have a very blatant copyight notice, claiming that the copyright is held by HHS (Health & Human Services). You can see the full PDF, which is also embedded below, but you can see the first image here, with a © notice in the lower lefthand corner: The really bizarre one is the last one, which appears to just be a red triangle with an exclamation point: It appears that a red triangle with an exclamation point is widely used in other areas as well. In fact, if you do an image search for such things, you can find tons upon tons of red triangles with exclamation points inside. Perhaps HHS should sue.

Or, better yet, recognize that this is copyfraud and drop the bogus © notices.

Filed Under: copyright, hhs, smoking, us government