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Office of Senate Security Doesn't Understand Computers
Posted by James Grimmelmann on Monday, May 10 @ 11:43:09 EDT Free Expression
The Taguba report (PDF, text) on abuse and torture in the Abu Ghraib prison has been all over the Net since various reporters got their hands on copies and prompty posted them. Despite this distribution, the report technically remains classified. The Office of Senate Security, though, is still trying to put the cat back in the bag: its director sent an email to Senate staffers telling them to request official copies through the Department of Defense, rather than simply downloading them

The email, as described by the Washington Post (free but registration required) is full of further howlers -- over and above its fundamentally ostrichian world-view (and never mind that the report itself may have been classified as SECRET contrrary to official classification policy). My favorite:

[I]f you have downloaded a copy of the classified report from the NPR website, please call OSS and advise them, and they will come by your office and pick it up.
So wrong on so many levels:
  • The report is available tons of places besides the NPR website,
  • No one else knows how to work a a paper shredder?
  • Downloads don't come on paper!
 
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Neither Does Girl Scouts (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, May 10 @ 14:08:05 EDT
Funny, that's similar to what happened when I tried to put a thumbnail-sized (64x58) Girl Scout logo on our organization's website calendar (we host their meetings once a month). Basically, after I filled out an online form and was told I had to call our local troop for permission, I told them in return that I had found high-quality logos on another troop's website. I was then told in no uncertain terms that I would still have to get permission and promptly received a call the next day from the troop leader (after a two weeks of pussy-footing), who didn't hesitate to let me know GS would have taken legal action if necessary. Ironically enough, I had also found the logos earlier on her troop's website. -Scott


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