BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Thursday, January 22, 2004
"Stealing" public documents.
The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage today has a huge
story on Republican staff
members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who exploited a
computer-security hole to steal documents from the Democratic
minority. The Daily
Kos is all over it. So is
Josh
Marshall.
This is stunningly sleazy behavior.
But is it theft? Savage identifies someone named Manuel Miranda as a
likely suspect. And one of the things Miranda tells Savage is this:
"Stealing assumes a property right and there is no property right to
a government document."
Whoa! That's pretty good. After
all, you and I paid for those documents, Mr. Green.
In other words, it's still a
scandal, but it may not be a crime.
posted at 3:47 PM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
