Glenn Beck Exposes 'Cash for Clunkers' Language

[tombogan03884]

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_02-2009_08_08.shtml#1249412628


 A reader passed along the "all your computers belong to us" story that
   first broke on the Glenn Beck show; here's [1]PolitiFact's summary,
   with the government response:

     [On his show, Beck quoted the following statement from cars.gov]:
     "This application provides access to the DOT CARS system. When
     logged on to the CARS system, your computer is considered a federal
     computer system and it is property of the United States Government.
     Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be
     intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and
     disclosed to authorized CARS, DOT, and law enforcement personnel,
     as well as authorized officials of other agencies, both domestic
     and foreign." ...

     The Department of Transportation confirmed the language was on the
     cars.gov Web site, but on Aug. 3 it was removed. The DOT released
     this statement to PolitiFact: "A security warning on the CARS.gov
     dealer support page that stated computers logged into the system
     were considered property of the Federal Government has been
     removed. We are working to revise the language. The language was
     posted on the portion of the website accessible by car dealers and
     not the general public."

     "It would be factually inaccurate to say that any computer that
     went to cars.gov would become the property of the U.S. government,"
     said Sasha Johnson, a DOT spokeswoman said....

   What a screw-up. I have no reason at this point to think that this was
   part of some malevolent government conspiracy, or even of a
   well-intentioned but ill-thought-through design. It might well have
   been an error by one low-level Web designer, which wasn't reviewed by
   any higher-up. Still, what a mistake to make, especially when people
   are understandably concerned that the federal government in general
   likes to poke around on your computer systems. (I approve of some
   degree of such poking around, in some cases, but the existence of
   federal computer surveillance and the growth of such surveillance
   makes erroneous claims of such surveillance especially plausible and
   frightening to people.)

   PolitiFact goes on to point out that the Glenn Beck item was mistaken
   in suggesting that the warning purported to apply to consumers -- it
   only applies to dealers that access that part of the site. I think in
   the course of this, PolitiFact underestimates the propriety of the
   criticism (referring to "the small amount of truth in their comments
   [on the Beck program]") and exaggerates the error. But that's
   tangential to the point I'm making here, which is about the Department
   of Transportation error and not about the Beck program's errors.

References

   1. http://www.politifact.org/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/03/kimbery-guilfoyle/glenn-beck-claims-governments-cash-clunkers-web-si/

[Pathfinder]

   What a screw-up. I have no reason at this point to think that this was
   part of some malevolent government conspiracy, or even of a
   well-intentioned but ill-thought-through design. It might well have
   been an error by one low-level Web designer, which wasn't reviewed by
   any higher-up. Still, what a mistake to make, especially when people
   are understandably concerned that the federal government in general
   likes to poke on your computer systems. (I approve of some
   degree of such poking around, in some cases, but the existence of
   federal computer surveillance and the growth of such surveillance
   makes erroneous claims of such surveillance especially plausible and
   frightening to people.)

Sorry, but with people like rhambo in charge, I am not willing to give the gummint the benefit of the doubt on this or anything else. In this, they tried, got smacked down, and backed off. Just a harbinger of things to come.

And since when is poking "around on your computer systems" by the gummint acceptable in any way, shape or form without a warrant?