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The Ridiculous LexisNexis Search that the Justice Department Used
from the your-government-ruining-america dept.
[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!
Needless to say, when asked about it, Williams first said she didn't remember ever seeing it, then said she'd used an edited version just once. LexisNexis records show she used it, as shown, 25 times." Note that 'sex!' appears twice in the query. Must be VERY important.
spotted owl? (Score:5, Funny)
what the hell
Re:spotted owl? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:spotted owl? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:spotted owl? (Score:5, Funny)
My clock is digital with 1 minute resolution and is set ~30 seconds slow. It's right 1440 times a day - Try that trick with a broken clock.
You insensitive clod.
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Re:spotted owl? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:spotted owl? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a hippy litmus test. The Owl thing was something they used to pin on Gore, so if someone shows up in a newspaper article, with a mention of a "spotted owl" then there is some hippy crap going down.
Or, of course, the person could be using the term themselves to paint someone else as a hippy.
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Re:spotted owl? (Score:5, Funny)
Not really surprising. Spotted owls are notoriously poor prosecutors. They also have a well-known bias against rats and other vermin, making them unsuitable for political work.
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The spotted owl is a shibboleth. (Score:5, Informative)
It's a Shibboleth [wikipedia.org]. Something that you can use to guess at another person's social/regional/political origin.
Back in 1992 [nytimes.com], there was a plan to log some forest. Republicans liked the idea of logging. Democrats didn't like the idea of logging.
Democrats went with environmentalism -- the notion that a risk to 50 of the 500-odd remaining spotted owls in existence outweighed the commercial interests of the loggers -- as their means of obsctructing the Republicans' goals.
Republicans went with the commercial argument -- "preposterous to forego millions of dollars in revenue over 50 spotted owls!" -- as their means of embarassing the Democrats.
The spotted owl became a shibboleth. Anyone who said "save the endangered owls!" was likely to be a Democrat, and anyone who said "to hell with the owls!" was a Democrat.
Many of the things in that list are shibboleths from the Clinton era. If you followed events such as Iran-Contra (a scandal embarassing to the Republicans), the spotted owl (a shibboleth for environmentalism), the recounts in Florida (which could have only benefited the Democrats), or worked (or ruled) on cases involving other politically-loaded wedge issues -- whether economic ones like NAFTA, outsourcing, and Enron, or sociolopolitical ones like racism, sexism, abortion, homosexuality, and gun ownership -- you had political opinions.
This query wasn't designed to figure out what those opinions were, but it would be a very clear way listing all the times someone identified their political stance by using a political shibboleth within seven words of the name of either Presidential candidate:
"John Doe accused Al Gore of placing the interests of the spotted owl above the legitimate interests of the taxpayers" -> John Doe is almost certainly a Republican.
"Jane Doe suggested Al Gore wasn't doing enough to protect the spotted owl" -> Jane Doe is almost certainly a Democrat.
The spotted owl is a particularly effective shibboleth; most of us have opinions about gun ownership, NAFTA, or Enron that don't necessarily dermine how we vote. But the spotted owl was a manufactured controversy; outside of birdwatchers, very few people knew or cared about the spotted owl until it became the center of a political debate.
Modern-day shibboleths include "homicide bombers" or "the Democrat party" (phrases used only Republicans), or "big business / big health care / big pharma" or "multinational corporations", or "neocons" (which are phrases used almost exclusively by Democrats.)
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Re:The spotted owl is a shibboleth. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:The spotted owl is a shibboleth. (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't want to blow my moderation..
I don't consider neocons to be ultra conservative.
They spend money like drunken sailors, the support the expansion of the federal government, they ignore the constitution.
OTH, they are pro military, pro corporation, and use religion as a glue to get enough votes to advance their position. I.e. Neocons are very close to facists / corporatists.
I'm not saying that in a half naked hippy screaming "fascist!" kind of way at law abiding cops doing their jobs. I'm looking at the neocons actions- comparing them to historical factions and concluding that the closest match I find is fascists.
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Re:The spotted owl is a shibboleth. (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that most people can't even come to a single definition of "conservative." So what the heck is a "neo-conservative" supposed to be?
Wikipedia has a pretty good running definition for neo-con, though. Essentially, social conservatism with a big government twist (which essentially fits every Republican president since Ford, and is most exemplified by GWB). So-called "paleo-cons" (usually with libertarian leanings) are exactly the opposite.
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Re:The spotted owl is a shibboleth. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:spotted owl? (Score:5, Funny)
ya rly
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Oblig. Life of Brian (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oblig. Life of Brian (Score:5, Funny)
Well, in fairness, "arrest" and "intox" also appear twice... So they also care about getting drunk and enjoying a bit of the ol' ultraviolence...
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TFS Blows, TFA Is About Hiring Practices (Score:5, Insightful)
For those of you wondering what that query is about and what it's being used for, here's TFA:
So there you go. The Justice Department was using a screwy LexisNexis query to try to determine the political leanings and affiliations of people they were looking to hire, because they were illegally filtering out applications people (non-repubs/conservatives) based on their political affiliations.
You really should drink more coffee in the morning before you start posting, Taco.
Re:TFS Blows, TFA Is About Hiring Practices (Score:5, Interesting)
Dropping Monica Goodling into that query returns 653 results in the last 2 years.
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Re:TFS Blows, TFA Is About Hiring Practices (Score:5, Informative)
Reading some other articles about this, it appears that was not the full extent. They were even excluding Republicans and conservatives that weren't Republican or conservative enough for them. Basically people that they thought would not make loyal "Bushies".
It also appears that experience was not as highly evaluated as political considerations. One cited example of the was a well regarded senior prosecutor with counterterrorism experience was passed over for a junior attorney with no experience for a counterterrorism post just because the senior prosecutor's wife was a Democrat.
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Re:TFS Blows, TFA Is About Hiring Practices (Score:5, Interesting)
To further illuminate what Goodling was doing, she told this to a U.S. Attorney telling him he could hire another prosecutor for his office:
"Tell Brad he can hire one more good American."
"good American" is Goodling and probably Bush administration code for conservative, Christian, homophobe, pro life, Bush supporting, Republican. The implication being all other American's are "bad" Americans. How does it feel to live in a country where your Executive Branch has branded you as a "bad" American unless you live and think the way they expect you to live and think.
It is an entirely acceptable standard for political appointees who will come and go with the President who appoints them. It is expected for them to be ideologues in the same mold as their boss. It is an illegal and unacceptable criteria for career civil servants who, once they enter the ranks of civil service, are nearly impossible to get rid of unless they leave of their on accord.
The report unfortunately stops short of finding who directed Goodling to do this, but since she was the DOJ liason to the White House chances are it was Rove, Myers, Cheney and or Bush, who were probably directing Goodling to fill the Justice Department ranks with career civil servants, who need not be well qualified for their jobs, but who were certified ideologues who would carry the right wing flag for decades to come and slant prosecutions and the law in the direction their ideology dictated.
The DOJ has received all the attention but there is an open question if the same program was being practiced in some or all of the other departments and agencies under control of the Executive Branch. If it was there may be an army of entrenched Republican ideologue civil servants who will frustrate future President they don't agree with for decades to come.
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Re:TFS Blows, TFA Is About Hiring Practices (Score:5, Insightful)
"Or the next President decides to fire him because he doesn't like the way he clips his toe nails, which he is perfectly free to do."
Presidents can't just fire civil servants. Their is a vast legal code to protect civil servants from politicians doing just that. The problem here is the same code is supposed to prevent the executive branch from hiring unqualified ideologues too. The Bush administration with their complete contempt for the law and government just chose to ignore that part, probably with the assumption the next Democratic president couldn't get rid of all the Republican only civil servants they were illegally hiring. They were trying to stack the civil service with their people which is against the law, for good reason.
The Bush administration in particular and Republicans in general hate civil servants because they are often unionized and hated for being "big government" and not easily held to account for their performance. It is possible they chose to break the law here in an attempt to completely corrupt the career civil servants at DOJ as their form of revenge, and replace qualified lawyers with unqualified ones with the proper ideological background
Goodling as an example wasn't really qualified for the lofty position she held. She was a graduate of Jerry Fallwell's Grade C law school which placed more importance on your Christian background than academic ability or knowledge of the law. If she was a good lawyer she should have known what she was doing was illegal and she would eventually get busted for it. I assume she figured the Republicans would control Congress and the DOJ forever so no one would ever enforce the law.
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Re:"Illegally" filtering out (Score:5, Insightful)
The law, which the practice was violating [...], is, probably, unconstitutional in itself, because it tramples on the President's power to run the Administration however he sees fit.
So you're saying that the guy in charge of upholding the constitution and the rule of law can, at his option, ignore any law that he pleases and do what he wants because somebody, somewhere thinks it is probably unconstitutional?
Because my crazy idea was that we had some sort of checks-and-balances system where only the legislature can make the laws, only the executive implements them, and only the courts interpret them. Maybe I was reading about some other country, though.
not according to any court, BTW, but only to the new Justice Department
How is it that here you can recognize that only courts can authoritatively interpret law, but the rest of your jabber grants that power to the executive branch? I can understand making this mistake weeks apart, but you've managed to contradict yourself in the same sentence.
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Re:"Illegally" filtering out (Score:5, Informative)
The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 does list it among the criteria (it is in fact in the very first of the 12 prohibited personnel practices [osc.gov]):
Twelve prohibited personnel practices, including reprisal for whistleblowing, are defined by law at  2302(b) of title 5 of the United States Code (U.S.C.). A personnel action (such as an appointment, promotion, reassignment, or suspension) may need to be involved for a prohibited personnel practice to occur. Generally stated,  2302(b) provides that a federal employee authorized to take, direct others to take, recommend or approve any personnel action may not:
(1) discriminate against an employee or applicant based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, handicapping condition, marital status, or political affiliation;
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Re:"Illegally" filtering out (Score:5, Insightful)
What we're seeing here is one basis of Karl Rove's "permanent Republican majority" that he bragged about in 2004. There are already instances on the books (sorry, I can't produce any specifics) of charges filed against Democrats shortly before elections, even at the time those charges were known to be baseless by less political employees, and after election were found to be baseless by due process of law. The counter to this would be charges against Republicans either not filed, or delayed until after an election. If you have the power to instigate and time prosecutions relative to election cycles, you have a powerful tool for influencing elections without touching the ballot box or counting mechanism.
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For the uninitiated like myself... (Score:5, Informative)
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LexisNexis [wikipedia.org]
They used Lexis to do a form of background search on people. They used the information from these searches to decide who to hire. The DOJ said the way they did this is federally illegal and also against DOJ policy.
And if you're an actual RTFAer, here you go: http://www.usdoj.gov/opr/goodling072408.pdf [usdoj.gov]
Rules (Score:5, Informative)
Connector Order and Priority
Connectors operate in the following order of priority:
1. OR
2.
3.
4.
5.
6. NOT
7. AND
8. AND NOT
If you use two or more of the same connector, they operate left to right. If the "n" (number) connectors have different numbers, the smallest number is operated on first. You cannot use the
Example: bankrupt!
* Because OR has the highest priority, it operates first and creates a unit of student OR college OR education!.
*
*
* AND, with the lowest priority, operates last and links the units formed in the second and third bullets above.
Is LexisNexis Still Relevant for Non-Lawrers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Back when I used LN a lot, about ten years ago, the thing that made it useful to me even when searching through sources that were indexed elsewhere as well were the search terms like A w/5 B, which searches for term A within 5 words of B. That always produced much more relevant results than A and B, and despite all the praise of things like Pagerank, I've never seen a modern internet search engine give nearly as good of results as I was always able to find using this sort of technique.
Is this type of search still limited to LN, or are there ways to do the same sort of thing on Yahoo/Google/etc?
These folk hate America (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, you hate George Bush ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you bother writing such an inane and senseless post? Why does the fact that Bush will be gone in six months mean we have to stop talking about the crimes he and his administration committed? There is a reason we hate him, and it isn't just because he's a stupid, self obsessed, spoiled frat boy who somehow fooled the nation into voting for him twice. We hate him because he has tried to take away our rights.
You know, defending the man at this point is pretty much an admission that not only did you vote for him, twice, but you are too proud to admit you screwed up.
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You aren't being sensible here (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, first, there was a huge concerted attack by the right wing against Clinton for the most minor of offenses. It wasn't 'dismissed,' the man was IMPEACHED. Why hasn't Bush been impeached? We will move on when there is at least the same level of justice for Bush.
Second, your cynicism is disgusting. You can't excuse one wrong act by pointing that others have done lesser evils. Wrong is wrong and it is never right to pressure people into shutting up about it.
Third, the GP wanted this story gone. He wanted us to stop talking about the crimes committed by this administration. The justice department engaged in criminal and unethical behavior, and he obviously doesn't want that talked about.
Finally, no, sorry, no past administration has ever been this blatant in apply purity tests to career hires rather than political appointees. And unless people like you get their way and this is all swept under the rug, then future administrations will have even less of a chance of doing it.
It really sounds as if you'd love it if everyone would just shut up and let ourselves get fucked over by the powerful. Not gonna happen, sorry.
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Re:Yes, you hate George Bush ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Get over it. He'll be gone in six months.
Because, after all, the only reason to disagree with any of the things he and his cohorts have done is irrational hatred. It has nothing to do with subverting the Constitution he swore to protect, failing to prevent a major terrorist attack despite warnings, unapologetic law-breaking, stove-piping intelligence to justify a war of aggression and an occupation that's trashing our armed forces and our economy, gutting the balance of powers, alienating long-time allies, making the tax burden even more regressive, hamstringing prosecution of marketplace abuses, blatantly politicizing the Justice Department, rewriting science in the name of ideology, or any other similarly whiny little complaint.
Nope, those things are all just shallow excuses. It's all about the hate.
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Re:Yes, you hate George Bush ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I dislike this argument not only because it's used in virtually every political discussion on Slashdot, but also because it appears to be designed to encourage complicity. Sure, the argument states that change is just as simple as deciding to vote for some third party, but all of the existing third parties tend to only appeal to a very limited fringe group, so that's really no solution at all.
So, dismissing the idea that simply voting for a third party will change everything as realistically unfeasible, we're left with the central part of the argument, which is that both parties suck, so you might as well just throw up your hands and do whatever you've been doing. Neither party will ever change anything, the argument goes, so just vote for whoever you've always voted for and go on with life. Of course, this argument is designed to assure the current party in power stays in power.
However, it contradicts actual reality. It's possible, given their complicity in GWB's antics, even probable, that the Democrats would not be any better if they took power. However, the evidence we currently have is that while Bush has actively sought to come up with new ideas to destroy the country, the Democrats are responsible only for allowing it to happen. Yes, passively allowing someone else to screw everything up is a bad thing, but is it really just as bad as actively screwing things up? Isn't it at least possible that the Democrats might screw things up less if allowed to implement their own ideas rather than just being content to allow someone else to implement his ideas?
In reality, what we have now is the fact that Bush and his cronies have done a monumentally shitty job. We also have a theory that the Democrats would do an equally shitty job. You seem to be content to stay with the people in power because a shitty job will be done either way. I, on the other hand, would rather not reward a shitty job with more time in power, and would instead rather give the other party a chance to prove they are capable of doing a less shitty job.
An individual's best bet for political change these days remains to pick the party that most closely aligns with them and attempt to change it from the inside (a difficult and time-consuming task to be sure). Simply voting for the Loony Toon Party, knowing that it will never get more than 3% of the vote, is just not a practical solution.
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the House and Senate are somewhat complicit
Is that like being somewhat pregnant?
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
No, that is like being somewhat sick, or somewhat poor. There is a huge difference between the actions of the President and his band of thieves, and the minimally Democratic House and Senate.
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
Only if you think everything is binary like pregnant/not-pregnant.
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
You have absolutely bought into lies. I know I can't change your mind; but I hope that you can at least let a seed of skepticism blossom in your mind. Maybe the Democrats really are just as bad as the Republicans. They both lie. They both are powerhungry. They both want to restrict the American people. The only difference is in the details of the corruption.
Just admit the possibility. Shedding party affiliation is a bit like shaking a religious upbringing; the hardest part is breaking the initial unshakable faith.
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the House and Senate are somewhat complicit
It depends what you are talking about... to pick some of the current heavy hitters:
They are completely complicit in our spending problems, as they solely introduce and pass to the president all government spending.
They are completely complicit in the invasion of Iraq, which passed the house and the senate by overwhelming majorities.
They are completely complicit in the Patriot Act, which passed nearly unanimously in the Senate IIRC.
So where do the parties differ? IMHO, mostly in rhetoric. The only places where they have substantial differences is on so-called "wedge issues". The country's well-being and survival are not dependent on gay marriage or abortion, and yet this is where we spend our energy. It gives otherwise similar politicians something to use to differentiate themselves.
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if all those stories are true, which they aren't, you can't excuse corruption by pointing to corruption. This isn't a game, son, this is our country and our rights. And blanket cynicism is even more pointless and harmful to our nation.
You seem to want everyone to believe that all politicians are equally corrupt. This is a disservice to your country, and a transparent attempt to excuse great crimes by pointing to petty misdemeanors.
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
you can't excuse corruption by pointing to corruption.
If you vote D or R, because you're pointing to the corruption of the other, than that is exactly what you're doing.
But that is not what I'm doing. I'm pointing to the corruption and saying that both sides are guilty and we need another option.
Both sides (D n R) are complicit because there is no real "opposition" party, save for the third parties. Both D and R parties have enough power and corruption that both sides turn a blind eye to the corruption, but occasionally toss the voters a sacrificial lamb.
If you think Senator Tubes is unique and the exception to the rule, you should take a look at the dealings of Feinstein and Pelosi on the other side. Most (if not all) ARE corrupt!
I hate them all, they're flushing america down the tubes (pun intended).
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Re:You seem to lack perspective here (Score:5, Insightful)
The economy good, Clinton was able to enact fiscally conservative policies which reduced the total national debt to probably below 60% GDP. It might have been lower, but the fiscally irresponsible conservatives continued to waste money on frivolous things like investigating whether he got a blow job. Certainly important for the sexually spurred, but not an issue for those of us who ever irregularly are allowed to play in such reindeer games.
The issue is that Bush has really fucked up. The economy is tanking. He is forced to adopt socialist methods such as tax rebates and public financing or the private home equity market in order to keep the US from sliding to oblivion. Such socialist methods are quite reasonable to him as is shown by the first this he did when take office is use the French model to ruin an educational system that was admired throughout the world, not for the ability of the students to pass test, but for the universal access to a decent education by all students.
By surrounding himself with yes men, he has created a space where bad decisions were made, and money was wasted. We are now seeing the dollar slip and credit market dry up because, at least in part, the deficit will likely hit 80% GDP before his socialist policies can be rescinded. Two trillion dollars are being spend every week to provide corporate welfare to his friends, and we do not see any benefit. The national defense is disintegrating, and we are paying to train foreign forces to fight against our forces. And oil is still going up, and we are reaching a national energy crisis, even though Carter gave us the solution all those many years ago. Those solutions were good, I know because I see real conservatives use them all the time. And, to add insults to injury, Afghanistan, the state that provided safe haven for those that attacked the US, and Saudi Arabia, the State where many of the attackers originated, remains exactly at the same level as in 2000, which means such attacks are exactly as likely.
So it is not a matter or corruption or scoundrels. It is a matter of taking the job seriously, and believing that you can play it just like you did back in frat house, or if you need to grow up a little. We are not talking much, but realizing that there are valid views other than your own, a key learning outcome of the college experience, would be nice.
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It's sad how cynical you are. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cynicism is a disease of the soul, it excuses inaction. It doesn't make you cool and hip and smarter than the average bear. It makes you an apathetic lump.
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Re:Yes, you hate George Bush ... (Score:5, Funny)
...the damage good ole [President Bill Clinton]...did to us
8 years of peace and prosperity ending with a budget surplus?
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Re:LexisNexis Search? (Score:5, Informative)
Needless to say it is very dangerous in the wrong hands.
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Re:LexisNexis Search? (Score:5, Informative)
Indeed. Our Sheriff's department uses it (along with other services by the same company), and it's downright scary the ammount of stuff they can pull.
Want all the blue and gray SUV's that have a 9 and an F within a 100 mile radius of a given location? It can pull that up. Want to find out if a particular person has ANY connection to the owner of that vehicle. It can do that. As a demonstration it was able to connect our sherrif to a woman that his wife had been roomates with over 20 years ago (before they were even married).
It was astonishing how much information it could coordinate on any person in the room that we plugged into it.
Also was tied into the sex offenders database. If you wanted to narrow that search for the blue/gray SUV earlier down to sexual offenders within a certain radius that owned or were associated with the owner of such a vehicle, then it could do that.
What's scary is that some level of this functionality is available to whoever wants to pay for it (afterall, most of the information is just public records correlated into a massive database). Law enforcement and such agencies do get more access (for instance, the ability to pull up social security numbers), but the average person with deep pockets could still get a hell of a lot of information for it. They do TRY to be secure with the LEO-only portions though.
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Re:I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me with a straight face that President Clinton's administration didn't weed out conservatives from executive branch jobs?
Yes, of course -- since it is illegal to take political views into consideration for certain kinds of career non-political jobs. Federal law is very clear on this. Read the PDF linked in the story for more information.
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Re:I don't understand... (Score:5, Informative)
First and foremost, because it's illegal.
But there are two types of nominations in the DoJ: "Career" & "Political". Political appointments are indeed open to scrutiny of political affiliation, but are temporary and remain active only until a change of administration. Career posts are normal jobs, and those people are supposed to be more neutral. Filtering people for Career jobs based on political affiliations is illegal. The issue coming to light now is that Bush administration officials used the same questionnaires and methods for both types of posts.
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Re:I don't understand... (Score:5, Informative)
If the search is used to vest someone's political position for a "political appointee" position, that's fine. If it's used the screen "technical/professional" candidates it's probably a violation of civil service provisions and most likely some statutes.
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Because It's Illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
There are certain high level posts in the various executive branch agencies that are tagged 'political appointments'. These jobs, which steer those agencies, can be determined based on politics.
For everything else, such discrimination is illegal. It is assumed, by the law, that people are professional enough to do their job regardless of who is in charge - and anyway, they can be fired if they intentionally sabotage the agency without legal cause.
Only recently, since the Neocons took over, has it even been an issue that 'attorneys hate' the people they work for. I mean, really, is such harsh language remotely accurate? Or is it being used as a boogie man in order to make an end-run around very wise laws; laws that prevent the government from swinging to extremes with every change in the administration.
(And lets not even bring up the fiscal nightmare it must be if agencies have to rehire everyone every eight years...)
Now, with my straight face: Clinton did NOT weed out conservatives from executive branch jobs. He in fact explicitly hired many people across the aisle, for better or for worse. The idea that you never hire people who disagree with you is one that has only seen it's heyday in the last eight years. It's actually often a very good idea.
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Re:I don't understand... (Score:5, Informative)
Why shouldn't an administration be able to hire people on their side of the political fence?
Because it's illegal to do so for these types of Justice department jobs (and rightly so).
Are you seriously going to sit there and tell me with a straight face that President Clinton's administration didn't weed out conservatives from executive branch jobs?
For prosecutors in the justice department? I'll tell you that with a very straight face unless you can show otherwise. Everything I've read says this just doesn't happen for these kinds of appointees. The fired prosecutors were shocked to be fired for political reasons.
but I would assume that a given administration would not want to hire attorneys who hate everything that administration stands for, whether the administration is conservative, liberal or anything in between.
I find that a very strange attitude. Criminal prosecutions (which is what the Justice department does) shouldn't have a political slant to it. I'd hope you'd agree that that would be a horrible horrible thing no matter who was doing it. There's a reason why the image representing justice (the one holding the scales) is blindfolded.
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Re:Analysis, please (Score:5, Informative)
The search requires that the candidate's full name is found, along with at least one of the following 'keywords' not more than 7 words (that's the "w/7") away from the name; so in most cases it would be a pretty small return.
Actually, the syntax used seems to be incorrect (I've never used LexisNexus, but just did an exhaustive 30 second search for information on the syntax).
The "pre/2" control assures that the word preceding and the word following are found, with a maximum of 2 words in between. I think the "and" before the "pre/2" is incorrect, or at least superfluous.
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