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Controversial Doesn't Always Mean Right
The Internet can do what now?
Posted By Daniel W. Drezner
Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 12:32 PM
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According to the report, officials at the White House first developed a method of searching the Internet to glean the political leanings of a candidate and introduced it at a White House seminar called The Thorough Process of Investigation. Justice Department officials then began using the technique to search for key phrases or words in an applicant’s background, like “abortion,” “homosexual,” “Florida recount,” or “guns.”Whoa!!! That's way too hi-tech for me to understand. The text of the report provides more detail. Apparently, White House liaison Jan Williams deployed (and then relayed to Monica Goodling) the following string for Nexis searches for DOJ candidates:
[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!
As the report later reveals, however, the darned Internet can trap the searchers as well as the searchees:
When we showed Williams this e-mail and the attached search string, she said she did not recall sending it to Goodling. She also said she did not recognize the search string, and that she did not know where the list of search terms came from. At the end of her interview, we raised the issue again and Williams repeated her assertion that she did not remember using the search string.
The day after her interview, Williams sent us an e-mail stating that she “thought about the research string and have some information that I want to share with you.” She wrote that there had been a political vacancy in the Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division in December 2005, that a law professor was a candidate, and that Sampson asked her to research the law professor’s writings.Williams stated that she “called the researcher in the White House Officeof Presidential Personnel to get some research tips.” Williams said theresearcher sent her a “Lexis Nexis research string,” and that she edited the string to remove “words like homosexual” and then used it. Williamsclaimed that she only used the search string that one time, “never everused it to reach Immigration Judges,” and that the string she sent to Goodling did not contain “words like ‘homosexual.’”....
[W]e obtained information from LexisNexis that Williams used this search string multiple times on 3 days in November and December 2005 and January 2006. Williams used the search string to research 25 people, of whom 23 were candidates for the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women. One of the other two candidates was the person Williams referred to in her e-mail to us after we interviewed Williams. We could not determine the identity of the remaining person Williams researched using the search string. None of these people were candidates for IJ or BIA positions. All of the searches Williams conducted contained search terms such as “gay!” and “homosexual!” When we asked Williams about the LexisNexis searches, she stated that she did not recall researching the candidates for the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women or using the string search other than the one time discussed above.
For those readers concerned about what information the Interwebs possesses about you -- and whether you can remove it -- go check out this Alex Beam article in the Boston Globe.
So let's just not check anybody out for anything any more. Maybe it would be a good idea to know what was published on the internet by people about certain topics. It may be a good idea to understand how people feel about issues like sexual preference or the 2000 Florida recount if they are being vetted for certain positions within the federal bureaucracy. I'm not sure where your or Mr. Lichtblau's surprise and indignation originate from. If you post it on the internet you have made it public--and you and everyone else should have always realized that. Did you know that it was legal for a private employer to perform background checks on you during which they may discover all manner of information you may not deem relevant to your candidacy for employment? Your expectations of privacy only go so far, and once you write something, post something, or sign something you no longer have any right to expect privacy in that regard. DoJ positions ARE political, and anyone who thinks otherwise is only wishing it were so.
It's hard not to fathom that method of hiring, the "Goodling treatment" as I like to call it, doesn't exist in other Bush Administration departments. The Administration has governed civil service from an ideological, not a practical position since Day 1, so it wouldn't surprise me in the least if other federal agencies employed similar practices.
So let’s just not check anybody out for anything any more. Maybe it would be a good idea to know what was published on the internet by people about certain topics. It may be a good idea to understand how people feel about issues like sexual preference or the 2000 Florida recount if they are being vetted for certain positions within the federal bureaucracy.
Um, why?
Is this the same Daniel Drezner who used to regularly call Paul Krugman "shrill" for being right about the Bush administration several years too early, before it was cool?
Uh, US Grant, there's a law involved here that this "checking out" seems to show was violated. Civil service positions are supposed to be based on qualifications not party affiliation or political views. But this checking out was clearly designed to determine just such affiliation as part of using them in the hiring process. It was part of a series of acts that broke the law.
What I don't understand is why Monica Goodling and others are not being indicted.
If that is really their search string, they were going through 99% unrelated citations. There need to be a very nested set of parentheses to make the terms work. Starting with one after the w/7. Fired and sex are OR'ed twice and need to be nested at least in the case of Fired and the OR'd terms immeadiately following.
In all, another incompetent performance by the Bush DOJ.
Thanks Reference Librarian, I could grok much of the search string, but since I am more familiar with regexp, I would be interested in having someone with experience translate the one they used.
Dan... nemo@4. He may have pwned ya. Even DeLong has remarked many times about their using 1984 as their manual.
[...] of the Bush administration’s politicization/de-professionalization of government - the Lexis-Nexis search string used to vet Justice Department [...]
The new Attorney General in the Obama administration will
have to do some serious housecleaning at DOJ. Since Bush was in office for eight years, the rot runs pretty deep. There are at least 150 graduates of the right-wing Christian Regent University at the agency.
Inexplicably, the Nexis search thread did not include: reagan or gingrich or whitewa! or hillary or janet reno or vietnam or immigra! or evangeli! or elitist! or hippie! or church and state or civil libert! or climate or values or multicultur! or countercul! or obscen! or moderat! or liberal! or federalis! or art! or france or french or defeat! or bork or scalia or oil or telecom! or falwell or voter registration or terror! or tribunal or international law or geneva or unwed or voucher! or choice or affirmative action or wetland! or commandments or torture or FEMA or pharma! or ozone or muslim! or nuclear or border! or PETA or welfare or Afr! or AIDS or disarm! or inner city or contracep! or secular or drug!
[...] seems like sort of a landmark. Surely Stalin wishes he were alive today. The Chinese must do this all the time. [first name of a candidate] and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or [...]
#8--("There are at least 150 graduates of the right-wing Christian Regent University at the agency.") No kidding. I had always thought when in law school that the DOJ was one of the toughest places to get a job, and that from my top-20-but-not-top-10 law school, I wouldn't have a chance. Regent is way way down the totem pole--in the bottom 50 out of 200. These are people who wouldn't have a prayer of landing a job at a semi-decent firm in any mid-to-large city, getting elite jobs at one of the best places you can work as an attorney. It's sad.
I think it's a straw man argument to say that people who think this sort of this is unjust are saying that we shouldn't screen candidates at all, it's saying we shouldn't screen candidates in ways that are irrelevant to their ability to do a non-partisan job, and more importantly that whatever screening criteria are used should be made available to the public. Otherwise it would be like applying for job you saw advertised that didn't tell you what the qualifications were. If the Justice Department (which, in spite of being run by Republicans, is supposed to serve the interests of ALL Americans) wants to say that Democrats are unable to do certain non-partisan jobs, that's fine. But they should have to say it aloud before God and everybody. After all, if it's what they believe is right, they should be proud and open about it, right?
Reference Librarian: "If that is really their search string, they were going through 99% unrelated citations."
True, but if all she was looking for was one bit of evidence of a "traitorous" personality, she didn't really need anything more sophisticated...
US Grant:
"So let's just not check anybody out for anything anymore."
Wow, I LOVE that aggressive, deliberate misunderstanding of the issue. My eight-year old son uses that one on me all the time.
"DOJ positions ARE political, and anyone who thinks otherwise is only wishing it were so."
Right, so why fight it? People are selfish bastards, so why shouldn't we take everything that isn't nailed down?
How did the LEFT ever get tagged as the party of moral relativism? It's as if US Grant - and Monica Goodling, and George Bush - think they can offer a valid defense by pointing out that the administration was violating the law with its eyes wide open. No hypocrisy, no harm, no foul!
In some ways I think the overwhelming, lasting impression I have of the Bush administration is its childishness. Children, left unsupervised, playing with matches.
[...] danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner » The Internet can do what now? Key words used to filter out undesirable Justice Department appointees. (tags: DOJ US Attorney Lexis-Nexus) [...]
[...] (Drezner | Political Animal) m3t00 on 08-07-29 at 10:44:pm in digital, government, privacy | tag(s): conservative, DoJ, GOP | permalink | RSS feed | comment or trackback | [...]
[...] Nexus July 29, 2008 4:06 PM Subscribe [first name of a candidate] and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or ... posted by unSane (65 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite Um, wow. posted [...]
[...] of all, it’s buggy and over-sensitive, according to one librarian: ‘If that is really their search string, they [...]
I love gay, homosexual spotted owls that support abortions and will not defend racism. Guns, guns, guns!!!
And now, you can buy the t-shirt, or mouse pad, memorializing what will surely become one of best known Lexis searches ever.
http://www.cafepress.com/casedismissed
[...] The LEXIS-NEXIS search term that the White House employed to research the background of candidates f...: [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! [...]
Daniel W. Drezner is professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.
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