New website lets Hill staffers (and only Hill staffers, you need the right kind of IP address) post anonymously to a message board for all the world to read. Potentially an interesting resource, though at the moment there's not much up there.
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The Capitolist
13 Jun 2007 02:26 pm
Comments (8)
In theory it sounds hilarious, and since it's so new we may yet get lucky on that front... buuut realistically, since most Hill staffers like being Hill staffers or else they wouldn't have become Hill staffers, I think we'd be lucky to see unsourced allegations there, and probably nothing even that juicy.
Seems like what they need is a few uber-posters to get the pump primed.
Plus some kind of guarantee that the posts can't get traced back to the source.
And some kind of tagging/categorization/search scheme where I don't have to read a bunch of crap on the farm bill or something if that's not a subject I'm interested in...
I'm curious to know if anyone's thought this through....
ssda-
First, I don't keep track of IP addresses. And even if I did and I were to "out" someone, that would essentially destroy the site. People have to trust the site for it to work, and there's no way I'm
going to jeopardize that. The same sort of principles apply to journalists.
In terms of tagging, that's a very good idea. I hadn't thought of that and that's something I'll definitely have to look into.
Won't work.
With a pool of a few thousand people, it becomes possible in principle to deduce who is saying what based on an accumulation of small clues. The posts become effectively non-anonymous.
People won't do it -- they'll be afraid to post anything interesting because they'll have a plausible fear of getting caught. Or even worse, the only people who will post will be staffers authorized by their bosses to spread (mis)information anonymously.
If this site had existed a few years ago, they wouldn't have had to have Libby out Plame by talking to a reporter. He could have just posted it anonymously from Tom DeLay's office.
The kind of staffers that would actually post on a site like all belong to Late Night Shots crowd. I'm expecting pearls of wisdom about how best to deploy daddy's measly $10,000-a-month allowance to get "last resort booty" to abort and which Capitol toilets are the best to purge in to start rolling in once the site garners even negligible media attention.
Most representative post so far: "Somebody in my office just farted"
Someone is also trying to get a Draft Barbara Boxer movement going.
Will interns have access from an office computer?
Comments closed June 27, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
how quickly will the capitol IT dept step in to block access to that website from those with the right kind of IP address?
Posted by jon | June 13, 2007 3:03 PM