Remember the Website set up by the House Judiciary Committee to receive anonymous tips from current and former DOJ employees on "the possible politicization of the United States Department of Justice"? The site promised that "[t]he names, titles and identities of the senders will be maintained in strictest confidence."
The Committee apparently feels it has fulfilled its purpose and has decided to shut it down. In preparation for doing so, they sent an email to every DOJ employee who submitted "confidential" information to the Committee. They forgot to take the email addresses out of the header. Now, one click of a mouse outs every single one of them.
The email, which approximately 175 DOJ whistleblowers, including two dKos diarists, who submitted tips to the Committee received today, states the following:
You are among the people who have submitted e-mails to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on its Web site tip line for Department of Justice employees to report allegations or concerns regarding possible wrongdoing involving the Department. This message is to inform you that the Committee is now ending the tip line and has voted to approve procedures governing the confidentiality of the e-mails received.
Under these procedures, only Members of the Judiciary Committee, and Committee staff specifically designated by the Democratic Chairman or Ranking Republican Member, will have access to the e-mails, and they are prohibited from removing any e-mail from Committee offices. Any broader disclosure of any e-mail would first require a vote of the Committee to authorize it. It would be the Committee's intent to consult with the sender of any e-mail before any such vote takes place.
This message is also to advise you that you have three business days – until 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, October 30 – to notify us if you wish to withdraw your e-mail rather than have it reviewed by the Committee under these procedures. If you so notify us, your e-mail, along with any records pertaining to its submission, will be destroyed. If you do not so notify us, we will conclude that you have agreed to submit your e-mail to the Committee under these procedures.
Any request that an e-mail be withdrawn should state in the subject space "PLEASE WITHDRAW E-MAIL," and should include in the body of the request the e-mail address under which your e-mail was submitted, if different than the one used to make the request to withdraw. It should also specify the date and time, if known, or the approximate date and time, that the e-mail was submitted.
The email contains, in the header, the email addresses of each and every one of the individuals who provided information to the Committee, and who did so believing that the information and their identities would be held in the strictest confidence. The email addresses of two DOJ whistleblowers who are also dKos diarists are there. So are the names of over 173 other people, all of whom trusted John Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee, and all of whose trust has now been betrayed by some Committee staffer who doesn't know either how to create an anonymous email header or how to pick up the phone and call the House IT department to get somebody who does know how to do so to help.
Several hours later, apparently upon discovering their mistake, the Committee sent out a recall message:
Justice, Right would like to recall the message, "Important notice re House Judiciary Committee tip line, e-mails".
Yup, you guessed it. All of their email addresses were in the header of this one, too.
Of course, everyone on this list has a common interest in not leaking their identities. They all wanted confidentiality and secrecy. I am sure the vast majority of the people on that list would never release the names of their fellow whistleblowers. But all it takes is one bad apple -- or one scared apple. We all know how vindictive this administration is. We all know how the DOJ in particular has repeatedly screwed, subjected to internal investigation, fired, and even, in one well known instance here on dKos, filed bar association complaints against employees who have provided information revealing the abuses in the Department under the present administration. This DOJ is not at all above trying to "cut a deal" with one whistleblower to turn over the email addresses of the other 174 in order to get better treatment or to save that whistleblower's job.
JOHN CONYERS, what are you going to do to protect the victims from the Department of Justice? They put their jobs and reputations on the line to give you information in the hopes that you would fix things that this administration has perverted their beloved Department. One of your staffers has, through his or her ineptitude, outed the lot of them. Will you introduce legislation to protect them, shepherd it through your committee, and talk with Pat Leahy to make sure it gets through the Senate Judiciary Committee? Will you help them find lawyers that they can afford on our government salaries or who will take their cases pro bono should they find themselves under investigation?
This is infuriating!
UPDATE From TPM Muckraker, which also has the story:
Some of the email addresses appear to be transparently fake, but there's also, much more troubling, a vice_president@whitehouse.gov carbon copied on the email, which is the public email address for Vice President Dick Cheney. In other words, an email containing the email addresses of all the whistleblowers who had written in to the committee tipline was sent to public email address of Vice President Cheney.
And I bet they ain't gonna get the Scooter Libby treatment.
Update [2007-10-26 23:30:19 by standingup]: The admins have deleted a couple of comments at my request. Please be thoughtful/careful with comments.