Crime is legal. Web surfing is illegal.

Does anyone see a problem with unauthorized access to a computer that's used to store confidential information? Even if that computer had a "back door" that had been inadvertantly left open?

How about browsing a publicly-accessible web server that's owned by a state government?

Take a quick guess about who can get away with the first scenario, and who catches hell for the second one.

If you're Manuel Miranda, a Republican staff member of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee, then it appears that you can get away with actions that clearly constitute illegal access to protected data. True, Miranda lost his job with the Judiciary Commitee, but emerged as a hero to the Fright Wing.

On the other hand, if you're Phil Angelides, and one of your staffers downloads recordings from a public Web server that embarrasses the Republican incumbent, then you find yourself amidst a scandal that seems to be gaining far more traction than the Miranda data leaks ever did.

The MP3 recordings that were downloaded and "leaked" to the press were on an open server, owned by the State of California, and which is indexed by Google. In fact, the recordings are still available in Google's Web cache of the site.

No matter. Theft is theft, after all. Unless you're a Republican. Or a Democrat.

•  Miranda's wrongs

  About Miranda: I did a search on his name, and found nothing to suggest that charges ever went forward on his snooping. If you've heard anything different, please let me know.

  by Nowhere Man on Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 11:37:33 AM PDT

•  Angelides' Staff doesn't get California (I guess)

  I'm very sorry so say, that Angelides' campaign really screwed up with this one.

  First, the comments weren't inflamatory enough to raise the eyebrows of most Californians, so attacking Arnold for them was dumb. "Is she Cuban? Is she Puerto Rican? I dunno, but she's one hot-blooded Latina" is not an insult. Every Latina I've ever known is proud to be "hot-blooded"; calling it an insult makes Angelides look like a  up-tight Anglo who disapproves of passion (and that's not what we want in a state cheerleader).

  Second, Angelides' instant attack response made it clear that he had a hand in their release, and any subsequent denial comes across a lying to cover your tracks. When the Governor's campaign alleged the recording was obtained by hackers, Angelides' campaign said they know nothing about where it came from. Yeah, right. Maybe they got it anonomously from a GOP operative.

  IMHO, a smarter way to handle it would have been to commend the Governor for releasing recordings of all his internal meetings to the public. If hit with hacking charges, have simply responded "Dude, it's on Google!" instead of "I didn't authorize it, I know nothing about it, etc." Then, after waiting a bit, gone after the Governor for recordings of meetings he doesn't want the public to hear.

  Angelides is having a hard time firing up his troops. Meanwhile, Arnold's passing the kind of laws that we wish Democrats would champion (e.g. minimum wage increases, CO2 reductions, etc). I saw a Democratic poll recently which asked which would be the biggest success of this legislative session, and +70% of (Democratic) respondents voted for the CO2 accord, which was the Governor's plan.

  by opendna on Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 12:02:18 PM PDT

  •  You make good points

    I'm on the other coast, and haven't been following the California gubernatorial campaign very closely. For me, the diary was prompted by the contrast between these two scandals.

    But, yes, definitely, Democrats need to take lessons on how to turn minuses into plusses, and vice-versa.

    by Nowhere Man on Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 12:06:23 PM PDT

•  How to hack DailyKos

  Start with the url
  http://www.dailykos.com/...

  Now, suppose you want to go the root directory, take off the subdirectory stuff.

  http://www.dailykos.com

  Now you are an elite hacker!

  by jfern on Wed Sep 13, 2006 at 01:39:37 PM PDT