Posted on 05/06/2005 4:00:58 AM PDT by ZinGirl
BALTIMORE -- There is a new effort to unravel Maryland's political mystery -- who is MD4BUSH, the Internet name of whoever communicated with Gov Ehrlich's aide Joe Steffen about Mayor Martin O'Malley's personal life.
I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller said Steffen is behind the new push to find the answer.
*snip*
In his letter, Steffen's lawyer specifically seeks MD4BUSH's account information at Free Republic.com, which would include an e-mail address and server records that could reveal clues about the locations from which MD4BUSH logged in.
*snip*
Miller said Free Republic.com's operator has suggested he'd like to reveal information about MD4BUSH -- saying publicly when the whole story broke, he was "almost hoping to receive a subpoena." Miller reported that could happen if Steffen sues to get the information he seeks.
(Excerpt) Read more at thewbalchannel.com ...
Two for the price of one.
All postings and freepmail should be considered as addressed:
Dear Sir, and Gentlemen of the Jury....
No. A conservative poster to Salon's "TableTalk" threads on gay marriage five years ago had gay men run down his family website and send his teenaged son gay pornography and links to gay porn sites via e-mail, in revenge for their inability to confute their conservative, family-oriented interlocutor fairly and squarely in the forum. (In fact, it was he who achieved elenchus against them.) One of the guys who did this was David Ehrenstein, a Hollywood critic, author, and historian of the Velvet Underground whose tag line, at various junctures, read "Gay as a Disney cow" and "Gay PC terrorist". Later on, he replaced his tag line with a five-line quote from his favorite gay porn novel. He was also a collaborator, with Michelangelo Signorile of The Village Voice, in "exposing" Andrew Sullivan's online dating habits and solicitations of risky sex with strangers. Not exactly a public service, Ehrenstein did this "outing" more in the spirit of another of his temporary tag lines, "Someday Andrew Sullivan's gonna end...."
You really don't want charmers like this following you home from a hot BBS altercation.
FReeper RonF is familiar with Ehrenstein from Salon, where they both contributed to a thread about the Boy Scouts of America and the James Dale lawsuit; Ron can at least partially corroborate what I just told you.
What do you mean?
MD4Bush PING!
(Freepmail me if you want on or off the list)
Not me.
The FReeper, Joseph Steffen (a.k.a. NCPAC), was forced out of his job in Maryland governor Ehrlich's (R) administration as a result of the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun's articles claiming he spread rumors about Baltimore Mayor O'Malley's (D) alleged affair with a Baltimore TV anchorwoman who is now in New York.
The Washington Post used NCPAC's FReepmails to try to build a story that NCPAC was involved in spreading the O'Malley infidelity rumors. In fact, all NCPAC ever did was comment on the rumors, as far as we can tell. MD4Bush prodded NCPAC to get more information in his FReepmails, which were somehow given to the Washington Post. About the same time the WaPo published its first story, MD4Bush posted NCPAC's FReepmails ONLY on two dormant Free Republic threads.
Steffen vs. John Doe - This is good news.
Bingo!
Thanks for the ping.
"..In his letter, Steffen's lawyer specifically seeks MD4BUSH's account information at Free Republic.com, which would include an e-mail address and server records that could reveal clues about the locations from which MD4BUSH logged in.
The operators of the Web site have consistently refused to reveal information about MD4BUSH, citing their own privacy policy. But Steffen's lawyer is using both federal law and a previous court case to try to force Free Republic.com's hand. The federal law is called the electronic communications privacy act, and does permit a Web site operator to reveal account information about a user.
A lawyer familiar with the federal law told 11 News under its terms, Steffen is entitled to information about MD4BUSH.
Miller said Free Republic.com's operator has suggested he'd like to reveal information about MD4BUSH -- saying publicly when the whole story broke, he was "almost hoping to receive a subpoena." Miller reported that could happen if Steffen sues to get the information he seeks..."
Sounds like the ball's in Jim Robinson's court. A law that allows a website operator to give information isn't the same as one that requires it.
You need to get up to speed on the story so that you can ask the right question. Your question is like the old "did you walk to work or carry your lunch?"
None of their dadburn business!
Let's hope the log files needed to follow the trail are still available. Perhaps some of the FR log files have been preserved, but others are needed from the email service provider, the ISP that provided the web user's connection, etc. It's possible that those tapes have been "recycled" by now.
That's an important point for which I've no right to take offense-- hence my 'tin-foil' comment. What I am talking about is what seems to be so many new clowns that keep hammering away on how we need to vote third party. Just like if I wanted to sabotage Hillary 08 I'd be backing the Green party.
Believe me, I like bashing bush as much as the next guy, but can you seriously imagine a President Gore having ever done anything about 9/11?
Indymedia had its servers seized in order to yield data. It appears the seizure came out of Italy. Not sure if homeland security measures strengthened the case for seizure; as in criminal acts to be looked into. Would this case, then, Steffan/MD4Bush fall under civil laws category?
And later on, it'll be Rahm Emanuel and Lanny Davis vs. Hal9000. Will that be good news, too?
...but can you seriously imagine a President Gore having ever done anything about 9/11?
Oh, yes! I can seriously imagine President Gore going to the U.N. and giving a totally wooden and synthetic speech about how badly everyone's feelings had been hurt in America, and how we want everyone to be our friend, and we're very, very sorry for not having been better stewards of the environment and well maybe we did deserve it just a little and blah, blah, blah.....
Followed by three years of looking grave and reflective and doing nothing.
bump
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.