"You've got mail!" -- and so does Janet Reno

By Mark Alexander · Friday, July 14, 2000

"You've got mail!" -- and so does Janet Reno. You may recall that "Echelon," the NSA macro-tracking system for monitoring electronic communication, caused some consternation among our European allies. This week, the FBI confirmed it has deployed an automated system to track e-mail communication of "suspects." The system, known as ''Carnivore,'' is placed at an Internet service provider, and scans all incoming and outgoing e-mail for key words related to a criminal probe.

The problem, of course, is not one of the legitimate use of such technology, but of the potential for its abuse -- and the present administration has aptly demonstrated how to abuse the FBI, ATF, INS and IRS for its own political purposes. That pesky old Fourth Amendment still guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their ... papers ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...."

On the other hand, if the system had been deployed on White House servers, we might have all of Al Gore's "missing" e-mail.

Speaking of e-mail.... The military is not the only department of the central government that has become a "grand social experiment." As The Federalist has frequently noted, Clinton's "Commissars of Diversity" have decreed that centralized agencies will be devoid of dissension from the Clinton/Gore advocacy of homosexuality. An e-mail from a National Park Service ranger exemplifies that agency's sentiment on the subject.

On the heels of the Supreme Court's decision that the Boy Scouts did not have to recruit homosexual scoutmasters, Canaveral National Seashore Ranger Don Mock sent the following message to Larry Glantz at Nez Perce Park: "Re: President Proclaims June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month, God bless the Boy Scouts of America." Glantz responded, "Amen." Unfortunately, the message ended up on the agency's Intranet broadcast system.

Mock's superintendent at Canaveral sent the following NPS Intranet message: "We want to apologize for Mr. Mock's insensitive comment regarding the recent Supreme Court ruling.... His thoughtless act has reverberated throughout the Service and hurt many of our colleagues...." Glantz's boss also issued an apology for the "Amen": "His support for the insensitive comment by another employee offended many...is hurtful and extremely inappropriate. The very essence of the NPS system is an appreciation of our nation's...cultural diversity." (Not exactly what Congress had in mind when authorizing the National Park Service.)

Not to be left out of the loop, Robert Stanton, NPS Clintonista in Charge, e-mailed all employees: "Two NPS employees wrote personal messages that could be interpreted as [anti-homosexual] [Their] superintendents...have apologized and are taking appropriate action [against] the authors of the negative messages."

We suspect Mock and Glantz are on their way to a Death Valley outpost.