[Note from Matthew Gaylor: It seems that the US House of
Representatives, Republican leadership conference has established
http://www.gop.gov/. A misuse of the domain name system which gives
the impression of official .gov sanction when the site is really just
a politics as usual, partisan site. To be fair the Republicans claim
that their site is in Beta and that it is an official site due to
their Congressional status. I find much of this idea rather
offensive and unfair to Independents and third parties who will not
be afforded the opportunity to hide partisanship under a mask of
legitimacy. Of special note is the use of a private ISP Capital Area
Internet Service (CAIS-DOM) to host the site. Is this to bypass the
congressional system and if so why?]
Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 18:10:41 -0700
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dave Farber), [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Matthew Gaylor),
State and Local Freedom of Information Issues [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: Jim Warren [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: fwd: www.gop.gov ??!!!
I just received this from a friend.
Did you see that the Republican Party has established the domain
www.gop.gov? I'm very surprised that a partisan group could have a .gov
domain. I was also very disturbed by the fact that I couldn't get into
the site without accepting all the cookies that were being set. Looks
like a bad precedent to me on both counts.
1. I wonder if this is really a Republican Party website -- as it's name
certainly implies? The InterNIC Finger gives no listing for it.
[Note from Matt Gov't sites need to looked up on www.nic.gov]
2. I completely agree with the writer: Who the hell is granting dot-GOV
status to a @#$%^ political party?!
3. And if they're going to give ".GOV" status to the Republicrats (and,
presumably, the Demopublicans), will they also give it to the Libbies, and
the Peace Freedom ... and the Flat Earth Party, and the 4th Reich, et
al?! Maybe this is the first step to making dog-GOV meaningless as a
top-level domain.
4. When I attempted to go to it's home-page, I too, found that it tried to
set two cookies -- which I refused. Then it promptly died saying, "No
Cookie! To access this site your browser must be accepting cookies."
5. Pretty damned arrogant no matter who's running it -- but especially if
it really is the Repub Party. (The Party of the People? Apparently not
unless the People let the Party set tracking/surveillance cookies ... and
gawd knows what else!)
--jim, Jim Warren; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Contributing Editor technology public-policy columnist, MicroTimes Magazine
Also GovAccess list-owner/editor; 345 Swett Rd, Woodside CA 94062
voice/650-851-7075; fax-for-the-quaint/650-851-2814
[self-inflating puff: Hugh Hefner First-Amendment Award, Playboy Foundation;
Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award (in its first year);
James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award, Soc.of Prof.Journalists-Nor.Calif
founded InfoWorld; the Computers, Freedom Privacy Conferences; etc etc etc.]
And...
From: Jim Warren [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: fwd: www.gop.gov ??!!!
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ahah! The plot thickens.
On the one hand, www.gop.gov -- by its dot-GOV domain-name -- pretends to
be an official government site. And from what those who've accepted its
cookies say, it *says* it's an official site of an official caucus within
the official House of the official Congress.
However ... curiously, it appears that -- in spite of it's dot-GOV name --
it's being run as a private operation through a private ISP, and definitely
*not* through any official congressional system! See the following, that
just came in from a net-geek friend.
--jim
A "WHOIS" on gop.gov didn't turn up anything at networksolutions
but I did find that the domain is hosted at Capital Area Internet
Service in McLean...
Capital Area Internet Service (CAIS-DOM)
6861 Elm Street, Third Floor
McLean, VA 22101
US
Domain Name: CAIS.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Network Operations Center (CAIS-NOC) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CAIS Internet
1255 22nd Street
Washington, DC 20037
US
(202) 715-1300 -- NOC (703) 448-2091 Fax- - (703) 790-8805
Billing Contact:
Billing Office (BO-ORG) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CAIS Internet
6861 Elm Street, Third Floor
McLean, VA 22101
US
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