Akkam’s Razor

A long time ago, probably as the domestic spying-slash-internet-tapping scandal was breaking, I posted the following search - thinking about what I'd like to see - the Government submitting to the same oversight as us jus' folks.  Imagine if we could see what the Executive Branch was Googling?

I've long maintained that watching your server logs (incoming, that is) is a great idea.  I've often gotten insight into stories and found out things that I might have not found out through other means.  For example, why was the CIA looking for "No Fly List Spreadsheet xls" (story here), or what is OSIS?  And who is looking for Matt O'Donnell nude (he's a local ABC affiliate news anchor)?  Why were people from the Republican National Committee, such as "Shawn Reinschmiedt",  Googling staff members regarding the "caging list"?  Why was someone from the Pentagon looking for a WaPo story on corrupted-company MZM, connected to the most corrupt Congressman in US history?  Hell, I even had someone ON THE FLOOR OF THE US Senate looking for "Joe Lieberman" (hint, he's standing over there, with the Republicans).

While there has long been a long historical precedent of wrangling over internal emails, from Reagan and Iran-Contra through Clinton to the current day, the webserver logs are far more interesting.  What delicious treasure-troves await us in the White House webserver logs? 

Imagine the possibilities!  I picture the logs being browseable in a manner similar to the AOL datadump (on Metafilter and internally).  More immediately, we would be able to see how many times AOL Webmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail was used as opposed to the internal "official and secure" White House email.  Maybe we'll learn more from Senators Waxman and Leahy's questions regarding Attorneygate and email use.

Now, I know what you're thinking - BushCo would claim executive priviledge in a heartbeat, wouldn't they (as they do everytime they don't get their way).  Small problem with that…as everyone knows, there can be no expectation of privacy on the internets, executive or otherwise, and certainly no blanket protection of executive priviledge, especially since the internet and telecommunications for the White House are done under the Department of Defense, via the White House Communications Agency, under the umbrella of DISA - the Defense Information Systems Agency - and NOT the Executive Office of the President (background, capabilities, duties, and technology overview here).  So, it seems like a FOIA request for outgoing server logs might be valid, and would not fall under any of the nine exemptions.

If anyone is feeling industrious, a FOIA letter generator can be found here.