What a tangled web

I'm not trying to be cynical, but given recent reports about the Bush administration's spying activities and its well-known respect for the law, you have to admit that this story is credible. Well, everything but the first seven words.

Without the knowledge of the Bush administration, an outside contractor has been using Internet tracking technologies that may be prohibited to analyze usage and traffic patterns on the White House's Web site, an official said Thursday.

The disclosure – the second such revelation in a matter of days – came in response to questions posed by The Associated Press.

The White House Web site uses what's known as a Web bug to anonymously keep track of who's visiting and when. A Web bug is essentially a tiny graphic image - a dot, really - that's virtually invisible. In this case, the bug is pulled from a server maintained by WebTrends and lets the traffic analytic company know that another person has visited a specific page on the site.

Last week, the National Security Agency halted its cookie use after a privacy activist complained and Wednesday, agency officials acknowledged they had made a mistake.

Until Tuesday, the NSA site was creating two cookie files that do not expire until 2035 — likely beyond the life of any computer in use today.

As for the White House web site, David Almacy, the White House's Internet director, is promising that there will be an investigation into whether the practice is consistent with a 2003 policy from the White House's Office of Management and Budget banning the use of most such technologies at government sites.

"No one even knew it was happening," Almacy said. "We're going to work with the contractor to ensure that it's consistent with the OMB policy."

We're going to "work with" the contractor (a favorite expression of the administration, because it sounds vaguely positive but doesn't actually mean anything, and so doesn't require anything specific of the administration). Not "We're going to conduct a thorough investigation to make sure that nobody's right to privacy has been violated and that any lawbreakers are held accountable."

This doesn't seem like the kind of administration that would monitor Internet traffic to its site, does it? It's not like this sort of information would be of interest to the Bush administration, right?