{"id":2110,"date":"2004-01-08T18:06:27","date_gmt":"2004-01-09T10:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/01\/09\/us-treasury-anonymous-until-we-change-our-mind\/"},"modified":"2019-12-09T15:00:09","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T23:00:09","slug":"us-treasury-anonymous-until-we-change-our-mind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2004\/01\/08\/us-treasury-anonymous-until-we-change-our-mind\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Treasury: Anonymous until we change our mind"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:12393,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/news.com.com\\\/2100-1028_3-5137488.html?tag=nefd_top&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20050404010005\\\/http:\\\/\\\/news.com.com:80\\\/2100-1028_3-5137488.html?tag=nefd_top&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 22:35:56&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 22:35:56&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12394,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.ttb.gov\\\/alcohol&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20110514112618\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.ttb.gov\\\/alcohol\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.ttb.gov\\\/alcohol&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12395,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.ttb.gov\\\/alcohol\\\/rules\\\/ttbnotice_no4.pdf&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20060521144728\\\/http:\\\/\\\/www.ttb.gov:80\\\/alcohol\\\/rules\\\/ttbnotice_no4.pdf&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 22:36:03&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 22:36:03&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12396,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.ttb.gov\\\/notices\\\/ttbnotice_no23.pdf&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20170221161758\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.ttb.gov\\\/notices\\\/ttbnotice_no23.pdf&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 22:36:08&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-11 22:36:08&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12397,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.gpoaccess.gov\\\/fr\\\/index.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:12398,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/slashdot.org\\\/article.pl?sid=04\\\/01\\\/09\\\/0010200&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/slashdot.org\\\/article.pl?sid=04\\\/01\\\/09\\\/0010200&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>I hope none of you sent any comments in to the Treasury if you were actually <a href=\"http:\/\/news.com.com\/2100-1028_3-5137488.html?tag=nefd_top\" title=\"c|net: Treasury breaks word on e-mail anonymity\">expecting your comments to remain anonymous<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  The U.S. Treasury Department plans to publish nearly 10,000 e-mail addresses on the Web, violating its privacy promise to Americans who used e-mail to comment on a government proceeding.<\/p>\n<p>  In March 2003, the Treasury Department&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ttb.gov\/alcohol\/\">Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau<\/a> (TTB) asked for e-mail comments about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ttb.gov\/alcohol\/rules\/ttbnotice_no4.pdf\">a proposal (.pdf link)<\/a> that could raise the price of malt beverages like Bacardi Breezer and Smirnoff Ice. At the time, the department said that the text of comments would be made public&#8211;but assured people that e-mail addresses, home addresses and other personal information of individuals would be removed first.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;For the convenience of the public, we will&#8230;post comments received in response to this notice on the TTB Web site,&#8221; the initial notice said. &#8220;All comments posted on our Web site will show the name of the commenter, but will not show street addresses, telephone numbers, or e-mail addresses.&#8221; The TTB is the successor to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, portions of which are now part of the Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n<p>  As news of the proposed regulations circulated around malt beverage aficionados online, word-of-mouth took over and comments started flooding in to nprm\\@ttb.gov. By October, the Treasury Department had received about 9,900 e-mail messages, plus 4,800 comments sent through the U.S. mail or fax&#8211;and decided it could no longer keep its promise.<\/p>\n<p>  &#8220;The unusually large number of comments received&#8230;has made it difficult to remove all street addresses, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses from the comments for posting on our Internet Web site in a timely manner,&#8221; the Treasury Department said in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ttb.gov\/notices\/ttbnotice_no23.pdf\">follow-up notice (.pdf link)<\/a>, published last month in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gpoaccess.gov\/fr\/index.html\">Federal Register<\/a>. &#8220;Therefore, to ensure that the public has Internet access to the thousands of comments received&#8230;at the earliest practicable time, we will post comments received on that notice on our Web site in full, including any street addresses, telephone numbers, or e-mail addresses contained in the comments.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/slashdot.org\/article.pl?sid=04\/01\/09\/0010200\" title=\"\/.: US Treasury to Post Previously Private Email Addresses Online\">\/.<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. Treasury Department plans to publish nearly 10,000 e-mail addresses on the Web, violating its privacy promise to Americans who used e-mail to comment on a government proceeding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-2110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}