IP: Salon Hyde Expose Spurs Death Threats, Hacks

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Stop the Madness!!


--Todd-->




Salon Hyde Expose Spurs Death Threats, Hacks
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19980917S0017


There's a security guard sitting at the front door of Salon Magazine,
the Web publication that Wednesday broke a story detailing the
adultery of one of President Clinton's most powerful Congressional
critics.


The guard isn't standard Salon policy. After posting the story
Wednesday midday, Salon has been besieged by electronic critics using
everything from hack attacks to conventional death threats, editors
said.


"We expected a strong reaction, but I'm surprised at the ferocity of
the response," said David Talbot, the Salon editor who wrote the
controversial story.


Salon wrote Wednesday that Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), who chairs the
committee that will decide whether the full House should vote on
Clinton's impeachment, had his own affair in the late 1960s. The
publication documented the story carefully, putting together photos
and interviews with several people close to Hyde and the woman's
family. Editors received a statement from Hyde admitting the affair
just minutes before the story went live.


Already Talbot has received death threats as a result of his article.
Threats have been issued against other top editors. Their fax machine
was shut down by a series of "black faxes" -- a tactic in which the
sender repeatedly faxes an all-black piece of paper in a deliberate
attempt to break the recipient's machine. The magazine stopped
accepting incoming e-mail Thursday morning after an avalanche of hate
mail and spam clogged their servers.


"We haven't even read most of the hate mail," said Andrew Leonard,
the magazine's senior technology writer. "It's not even getting
through."


The story has been angrily denounced by Republicans. Rep. Tom Delay
(R-Texas) blasted the story on the floor of the House Thursday
morning, and later sent a letter to the FBI asking the agency to look
into whether the White House was responsible for the information on
Hyde.


But Talbot and the other editors bristle at the suggestion they are
serving as administration puppets, an opinion already being widely
heard on both conservative and mainstream talk shows.


"There is a hard-core conservative information infrastructure in this
country, and they've been using it against Salon for some time now."
-- David Talbot
Salon Magazine
"It's not as if we're a P.R. office for the White House," Talbot
said. One of Salon's senior editors recently called for Clinton's
resignation, and the site regularly carries columns and articles
sharply critical of Clinton and his policies, he added.


"The only reason people say that is because they're trying to kill
the messenger," Talbot said. Salon was similarly criticized for its
investigative stories on Whitewater, he said. "We have stunned those
people with our reporting."


Meanwhile, Salon's site was receiving close to 100,000 hits a minute
by mid-Thursday, straining the company's servers.


Much of the reader response has been positive, editors said. But the
electronic backlash also was building, as Salon's story was reported
on CNN and broadcast news stations, and criticized on conservative
outlets like Rush Limbaugh's radio show.


The concerted attacks against the  site are unlikely to disappear
quickly, Talbot said. "There is a hard-core conservative information
infrastructure in this country, and they've been using it against
Salon for some time now," he said.


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