knobmaker's Journal: Where rejected stories go to die

Well, I got tired of seeing my carefully crafted story submissions disappear forever into the thankless gullet of Slashdot. So I'll keep 'em here, so I can point to them and say "Nyaah Nyaah, I posted it way back then, but no one listened to me. You fools!"

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the arrest of dozens of online drug paraphernalia manufacturers and retailers, as a result of investigations called Operation Pipedreams and Operation Headhunter. He was particularly outraged that these purveyors of pot pipes were online. In addition to shutting down the web sites of these suspects, Ashcroft has petitioned the court to order these sites redirected. If the court complies, those who attempt to visit these sites will be redirected to the Drug Enforcement Administration's site, where it will be explained to them that they cannot visit the offending site.

According to a story by Declan McCullagh, Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center http://www.epic.org/ said redirecting Web visitors to DEA.gov raises novel legal issues. "It sounds like this is a concluded drug operation segueing into a new sting operation," he said. "In effect, the defunct Web sites become electronic flypaper for those looking for illegal drug paraphernalia, reporters covering the story, and people who have trouble spelling in Google."

So, do we all trust the DEA not to record the identity of those who are redirected? Will similar tactics be tried with porn sites, or dissident sites? It's a Brave New World.