Is CIMS off the radar now?
After the focus on CIMS and whether the Conservatives are being ethical in the way constituency data is being treated, the Liberals have been quiet on the issue. Two days have come and gone. Two more rounds of Question Period. After the theatrics of Monday, nothing has been mentioned.
Have the Liberals decided this is not such a big deal after all? If so, I wonder why.
Update: News just in. The Conservative Party has delivered a notice of intent to pursue a libel action against the Liberal Party. That could part of the explanation.
On Monday, the Liberals were smelling blood in the water. The Conservatives were tracking constituents through their Orwellian database system CIMS.
The Liberals use a database system too. Of course, theirs is pure as the driven snow.
So on Monday Liberal MP Garth Turner went in for the kill. Waving a CIMS sign-up sheet signed by Conservative MPs to gain access to the system, Garth Turner accused the government of unethical behaviour.
You know the opposition is serious when they wave about props.
Government House Leader Peter Van Loan not only survived the attack, but managed to get in a shot when he spoke about the equivalent functionality of the Liberal system. That's when Garth Turner stepped in it. He used his follow-up question to accuse Peter Van Loan of quoting from my blog, alleging therefore that Van Loan's answer had no credibility.
In fact Peter Van Loan was quoting from the vendor's website.
Not only did Garth Turner squander his follow-up question with that accusation, he left himself open to a rather stinging rebuke from Peter Van Loan.
The exchange was quite fun to watch.That same night I discovered the installation instructions for the ManagElect system that the Liberals use. These instructions, provided to every MP, explicitly sets up some sort of connection between the local MPs system (AdminElect) and the central Liberal installation of ManagElect via a file called merge.csv. During the installation process, the MP directs the central computer to find that file in a specific location on the MPs local computer.
In other words, the local MP's computer puts some sort of data into the merge.csv file. When the MP logs into the central computer and establishes a connection, that data is transfered to Liberal headquarters. I'm pretty confident that this is the direction of travel given that the home location of the merge file is the MP's computer and not the central computer.
I can't say exactly what the function of this "merge" file is, but a comma-separated value file is a traditional way to move data between databases (it is now being replaced by XML-formatted files).
So why am I bringing this up? Garth Turner attacked on Monday. Two more Question Periods have come and gone. There has been no mention of CIMS.
Why not? Clearly the Liberals thought they had some traction on the issue.
What has changed?
Update: News just in. The Conservative Party has delivered a notice of intent to pursue a libel action against the Liberal Party. That could part of the explanation.
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Comments
There is no mention of this at the Liberal website. Clearly they have dropped this. Still lots of stuff about "deceptive financing" and also no mention of how the reclaiming of stolen adscam money is going either.
Posted by: David at October 25, 2007 08:44 AM
The CPC privacy policy is here: http://www.conservative.ca/EN/2454/
The policy is quite clear, and certainly is aligned with pippeda provisions.
What is interesting is that if Garth took any data from CIMS to the liberals when he jumped ship then he is definitely in contradiction of the clause:
We will not sell your personal information that you have chosen to provide us, nor will we disclose it to third parties except as required by the Elections Act.
Posted by: skuleman at October 25, 2007 08:54 AM
It would be very hard to prove if he did take any information. Of course being the digital MP that he is, there has to be a team of people who CAN quite possibly take information from one data base to another.
The question remains did he, and if he had the ability to do so, can proof be provided. He seems to live in a grey area so it would be hard to provide that evidence. Again, he may be an annoying little twit, but hes not stupid by any stretch of the imagination.
Posted by: Hard to prove at October 25, 2007 10:05 AM
Will someone more knowledgable than me comment on this colourful ad in the Mississauga News?
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Posted by: Mississauga Tom at October 25, 2007 10:18 AM
Steve: the Liberal Party was caught stealing hundreds of millions of taxpapers money in Adscam. They are making false and defamatory charges against the Conservatives, hoping to paint them with the same brush in the minds of the voters. The Liberals are in sad shape if this is all they have to go after the Conservatives on. It is already starting to backfire on them. Do you think one of the reasons that they really fear a Conservative majority is that Harper will have total freedom to order a full sponsorship inquiry with no limitations or restrictions which is what Justice Gomery was urging to be done. I am looking forward to see all the skeletons teeming out of that closet if it ever happens. Teresa
Posted by: Teresa McBride at October 25, 2007 01:00 PM
Having been trained on CIMS the Liberals are talking out their ass on this...how can a complete supporter data base be illegal in any stretch of the law...all info is voluntarily given and used only for Party purposes.
Posted by: WL Macakenzie Redux at October 25, 2007 06:02 PM
WL, it matters not to them that the accusation is false. All that matthers is that they see CIMS as a huge advantage for the conservative and if they can put shackles on them or scare the people with the big bad computer they win in there eyes.
Posted by: Harry at October 25, 2007 08:10 PM
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