The Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into missing White House e-mails. At issue are White House a number of computer breakdowns making it impossible to search thousands of incoming e-mails subpoenaed by Congress - many of which dealt with several Clinton White House scandals, according to newswire reports. The White House has admitted thousands of incoming e-mails couldn't be searched in answer to those subpoenas, but there are also allegations that people were threatened to keep the e-mails from being revealed to the Justice Department or other federal investigators.
BEIJING - The Internet seems to have become a pain in the bamboo to the Chinese government's policies opposing a free press. The Ministry of State Security now has a department dedicated to tracking Chinese dissidents and their writings online, according to the newly released report "Attacks on the Press in 1999" by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The report says that China and Turkey had jailed more journalists by 1999's end than any other country - each holding eighteen journalists in the joint, including software entrepreneur Lin Hai, convicted of "inciting subversion of state power" and sentenced to two years in prison for giving an American e-zine e-mail addresses of 30,000 Chinese citizens. The e-zine supports democratic reform in the People's Republic, according to CPJ.
--- Compiled by Humphrey Pennyworth
