Here’s a piece of disturbing news from Internet Haganah, where Aaron signed up for three email newsletters from the Department of Defense—and promptly received a propaganda press release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) using the DoD list server.

UPDATE at 3/10/05 7:38:14 am:

In a story on a CAIR tantrum that caused Chris Matthews of “Hardball” to cancel a speech to a conference of Indian-American hoteliers, the New York Sun’s Josh Gerstein has more details on this troubling lapse of DoD computer security: Matthews of ‘Hardball’ Retreats from Speech After Muslim Protest

In a bizarre and mysterious twist, some in the press corps learned of Mr. Matthews’s decision from a Council on American-Islamic Relations news release that was distributed to reporters yesterday via an e-mail list the Pentagon uses to circulate stories about the military.

The Pentagon later issued a statement calling the distribution unintentional and saying it had “taken steps to guard against a recurrence.”

A spokesperson for the Islamic group, Rabiah Ahmed, denied that her organization sent the message out through the Pentagon list. “We had nothing to do with it,” she said. “Apparently, somebody hacked into their computer system and sent out our press release on their listserv.”