Nate Anderson of Ars Technica reports that yet another political disaster is brewing because some people just don’t get that you can be traced by your IP address:
… But someone in Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ (R-GA) office didn’t get the memo. In the aftermath of this week’s failed vote on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, someone named “Jimmy” registered an account at the gay news blog Joe.My.God. just to say, “All Faggots must die.”
Your standard Internet troll? Not exactly, since in this case the site’s operator, Joe, posted Jimmy’s IP address, and it wasn’t long before it was resolved back to Chambliss’ office (and it appears to be a district office back home in Georgia). At that point, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution swung into action, snagging the confirmation from Chambliss’ office that “it was indeed the source of a highly publicized homosexual-bashing slur on an Internet site” and that “it has not discovered exactly who was behind the slur, and has turned the matter over to the Senate Sergeant At Arms.”
I’m not quite sure I understand why this would be turned over to the Senate Sergeant At Arms. According to the Senate’s web site:
As chief law enforcement officer of the Senate, the Sergeant at Arms is charged with maintaining security in the Capitol and all Senate buildings, as well as protection of the members themselves. The Sergeant at Arms serves as the executive officer of the Senate for enforcement of all rules of the Committee on Rules and Administration regulating the Senate Wing of the Capitol and the Senate Office Buildings and has responsibility for and immediate supervision of the Senate floor, chamber and galleries. The Sergeant at Arms is authorized to arrest and detain any person violating Senate rules, including the President of the United States.
If the bigoted employee was in a local district office, does that still fall under the Sergeant At Arms’ duties and authority? I’m confused about his role here.