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Daniel Leslie Brandt (born circa 1947) is an American book indexer based in San Antonio, Texas Seelye, Katharine Q. (December 11 2005). A Little Sleuthing Unmasks Writer of Wikipedia Prank. New York Times, and an activist Jesdanun, Anick (December 28 2005). NSA Web Site Puts 'Cookies' on Computers. Associated PressGoldenberg, Suzanne (December 30 2005) US intelligence service bugged website visitors despite ban. The GuardianVelshi, Ali (December 29 2005). "New Information About NSA Domestic Spying Program Emerges", The Situation Room, CNN on the World Wide Web, particularly in relation to the Google search engine and the Wikipedia encyclopedia project.

Brandt's activism centers around demands for accountability from organizations he believes are operating irresponsibly, or in an unnecessarily secretive manner. Thatcher, Gary (July 31 1989). Cloak-and-Dagger Database: Software Sniffs Out Secret Agents. The Christian Science Monitor p. 8. In 1989, Brandt and Steve Badrich co-founded a non-profit organization called Public Information Research (PIR). Brandt launched Google Watch in 2002, a website stating his criticism of the Google search engine, and Wikipedia Watch in 2005, a similar site detailing his opinion that the Wikipedia encyclopedia lacks accountability and accuracy.

Activism

Student activism

Brandt was born in China to missionary parents. Chasnoff, Brian (December 11 2005). S.A. man is chasing the secret authors of Wikipedia. San Antonio Express-News In his college years he was an anti-Vietnam War activist while at the University of Southern California (USC). According to the Daily Trojan, "Brandt was the editor and creator of Prevert, a monthly student activist newspaper, and the de facto leader of the student activist movement at this university in the late '60's." Daily Trojan, January 12 1971. On October 4, 1968, he was one of three members of Students for a Democratic Society who burned what they said were their draft cards in front of television cameras following a speech by Senator Edmund Muskie at USC. Kneeland, Douglas E. (October 5 1968). Muskie Urged Raid Halt; Muskie Confirms He Appealed To Johnson to Halt the Bombing. The New York Times

When Brandt's student deferment classification was withdrawn by the local Selective Service System in December 1968 due to his public non-cooperation with his draft board, Brandt was convicted of failure to report for a pre-induction physical exam and refusal to submit to induction. Brandt appealed and his convictions were reversed on the grounds that he was entitled to student status as an undergraduate at USC. United States v. Brandt, 435 F.2d 324 (9th Cir. 1970).

Political activism

Brandt states that during the 1980s, when living in Arlington, Virginia, he introduced a number of political activists and researchers to computing and how to work with databases, including former Central Intelligence Agency officers Philip Agee Hand, Mark (January 3 2003). Searching for Daniel Brandt. CounterPunch and Ralph McGehee, as well as John F. Kennedy assassination researchers Bernard Fensterwald and Mary Ferrell. McCarthy, Jerry (January-March 1994). Mary Ferrell Profile. NameBase NewsLine, cited on Spartacus Educational

From the 1960s onwards, Brandt collected clippings and citations pertaining to influential people and intelligence matters. In the 1980s, through his company Micro Associates, he sold a database of citations of these clippings, books, government reports, and other publications. He told the New York Times that "many of these sources are fairly obscure so it's a very effective way to retrieve information on U.S. intelligence that no one else indexes." Gerth, Jeff (October 6 1987). Washington Talk: The Study of Intelligence; Only Spies Can Find These Sources. New York Times

These prior efforts were the basis of his NameBase website, described as "a quirky index of names cross-indexed," focusing on "foreign policy, spy, conspiracy, media, etc." Dedman, Bill (ed.). Power Reporting: Beat by beat: Military. via PowerReporting.com, accessed 19 April 2006. Currently the names are drawn from over 800 books, serials, and other publications. PIR website, "Why is namebase unique?" http://www.namebase.org/unique.html retrieved 15 April 2006.

Between 1990 and 1992, three members of Brandt's PIR advisory board, including Chip Berlet, resigned after complaining that another board member, L. Fletcher Prouty, was openly working with and defending Liberty Lobby and the Holocaust denial group the Institute for Historical Review, which republished Prouty's book Secret Team. Dan Brandt, "An Incorrect Political Memoir," Lobster, No. 24 (December 1992); Chip Berlet, "Right Woos Left: Populist Party, LaRouchite, and Other Neo-fascist Overtures To Progressives, And Why They Must Be Rejected," Cambridge, MA: Political Research Associates, 1991.*

Online activism

Government cookies

In March 2002, Brandt was credited with finding persistent HTTP cookies on one of the Central Intelligence Agency's websites that could be used to track users for approximately 10 years, in contravention of federal government rules. Associated Press (March 20 2002). CIA Caught Sneaking Cookies via CBS NewsAftergood, Steven (March 19 2002). CIA cookies exposed and eliminated. Secrecy News On December 25 2005, Brandt found that the National Security Agency's website was using two HTTP cookies set to expire in 2035. Brandt contacted the NSA to remind them they were in violation of federal rules and the cookies were removed. The event gained worldwide publicity.

Criticism of Google and Yahoo!

In 2002, Brandt launched the website Google Watch through PIR, reportedly in response to Google's low ranking of deep content within NameBase.org, which is placed far below competing information. Manjoo, Farhad (August 29 2002). Meet Mr. Anti-Google. Salon.com. See Brandt's response at http://www.google-watch.org/gaming.html#case3.

Google Watch documents Brandt's views on privacy, long-living HTTP cookies, and advertising policies within Google and Gmail. Brandt has also described the issue of "made for AdSense pages" — spam pages with content often scraped from other sites that sometimes enjoy high rankings in search engines due to sophisticated optimization technique. In addition, PIR has released Scroogle, a screen-scraping proxy that circumvents Google's tracking of user activity via HTTP cookies. Some writers have criticised the Google Watch website, such as writer Farhad Manjoo, who stated: "... Daniel Brandt's arguments seem absurd. Because he has a personal stake in the squabble, he's pretty easy to dismiss: He doesn't like his Google rank, so it's not surprising he doesn't like Google."

Brandt's PIR, in addition to other privacy and civil rights organisations including the Australian Privacy Foundation, Consumer Federation of America, and Katherine Albrecht's CASPIAN, have endorsed an open letter drafted by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and the World Privacy Forum requesting that Google suspend their Gmail service on account of privacy concerns, such as "the unlimited period for data retention that Google’s current policies allow." Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (April 19 2004). Thirty-One Privacy and Civil Liberties Organizations Urge Google to Suspend Gmail. via privacyrights.org

Brandt also maintains an anti-Yahoo! website, Yahoo! Watch. His principal complaint is that the Yahoo! feature Site Match embeds paid links into the main index and search results.

Criticism of Wikipedia
Brandt launched the Wikipedia Watch website through PIR on October 13, 2005, Alexa traffic Detail in response to a user authoring a biographical article on him within the Wikipedia peer-edited online encyclopaedia project. Brandt himself has been blocked from editing Wikipedia,Daniel Brandt and Brandt has also published logs from Wikipedia Internet Relay Chat channels on Wikipedia WatchURL: http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/findchat.html.

On the Wikipedia Watch website, Brandt advances his view that a website whose content is copied as widely as that of Wikipedia should have higher standards of accountability, and that members of the public who contribute or edit articles should make their identities public for this reason; this includes the facilitation of article subjects bringing litigation against editors, although since this multiple wikis now have articles about him. Brandt considers Wikipedia to be a privacy risk, and stated, "It * needs to be watched closely." Brandt's view is that the creation of biographical articles on Wikipedia is broadly unacceptable due to the inaccuracy of information included and a lack of accountability. Public Information Research. Wikipedia Watch. http://wikipedia-watch.org. Accessed April 2006.

Since November 19, 2005, the Wikipedia Watch site has included a page stating personal details allegedly pertaining to individual Wikipedia editors and administrators who have edited Brandt's biography or responded to his complaints, to "discourage irresponsible editors from applying for adminship, and encourage others to be more considerate of those who would rather not have an article about themselves." Brandt, Daniel/PIR. The Wikipedia Hive Mind. http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/hivemind.html Accessed April 2006. Brandt states his reasoning of maintaining the list that, "if I ever decide that I have cause to sue, I'm not sure who should be sued." This is, according to Brandt, due to a lack of any party within the project claiming content responsibility.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales responded to Brandt in a letter to Editor & Publisher, stating, "I don't regard him as a valid source about anything at all, based on my interactions with him ... He considers the very existence of a Wikipedia article about him to be a privacy violation, despite being a public person. I find it hard to take him very seriously at all. He misrepresents everything about our procedures, claiming that we have a 'secret police' and so on." DeFoore, Jay (1 December 2005). Wikipedia Founder, Readers Respond to Seigenthaler Article. Editor & Publisher

Seigenthaler Wikipedia biography controversy

In May 2005 an anonymous editor added defamatory information to the John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography. In December 2005, Seigenthaler criticized his Wikipedia biography in a USA Today column that generated considerable publicity. Seigenthaler, John Sr. (29 November 2005) A False Wikipedia 'biography.' USA Today Brandt found that the IP address used by the editor was also used to host a website, with the text, "Welcome to Rush Delivery." Brandt contacted a company in Nashville, Tennessee known by that name, and the IP address on the email they sent back to Brandt matched that in the edit history of the Seigenthaler article. Within the week, Brian Chase, a manager at Rush Delivery, resigned and personally confessed to Seigenthaler. Terdiman, Daniel (December 15 2005). In search of the Wikipedia prankster. CNET News.com

References

Note: Some external links to sites run by Brandt may redirect if the site detects a referer from http://en.wikipedia.org/.

Bibliography

External links

Sites run by Brandt

  • NameBase: http://www.namebase.org/
  • Wikipedia Watch: http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/
  • Google Watch: http://www.google-watch.org/
  • CIA on Campus: http://www.cia-on-campus.org/
  • Scroogle: http://www.scroogle.org/

Media coverage

Living people | Activists | People from Texas | Search engine optimization | Wikipedia critics | 1947 births

Daniel BRANDT | Daniel Brandt | דניאל ברנדט | Daniel Brandt | Daniel Brandt

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Daniel Brandt".

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