Local Radar

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Mystery problem continues with county government computers and EdgefieldDaily.com

web posted March 24, 2006

WEBNEWS – A reoccurring problem has surfaced once again regarding computers under the control of the county. EdgefieldDaily.com was made aware Thursday upon arrival at the Courthouse to observe General Sessions Court proceedings that a section of the web site was not accessible to county employees. The reoccurring problem only happens when a story, opinion, column, or INsider tip mentions or involves County Administrator Wayne Adams.

As we have previously reported, the Administrator has stated that he is not involved with the misdirection of the web traffic of EdgefieldDaily.com. However, when county employees try to access different sections of our web site, they are redirected to a web page that does not exist on EdgefieldDaily.com’s servers. This makes it appear that EdgefieldDaily.com has either not updated our web site or that the story we lead to from the front page does not exist.

Today we attempted to access The Insider section from several computers within the courthouse complex. Each attempt to access the page sent us to a page that is nonexistent and did not contain the posting questioning Mr. Adams’ contract with the County Council. EdgefieldDaily.com demonstrated the anomaly for Law Enforcement on the county provided Family Court computer. Also demonstrated was a circumvention of the county maintained filters, which allowed access to the pages that were inaccessible.

It is curious, however, that the problem only surfaces on county owned computers when EdgefieldDaily.com posts a story relating to Administrator Adams and no other time. Although we take Mr. Adams at his word that there is no involvement on his part; the question remains why it happens only on the mentioned occasions, backed by screen shots taken from county computers and verbal statements from witnesses.

Repeated written requests to Mr. Adams for a meeting with the Editor, Mr. Adams, and Chairman Kneece to address the ongoing problem have been ignored by Mr. Adams for almost a month. Chairman Monroe Kneece has stated he will set up the meeting requested in a telephone conversation on Thursday night. Mr. Kneece said he could not force Mr. Adams to attend the meeting. Mr. Adams is an employee of the County Council.

Administrator Adams also neglects to honor our repeated written requests of notification of meetings and announcements by the County. Doing so is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act, which we intend to have addressed as well. In addition, the County pays to run advertisements in the printed media and EdgefieldDaily.com does not charge for the publishing of the same governmental announcements on our web site.

Although the numbers of readers that are affected by this mysterious problem are minimal to our overall readership, this does not negate the fact that someone mysteriously is hiding information from County employees when it relates to Mr. Adams’ position. Whoever that person may be, they must be identified and held accountable. Federal Law protects content of EdgefieldDaily.com and interference in interstate commerce is illegal. EdgefieldDaily.com is accessed by readers across the United States and around the globe and each produces revenue for EdgefieldDaily.com by accessing the web site.

EdgefieldDaily.com acknowledges that Chairman Kneece has been responsive and troubled about the situation and we honor his request that he not to be associated to the events and questions surrounding Mr. Adams. Chairman Kneece was instrumental in having Mr. Adams remove the self-imposed ban of EdgefieldDaily.com that he placed on our web site last year when embarrassing information was made available to the public concerning Mr. Adams’ actions relating to his position.

 

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