A confidential e-mail tip line set up to report Justice Department abuses to the House Judiciary Committee has ended up exposing as many as 150 would-be whistleblowers following a mishandled bulk e-mail, according to reports on an online watchdog group's Web site.

In a post to Talking Point Memo's TPMmuckraker.com, blogger Paul Kiel cites a government e-mail sent Oct. 26 in which a list of submission recipients was shown in the public "To:" field instead of the hidden "BCC:" field used to hide the list which gets the e-mail message.

"One disgruntled recipient replied to the entire list of whistleblowers angrily complaining about the snafu; two others forwarded the committee email to TPMmuckraker with similar complaints," wrote Kiel.

The e-mail addresses were gathered from a government Web site with a section set up specifically to find "concrete and specific actions taken or statements made by management-level officials of the Department" that led to the controversial firings of eight U.S. attorneys, ultimately leading to the resignation of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Critics have said the firings appeared to be politically motivated, and some of the prosecutors who were dismissed in a Dec. 7, 2006, purge said they felt pressure by Republican lawmakers to investigate more Democrats in the months leading up to elections.

The whistleblower report form warned users to avoid using Justice Department e-mail addresses "in order to prevent such unfortunate retaliatory actions," but the personal e-mails used instead may also identify some individuals.

"Compounding the mistake, the committee later sent out a second e-mail attempting to recall the original e-mail; it, too, included all recipients in the 'to:' field, according to a recipient of the (e-mails)," reports Kiel.

According to the report, none of the tips submitted so far have been read by Judiciary Committee members, and before opening up for review, submitters were to be given a chance to withdraw their tips from the record by Oct. 30 before new governmental review processes were put in place.

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