• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, July 9, 2010

When Republican Sharron Angle of Nevada was running for her party's nomination for Senate, her campaign's Web site proudly proclaimed her right-wing views.

She touted her intention to promote Nevada as the "nuclear energy capital of reprocessing spent fuels for the United States."

As for immigration, Angle's Web site said she not only wants to use the military to strengthen the country's borders, but also thinks that even legal immigrants should be denied any benefits, like subsidized college tuition.

On abortion, the Tea Party candidate announced that she was not only "pro-life," but had introduced "life-preserving legislation" in the Nevada Senate.

Now that she has won the nomination, however, her campaign's site touts more moderate-sounding positions.

Consider, her energy policy no longer includes any mention of nuclear power.

A statement about her views on immigration is limited to the single sentence: "The United States must secure its borders immediately and enforce the laws that are already on the books."

And a section titled "Protection of Life" no longer makes mention of having sponsored any anti-abortion bills.

But even though Angle might have taken down the rhetoric a notch, voters can still access her prior campaign platforms, thanks to the Web.

And for people who aren't inclined to do the legwork themselves, the campaign for her opponent, Harry Reid, recently reposted a mirror of her former site, under the banner The Real Sharron Angle. "We archived her old issues positions, endorsements, and biography to ensure that no matter how hard she tries, Sharron Angle cannot change or suppress her record simply by having her new DC handlers re-write her campaign website," the site says at the top.

Her lawyers responded by firing off a cease-and-desist letter alleging copyright infringement. The letter also alleged that Reid's campaign was obtaining email addresses of Angle supporters because the mirror site asked supporters to submit their names and contact information.

The Reid campaign then reposted the site without the email collection mechanism. But Angle is still complaining that the Reid campaign infringed on her intellectual property by reprinting her prior platforms.

Whether she will go so far as to sue is anyone's guess. But it's hard to imagine that there's a judge in America who wouldn't say the Reid campaign made fair use of Angle's former Web site.