ABC19980113.1830.0598 NEWS CAPTION in hawaii today, a gay sailor said he would fight his dismissal from the navy. timothy mcveigh, no relation to the oklahoma city bomber, says the navy violated its own "don't ask, don't tell" policy. mcveigh says the navy went out of its way to learn his sexual orientation and got it by asking a worker at america online, which is supposed to keep personal information private. here's abc's john mcwethy. he was the senior enlisted man on a submarine. and he made the mistake of sending an e-mail through his private america online account. the civilian woman who received it and who knew mcveigh looked up his user profile on america online, which stated that the message came from "tim" from honolulu, who was gay, but did not include tim's full name. she told the navy, and an investigator called america online asking for confirmation that tim from honolulu was in fact the navy's tim mcveigh. from testimony he said he didn't identify who he was, he just asked for the information and was given it. to get such information a government investigator is supposed to clearly identify himself and to be armed with a court order or subpoena. america online says it is conducting its own investigation but does not believe its customer representative just handed over private information without believing they were talking to the customer himself. the united states government wants personal information about one of our members. there's a lawful process and a lawful procedure to follow. it was not followed in this instance. yet the navy claims it just asked and was given. the navy has said in sworn testimony that this did happen. america online is saying this never happened. somebody is lying. and somebody broke the law. mcveigh has still not commented on whether he is gay, but the navy says there is enough evidence that he is to kick him out anyway. still unclear is whether the navy or aol broke privacy laws during the investigation. john mcwethy, abc news, washington.