According to this Washington Post story, the Senate has rules in place which forbid senators up for re-election from updating their Senate.Gov web sites within 60 days of an election. So senators who are up for re-election on Nov. 5 have been unable to update their web sites since Sept. 5.
As Brad Fitch, deputy director of the Congressional Management Foundation, tells the Post,
If 9/11 had happened during a campaign year, the New York senators would not have been able to update their Web sites to tell their constituents how to contribute to relief programs.
This time around it prevents them from updating their web sites to describe their position on the recently passed resolution dealing with Iraq.
The limit essentially took the 60-day limit during which no mass mailings are allowed and applied it to the web sites in order to prevent incumbent senators from using their government web sites for campaigning. But as the article notes, senators who use their government web sites to campaign could be punished through existing Senate ethics procedures.
It just seems dumb to prevent constituents from reading press releases on developing legislation and issues from their Senator because it happens to be October 14 rather than August 14.
Source:
Senators Stymied by Web Restrictions. Jim Geraghty, Washington Post, October 14, 2002.