Sanders Campaign Is Penalized for Clinton Data Breach | Hacker News Reader

Sanders Campaign Is Penalized for Clinton Data Breach

nytimes.com

23 pointsdantillberg8 comments

The Sanders campaign told the DNC months ago that they were noticing data they shouldn't have access to. What a ridiculous farce of news coverage to frame this as an intentional invasion by the Sanders campaign, warranting discipline.

It is an outrage that the DNC would refuse access to crucial voter records weeks before the first primary caucuses. This is interference in the democratic process bordering on treasonous. The DNC leadership has reached a new low in its attempts to stifle an open primary.

I'm not an expert on federal campaign law, only state level, but it's possible this could also be considered a large in-kind campaign donation by the DNC. Certainly, there are real dollar prices associated with access to NGP VAN's databases and it seems very unlikely that the Sanders campaign got in for free. I can't speak to the legalities of it, but a court could certainly treat this as the DNC providing monetary aid to the Clinton campaign or even denying pre-paid services to the Sanders campaign without just compensation.

When we were given discounts on campaign databases, our financial paperwork was required to reflect them as donations.

Not to add some intrigue and stir the pot, but it appears the CEO of the company hired to build the system, NGP VAN, worked in the Clinton White House.

Mr. Trevelyan is a veteran of the 1992 Clinton-Gore "War Room"; provided research, analysis, and whip counts to the Clinton Administration as a member of the White House Office of Legislative Affairs; and was named a "Rising Star" by Campaigns and Elections magazine.

This probably doesn't mean anything; I'm sure it's a smallish circle of people you call when you have a requirement like that, and you'd want someone familiar with the sensitivity of the information anyway.

http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?...

Could this data be obtained from any other data sources?

I can't help but think that this has less to do with Sanders' team exploiting a software vulnerability and more with the DNC standing behind the establishment-approved candidate (Clinton).

The fact that the party's debate schedule seems at odds with a prime time schedule doesn't help this perception.

I wonder if a story like this would still be considered newsworthy if they were forced to make all statements generic, such as "Political Campaign Staffer Disciplined for Accessing Another Campaign's Data".

If not, then why report it?

If still worth reporting, and if people were forced to think on the information only in the generic terms available ("how should we act upon this and other data breaches?", "does it matter if some campaign has access to another campaign's information within the same party?", etc.), then what would come of it?

We should hope for just enough information to understand what happens in the world but not so much information that emotions and irrelevant details take over the discussion.

Deleted comment

Yeah, as if it hasn't been obvious that the DNC wants nothing more than to give Hillary the nomination outright and that they see Sanders as just a nuisance to their agenda.

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