Breaking news, the Sanders campaign is disciplined for breaching Clinton voter data. For the uninformed, this sounds like a big deal. Once you dig just a bit under the surface, you find that:
– The DNC has repeatedly conspired to keep a debate schedule favorable to the front runner (Hillary Clinton)
– Independent candidates like Prof. Larry Lessig were kept out of the debates
Which goes to show that DNC is hardly the impartial arbiter it should be in this contest. And furthermore:
– NGP VAN, the contractor hired by the DNC, has in the past brought the campaign data firewall down multiple times
– The Sanders campaign had alerted months ago the DNC that the firewall was broken, and the issue kept happening
Now, the DNC has decided to teach Sanders a lesson, and suspended altogether the campaign’s access to the DNC database. “The decision by the party committee is a major blow to Sanders’ campaign. The database includes information from voters across the nation and is used by campaigns to set strategy, especially in the early voting states”, reports the Boston Globe.
Talk about cause, effect and proportionality.
Really, it sounds like the DNC is prepared to put its second and third thumb on the scale. Nothing must be left to chance. The front runner must win!
…that makes my first reaction one of OK folks what’s the other side to this? He hasn’t had ballot access or debate access issues before this despite questions about NH law and being a registered Dem. I’m inclined to think genuine mistake before evil intent on this one, but it should certainly be fixed pronto.
NYT writes: “It is not clear whether NGP VAN discovered the breach and reached out to the Sanders campaign, or if it was the other way around. ”
The chain of information would not be hard to trace. Why would the contractor be too incompetent to keep the firewall up, but be competent enough to proactively track access?
to take charge of computer security. đŸ˜›
Jeff Weaver, Bernie’s campaign manager, lays out the outrage, and the attempt to impugn the integrity of the campaign. The DNC is out of control. First the schedule 4 debates all on Saturday with competing broadcasts. Now after being informed by the Sanders campaign of the dissolved firewall 2 months ago, it happens again and the blame is shifted inappropriately to Senator Sander’s campaign. Here’s Mr. Weavers’s press conference.
N/t
As for this minor data breach–it’s a tempest in a teapot because it does not affect the people that the Democratic Party exists for: those who were not born rich & lucky.
BUT, jconway, I uprated your comment because DWS’s tenure at the DNC is unimpressive. You don’t have to be Howard Dean to push the 50-state strategy. There are Democrats in Mississippi, Kentucky, Texas, and Alaska who need the organizational help and resources the DNC can provide. Local elections affect who gets Medicaid and who gets registered to vote among other things.
If the breach was at the DNC, what was the Clinton “modeling data” that the Sanders people looked at? If the Clinton campaign wanted to protect the data, why did the DNC have access to it?
The data is the DNC’s.
Different candidates for the same office start out with the same data and augment it with their own voter ID and modeling.
The Clinton campaign data that the four Sanders campaign staffers accessed without authorization and saved to their VAN folders coded voters in different bands based on likelihood of supporting Hillary in 10 early voting states. That data would be very valuable for the Sanders campaign: they could use it to focus outreach on voters who were not identified as strong Hillary supporters, making the most efficient use of volunteer time to contact persuadable voters.
n/t
She cares about Hillary Clinton. The DNC doesn’t care about the people – it cares about Hillary Clinton.
Once you have accepted these two facts, you can cease to be surprised (if you were in the first place) that they aren’t giving the better of the two candidates a fair shake.
She’s a lot like Donald Trump. She is preventing the race within her party from being a serious contest of ideas and governance. Donald does is by being the center of attention, she does it by preventing there from being attention that one could possibly center on. What a dichotomy!
I understand that incompetence and ineptitude is always more likely than bad intent in situations like this, but still — it’s hard to avoid noticing how much this helps a GOP on the ropes, and how much it hurts a resurgent Democratic party.
I find the timing of this episode impossible to ignore, coming days before the final debate while Ms. Clinton is slipping badly in New Hampshire — especially since it is clear enough that the Sanders campaign itself alerted the DNC to this issue in October.
I’m disappointed by the way the Sanders campaign is handling the situation. It seems to me that former data director Josh Uretsky is either a good-guy blowing the whistle (and, by the way, embarrassing a Democratic Party who is already well on the way towards nominating a candidate who demonstrated nauseatingly bad judgement about such issues while Secretary of State), or a bad guy stealing data.
If he’s a good guy, then he should NOT have been fired and the campaign should be defending him. If he is a bad guy, then the campaign should not be attacking the DNC.
At the moment, the Sanders campaign strikes me as betraying somebody who is trying to do the right thing and simultaneously striving to make political points against the front-runner from all this.
It leaves me with the bitter taste of defeat in my mouth. In a time when the GOP is handing we Democrats an express train into the Oval Office through the sheer incompetence, bigotry, and lunacy of ALL their candidates, this kind of thing could have and should have been handled quietly with a face-to-face meeting of technical representatives of all three candidates, the DNC, and the utterly incompetent vendor.
This could have and should have been quietly resolved behind closed doors, and all three candidates could have then made a joint statement and press release to the media (preferably on a Sunday afternoon so that it received a half-column story on page 17 of the Sunday political section). I see no evidence of bad faith on the part of anybody except perhaps the DNC itself for attacking Bernie Sanders on the eve of Saturday’s debate.
I think this demonstrates utter incompetence, and worse, on the part of the DNC. I think the Sanders campaign is reacting as badly. I think that the focus that this brings on data security is likely to resurrect Ms. Clinton’s “email server” issue yet again. I think we’re in for more months of “questions” about the “judgement” of “Democrats” (all of which will be dogwhistles for attacks on Hillary Clinton). I think all of this will overshadow the debate tomorrow night.
It looks to me as though once again the principals involved have lined themselves up in a circle with machine guns (the illegal kind that shoot as fast as they can so long as the trigger is pulled) and opened fire.
This is how we’re going to send Bernie Sanders into oblivion. This is how we are going to cripple Hillary Clinton. This is how we’re going to elect Donald Trump.
We are supposed to be the grownups here. We are, instead, acting like four year olds.
Ms. Wasserman-Schultz should be ashamed of herself, and should be fired for gross misconduct. The Sanders campaign should drop its lawsuit and focus on the campaign. If I were Bernie Sanders, I’d call Hillary Clinton and suggest that “your people and my people need to get together right now and put a stop to all this”.
. . . for Sanders to to make an issue of this. He needs to do something to remind people he’s still running. He suffered by staying on message and not joining in the panic over ISIS. This kerfluffle with the DNC is so obscure and uninteresting on its merits that it won’t distract from his message and if it puts his name into the news for a news cycle or two it will do him a lot of good.
It’s desperate slime-ball posturing. Not surprisingly, by this morning, the “issue” was resolved. In my view, any attention that the Sanders campaign attracted was negative. Team Democrat fumbled the ball on 1st and goal. The officials are still determining who has possession.
Bad football, bad politics.
Both candidates have a record here and one is significantly cleaner than the other, in the more important category.
Press reports indicate that four of Sanders’ staffers, including the national data director, took advantage of a bug that exposed Clinton’s data for about 40 minutes on Wednesday morning. They saved files with Clinton’s data from 10 early states to their personal VAN folders. Clearly the Sanders’ campaign admits that the data director acted improperly, since he was fired.
As someone who has worked for 20 years in information security, it looks to me like NGP VAN and the DNC are just following SOP when you have a data breach – you contain the exposure until you fully investigate and can rectify the problem. NGP VAN is going to need to check every Sanders’ campaign account to confirm that the Clinton data files that were shared by the Sanders’ staff have been retrieved and are no longer exposed.
I have lost a lot of respect for the Sanders’ campaign for fundraising on and attacking the DNC for its own ethical lapse. I’ll give the Sanders’ campaign props for chutzpah, but, like McCain defending the Bush torture protocols, the campaign’s response permanently tarnishes Bernie’s brand for me.
When you were working for 20 years in information security and just following SOP, do you recall a time when you blocked off access to A) just one user or B) all possible users that could have taken advantage of the vulnerability until everything could be completely investigated and rectified?
And, if you had a client who was a victim of a data breach, do you recall the client then lying throughout a day in various interviews and statements about what happened?
https://twitter.com/jotaemei/status/678079334628917248
If my tweet is not clear, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz repeatedly said that the Sanders’ campaign exported, downloaded, and was enabled to modify the data to then upload it and re-inject it into the system. This is the justification she used for prohibiting the Sanders’ campaign from having access to their own records. Here’s the problem: The CEO of NGP VAN explained that none of that was true.
Source: http://blog.ngpvan.com/news/data-security-and-privacy
Isn’t that just the Clinton campaign strategy?
Sanders’ staff searched and saved Clinton voter data to their own folders, and got caught by NGP VAN and the DNC doing it. The blog post you link indicates no other campaigns were found To have exploited or engaged in improper access during the breach. The one campaign that did exploit the breach, Sanders’, was shut down, absolutely SOP, until it could be determined that they did not retain stolen data.
As someone who isn’t backing a horse in the primary, I just find this discouraging. Yet another reason for people who ordinarily vote Democratic to refuse to have that “D” put next to their name on the voter list. “Like most of the candidates. Can’t stand the ‘party'”.
In any case, according to the NY Times, the access for the Sanders campaign is being restored. Some clearer thinking must have taken over.
DWS yesterday:
Would expect? Maybe. Would it have happened? I can be pretty gullible sometimes, but if she’s trying to tell me that they would have held VAN data from the presumed nominee for any reason, I’m not going to swallow that.
Glad I have sports to distract me all day (Michigan State is in town to kick Northeastern’s butt in three sports – women’s basketball already taken care of last night).
The persecution complex and hyperventilating from Sanders’ campaign and allies was unattractive. There is no evidence whatsoever of the grand conspiracy to help Clinton and hurt Sanders that some seem to be alleging.
OK, Christopher. Persecution complex? Really?
The fact of the matter is the DNC cut off data access to Sanders, which could have crippled his campaign. Therefore the need for quick action.
Rest assured, the data access would not have been restored were it not for quick press coverage and the Sanders campaign suit filed in court. This DNC leadership is not known to act for the benefit of non-front-runner candidates except when people speak up.
In all, it’s a quick win for Sanders, and a way to re-energize his campaign, as an outsider speaking a bit of truth to power.
When Mrs. Clinton was cornered with the email issues, Sanders made a point of pricking the air out of that in a debate, saying “I am sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails, Hillary”. That shows his class.
Let’s see what Mrs. Clinton has now to say about the DNC debacle. Will she take the high road also?
The fundraising email Sanders sent yesterday accuses the DNC of “tipping the scales” and attempting to “undermine” Sanders’ campaign, without so much as mentioning that the DNC was responding to Sanders’ own staffers improper access to, searching and sharing of Clinton’s data. This is not high road behavior by Sanders campaign. It’s demagoguery just like we’re seeing from the right.
I find “persecution complex” an overstatement. I also won’t go as far as to assert “demagoguery just like we’re seeing from the right” — it pales in comparison to the GOP proposal to establish a nationwide “Muslim registry”, or the GOP lies about the current status of the US border with Mexico.
I think it is certainly an unforced error and, to me, reeks of desperation.
The most effective step both campaigns could take is to issue a joint statement demanding the immediate resignation of Ms. Wasserman-Schulz. That, to me, is how Ms. Clinton can “take the high road”. This should NEVER have been made public, and certainly not on the eve of the final debate.
“Persecution complex” or not, this was an abysmal and self-destructive act by the DNC.
It would be great if she took the high road, but there is ZERO evidence that this is some grand conspiracy, or that it could not have happened just as easily in reverse. This went within 24 hours from data breach discovered, to access shutdown, to access restored. The Sanders campaign could have just picked up the phone like they did when they discovered the issue in the first place and asked for DNC assistance in getting their access back BEFORE going right into lawsuit mode.
Do you have information indicating the campaign did not call the DNC to ask for their access back?
I bet they did. The reason for the quick reaction is that access to the data is essential every day.
At any rate, this is closed now, and the DNC has come back from the abyss, it seems.
…but I hoped and assumed a phone call would prevent the public hyperventilating and the lawsuit.
I would hope and assume that when I buy a package that says it contains a “60 Watt Replacement” (a CFL), and has a lifetime of “9 years”, I would be able to unscrew the incandescent 60W bulb in my old fixture rated for 60W bulbs, screw in the replacement, and be done for the next 9 years.
In fact, the bulbs don’t fit because the replacements are physically larger, and even when run without the cover (because the cover won’t fit), fail after about a year — approximately the same as the incandescent bulb they replaced, but at five times the price.
We live in a world where hope and assumptions have long since been rendered moot by a society that tends to do only lip-service to basic values like trust, integrity, shared commitment to cooperation, and similar moral values. In today’s world, you can bet that bank that proudly touts its “customer-friendly services” is a bank that has been caught plundering customers whenever possible. Such marketing is generally a band-aid applied after the fact to stem bleeding caused by a corporate culture that values short-term profit above all else. Bank of America has more smiling culturally-diverse happy customers in their advertising and marketing than any other bank around. The reality of where they get their profits is VERY different from their advertising.
The shutdown should never have happened, with or without a phone call from the Sanders campaign. The DNC could have, like every other reasonable supplier, called their customer (the Sanders campaign) and alerted their customer to the irregularity.
I’m pretty sure that the public hyperventilating was caused by factors that have absolutely NOTHING to do with this minor technical incident.
I don’t agree that the shutout was 100% unwarranted. It sounds to me like neither the DNC nor the campaigns have much reason to trust NGP-VAN security completely at this point, especially if it’s true that there have been multiple problems. So the only way to prevent this from happening again is to make it clear that a campaign will suffer more than it will gain if it takes advantage of unauthorized access. It might have been smart to establish that sooner and set up a mandatory reporting procedure if “foreign” data were visible. That way this wouldn’t have needed to reach the public eye (although the “public” is just a few political junkies like us).
I’m not defending either candidate — I’ll support whichever one is our nominee. And I am no big fan of political organizations in general, but the DNC is the one we have.
The true test — if Josh Uretsky sent you a resumé, would you hire him?
Unless you know a lot more than the rest of us, I think your last question is unanswerable.
The action taken by the DNC should have been the last, instead of the first, step. This reeks of posturing and gamesmanship, rather than calmly dealing with an issue.
I’d be a lot more skeptical of Sanders’s communications people, for allowing the DNC to spin its own failure as a failure on his part.
Yes, I’d like trust, integrity, etc. to still be values practiced at least by the Democratic party and candidates thereof. I don’t think that is too much to assume or expect.
We can always hope for that.
I suggest that “trust and verify” is a realistic view.
I was responding to your comment that “[you] hoped and assumed a phone call would prevent the public hyperventilating and the lawsuit”. The evidence seems clear enough to me that neither the DNC nor Debbie Wasserman Schulz merits your hope and assumption.
DNC and the vendor are a supplier, the campaigns are customers. The campaigns pay for access to the data, and of course pay for privacy from other campaigns.
The phone call should have come from the supplier to the anomalous customer. A meeting of the technical teams should have happened next, to establish what did and did not happen. If the technical teams could not come to a quick and quiet consensus on the next step, the candidates themselves should have been folded into the process.
This was, at best, gross political malpractice on the part of the DNC. It is the optimist in me that suppresses the reaction that the DNC and Ms. Wasserman-Schulz was rather more fiercely defensive of the Clinton campaign, and rather more fiercely offensive to the Sanders campaign, than would have been the case if the players had been reversed or if the O’Malley campaign had been involved.
I join you in desiring that trust, integrity, and so on be practiced by our guys. In this case, the DNC at least fails my verification of that trust.