What’s the news here: the lefties hacked Norm Coleman’s donor database and published it,.or that they are trying to wrap themselves in a mantle of phony righteousness for doin it?
John Hinderaker notes:
It’s impossible to say whether Wikileaks hacked Coleman’s site and is now making the information public out of frustration at lack of publicity, or whether a different Democratic Party group did the hacking and passed the information off to Wikileaks to be illegally disseminated. I replied to Wikileaks’ email asking for a name and telephone number and saying that I would like to interview them; needless to say, I didn’t get a response. Like so many leftists, they prefer to hide behind a cloak of anonymity.
Which is no surprise to any of us who’ve dealt with these people, ever.
A week or two after the liberal hacking of Coleman’s site took place, I got a notice from my bank that my credit card numbers had been stolen and patently improper charges were being rung up. As a result I had to cancel that credit card and get a new one. I didn’t know it at the time, but it appears that in all probability, I was one of the victims of the Democrats’ hacking of Coleman’s web site.
Just another day in contemporary American politics. Liberals break the law, violate their opponents’ privacy, either commit or facilitate theft, and meanwhile assure the rest of us that they did all of this because of their moral superiority.
Lefties are claiming that it wasn’t a hack; Paul Schmelzer at the Minnesoros “Independent” carries out his paymasters’ will, tells us “2+2=”orange””:
the database was not revealed by hackers, according to IT professional Adria Richards, who was the first to share news of the unprotected file in late January.
“It’s not hacking,” she said. “I didn’t use any hacking tools. A browser was my tool.”
Richards said she discovered the database by entering normcoleman.com, into OpenDNS’ cache-check tool, which gave her an IP address where the Web site lived.
Simply copying that address into a Firefox browser revealed the Web site directories for colemanforsenate.com.
Richards didn’t download the database herself, but she posted a screen capture of what she’d found online after she made the discovery. An IT consultant for 10 years, she published her findings on her blog to educate others about the risks of improperly managed websites, she said.
“All you needed was a Web browser,” she said. “It’s like I walked over to Norm Coleman’s house and saw his door was open, took a photo of the open door and posted it on the Internet.”
Ah. So the Democrats didn’t have to work especially hard to get the information and puiblish it. That excuses everything!
Attention, ethically-challenged liberals and Minnesoros “Independent” staff (pardon the redundancy): if someone leaves the door to their house unlocked,and you walk inside, take out all their wife’s underwear and put it on and leave the building, you are still a thief and a cross-dresser, even if the door wasn’t locked!
Most of us know this. The rest?
They’re anonymous leftybloggers, obviously.
We’ve had intimidation of conservative political donors to prop 8 in California, a special liberal group called “Accountable America” whose goal, according to the NY Times, is “to intimidate potential donors to conservative 527 groups”
Now Coleman’s donor data is leaked.
Readers of SITD will not be surprised to learn that RickDFL not only defends political intimidation of this sort, he also supports so-called ‘card check’ legislation that does with away the secret ballot for workers in unionizing efforts.
Mitch:
“So posting NAMES AND CREDIT CARD NUMBERS on “Wikileaks” was easier than notifying the WEBMASTER”
Really try to follow along. The WEBMASTER (see I can ALL CAP TOO) was notified Jan 28th. The webmaster did not notify all the donors. Plus only partial credit card numbers were posted by WikiLeaks.
“It’s a distinction with no ethical difference” Of course it is. If the size of the problem prevents me from fixing it swiftly or preventing theft.
“indiscriminately titter”
Grow up. Serious people deal with problems like this all the time. You act like the worst think about this is the embarrassment of the Coleman campaign. They will get over it. The real harm was to the donors.
I guess they might have to choose who to press charges against:
1) someone to whom they gave money to but who also hired people that were careless with their private data, or
2) someone who intentionally published their data without even allowing adequate time for notification, much less action.
#2 may not be a realistic option, depending on the applicable law, but who do you think they should dislike more? No, wait. Who would a reasonable person think they should dislike more?
MON:
Like I said, I am sure Coleman donors appreciate your attitude.
“I am sure Coleman donors appreciate your attitude. ”
This Coleman donor thinks you’re an ass.
RickDFL said:
“The donors had such notice. The Coleman campaign had weeks.”
and:
“WikiLeaks did.”
What absolute horse hockey.
Please read, maybe for the first time, this site:
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/The_Big_Bad_Database_of_Senator_Norm_Coleman
Headline:
“The Big Bad Database of Senator Norm Coleman
By Staff
WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE
Wed Mar 11 13:00:43 GMT 2009”
First email header:
“Subject: Norm Coleman leak
Sent: Tuesday, March 10, 2009 7:29 PM”
Second email header:
“Subject: Re: Norm Coleman leak (update)
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:31 AM”
Notice any dates? Do they line up with your “facts”?
Troy:
Emails to Coleman donors went out out 17 and 13 hours before a portion of the list was published (4,721) of 51,000 plus. You wan’t to say that for them this is not “a day”, I won’t fight you. I don’t think the difference is substantial. Wiki says they felt they had to ‘move up’ their release because of the Coleman campaign press release.
More importantly, the Coleman was notified by Jan. 28th.
Terry:
The Employee Free Choice Act does not do away with the secret ballot in union elections. If simply transfers the power to insist on one, from the employer to the employees. If 30% on the employees prefer that process, they get it. Without the Employee Free Choice Act there is no process for workers to insist on a secret ballot election it rests entirely with the employer.
RickDFL:
If you want to blame Coleman, the Coleman campaign, or the Coleman web team for letting this happen and not taking steps to protect their donors, I won’t fight you. If you want to infer they did it all intentionally, I will simply say “prove it”.
Excusing Wikileaks for their bad behavior? No. Not buying it.
If they want to publish someones personal data and maintain the appearance of ethical superiority, they should at least take on the responsibility to inform that person in a timely fashion. Coleman’s site may have been the source of the data, but he is not in that equation anymore.
RickDFL you have completely mischaracterized the EFCA.
Under EFCA if a union organizer collects 50%+1 ‘card checks’ the union is certified without a secret election.
You know this. You are lying, purposely, to push your political agenda. You are a fascist.
This is how bad the EFCA is: You could find yourself in a union, and start seeing them take the money out of your paycheck to spend on political issues against your wishes, not only without having a secret ballot, but without ever having the opportunity vote at all.
Troy:
“If you want to infer they did it all intentionally” Huh? Who raised that issue. I suppose they intentionally did not notify donors after Jan 28th.
“they should at least take on the responsibility to inform that person in a timely fashion” Fair enough, we are down to debating a few extra hours of notice for less than 10% of the people. Wiki gave 13 to 17 to some and more than 48 for most. Plus they wanted to do more. You asked for 24 to 48 hours for all. I guess it comes down to whether Coleman Press Release justified Wiki moving up their release of some of the names.
RickDFL said:
“who raised that issue”
I’ll repeat the crack addled quote:
“That is what happened except the administrator (Coleman) …”
Conflating the administrator and Coleman makes me think you want to assign some intent. *shrug*
So post Adria Richards’ photograph, phone numbers, and physical and e-mail addresses on the web.
I’m surprised that hasn’t yet happened.
DickyDFL just keeps repeating “It’s actually her fault; she was askin for it.”