Mother Jones: Here's What Actually Happened in the Great Sanders-Clinton Data Theft

[Algernon Moncrieff]

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2015/12/heres-what-actually-happened-great-sanders-clinton-data-theft

....However, the access logs do show that Sanders staff pulled not one but multiple lists—not searches, but lists—a fact that shows intent to export and use. And the lists were highly sensitive material. News reports have indicated that the data was "sent to personal folders" of the campaign staffers—but those refer to personal folders within NGPVAN, which are near useless without the ability to export the data locally....Even without being to export, however, merely seeing the topline numbers of, say, how many voters the Clinton campaign had managed to bank as "strong yes" votes would be a valuable piece of oppo.

...This doesn't mean that Wasserman-Schultz hasn't, in David Axelrod's words, been putting her thumb on the scale on behalf of the Clinton campaign....Still, the Sanders camp's reactions have been laughable. It was their team that unethically breached Clinton's data. It was their comms people who spoke falsely about what happened. The Sanders campaign wasn't honeypotted into doing it—their people did it of their own accord.... What's very clear is that the Clinton camp did nothing wrong in any of this. Sanders campaign operatives did, and then Wasserman-Schultz compounded it by overreacting. And in the end, the right thing ended up happening: the lead staffer in question was fired, and the campaign got its data access back.

Read the whole thing for more detail. Overall, though, this gibes with my tentative view of the matter. The DNC may have overreacted, and maybe NGPVAN is incompetent. I'm agnostic on those issues. But there's not much question that the Sanders campaign acted badly here, and then tried to pretend that they were merely "testing" the system's security—which is, as Atkins says, laughable. They pulled dozens of lists from the Clinton campaign and, according to news reports, never notified anyone they had done it.

This was stupid, and Sanders has been ill-served by his team. He's rightfully fired the guy who did it, and probably ought to fire the subordinates who joined in. And that should be the end of it.

[PatrickforO]

1. OK. I can accept that.

Still really furious with Wasserman Schultz, though.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

2. FYI, Sanders suspended two more staffers

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/bernie-sanders-suspends-two-staffers-217007#ixzz3upwoTDy2

Also posted in LBN.

I'm a HRC supporter. That said, I wasn't thrilled with DWS before this and I'm not thrilled with her now. I'd be good with bringing Dean back. However, theft of campaign data by the Sanders camp is completely unacceptable -- albeit completely normal in American politics. .

[PatrickforO]

5. Well, he's fixing it.

This is the thing about supporting Bernie, you know. If you do, you're downright fervent. At least I am. Not that I would commit a crime for his sake, don't misunderstand. But I am fervent and I was quite hot headed yesterday because I really thought it was a classic Rovian ratf**k.

That doesn't, of course, give the staffers any excuse.

That said, I still smell a DNC VAN rat, and I'm perfectly Ok with conspiracy theories...

[Chitown Kev]

6. I'd be OK with David Axelrod, actually

Dean, while a Clinton supporter, at least seems fair and Axelrod seems neutral (and a little in favor of Bernie, if anything) but both Dean and Axelrod know how to win national elections, DWS...not so much.

[joshcryer]

3. Sanders people fucked up but DWS overreacted.

That's basically my summation of the events as succinctly as I can put it.

The specificity of the searches were actionable proof.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

4. You put it well and boil the article down to a sentence.

[mhatrw]

7. DNClinton's Cronyforce software's motto

all Sanders' database are belong to us

[winter is coming]

8. Spin with technobabble is still spin.

Atkins is assigning unknowable intent because the Sanders staff pulled multiple lists. Yes, it could show intent to actually export data, but it could also show that they were trying to determine whether such lists could be pulled, for a variety of information. The best indication that this was an ill-conceived white hat attempt to document the breach is the way they went about it--using names including "Bernie" and skipping about here and there, testing the corners, which is exactly in keeping with what you'd do to document a problem. The explanation that was circulated on Reddit better accounts for the currently available facts that the article from the Washington Monthly. I look forward to seeing the results of an independent audit covering the last several months' worth of activity.

I thought this sentence was odd: "They pulled dozens of lists from the Clinton campaign and, according to news reports, never notified anyone they had done it." The Sanders campaign contacted the vendor. I notice that Drum doesn't outright state they never notified anyone, he merely implies it by alluding to the news reports, which lets him make the accusation now and sidle out of it later.

In short, this is better-quality spin, but sill spin, and not up to Mother Jones' usual standard.

[Festivito]

9. Poor article is actually a poor opinion piece. Below what I expect from MJ.

Author should look at or mention the log for one. I think he did not look very far in order to keep his preconceived opinion.

[Cha]

10. 2 more Staffers have been fired now.. haven't gotten their names yet.. could it be any of these?..

Patrick Dillon ?@mpdillon
Hard to see how this is just a campaign helpfully trying to alert a vendor of a problem. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-12-18/sanders-campaign-fires-data-director-after-breach-of-clinton-files …

http://theobamadiary.com/2015/12/18/the-presidents-press-conference-4/

[artislife]

11. I wonder if you think Obama should have reacted the way DWS did

back in 2008?

But he was and is far too smart to be that petty and ...well...stupid.

[Cha]

12. KICK!

[ljm2002]

14. Hmmm...

...from the article:

"The DNC may have overreacted, and maybe NGPVAN is incompetent. I'm agnostic on those issues."

Sorry -- that makes their perceptions suspect to me.

Even if they are correct on the nature of the breach by the Sanders team, they did not do their own credibility any favors with the above comment, IMO.

[Vattel]

15. My summation is a bit different:

Some Sanders staffers acted reprehensibly.
DWS acted wrongly by withholding data, and she was even worse in her public statements.
Some of the Clinton campaign's statements in response to the events were unfair to Sanders.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

16. I agree with point 1, and lean strongly toward point 2

I guess I'm uncertain how Hillary acted unfairly.

[Vattel]

17. They used the incident to impugn Bernie's integrity.