Amy Dacey, DNC CEO, says Sanders staffer: tried to delete notes . . . to hide his activities.

[pnwmom]

So Sanders's firing of Uretsky wasn't an overreaction -- he has behaved very well throughout all of this -- and what these staffers were doing was purposeful and wrong.

From a blog post yesterday, here are some of her key points:

The problem was caused by a new software patch with a coding error. But viewing the proprietary information wasn’t an accident: it took "deliberate steps."

On Wednesday morning, NGP VAN applied a new software patch to the DNC’s voter database system, and because of an error in the code, users were capable of accessing some limited, yet extremely valuable information belonging to other campaigns for a very brief window of time. Even though the glitch opened access, users still needed to take deliberate steps to seek out such information.

And, despite what a frequently posted Snopes article says, Dacey reports that a staffer generated reports and exported them from the system.

These staffers then saved this information in their personal folders on the system, and over the course of the next day, we learned that at least one staffer appeared to have generated reports and exported them from the system.
None of this is in dispute. It’s fully documented in the system logs.

Since their initial analysis showed that data had probably been removed during the breach, they temporarily suspended the Sanders’s campaign access to ensure the integrity of the system.

On Thursday, further NGP VAN analysis revealed that it was very likely that a user had taken data out of the system during the breach. Upon learning that, the DNC had to suspend the Sanders campaign’s access to the voter file to ensure the integrity of the system. This action was not taken to punish the Sanders campaign — it was necessary to ensure that the Sanders campaign took appropriate steps to resolve the issue and wasn’t unfairly using another campaign’s data. This temporary suspension was well within the DNC’s authority. Moreover, the DNC was left with little choice in the matter when the Sanders campaign declined to respond in a timely manner to the requests for assistance with an investigation.

And, a new fact that directly contradicts Uretsky’s story about being “white hats”: one staffer tried to cover his tracks:

And the information obtained so far shows that the DNC’s concern to have a full, thorough inquiry was fully justified: As confirmed by the Sanders campaign in the account given the DNC Friday evening, one of the employees of the campaign involved in the misconduct tried to delete the notes they made recording their accessing of Clinton campaign data to hide his activities.

https://medium.com/@AmyKDacey/here-s-what-happened-with-ngp-van-the-sanders-campaign-and-the-clinton-campaign-d75dd1d2edbf#.8cbmbfdqd

[JaneyVee]

1. Drip...drip....drip...

[pnwmom]

2. For some reason the system isn't letting me fix the link, so I'll try it here:

https://medium.com/@AmyKDacey/here-s-what-happened-with-ngp-van-the-sanders-campaign-and-the-clinton-campaign-d75dd1d2edbf#.8cbmbfdqd

[JaneyVee]

4. The @ symbol is breaking the link.

I love Medium but they need to change that quickly, its annoying.

[pnwmom]

7. And the quotes in my subject line were making it impossible to edit at all.

That's a blip in the new system here. First any words in quotation marks in subject lines were getting deleted with edits; now they're preventing edits.

[pnwmom]

3. It still isn't working, but at least the whole address can be read now.

https://medium.com/@AmyKDacey/here-s-what-happened-with-ngp-van-the-sanders-campaign-and-the-clinton-campaign-d75dd1d2edbf#.8cbmbfdqd

[roguevalley]

43. a dnc ceo ... if they said the sky was blue I would

have to check it myself. nice try.

[dlwickham]

5. interesting

[Hoyt]

6. That will be blamed on Clinton too.

[Chef Eric]

9. By whom? nt

[pnwmom]

10. By conspiracy theorists. n/t

[Chef Eric]

11. Such as? nt

[pnwmom]

12. You can guess that.

I'm not going to fall into any traps.

[NurseJackie]

14. :-D

[Chef Eric]

54. I've seen quite a few conspiracy theories around here.

But I don't recall seeing anybody blame Clinton directly for what the Sanders staffers did.

What I've seen is several people who have blamed the DNC, which I think is almost (but not quite) understandable, considering the extreme and inexcusable measure in which the DNC responded.

The reason I posted here is because I objected to the way the poster implied that Sanders' supporters are quick to blame Clinton whenever there is something that doesn't go right for the Sanders campaign. It's not accurate.

[LanternWaste]

64. Nor is accurate to conflate 'imply' and 'infer.'

"the poster implied that Sanders' supporters are... It's not accurate."

Nor is accurate to conflate 'imply' and 'infer,' whether purposefully done, or merely due to lack of relevant knowledge of English.

[Chef Eric]

69. Thank you for the laughs!

Now, I will leave you with some unsolicited advice.

First, if you're going to correct someone's English, then you should at least communicate in complete sentences. Did you bother to READ your subject line before you clicked "Post"?

Second, if you're going to correct someone's English, then you should know what you're talking about. You don't. I did not conflate anything. One who says or writes IMPLIES. One who listens or reads INFERS.

Here are some definitions for you. Read and learn.

imply
verb (used with object), implied, implying.
1. to indicate or suggest without being explicitly stated

infer
verb (used with object), inferred, inferring.
1. to derive by reasoning; conclude or judge from premises or evidence

Have a nice day!

[Chitown Kev]

8. Was this a deliberate attempt to access and view the Clinton campaign's

proprietary info? Yes.

Did the DNC and DWS overreact? Yes, IMO.

But it really doesn't do Bernie and his supporters any good in using this to wage war on the DNC...they were in the wrong.

Do they really want to keep picking this scab...it seems that they do but they do so at their own risk...

[Amimnoch]

39. They need to do something to get those numbers up,

and the usual level of manufactured poutrage just isn't getting that graph up any longer:



http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_democratic_presidential_nomination-3824.html

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. Keep beating that dead horse.

Beat it until it isn't even recognizable as a horse.

Then beat it some more. Beat it til it's liquid rather than solid.

[pnwmom]

16. What happened to the showdown that was supposed to go on last night?

All that blaster and bluster on the part of Weaver and associates, and Bernie ends up apologizing, as he very much needed to.

But I doubt we've seen the end of this yet.

[cherokeeprogressive]

18. Slap, punch, and kick that horse. Liquify it.

[pnwmom]

19. Dream on. n/t

[cherokeeprogressive]

21. Ouch. That's gonna leave a mark.

[JaneyVee]

17. Dead horse? New info keeps coming, more staffers suspended.

[cherokeeprogressive]

20. No reason you shouldn't get some licks in too.

In fact, I have a 36" Easton softball bat I can hook ya up with... might make the job of liquifying it a little easier.

[JaneyVee]

22. The horse isn't dead.

[cherokeeprogressive]

23. It is SO dead. You and your cronies rode into the ground.

And now I'm giggling my flabby white ass off watching you beat it til it soaks into the dirt.

[JaneyVee]

25. Me and my cronies? Calm yourself down.

[cherokeeprogressive]

35. I'll calm down when you stop wearing a dead horse like a crown.

[KittyWampus]

66. You should inform the many Sanders supporters starting OP's about the same incident

since you seem so sure it's a "dead horse".

I'd make a list for you of all the OP's Sanders supporters have going but it's screaming obvious.

One of them says DWS is 'ratf*cking' and another accused her of throwing a 'suicide bomb'

[LanternWaste]

65. I'd misinterpret it as a dead horse too if validating my bias depended on being inaccurate.

I'd misinterpret it as a dead horse too if validating my bias depended on being inaccurate. I'd continue the inaccurate metaphor also, long past its own relevance, but that would simply be beating a dead horse-- and we'd hate to see you guilty of what you indict others for.

[RandySF]

52. And you just keep covering your ears and pretending they did nothing wrong.

[randome]

15. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz mind-controlled those staffers. It's the only possible explanation.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]"If you're bored then you're boring." -Harvey Danger[/center][/font][hr]

[riversedge]

70. KaBOOOOOOOOOOOM. I knew I missed something. Thanks

[Andy823]

24. Yes Bernie did well

He did what was right, and it's real sad that someone is giving him some very bad advice, and every worse his so called supporters are making this into a circus by trying to make Clinton into the evil villain and Bernie the victim. Bernie never once went that route, and that should make his "real" supporters proud.

[Vattel]

26. This doesn't make any sense:

Upon learning that, the DNC had to suspend the Sanders campaign’s access to the voter file to ensure the integrity of the system. This action was not taken to punish the Sanders campaign — it was necessary to ensure that the Sanders campaign took appropriate steps to resolve the issue and wasn’t unfairly using another campaign’s data.

The integrity of the system was no longer at risk because the window had closed. And why would denying the Sanders campaign access to its data be necessary to ensure that the campaign wasn't using the data it had improperly accessed?

[pnwmom]

27. It makes sense to me. They could see the staffer(s) had taken important campaign data

and they didn't know what was being done with it. They wanted assurances that the information was being deleted and that nothing like this was going to happen again.

So they blocked the Sanders campaign till they had the assurance they needed that the database wouldn't be misused again.

(Which they obviously weren't getting from Weaver because he was busy pretending that no one had taken any data and whatever had been done was done by a low level staffer. )

[Vattel]

29. I guess they were so stupid that they thought they had to withhold data from the Sanders campaign

to get them to promise not to do it again.

[pnwmom]

30. Since Weaver was denying the truth -- that data had been taken -- why should they have trusted

anything he verbally assured them?

They were waiting for an assurance in writing, which they finally got late on Friday. And I'm guessing it was signed by Bernie.

[Vattel]

31. Did they need to withhold their data to get an assurance in writing? Of course not.

[pnwmom]

33. It appears that they did, since the Sanders campaign didn't produce it till Friday night. n/t

[Vattel]

34. Obvious fail.

[arcane1]

28. And why only one campaign, if all campaigns' data was vulnerable?

[pnwmom]

32. Because the audit showed that after the data became vulnerable

only the Sanders campaign took the necessary "deliberate steps" to view the data.

[highprincipleswork]

36. Sanders called for an independent audit of the entire history of this IT relationship. GREAT!!!

Anything less than a full independent audit of all the IT history would be a joke.

An independent audit will show the facts and let the chips fall where they may.

That is apparently why the lawsuit is still active, and I for one hope it stays active and reveals the truth, all the way.

[NCTraveler]

37. Sanders, through his own campaigns actions,...

Has put the DNC in a position where they must respond. Sanders going conspiracy in the debate was a big sign. Clinton didn't take the bait. That's it.

[highprincipleswork]

38. OK, let them respond with a full independent audit of the whole history with this IT firm.

[NCTraveler]

40. I'm interested in investigating the theft of Clintond data.

[highprincipleswork]

44. I'm sure you are. But notice how one-sided that is.

[NCTraveler]

48. What are you talking about?

This is why I am losing respect for Sanders himself. The thought process that Home Depo needs to be audited because someone stole a lawn mower is flat out stupid.

[highprincipleswork]

53. There were two known breaches of a firewall that is supposed to be solid and protected.

That is why.

Why shouldn't the company and all their doings be investigated, since they caused the problem in the first place? Since they have questionable ties to the Clinton campaign Etc.?

That is not faulty thinking at all, and if you lose respect for that kind of thinking I'd like to know what kind of thinking you are doing.

Also, why not more debates? Why not? It would, first of all, help to eliminate all this dissatisfaction on the other side, among people who either are part of the Democratic party or would like to be.

These metaphors about home depot and such also are not helpful. What does this IT situation and the political relationship between the Clinton camp and the service providers who were the ones responsible for the firewall breach, have to do with Home Depot. There are too many differences in the nature of that relationship and that contract for it to be a usable metaphor.

All this can be solved by an independent audit, as called for by the Sanders campaign and so far not agreed to by the DNC. What is it you would not like to know?

[leftofcool]

59. The DNC did agree to it. Going on right now by Kroll

[pnwmom]

68. No, there is only one known BREACH of a firewall -- that done by the Sanders' campaign.

The Sanders campaign is merely alleging that the other campaigns had an opportunity to breach the wall when there was software problem in October -- not that they did it.

To deflect from their own guilt, they are playing the "everyone does it" game.

[kenfrequed]

51. Really?

Because I want a complete audit of every instance where the firewall went down.

[angrychair]

41. The timeline given

in this person's explanation doesn't match pervious details already released by NGP-VAN and the DNC.

This statement is false based on NGP-VAN's release on their own site, that has been modified since its first release, but no details that match this claim exist even today:

"On Thursday, further NGP VAN analysis revealed that it was very likely that a user had taken data out of the system during the breach."

Link to NGP-VAN's own release, from their CEO, on this issue, on their own website, that for some twlight-zone reason means less than hyperbole from people that don't understand the technical details of what actually happened:
http://blog.ngpvan.com/news/data-security-and-privacy

Why is the above quote from the DNC lackey false? From link at NGP-VAN's site:
"As noted below, users were unable to export lists of people.

And

"For a brief window, the voter data that is always searchable across campaigns in VoteBuilder included client scores it should not have, on a specific part of the VAN system. So for voters that a user already had access to, that user was able to search by and view (but not export or save or act on) some attributes that came from another campaign."

These statements were written by the NGP-VAN's CEO himself. Their statements have been tweaked but not altered since they were first released. They do not support the claims of this person from the DNC.

In short, I will gladly consider further public statements from the vendor or the findings of an official independent investigation but not the babbling hyperbole of a DNC mouthpiece.

[pnwmom]

47. The link you were citing has been superseded by newer information

that is documented in the database logs.

The vendor hasn't updated it's website.

[angrychair]

49. It has

Twice. I originally posted it only a couple hours after it came out. It has been modified at least twice since Thursday.
Second, there is no detailed explanation of what is actually happening in the "log" except a couple of news media stories that dramatically oversimplify what little it does say.

Lastly, the "log" file is no computer-created log file. It is a timeline of events with short explanations but I have been in IT for 21 years and seen all kinds of log files produced by all kinds of software, they never look like that. That was created by a person, not a machine.

As I have said many times, would I have handled It like the Sanders data steward? No.
The Sanders data steward was a trained and experienced administrator of the VoteBuilder database. I see zero attempt to "beat the system". He created the accounts with his information and created the files and folders, that only existed in VoteBuilder and not on campaign computers, using Sanders name in many of them.

Did they do screenshots and/or takes pics with their phones? I guess they could have. No actual evidence of that. Not sure what the value of doing that would be.

My point is that the often cited "log file" is a human created executive summary, a brief synopsis of a series of events with little context or explanation of terms.

I would love to see a detailed explanation, with visuals, of what is happening at each point in that chain of events so people would get a better understanding and not oversimplify or create their own conclusions.

[Bjorn Against]

42. Let's stop hear in from the people who failed to safeguard the data and get a full independent audit

Let's have an audit from day one of the campaign that looks to see how many times the firewall went down and who could have accessed it during those time periods. The audit needs to also look at how many times the IT company was notified of security gaps and what actions they took to fix those gaps.

If the DNC wants an investigation then lets have a real investigation that looks at the whole picture.

[pnwmom]

46. There has already been an audit arranged, to be done by a mutually agreed upon independent co.

[merrily]

45. WHY did the staffers do what they did? I don't believe for a second Sanders knew what they were

doing or created or contributed to a "win at any cost" atmosphere for his staff. Did they just want him to win so badly that they lost their own respective moral compasses?

[Chef Eric]

55. There's an article about Uretsky at philly.com.

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20151220_Philadelphian_Uretsky_at_center_of_Dems__data_breach.html

According to the article, there was nothing nefarious about what he did.

He's just a guy who just made a bad decision.

[restorefreedom]

50. thanks, but i will wait for the results of the independent audit

and the lawsuit discovery. the dnc kind of pissed away their cred on this one.

[Cha]

56. KICK!

[NCTraveler]

57. This is one of the reasons Sanders is going scorched earth.

He has to deflect away from this issue. Every day it is becoming more clear how nefarious this truly was on his campaigns part. Fired his National Data Director and suspended others. More to come.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

60. This isn't scorched earth. You'll know it if it happens.

[NCTraveler]

61. He is no longer standing for things, just against them.

He left message and it isn't pretty. It's as scorched earth as it gets.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

62. Scorched earth would involve Ms. Clinton answering lots of uncomfortable questions.

You'll know it if it happens.

[R B Garr]

63. Thats what I was thinking. He needs to claim victim

status to deflect from his campaign's malfeasance.

[EndElectoral]

58. Put to bed until there is an "independent" audit rather than he said/she said.

[R B Garr]

67. Donna Brazille said there was evidence of files

being deleted. But Bernie has to play the victim to deflect from his campaign's malfeasance. How phony.