(updates at bottom)
The DNC has a database of “master voter records”. As you may be aware, the third party vendor that handles that data has been resposible for multiple security breaches; the Sanders campaign has reported these breaches; in the latest breach, a Sanders staffer accessed Clinton data; the Sanders staffer was immediately fired; and the DNC decided to shut off all Sanders access to the database. This means that for the time being, Sanders volunteers cannot phonebank, and cannot effectively canvas in person either.
Why would the Sanders campaign leave such vital functions in the hands of a third party? For that matter, the Clinton campaign does the same thing, and it was their data that was breached. Are they both stupid?
No. Democrats use a common database because in the end, we’re on the same team. Each time any campaign uses that data, they’re feeding back into the database. When the primary is over, whoever lost can decide to release that data to the winner. And there’s no doubt that either Sanders or Clinton would make that choice.
So what I’m saying is letting all the candidates use the database in the primary helps our nominee in the general. Sanders using the database helps Clinton later if she wins; Clinton using it helps Sanders later if he wins.
Right now, Sanders still has a real chance to win this, but it still looks as if the most probable winner is Clinton. If that happens, then all of us making phone calls for Sanders are effectively doing data gathering that will improve the effectiveness of Clinton’s GOTV operation in the general election. And I’m very happy to be doing that; after all, we are on the same team in the end, and of course my work is going to help every down-ticket Dem too.
Shutting off Sanders’s access to the database, in punishment for the actions of a single staffer who is no longer with the campaign, is harmful to Sanders, yes. But more importantly, it’s harmful to Democrats. It means less data is gathered. And to every volunteer who’s freely giving up their time and energy to make party-building phone calls, it sends a message loud and clear: we don’t want you.
Personally, it makes me incredibly angry, to the point where part of me wants to threaten to withhold my vote in the general election. If somehow I had to vote between Trump and DWS (not HRC) for president, I’d leave the ballot blank, even though I know that Trump is literally comparable to Hitler in many ways. Believe me, I do not make that “threat” lightly, and if I’m at that point I'm sure there are many others who would make less-careful threats.
If this situation is not resolved by this weekend (say, Saturday afternoon), I will spend my phonebanking time contacting every Democratic insider I can — my Senators, congressperson, state reps, and my high school buddy who’s on a muni Democratic central committee — and telling them that DWS has to go.
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Please, in the comments to this diary: I know there's nothing I can do to prevent pie fighting, but please try to keep it down, or at least civil and fact-based. In particular, I will flag allegations that either campaign intentionally accessed the other’s data, aside from the one staffer who is NO LONGER a part of the Bernie campaign. (I won’t flag it if you have a solid source… but you don’t.)
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UPDATE: There is now an article on CNN with quotes from the fired staffer. Here’s what he says:
"We knew there was a security breach in the data, and we were just trying to understand it and what was happening,"...
"To the best of my knowledge, nobody took anything that would have given the (Sanders) campaign any benefit."...
"We investigated it for a short period of time to see the scope of the Sanders campaign's exposure and then the breach was shut down presumably by the vendor. We did not gain any material benefit."...
"They called me fairly quickly after the breach was closed to inform me that there was something weird going on and that portions of the system were shut down," ...
The point: He wanted people with knowledge of the voter files to be able to clearly see that he was testing the depth of the breach.
"This wasn't the first time we identified a bad breach in the NGP-VAN system. In retrospect, I got a little panicky because our data was totally exposed, too. We had to have an assessment, and understand of how broad the exposure was and I had to document it so that I could try to calm down and think about what actually happened so that I could figure out how to protect our stuff."...
"It was 100% my responsibly and I take full responsibility for whatever happened,"
I am a former IT professional and a doctoral student in statistics. I can say pretty clearly that if you had access to all the other campaign’s data, “voter models” are probably the best way to demonstrate the seriousness of this breach without actually picking up anything useful. So the fact that the access was originally reported as “voter models” seems to me to support this guy’s story.
If any official from either campaign responds to the staffer and disputes what he says, then it’s fair game. Until then, any random person on the internet casting doubt on his claims is just stirring up shit.
Update 2: At a suggestion from comments, I created a Bernie donation campaign for those of us who want to send a message to the DNC that this is not OK. Here it is: secure.actblue.com/...
And because this shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but an issue of improving our Democratic database, here’s a fundraising page for Clinton to send the same message: secure.actblue.com/…
Also, here’s the link to the MoveOn petition: petitions.moveon.org/… (hat tip to Ganedan, diary here:www.dailykos.com/...)