Joe Lieberman has sent out his campaign spokesman, Sean Smith, multiple times today to
accuse Ned Lamont and his supporters of hacking their campaign website, joe2006.com.
Smith even filed a complaint with the Attorney General, who issued this statement:
"I have received a complaint from Sen. Lieberman's campaign asking my office to investigate the hacking of his campaign web site. I will investigate potential violations of anti-hacking provisions of our state computer crimes laws that are specifically within my jurisdiction. I will also work with the State Elections Enforcement Commission, and state and federal criminal authorities concerning possible violations of state election statutes, and federal election protections and other laws. We will seek civil and criminal penalties, where appropriate."
Unfortunately for Smith, many competent Internet users have researched the Lieberman camp's complaints, and found them to be baseless, as seen here (note: these logs are copied from the front page of DailyKos.com):
#telnet mail.joe2006.com 25
Trying 69.56.129.130...
Connected to mail.joe2006.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
220-server1.myhostcamp.com ESMTP Exim 4.52 #1 Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:08:14 -0700
220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited, 220 and/or bulk e-mail.
helo server1.myhostcamp.com Hello [65.96.230.83]
mail from:anonymous@anonymous.com OK
rcpt to:kos@dailykos.com
[my IP address removed] is currently not permitted to relay through this server. Perhaps you have not logged into the pop/imap server in the last 30 minutes or do not have SMTP Authentication turned on in your email client.
In other words it works fine, I just don't have the credentials to use it.
POP3 server
#telnet mail.joe2006.com 110
Trying 69.56.129.130...
Connected to mail.joe2006.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK POP3 server1 [cppop 20.0] at [69.56.129.130]
user joe
+OK Need a password
pass idontknow
-ERR Username/Password Mismatch
Connection closed by foreign host.
Same deal. Responded just fine, just not without a password. To me that's a working server.
And more:
Trying 69.56.129.130...
Connected to mail.joe2006.com.<
Escape character is '^]'.
220-server1.myhostcamp.com ESMTP Exim 4.52 #1 Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:33:59 -0700
220-We do not authorize the use of this system to transport unsolicited, and/or bulk e-mail.
helo test.com server1.myhostcamp.com Hello test.com [192.168.0.1]
mail from: test@test.com OK
rcpt to: jnerpel@joe2006.com Accepted data
354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
Test.
250 OK id=1GAaFX-0003Or-Ht
quit server1.myhostcamp.com closing connection
Even the same IP hosts an anti-Ned Lamont website, and it is working fine, and has all day:
http://www.meetned.com/ 69.56.129.130
http://www.joe2006.com/ 69.56.129.130
MeetNed.com - Up.
Joe2006.com - Down.
Dan Gerstein now comes out, after Smith and Gerstein have repeated it all day, that they have no evidence Lamont or his supporters hacked the website.
In addition, it has been reported that the website is hosted along with 73 other websites. The website Wonkette has posted Lieberman's hosting tab from FEC filings. More technical discussion has been at robzr's diary.
Even more unfortunate for Smith, there is a provision in Connecticut's Penal Code if he indeed submitted a false report:
Sec. 53a-180c. Falsely reporting an incident in the second degree: Class A misdemeanor. (a) A person is guilty of falsely reporting an incident in the second degree when, knowing the information reported, conveyed or circulated to be false or baseless, such person gratuitously reports to a law enforcement officer or agency (1) the alleged occurrence of an offense or incident which did not in fact occur, (2) an allegedly impending occurrence of an offense or incident which in fact is not about to occur, or (3) false information relating to an actual offense or incident or to the alleged implication of some person therein.
(b) Falsely reporting an incident in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.
Joe Lieberman, you are a traitor to the Democratic Party, and you have proven it again today by adopting Rovian tactics and lying about your opponent and his supporters.
I'd like to send a hat-tip to Bob Brigham for leading on this story. I've posted it as a comment, but many suggested it should be a diary as well.
Unlike Sean Smith, who tosses out baseless accusations for a living, it appears, I simply ask the question, without making an assertion of fact: did the Lieberman camp lie today to the American people and Connecticut residents? He decided to attack Lamont and his supporters directly and blame any "downtime" on them. And he must be held accountable in the national and local media if this is true.
Let's hope Ned Lamont wins a decisive victory tonight and in the general election.
Update [2006-8-8 19:43:33 by ProgressiveFighter]:: A commenter states below that the campaign would have to knowingly file a false report. This may be true. In that case, if they did knowingly do so, let's hope someone from their campaign comes forward and presents such information. However, considering the campaign lately, I doubt anyone with integrity works at Lieberman '06 headquarters.
Update [2006-8-8 20:35:14 by ProgressiveFighter]: SmokeyMonkey has two comments on another thread stating that the Joe campaign is fiddling with their DNS servers right now. View their comments