A technician hired by the new judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy apparently made a mistake that allowed anyone to access newly created accounts on a Judiciary Committee server shared by both parties – even though the accounts were supposed to restrict access only to those with the right password, says Charlie Savage in a Boston Globe story here.

This meant that from the spring of 2002 until at least April last year, GOP committee staffers had access to restricted Democratic communications without a password.

“Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight – and with what tactics,” states the story, headlined *Infiltration of files seen as extensive / Senate panel’s GOP staff pried on Democrats*.

An investigation has been launched through the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms office and:

“With the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service, his office has interviewed about 120 people to date and seized more than half a dozen computers. Four Judiciary servers, one server from the office of Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives were also seized.

“But the scope of both the intrusions and the likely disclosures is now known to have been far more extensive than the November incident, staffers and others familiar with the investigation say,” the Globe says.

Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch confirmed that “at least one current member of the Judiciary Committee staff had improperly accessed at least some of the documents referenced in media reports,” Savage says.

Hatch apparently didn’t name the staffer but also said a “former member of the Judiciary staff may have been involved,” says to his story.

Whether the memos are ultimately deemed to be official business will be a central issue in any criminal case that could result, the Globe says, adding:

“Unauthorized access of such material could be punishable by up to a year in prison – or, at the least, sanction under a Senate non-disclosure rule.

“The computer glitch dates to 2001, when Democrats took control of the Senate after the defection from the GOP of Senator Jim Jeffords, Independent of Vermont.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2004 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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