Hatch ‘mortified’ by breaches
p2pnet.net News:- Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch says he’s “mortified” by an “improper, unethical, simply unacceptable breach of confidential files”.
From the spring of 2002 until at least April last year, GOP committee staffers had access to restricted Democratic communications without a password.
Hatch says more than 100 of his own computer files were “improperly accessed and transmitted outside the Senate,” says an Associated Press report here.
Ironically, (or appropriately? : ) currently ‘featured’ on the Hatch committee’s web page is Protecting Creative Works in a Digital Age: What is at stake for Content Creators, Providers, and Users? Unfortunately, the link wasn’t working when we went for a look.
In the meanwhile, the staffers were “able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight – and with what tactics,” says our earlier report here.
Now two former senate republican employees are being blamed for distributing Democratic computer memos to Republicans, although, “the computer files also were not adequately protected,” says AP.
“Democrats are calling for an outside investigation, but the committee has yet to decide what its next step will be,” says AP. “The report said 4,670 files were found on a GOP aide’s computer, ‘the majority of which appeared to be from folders belonging to Democratic staff.’
Senator Richard Durbin, D-Ill, is quoted as saying his office was targeted and suggested that Illinois US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald be appointed as a special prosecutor by the Justice Department to review the information uncovered so far and make recommendations on how to proceed.
An investigation launched through the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms office had the help of forensic computer experts from General Dynamics and the US Secret Service. More than half a dozen computers were seized and four Judiciary servers, one from the office of senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee, and several desktop hard drives, were also seized.
“A report released by the Judiciary Committee and authored by Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William Pickle’s office faults two former GOP aides,” the AP story continues, “Manuel Miranda, who worked for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Hatch, before resigning, and Jason Lundell, a clerk who worked on nominations for Hatch before leaving last year.
Miranda and Lundell, “who were accessing other users’ files on the Judiciary Committee computer network,” were the only ones identified.
“This marks the first time Lundell has been named,” says AP. “Senators had been referring to him as a ‘young Hatch staffer’. No address was available for him.”
In an e-mailed statement, Miranda said the report “merely colors in what we volunteered over three months ago, but does so at the cost of $500,000″ but regardless, “the report fails to find any criminal hacking or any credible suggestion of criminal acts,” said Miranda, who also asked for an investigation of what he called ‘unethical substance’ of the Democrats’ memos.
It seems Lundell was able to hack in by using a little social engineering.
“He learned how to get access by watching a system administrator work on his computer, the report said,” according to AP, going on that Lundell printed out more than 100 documents dealing with the nomination battle over Mississippi judge Charles Pickering, and searched Democratic files almost daily while working on the nomination of Texas judge Priscilla Owen, the report said. “Both were being blocked by Senate Democrats.”
Lundell, “continued to provide Democratic – and also Republican – documents to Mr. Miranda after he left the Judiciary Committee,” the report also said.
