A data breach, and the Sanders staffer has been fired? Okay, but then cut the Sanders campaign off from the DNC database, which holds all of Sanders' campaign data? Overreaction much?
At LAT, "Fallout from data breach threatens Bernie Sanders' campaign":
A technological transgression is threatening to derail the insurgent White House bid of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and it set off a fierce battle Friday between Sanders and the national Democratic Party, which cut off his campaign from a crucial voter database.Still more.
The dispute was rooted in Sanders staffers peeking at confidential voter files owned by rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign. By the end of the day, after a dizzying volley of charges and counter charges, it had landed before a federal judge. That was after the Sanders technology advisor who oversaw the snooping had been fired and open political warfare had erupted between the party and progressives backing Sanders, who accuse it of meting out a punishment that doesn’t fit the crime to give Clinton a leg up in the race.
It was all an unwelcome development for Sanders on the eve of a presidential debate Saturday in New Hampshire, where he is under pressure to rekindle some of his early momentum. The senator needs a strong showing at the event, in a state that has become almost a must-win for him. He has struggled to gain leverage over Clinton since the focus of voter attention shifted from the economy to national security, an area where she has considerably more experience. Now Sanders is faced with having to answer questions about the data breach.
The dispute also underscores the ever-growing role that data play in modern presidential campaigns, where resources are marshaled around precise formulas that factor in such details as where voters live, their latest purchases at big-box retailers and what magazines they read. The lawsuit the Sanders campaign filed against the Democratic National Committee late Friday alleges the party is breaking its contract with the campaign by cutting it off from a database that is the lifeblood of the campaign.
“The campaign is hamstrung without access to the voter data,” the campaign said in the lawsuit. It said the campaign is losing an estimated $600,000 in contributions each day it does not have access to the data, which is used to target donors. “However the damage to the campaign’s political viability, as a result of being unable to communicate with constituents and voters, is far more severe, and incapable of measurement,” the complaint said.
The electronic snooping at issue came after the contractor that handles the DNC database temporarily dropped the firewall that prevents one campaign from seeing data that belongs to another.
The Sanders campaign responded aggressively to the party's move, saying it had fired the employee who made the decision to peek at the Clinton files and accusing the DNC of trying to “sabotage” Sanders’ campaign by blocking its access to critical voter information.
Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver accused the DNC of holding the campaign’s data “hostage,” which he said was an attack on "the heart and soul" of the Sanders operation. He said the DNC was using the breach as an excuse to do the Clinton campaign’s bidding. Blocking access to the voter database, he said, would prevent the Sanders campaign from using even its own voter information.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the DNC chair, denied that the committee was being unfair. She likened Weaver’s demand for access to the voter file to a burglar who entered a house through an unlocked door, stolen items and then continued to insist on having access to the house.
Blocking the voter database is the only way to “protect the integrity” of the files until an independent audit can determine what information Sanders’ staff may have taken, she said in an interview on CNN. "The Sanders campaign doesn't have anything other than bluster at this moment."
The Clinton campaign piled on, saying Sanders' team had misrepresented what happened.
"This was an egregious breach," said Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. "Our data was stolen. ... This was not an inadvertent glimpse into our data."
More video at Fox News, "Sanders campaign: We don't need dirty tricks."
ADDED: At Politico, via Memeorandum, "Bernie Sanders' campaign sues DNC."
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