Senate Hacker Blames Boss

expriest writes "Manuel Miranda, the Republican Senate staffer under invesitgation for hacking into confidential Democratic files, has sued John Ashcroft to enjoin him against continuing the investigation. Miranda's argument consists of little more than fingerpointing. "Senators used all their official power and their influence over the press" says Miranda's complaint, "to disguise their own wrongdoing, by systematically accusing plaintiff of escalating degrees of criminality." "

Comments

Clarification...

[Samrobb]

Manuel Miranda, the Republican Senate staffer under invesitgation for hacking into confidential Democratic files...

Don't you mean, "under investigation for reading documents posted on an open server?

On government-owned computers...

[PatHMV]

These files were on government-owned, taxpayer-funded computers. Were it not for the fact that Congress exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act, these records would be suject to public review and inspection. Those memos discovered by Miranda which have been publicly released show:

• clear efforts by parties to litigation to influence the results of that litigation by controlling when new judges were confirmed (p. 3)
• confirmation hearings be scheduled around concerns over how a particular confirmation might affect an election in a particular state (South Carolina - p. 8-9)
• racial motivations (to develop a strategy for "dealing with conservative Latino Circuit Court nominees" (p. 14)
• and exactly how much Democrat Senators are focused on pleasing particular special interest organizations and constituencies

So why shouldn't these memos have been in the public eye to begin with? If a whistle-blower had released documents from the White House showing the White House consulting with religious leaders or business leaders or pro-life organizations to discuss judicial appointments and how they would be handled, would anybody be asking for the whistle-blower to be prosecuted? No. The same people on the left who want to crucify Miranda here would be screaming about the public's right to know.

And FYI, here is Miranda's attorneys very clear explanation of the law. Anybody on /. who wants to prosecute Miranda for what he did better be really, really careful about what computers he accesses without really explicit permission in the future.

Re:On government-owned computers...

[PatHMV]

Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott would disagree with you. He believes that it's more important to blow the whistle on alleged wrong-doing than to follow the law. He is the Congressman who, in 1997, accepted an illegally-made tape recording of a phone call between Newt Gingrich and Rep. John Boehner and distributed it to the news media. Rep. McDermott, who was held liable to Rep. Boehner for damages in a ruling by a judge last month, had this to say about his law breaking:

McDermott defended his conduct. "I believed important public issues were involved," he said in a statement, "and that I had the right under the First Amendment to release the taped conversation to the news media."

Note that McDermott is not the one who made the illegal recording. He merely distributed it to the news media. But distribution of illegal wiretaps is itself illegal.

Re:Still Isn't Right

[Zeinfeld]

There was no "infiltration" involved. The memos were happily served up from the DJC's servers sicne they were available to the public with no protection. Furthermore, they were not classified.

That is not accurate. The documents were actually on a machine that should have been secure but the system operator had incorrectly applied the ACLs so that the files were visible to Miranda when they should not have been. This 'mistake' did not happen to the GOP files.

What Miranda did was exactly the same as if he had noticed that the office door of a democrat had not been locked properly and had gone inside to copy the files. That is why he is facing criminal charges.

Miranda has two options. He can either serve his time in jail or if the facts he claims in his lawsuit are true he can tell the FBI who ordered him to collect the information.