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

Still Isn't Right

[alatesystems]

According to Boston News, he allegedly "infiltrated Democratic Judiciary Committee computer files" and copied "thousands of memos and passing some on to the media".

He says he was "just following orders" as a previous poster has said, and that they should be in court instead of him. They should be in court WITH him.

Even though someone told him to do something that he knew was wrong, he allegedly did it anyway. I hate when people cop-out by saying "I was just following orders."

"You know, the Nazis had pieces of flare they made the Jews wear."

Chris

Some HACKING

[Marxist Hacker 42]

All he did was attach to an OPEN SHARE DRIVE on the Senate LAN. I would have thought this would have been cleared up months ago- Republicans apologize to Democrats, and Democrats start password protecting your share drives!

The whole thing is proof positive to me that we need a new generation in leadership of this country. These old fogies don't even understand the technology that is on their desks- how can they ever hope to understand such complex issues as why we shouldn't be letting Taiwan build all of our hardware?

Re:Clarification...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, National Review tells the whole story.

It wasn't a "open server" it was an unsecured server. Big difference. It's just like using someones unsecured WiFi basestation. You aren't allowed to mess with people's stuff just because it isn't locked. We all learn that as children.

Some Ethics.

[abb3w]

All he did was attach to an OPEN SHARE DRIVE on the Senate LAN.

...containing files that no person had authorized him to access, and which as a lawyer he was ethically obligated to NOT examine, but rather report the appropriate authorities-- to wit, the opposition.

Were the Democrats mindbogglingly stupid? Yes. Should the Democratic sysadmin be summarily fired? Yes-- and probably even fired from a cannon into a brick wall. Was an initial discovery of this open share possibly accidentally? Absolutely. Was this a "hack" doable by the average seven-year old? Very likely.

Was the conduct of the Republicans ethical? In no way, shape, or form. Was it criminal? Possibly; a judge and/or jury needs to sort out the meaning of "authorized" in this context. Computer intrusion law may stretch to cover Mr. Miranda, but not his bosses-- although conspiracy might stretch that far.

Is this the sort of person you want representing you? Speaking for myself: no, to both the idiot Democrats and the unethical Republicans. What the Republicans should have done was made sure the Democrats knew to fix it, and then made sure the press knew that the Democrats had been stupid, and the Republicans had been "gentlemenly" about it and not taken advantage of those poor bumpkins.