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Obama's Mobile Phone Records Compromised, Shared
Tiger4 writes "Verizon has confirmed that some of its employees have accessed and perhaps shared calling records of President Elect Barack Obama (coverage at CNN, Reuters, AP). Verizon says the people involved have all been put on leave with pay as the investigation proceeds. Some of the employees may have accessed the information for legitimate purposes, but others may have been curiosity seekers and may have even shared the information around. The account was 'only' a phone, not a BlackBerry or similar device, and Verizon believes it was just calling records, not voicemail or email that was compromised. The articles do not mention the similarity to the warrantless wiretapping or hospital records compromises of recent months. But that immediately sprang to mind for me."
You mean like all of the wackos that came out believing that Obama was the second coming of Jesus? The reason I'm sympathetic to his security concerns is that I stopped supporting Obama because of all of the wild-eyed zealots the man was attracting to him. Not that I supported McCain, who had some lunies of his own, but Obama clearly had a lot more people willing to take any attack on him as deeply personal, as was shown when he was able to rally his supporters to shut down several radio stations that had Stanley Kurtz discussing Obama.
Oh and that reference to the guy who called for Joe to be murdered? Not too hard to find.
Think about it... people believe you can't stop drugs because people are attracted to them and there is an almost infinite amount of money to be made. Well, same with phone and hospital records.
OK, how much would a sleazy tabloid (think National Enquirer) pay for Obama's phone records? What would they pay for a single phone number that was registered to someone that Mr. O should not be talking to? Be a hooker in Vegas or a low-level government employee in Saudi Arabia, such news would be incredibly valuable in the right hands. And nearly every single Verizon employee has access (although not legitimate) to this information.
Similar thinks happen in a hospital, but the occurrence is lower. With phone records you probably have something worth selling every month. So the real question is how long is it going to take before there is a real market for this kind of information? Can Verizon (or any carrier) fire every employee that accesses the information improperly? Maybe, but probably not.
I think we're just going to have to live with the new value of this information.
Nobody said he was an operative, dipshit. However, they took a guy that wasn't an operative and turned him into one by building a campaign around him (which was pretty fucking stupid considering the guy doesn't even pay the taxes he owes now). In any event, given his history, it's very amusing that he was so concerned about a tax increase to people making over $250k a year. Moreso when you consider this guy will never make that much a year in his lifetime.