Ex-US State Dept. Worker Pleads Guilty To Extensive Sextortion Case (networkworld.com)

coondoggie writes: The former U.S. Department of State man accused of hacking into hundreds of victims' e-mail and social media accounts, stealing thousands of sexually explicit photographs, and threatening at least 75 victims that he would post those photos and other personal information unless they agreed to his demands has entered a guilty plea to the nefarious attacks. Michael C. Ford, 36, of Atlanta, was indicted by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on Aug. 18, 2015, with nine counts of cyberstalking, seven counts of computer hacking to extort and one count of wire fraud.

Comments

Summon the warrantless bulk collection apologists.

[Anonymous Coward]

A very tame example of why we shouldn't be allowing warrantless bulk data collection - the obvious better examples are those of journalists assassinated - such as Michael Hastings.

Re:Summon the warrantless bulk collection apologis

[BitterOak]

A very tame example of why we shouldn't be allowing warrantless bulk data collection - the obvious better examples are those of journalists assassinated - such as Michael Hastings.

I'm not defending this guy in any way, but if you read the article, it doesn't appear he used data from any government bulk data collection program. In fact, I don't think he used any special access he might have had working in the State Department. He just happened to be employed there. That doesn't make what he did okay, and it doesn't make government warrantless data collection okay, but one doesn't really follow from the other in this case at all.