By now you may heard that the Bernie Sanders campaign accessed confidential data from the Clinton campaign through a DNC voter database. As a result the DNC suspended the Sanders campaign’s access to the data, which is key for early caucuses and primaries, until they can be sure that the information has been deleted.
The Democratic National Committee has now cut off Sanders’s access to the voter file — until the Sanders campaign officials can “prove” they’ve deleted the Clinton data.
This is the part where all Sanders supporters stop and take a deep breath. Yes, the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz would love to be able to completely shut Bernie’s campaign down but this isn’t the thing that is going to make it happen. Remember a while back when many Sanders supporters lost their collective minds when a story came out that Bernie might now get on the ballot in New Hampshire? We urged people then to stop and take a deep breath and we are doing it again now.
In through the nose and out through the mouth….there we go, isn’t that better?
The breach occurred on Wednesday, a DNC official confirmed, through the NGP VAN, the leading technology company that allows campaigns to identify voters, as well as monitor their preferences and leanings, in what’s called the 50-state voter file. For a “brief window” — about 30 minutes, an official said — a bug in the software exposed the campaigns’ internal “voter ID” data.
“Sadly, the DNC is relying on an incompetent vendor who on more than one occasion has dropped the firewall between the various Democratic candidates’ data,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager.
As soon as the Sanders campaign became aware of the problem they fired the person who accessed the data and alerted the vendor about the problem. This story is still developing but since both camps were left vulnerable it’s hard to say right now whether or not Clinton’s camp returned the favor by looking at Bernie’s data as well.
The period in which proprietary voter file data was available to all campaigns did not affect the overall integrity of the data itself, according to the DNC.
According to an article on Washington Post, Jeff Weaver, the Vermont senator’s campaign manager, acknowledged that a low-level staffer had viewed the information but blamed a software vendor hired by the DNC for a glitch that allowed access. Weaver said one Sanders staffer was fired over the incident.
Weaver said the Sanders campaign never downloaded or printed any of the data, meaning it is no longer in possession of any proprietary information. He squarely blamed NGP VAN for the glitch — and blamed the DNC for hiring the company.
The breach occurred on Wednesday, a DNC official confirmed, through the NGP VAN, the leading technology company that allows campaigns to identify voters, as well as monitor their preferences and leanings, in what’s called the 50-state voter file. For a “brief window” — about 30 minutes, an official said — a bug in the software exposed the campaigns’ internal “voter ID” data.
The Sanders campaign also laid the blame at the feet of NGP VAN. “Sadly, the vendor who runs the DNC’s voter file program continues to make serious errors,” Michael Briggs, Sanders’s top communications aide, told BuzzFeed News.
“After discussion with the DNC it became clear that one of our staffers accessed some modeling data from another campaign,” Briggs said. “That behavior is unacceptable and that staffer was immediately fired.”
“On more than one occasion, the vendor has dropped the firewall between the data of different Democratic campaigns. Our campaign months ago alerted the DNC to the fact that campaign data was being made available to other campaigns,” said Briggs. “At that time our campaign did not run to the media, relying instead on assurances from the vendor.”
More on this developing story as it unfolds but in the meantime, in through the nose, out through the mouth!
I smell something fishy and it is coming from the DNC and Hillary, a good way to stop Bernie’s momentum! The DNC should have taken care of this problem when it was brought to their attention!
I do too!
….I hear the DNC leaked the story.
FYI – The founder of NGP VAN was Chief Technology Officer for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Pearlman
http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/debbie-wasserman-schultz-2?source=s.em.mt&r_by=14745129
Sign the petition and say we won’t have this!
Still, regardless, don’t allow the GOP to win the white house. The next president will probabbly be appointing at least one supreme court justice. Don’t let them have that power! Meanwhile, hold the DNC accountable and give Bernie all we got!
Despucable on the part of Qassermann, HRC and the DNC! They are low-down and dirty to blame Bernie for THEIR incompetencies! Further, please explain why Wassermann-Shulz has scheduled the very limited number of debates for Saturday’s such as the upcoming one when most citizens will be preoccupied with their families and friends? Cenk of the Young Turks asked this same question bs more and others in a recent show because in reality, not scheduling these debates for days/times more people could watch hurts the party as a whole. Democrats need to remove Debbie as she’s more concerned with protecting HRC’s campaign than getting people out to vote Democrat! Ask yourselves folks why the corporate media refuses to give Sanders equal coverage? We The People (and the Young Turks) wanna know! Could it be that HRC has them in her pocket? She’s most definitely in theirs!
Despicable on the part of Wassermann, HRC and the DNC! They are low-down and dirty to blame Bernie for THEIR incompetencies! Further, please explain why Wassermann-Schulz has scheduled the very limited number of debates on Saturdays such as the upcoming one when most citizens will be preoccupied with their families and friends? Cenk of the Young Turks asked this same question and others in a recent show because in reality, not scheduling these debates for days/times more people could watch hurts the party as a whole. Democrats need to remove Debbie as she’s more concerned with protecting HRC’s campaign than getting people out to vote Democrat! Ask yourselves folks why the corporate media refuses to give Sanders equal coverage? We The People (and the Young Turks) wanna know! Could it be that HRC has them in her pocket? She’s most definitely in theirs!
If the Clinton team saw something, they are not going to admit it!
Hillary showing integrity; how would we know when she did? Bernie wouldn’t do anything to purposely hurt himself or the campaign, because he has to work too hard to get as far as he’s come, to do that sort of thing. I don’t believe he would do anything like that, even if he was not running for ….anything.
way to go all truther on us LOL
Cheaters never win in the end and it is not Senator Bernie Sander’s campaign doing the cheating. It is clearly the DNC and the nasty tactics of trying to push Bernie Sanders from the race which only alienates voters.
Thank you!
They already admitted the improper access, and fired the staffer. This not in dispute, and the HRC campaign is the victim here…Bernie should make a statement owning up, period.
You pro-hrc people make me sick.. Bernie did not cause the breach.. The incompetent data vendor HIRED BY the DNC continued the incompetence that was first evident in October. Bernie’s campaign data was ALSO breached. This fact will come out after an independent audit of the incompetent vendor. Don’t speak about ‘poor hrc’ to me… she is NOT poor.. she is RICH.. made rich by Wall Street.. she does not support YOU… so my question is: Why would you choose to support her?! I can only assume you have problems in the IQ department… Bernie Sanders is an honest man, and the RIGHT person for POTUS. I do not listen to any of you hrc ignoramuses… neither do any of my Bernie-supporting friends.
go, Bernie!! (oh.. yes.. and the DNC should fire DWS. as she is ALSO incompetent.) #BernieorBust
Victim???? You dishonor the word. Just HRC and HER DNC dishonor democracy.
Okay, I’m breathing. Nevertheless we need to take action about this asap, presumably. I’ve signed the Move On petition and posted that and the DNC contact information on my Facebook page. I also tweeted the DNC. Is there anything else we can do?
A smear campaign is a fear campaign.
I’m proud to call myself a BernieBacker.
I will cast my voter for the PERSON I feel is right for me and not be influenced by polls and negative shenanigans. #Sanders2016
Right on! Bernie or bust!
Hell Yes! #BernieOrBust. I think a lot more people will feel this way after these “shenanigans!” #WriteIns
Stu Trevelyan, CEO of NGP VAN, worked directly on a number of campaigns, including working in the 1992 Clinton-Gore “War Room,” and then in the Clinton White House. Can you say conflict of interest? I think an investigation into how many time Clinton’s staffers gained access to Bernie’s records. And it needs to happen NOW!
Absolutely we need to find this out… Right now! and we need to hire some kind of atty to check and see if the DNC supression of public access to Sanders is criminal or not… They have undermined the entire election process of democratic candidates… Seems to me there must be some kind of election law or constitutional law that has been broken here, with this latest move and the debat fiasco.
Exactly! Washerman Schultz was just on MSNBC and stated that there will be an independent audit (read – drawn out process) and the shutdown of access was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data. That makes no sense given that the security hole has already been patched. She is basically saying preserve the integrity of the Bernie Sanders data? This is definitely an offensive move by the Clinton campaign.
Folks – Just Get Out and VOTE For BERNIE SANDERS for Next President 2016!!! Every VOTE COUNTS EVEN MORE NOW!
Agreed! I think the DNC needs a reality check las they are supposed to be serving We The People’s best interest yet they seem to serving only HRC and her bots not the millions of folks who have invested in Sanders campaign in a faulty belief that if Bernie’s out of the picture, his followers will vote for her which couldn’t be further from the truth! These shenanigans only turn folks off towards Clinton even more than they currently are! Shameful!
So no one from Clinton camp reported this breach? Just Sanders’ team? hmmm… that means one of two things…
1. they were in on it and so are keeping quiet about it (like a sneak with a mouthful of cookies pinched from the jar).
-or-
2. they are not very good technically. So it looks like Hillary is still not very good at picking her support team.
Either way, Sanders looks good, Hillary bad.
I took a deep breath, then made another donation to the Sanders campaign. This slimy carp b the DNC fuels me.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the entire Democratic Party leadership have allowed the “”BLACKOUT”” of Bernie’s Campaign to continue…. This is PROOF POSITIVE that they are attempting a CORONATION of QUEEN HILLARY and NOT a Democratically Free Election… They are proving to me, that they are just as CORRUPT as the Republicans… I will be changing my voting status to INDEPENDENT…
I hope the FBI locks Debbi up for a long time.
I have just left a phone message at the DNC office (1-202-863-8000) and also sent an email with the following message:
Dear DNC:
As a registered Democrat I am writing (or calling) to demand that you restore access to the voter list to the Sanders campaign immediately. The DNC has already admitted that the problem was with NGP VAN. There was no wrongdoing on the part of the Sanders campaign, which had already reported the data breach to your office. So please do not use this as an excuse to sabotage the campaign. Please preserve democracy in the Democratic Party.
The email address is
I suspect this was done on purpose. In the IT security field it is called a “Honeypot” trap. Open a gate and see who comes in. The access of the data was admittedly wrong, but I suspect that the Clinton campaign had inside information about this “update” and probably told to stay out of the system for a period of time, while the Sanders campaign was not.
Damn good point!
This is just more dirty tricks from ‘that woman’s’ campaign.. DWS is just her flunkie. Both of them are disgusting. Now we see that the vendor is also corrupt and that the vendor has a conflict of interest happening (criminal as usual.. DNC, RNC.. all the same. crooks) and that a Bernie staffer had to take a fall, meanwhile back at the ranch.. she deleted HOW MANY emails off her private server? What makes anybody think she hasn’t covered her tracks with these data breaches too… The public needs to be WOKEN UP to these criminals… but then we have the national media who are OWNED by the same.. And Bernie.. HONEST DECENT, SENSIBLE. AND GETTING GOOD THINGS DONE… no wonder they are showing their snake-in-the-grass true colors.. Sickening. Beat the streets, people! Help get the Bernie word out please! AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!!! Our futures, and our grandkids’ futures depend on it! ALL HANDS ON DECK! EXPOSE THE LIES! Go, Bernie! #FrontrunnerBernie #BernieforPresident2016 #HillNO #FeeltheBern #EnoughisEnough
You didnt mention the fact that the person thag founs the datat breech and reported it was an IT specialist trying to fix the breech and doing his job.
http://pac.petitions.moveon.org/sign/debbie-wasserman-schultz-2.fb47?source=s.fb&r_by=11538001
The “dirty tricks” operatives are at work. It used to be Republicans pulling these dirty tricks and manipulating databases and voting machines. Now we must distrust Debbie and the Clinton staff as much as we distrust Republicans. The DNC is not to be trusted now, or ever before the primaries conclude that Bernie is the nominee. Then, the DNC will attempt to subvert the people’s choice by manipulating the votes of Superdelegates. Beware of Debbie and the DNC!
Does anyone know how to teach the folks who were speaking on the press conference live stream and live chat? Please pass this message on because they need to check themselves regularly as they are just as offensive in many ways as those we struggle against!
“I don’t appreciate being arbitrarily cutoff from the Live Chat on the LiveStream regarding The Data Breach especially when I was trying to say “I love y’all! Don’t let them get you down, Dears!” WTH?
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The founder of NGP VAN was Chief Technology Officer for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. Stu Trevelyan, CEO of NGP VAN, worked directly on a number of campaigns, including working in the 1992 Clinton-Gore “War Room,” and then in the Clinton White House. Can you say conflict of interest? I think there should be an investigation into how many time Clinton’s staffers gained access to Bernie’s records. And it needs to happen NOW!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Pearlma