December 12, 2008
FOX 5 Reporter Snags McCain Campaign Blackberry Loaded with Info
Too funny. You'll recall we pointed out the other day that the McCain campaign's Arlington headquarters was holding a big fire sale to liquidate all its computers, Blackberries and other office equipment and furniture. Well FOX 5's Tisha Thompson says she bought one of the McCain Blackberries, and it was filled with confidential campaign information.
Thompson reports that one Blackberry she purchased from the campaign for $20 "contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night." Most of the numbers were apparently private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists, and Thompson went ahead and called some of them, resulting in this brutal response from one unnamed man who answered:
“They should have wiped that stuff out,” another said. But he added, “Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise.”Ouch.
FOX 5 is rightly wondering if anyone else snagged an un-deleted Blackberry from the McCain campaign, and is openly soliciting anyone who did to contact their newsroom.
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For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster...FAIL.
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When I saw the post about the sale, I wondered if this could happen. But I figured no way they'd be selling that stuff without scrubbing it.
Unbelievable.
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It's going to be an early X-mas for me when some of those emails are released. What a fantastic Roman holiday.
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Mavericks NEVER wipe confidential data. That's just how they roll.
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Can anyone tell me why the bleepin' Wilson Bridge is so backed up!?
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Holy mind blowing incompetence. Since that is the very first thing a person in charge of selling off hardware does, as opposed to removing all Maverick themed blackberry cases
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RANSOM RANSOM RANSOM
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McCain is definitely going to lose now.
Seriously, this stupid thing has gotten way more press than necessary. It was a dumb mistake by an exhausted, demoralized campaign worker. I think 90% of the young staffers that worked for him are total a-holes, (from many unfortunate experiences with them) but really what's the big deal with making light of this now. I'd like one of the phones just to call people up and brag about the election, kinda like calling England on the 4th, but seriously this has been getting way too much attention. If it had naked pics of palin or cindy... that'd be a story.
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maybe we'll find something salacious that the candidate did and we'll impeach him before he even takes the oath.
wait, he didn't even win?
oh well, much ado about nothing then.
lesson to future campaigns. do the opposite of what this campaign did, and you can't fail.
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Praise the stars that he didn't win. I'm guessing by March, one of his staffers would have left the nuke codes on a coffee table in Afghanistan.
@fatkidspecial, really? This is hilarious. And I'm sorry, being exhausted is no excuse here any more than it would be if he was running the country. It was incompetence plain and simple. This is basic procedure for anyone getting rid of electronics equipment. While I doubt we'd even sell a cell phone at all, even in my tiny office we never let a PC go with a hard disk still in it.
Besides, they've had plenty of time to sleep since the campaign ended. It's not like they're working on a transition plan or something.
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Hmm, I smell a reporter thinking she can find herself a breaking story for $20.
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Oh, how I hope, how I hope Sarah Palin's cell number is in there.
This is the Washington equivalent of Paris Hilton's sidekick getting hacked.
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There was obviously nothing extraordinary in the phone, or it would have been in the article. Instead just a bunch of old phone numbers. Oh, sorry, 'CONFIDENTIAL' phone numbers, which makes it sound more intriguing. What a story that might have been but never was..
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I want a Blackberry for $20, I don't care whose phone numbers are left on it. My office just gives us note pads and the nubs of old pencils for supplies.
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Publish the Address Book!
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I heard the phone number for Cindy McCain's dealer is in there.