The White House just released the personal information of citizens concerned that the new election commission will release their personal information.

They exposed peoples addresses and email addresses, I'm sure so these folks could be harassed/intimidate others 😡

— Jeremy M (@thismyshow) July 14, 2017

Courtesy of Vox: 

The White House just responded to concerns it would release voters’ sensitive personal information by releasing a bunch of voters’ sensitive personal information. 

Last month, the White House’s “election integrity” commission sent out requests to every state asking for all voters’ names, party IDs, addresses, and even the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, among other information. The White House then said this information would be made available to the public. 

A lot of people did not like the idea, fearing that their personal information could be made public. So some sent emails to the White House, demanding that it rescind the request. 

This week, the White House decided to make those emails from concerned citizens public through the commission's new website. But the administration made a big mistake: It didn’t censor any of the personal information — such as names, email addresses, actual addresses, and phone numbers — included in those emails. 

In effect, the White House just released the sensitive personal information of a lot of concerned citizens giving feedback to their government. That’s made even worse by the fact that the White House did this when the thing citizens were complaining about was the possibility that their private information would be made public.

In response to outrage over this a spokesperson for Mike Pence said this: 

“These are public comments, similar to individuals appearing before commission to make comments and providing name before making comments,” Marc Lotter, press secretary to the vice president, said. “The Commission’s Federal Register notice asking for public comments and its website make clear that information ‘including names and contact information’ sent to this email address may be released.”

Seriously it is like we are living inside a parody of American politics these days.

But that does NOT mean that anybody should unregister in response. And here is a video explaining why that is a dumb idea.

If you cancel your voter registration, Trump wins. Please share this message and tell everyone you know to stay registered. pic.twitter.com/NpI4b7j38g

— Jason Kander (@JasonKander) July 14, 2017

Our forefathers, and yes foremothers, fought too long and hard for our right to vote for us to just give it up in response to this trollish bullshit.

Wikileaks is protecting our privacy and protecting the little guy by dumping all of the little guy's personal information on the the internet. Wait, what? Update!

Courtesy of the AP:

WikiLeaks' giant data dumps have rattled the National Security Agency, the U.S. Democratic Party, and the Saudi foreign ministry. But its spectacular mass-disclosures have also included the personal information of hundreds of people — including sick children, rape victims and mental health patients, The Associated Press has found. 

In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality can lead to social ostracism, a prison sentence or even death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.

WikiLeaks' mass publication of personal data is at odds with the site's claim to have championed privacy even as it laid bare the workings of international statecraft, drawing criticism from longtime allies. 

Attempts to reach WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for an interview over the past month have been unsuccessful and the ex-hacker did not reply to written questions. In a series of tweets following the publication of the AP's story, WikiLeaks dismissed the privacy concerns as "recycled news" and said they were "not even worth a headline."

I have been over this "hacktivist" nonsense for quite some time now.

I was down with hackers when they leaked those documents about the Iraq War and when Anonymous went after the folks protecting the Steubenville rapists.

But things have become much muddier as of late, and after Wikileaks leaked the information about the Democrats that was hacked by the Russians I am just not feeling it anymore.

And now this.

Update: Oh yeah, and then there's this:  

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange warned Wednesday that his website is slated to release another batch of documents that could prove “significant” to the general election race.

If it is like the earlier releases the only thing "significant" will be how the conservative press will be able to form mountains out of hacked molehills.

There is really no reason to release this information right before an election, unless you are trying to hurt one candidate and benefit another.

Julian Assange can no longer make the claim that he is doing this for the public good. He is doing it for other reasons entirely.

Anti-abortion activists hack Planned Parenthood.

Courtesy of The Daily Dot:

Planned Parenthood has been hacked. 

Late Sunday night, a group of hackers who oppose the healthcare nonprofit's abortion practices released Planned Parenthood's website databases as well as names and email addresses of the organization's employees. 

The attack on Planned Parenthood follows a storm of controversy over the organization. Anti-abortion activists sparked the uproar earlier this month with the release of an edited video showing a Planned Parenthood director discussing the donation of fetus organs and tissue to medical research facilities, a legal but highly controversial practice. “Trying to mold an atrocious monstrosity into socially acceptable behaviors is repulsive.” 

One of the hackers, who goes by the pseudonym “E,” told the Daily Dot that the cyberattack was politically motivated. 

“Trying to mold an atrocious monstrosity into socially acceptable behaviors is repulsive,” said E. “Obviously what [Planned Parenthood] does is a very ominous practice. It'll be interesting to see what surfaces when [Planned Parenthood] is stripped naked and exposed to the public.”

Apparently the hacker's plan is to release names of Planned Parenthood employees as well as internal e-mails to the public at large.

When first told of this hack Planned Parenthood was not aware that it had taken place, however after checking their IT workers it turned out to be true: 

“Today Planned Parenthood has notified the Department of Justice and separately the FBI that extremists who oppose Planned Parenthood’s mission and services have launched an attack on our information systems, and have called on the world’s most sophisticated hackers to assist them in breaching our systems and threatening the privacy and safety of our staff members. We are working with top leaders in this field to manage these attacks. We treat matters of safety and security with the utmost importance, and are taking every measure possible to mitigate these criminal efforts to undermine our mission and services. 

Planned Parenthood is the most trusted women’s health care provider in this country, and anti-abortion extremists are willing to do anything to stop women from accessing the reproductive health care they are seeking. Extremists have broken laws, harassed our doctors and patients, produced hack videos, and now are claiming to have committed a gross invasion of privacy — one that, if true, could potentially put our staff members at risk. 

No matter what extremist acts those who oppose safe and legal abortion commit, the fact remains that women and men across America will still need access to basic, reproductive health care: life-saving cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing and treatment, well-woman exams, and yes, safe and legal abortion. As always, we will continue to provide that care, and serve the 2.7 million women, men and young people who rely on us each year.”

This is getting incredibly ugly.  And all of it based on carefully edited videos and debilitating ignorance.

On the plus side the recent attempt by members of the Senate to defund Planned Parenthood failed miserably.