Where Did the Emails Come From?
(updated below--mystery apparently solved)
There's a lot of discussion tonight, on cable news and the blogs, about the embarrassing personal emails between Governor Sanford and his mistress. The emails were published by the State newspaper, which has apparently had them in its possession since December. The question I don't see anyone asking, though, is how these emails came to be in the possession of the newspaper.
To her credit, Rachel Maddow did ask that question tonight, one of the reporters at the paper said that the emails had been provided to the paper by an anonymous tipster, and she implied that they had been provided independently to several different reporters since December. Given the unusually bold criticism of the Governor from many other South Carolina politicians over the last few days, including the Republican Lieutenant Governor, my guess is that the reporters at the State were not the only ones who were sent copies of those emails. Someone was clearly interested in blowing the whistle on Sanford.
But how would someone have obtained these emails? These were highly personal emails between Sanford and his Argentine mistress, neither of whom is likely to have wanted them published. And if it wasn't one of them, that really only leaves two possibilities: unauthorized access or official interception. The latter is obviously the most troubling possibility, and I hope that someone looks in to this further, if for no other reason than to rule that out.
It's not clear from the story whether Sanford was using a personal web-based email account (like gmail or yahoo) or his official state account. If the former, then I suppose just about anyone determined enough could have hacked into his account by guessing his password, the same way someone broke into Sarah Palin's personal email account during last Fall's presidential campaign. If it was a state account, then there probably needs to be an official investigation.
Whatever the case, it's more than a little problematic to have highly embarrassing personal emails of political leaders falling to the hands of random people. Whoever had these emails seems to have been intent on exposing Sanford, but it's easy to imagine people using emails like this to blackmail politicians. That's never a good situation.
UPDATE: Good to see David Corn is asking the right questions.
UPDATE II: The New York Times seems to have found the source.
There's a lot of discussion tonight, on cable news and the blogs, about the embarrassing personal emails between Governor Sanford and his mistress. The emails were published by the State newspaper, which has apparently had them in its possession since December. The question I don't see anyone asking, though, is how these emails came to be in the possession of the newspaper.
To her credit, Rachel Maddow did ask that question tonight, one of the reporters at the paper said that the emails had been provided to the paper by an anonymous tipster, and she implied that they had been provided independently to several different reporters since December. Given the unusually bold criticism of the Governor from many other South Carolina politicians over the last few days, including the Republican Lieutenant Governor, my guess is that the reporters at the State were not the only ones who were sent copies of those emails. Someone was clearly interested in blowing the whistle on Sanford.
But how would someone have obtained these emails? These were highly personal emails between Sanford and his Argentine mistress, neither of whom is likely to have wanted them published. And if it wasn't one of them, that really only leaves two possibilities: unauthorized access or official interception. The latter is obviously the most troubling possibility, and I hope that someone looks in to this further, if for no other reason than to rule that out.
It's not clear from the story whether Sanford was using a personal web-based email account (like gmail or yahoo) or his official state account. If the former, then I suppose just about anyone determined enough could have hacked into his account by guessing his password, the same way someone broke into Sarah Palin's personal email account during last Fall's presidential campaign. If it was a state account, then there probably needs to be an official investigation.
Whatever the case, it's more than a little problematic to have highly embarrassing personal emails of political leaders falling to the hands of random people. Whoever had these emails seems to have been intent on exposing Sanford, but it's easy to imagine people using emails like this to blackmail politicians. That's never a good situation.
UPDATE: Good to see David Corn is asking the right questions.
UPDATE II: The New York Times seems to have found the source.
posted by A.L. at 9:28 PM
20 Comments:
Agree. Regardless of one's personal slant on this guy's failure, the fact that his personal e-mail was exposed is a crime and someone should go to jail. It really does not matter if it was an official or personal account, someone broke the law in intercepting it and distributing it to news sources and perhaps others. If Sanford can be spied on without legal authority, then any of us can be.
Dan
I bet it was his wife :P
As a 10 year vet of IT I can say it's unauthorized access almost positively. The lengths you need to go to to secure your PC make 90% of the public live in willful ignorance. Most IT "pros" too. They'd rather keep the client with minimal effort and fuss than really explain to them how much effort is required. I do it for clients and friends and never bother charging them for the time. It's the principle with me. If looked over your PC I'd almost certainly find a rootkit or trojan lurking on there.
And no, Macafee and Symantec AREN'T adequate protection. They are there to make you feel safe and generally stop computer viruses.
You're assuming the emails came from someone who tapped into his account. How would all this change if they came from, say, her husband tapping into her account?
Seriously, AL? You (and David Corn) are “concerned” about how Sanford’s emails ended up at a SC newspaper? You think maybe they were intercepted by the NSA? Argentine intelligence?
I understand why Corn needs a high-minded reason to write about what he would consider a “personal foible” (at least if it were committed by the President in the oval office with an intern) that is none of the public’s business. What’s your excuse?
There are lots of perfectly mundane (though probably illegal) ways that someone could have obtained copies of these emails. Official interception strikes me as being a pretty remote possibility, particularly given the circumstances. Why would an official interceptor provide copies of the emails to a newspaper?
Yes, “it's easy to imagine people using emails like this to blackmail politicians.” Something that politicians should probably think about before they send such emails or, better yet, before they cheat on their wives.
He said his wife found out five months ago, which would be January, and the newspaper said they got the emails in December. It seems likely that his wife was sent the emails also by someone and found out that way. Or maybe she was the one who got into his emails in December and then laid the boom on him after circulating them. I sure hope it was not domestic spying in the waning days of the Bush administration.
The emails could very well be from the wife via private investigator who installs monitoring software on all the PC's at home. Heck if she is minimally tech savvy, she could do it herself.
The emails arrived at the newspaper in December, just before the "5 months ago" that Sanford admitted for his wife's knowledge of the affair.
Just sayin'
You're right, MLS, I was just looking for an excuse to talk about the emails. Does that even make sense? I didn't talk about the contents of the emails at all.
And I'm not suggesting that this is the crime of the century. I'm just pointing out that I find it odd that no one seems to care where the emails came from. If people can access the personal emails of prominent politicians, that's not a good thing. There will often be something embarrassing in there that could be used to blackmail them.
I also think the probably of official interception is very low, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely, especially with the kind of dragnet collection that is reportedly being done.
The weakest links in any secured communication are at the ends. Some people seem to think it's the wife, but, given her background and what she stands to lose that's hardly likely.
I think an official intercept is doubly unlikely, since, although the intercept would be perfectly legal under the new, neutered FISA rules, leaking the emails would be both criminal and, more seriously, against agency policy.
It's far more likely to have been on the other end, in Argentina. A person who knows the lady in question and, perhaps, objected to the affair. Since the emails were his emails to her, that increases the odds of it being on the receiving side.
Even the Ottoman Turks, with their biologically foolproof system for avoiding both sexual hanky panky and nepotism, still had a notable problem with corruption, so I'm going to have to differ with MLS on his "just say no" plan, attractive as the idea might be to require saltpeter in every meal at the governors' mansions.
Philandering is part of the price we pay for the mistake, eons ago, on the part of some primitive multi-cellular animals, who invented sex and gained adaptability. It's just something we have to live with.
IN OTHER NEWS:
A.L.'s comment last week:
"The last thing Mousavi and his supporters want is for the President of the United States to express his solidarity with their cause. That would play right in to Ahmadinejad's hands."
Obama yesterday (via AP):
"President Barack Obama condemned the violence against protesters Tuesday and lent his strongest support yet to their accusations the hardline victory was a fraud."
Question of the day:
Does not intellectual integrity compel you to criticize Obama?
Does not intellectual integrity compel you to criticize Obama?
Please. Obama was criticizing the regime for violently cracking down on peaceful protesters (something that wasn't happening in the first days of the protests). As the regime's tactics escalated, a stronger response was warranted. Second, part of the reason he felt compelled to make a stronger statement (even if it risked being counterproductive) was because of domestic political pressure from know-nothing narcissists like Johh McCain who were shamelessly attacking him.
If you read what actual foreign policy experts (Republican and Democrat) and actual Iranian supporters of the opposition say, they all praise Obama's handling of this.
I think Obama should be criticized for a lot of things, but this is certainly not one of them.
nobody cares what you think
LC -
If you would address your cryptic message to somebody, It might be more comprehensible. If your target is A.L. why are you reading here? Allow me to suggest Patterico as a blogger you might like better.
I care about the emails and how they were obtained. I'm a 30+ year IT veteran and I am constantly involved with making sure that various accounts are secure (not only email, but product / server / database access).
I've looked at the emails, but don't get a sense of how they were composed. There are spelling errors, so maybe they were sent by a client-based email program (web-based tend to spell check).
Sanford's have this:
Date: Fri, 4 Jul 2008 03:09:44 +0000
Which is a format I'm not familiar with.
Can't tell much from the lady's email.
If I had to guess, I'd say that someone hacked into Sanford's home computer (mainly due to the time stamps)
Also included on what should be protected information, that was bandied about:
Cell phone tower and tracking records (near airport, etc.).
Ticket reservation data.
A lot of leaks of private information, and the latter two in a short amount of time.
I thought for sure you were going to ask the most important question: why did the newspaper have this information and sit on it for at least six months? Why were all of the other people with this mail complicit in the silence?
I'm interested in the illegality, but I'm more interested, especially in the absence of any specific indication that the emails were in fact obtained illegally, in how and why news media in this country consistently sit on their hands rather than criticize anyone or anything in government, and why Americans continue to put up with it.
it is my understanding that newspaper sat on it because they could not confirm it. once the story broke then they had ample comformation, so they released the emails. i do not know if that is true or not, just what i heard on the radio.
-pl
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Maureen Dowd suggests today that it was one of Maria's younger gentlemen friends.
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