Tag: democrats

A bug in Joe Biden’s campaign app gave anyone access to millions of voter files

A privacy bug in Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s  official campaign app allowed anyone to look up sensitive voter information on millions of Americans, a security researcher has found.

The campaign app, Vote Joe, allows Biden supporters to encourage friends and family members to vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election by uploading their phone’s contact lists to see if their friends and family members are registered to vote. The app uploads and matches the user’s contacts with voter data supplied from TargetSmart, a political marketing firm that claims to have files on more than 191 million Americans.

When a match is found, the app displays the voter’s name, age and birthday, and which recent election they voted in. This, the app says, helps users “find people you know and encourage them to get involved.”

While much of this data can be already public, the bug made it easy for anyone to access any voter’s information.

The App Analyst, a mobile expert who detailed his findings on his eponymous blog, found that he could trick the app into pulling in anyone’s information by creating a contact on his phone with the voter’s name.

Worse, he told TechCrunch, the app pulls in a lot more data than it actually displays. By intercepting the data that flows in and out of the device, he saw far more detailed and private information, including the voter’s home address, date of birth, gender, ethnicity and political party affiliation, such as Republican or Democrat.

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Stop crying foul over fascism

The former Vice-President is not exactly the type you would imagine clad in all-black combat-style street apparel, hurling commercial-grade fireworks at police officers. Rather, he drafted the infamous 1994 omnibus crime bill in concert with the National Association of Police Organizations. He is even known to venerate the arcane institutionalist ethos of the US Senate — whereas to insurrectionary anarchists, such institutions could only be tools of oppression.

But the Trump Era has an odd way of bringing about unexpected ideological convergences. In the announcement video that formally kicked off his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden paid homage to what he called the “courageous group of Americans” who descended upon Charlottesville, VA in August 2017 to confront an assembly of Right-wing rally-goers. Among that “courageous group” were Left-wing activist factions broadly classified under the banner of “antifa”.

For Biden, what transpired in Charlottesville was a “defining moment,” and formed the basis for his decision to launch a third campaign for the presidency at age 76. While Biden did herald generic American idealism in that announcement video — which would be anathema to most insurrectionary anarchists — in the gravity he assigned to the Charlottesville episode, he also affirmed a core tenet of the “antifa” worldview: the notion that a uniquely pressing fascistic threat has gripped the country, and crushing this threat is a matter of unparalleled world-historic urgency.

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Maine Dem Sara Gideon Killed Child Abuse Bill

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Sara Gideon killed an anti-child abuse bill backed by health officials just days after a Democratic legislator resigned for allegedly having sexual relationships with high school girls.

Gideon, who has served as speaker of the Maine House of Representatives since 2016, mobilized her caucus to vote against legislation that would have attached criminal penalties to those who knowingly fail to report child abuse. Just 10 days before the Aug. 30, 2018, vote, Democratic state legislator Dillon Bates resigned after allegations surfaced that he had sex with multiple high school students that he taught. Former Maine legislator Deborah Sanderson said it was the height of hypocrisy for Gideon to kill child abuse legislation at a time when she also had to contend with an alleged child sex offender in her caucus.

“You can’t say you care about children and … at the same time, not be willing to put in stricter and stronger regulations for someone who knowingly or intentionally does not report child abuse,” Sanderson said. “Not only are the people who don’t report culpable, but those who wouldn’t pass that legislation are culpable.”

Gideon’s decision to rally votes against the mandated reporting law put Maine out of step with the rest of the country. More than 40 states currently consider it either a felony or a misdemeanor for mandated reporters to not report suspected abuse, according to a federal government report. Maine law currently imposes only a civil penalty for mandated reporters—a class of people which includes teachers, doctors, and other professionals who regularly interact with kids—that do not report child abuse. The lack of criminal consequences motivated some reporters to shirk their responsibilities, according to a testimony by the state’s Department of Health and Human Services.

“It is the Department’s position that adding consequences for failing to report child abuse and neglect will remind mandated reporters of the gravity and importance of this duty and therefore increase the safety of the children in Maine,” said Bethany Hamm, the then-acting Maine HHS commissioner.

Gideon did not respond to request for comment.

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Democrats Introduce Legislation To Declare Racism A Public Health Crisis

A bill introduced on Thursday by Democratic lawmakers would classify racism as a nationwide public health crisis – requiring two wings within the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to address it, according to The Hill. 

The bill – Anti-Racism in Public Health Act – was crafted by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and House Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). It is co-sponsored by Sens. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Tina Smith (D-MN).

“It is time we start treating structural racism like we would treat any other public health problem or disease: investing in research into its symptoms and causes and finding ways to mitigate its effects,” said Warren, who masqueraded as a different race for decades – potentially depriving actual Native Americans positions at liberal institutions.

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U.S. govt-linked PR firm ran fake news networks for right-wing Latin American regimes

Another CLS Strategies partner, Juan Cortiñas, boasted on the firm’s website that he has represented top right-wing leaders and major corporations in Latin America, including the Venezuelan opposition.

Since the fake news ring was exposed, however, CLS Strategies has edited its website to scrub some of these compromising materials, removing the bios of associates like Feierstein and Cortiñas.

This controversy underscores how US PR firms, elite Washington insiders, and foreign opposition groups work in tandem to promote right-wing regimes in Latin America while astroturfing opposition to democratically elected left-wing governments.

Given the extensive links CLS has to the Democratic Party, this scheme also highlights the bipartisan consensus around regime change and support for corrupt neoliberal leaders linked to death squads and drug trafficking.

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