Datagate

Day 2 of the Coleman unsecured data controversy.

This afternoon, wikileaks, the whistleblower site that posted portions of the private data it downloaded from Norm Coleman’s campaign Web site responded to some of the fallout from the release.

The highlights (I can’t link to the page on which it’s contained because the link is also on that page for the leaked data and I don’t believe people’s private information should be accessed.):

>> We don’t just talk about neutrality–we practice it. Many of you have asked whether we would publish similar material from the Democrats. The answer is yes. All documents that fit our simple, transparent guidelines are released to the public. We are non-partisan and have published many documents considered to be supportive of Republican interests that have become major news items.

>> Coleman released full credit details, but Wikileaks did not.

Although the Coleman database contains full credit card numbers, security numbers and all personal necessary details needed to make a transaction. Wikileaks did not release these. Wikileaks released the last 4 digits and the security numbers only, and then only after notifying those concerned:

>> A number of people tried to raise the issue back in January, without releasing any information at all. There was no response from the Coleman Campaign and the material had been “floating around” the Internet for at least six weeks.

>>We would have liked donors to have had several days to digest the findings in private, but Senator Coleman decided to publicly “spin” the issue, forcing us to respond.

>>The database was made public by the Coleman Campaign.

>> There was no “hack”.

Meanwhile, the Coleman campaign is waging its own campaign, setting up a page of allegations about the release of the data.