DNC says Sanders’ campaign improperly accessed Clinton’s confidential voter data

The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is accusing Sanders’s and his staffers of wrongfully accessing private voter information that was compiled by the Hillary Clinton campaign-Clinton being his lead Democratic rival in the 2016 presidential election.

The Washington Post was first with word of the breach and the Sanders staffer’s actions. The DNC has revoked the Sanders’ campaigns credentials to access the data until an investigation has been conducted.

The DNC’s suspension comes at a critical time when campaigns turn to the electronic database for voter targeting information weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses.

“Unfortunately, yesterday, the vendor once again dropped the firewall between the campaigns for some data”, the statement continued. However, the campaign has also gone on the offensive, insisting not only that the software vendor, NGP VAN, was responsible for this incident, but has failed to prevent unauthorized access to campaign data in the past.

“We have invested enormous campaign resources in acquiring the rights to use this proprietary information”.

A Sanders spokesperson told CNN Sanders’ announcement would be “driven by what happens between now and then in our conversations with the DNC”. However, it’s possible that the accounts were all created by the same person.

“The DNC places a high priority on maintaining the security of our system and protecting the data on it”, he continued. “To the best of my knowledge, nobody took anything that would have given the (Sanders) campaign any benefit”.

Representatives for Sanders, Clinton and the DNC could not be immediately reached for comment. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has complained that the DNC purposely limited the number of presidential debates to six to give Clinton an unfair advantage. After reporting it to the campaign, Uretsky said he meant to call the DNC to inform officials there.

DNC communications director Luis Miranda said in a statement to CBS News that the vendor, NGP VAN, had been directed to analyze the breach and determine who accessed the data.

“On more than one occasion, they have dropped the firewall between the data of competing Democratic campaigns”, he said. He said his campaign contacted the DNC several months ago when he learned Sanders’ campaign data was being made available to other campaigns.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. “When we receive this report from the Sanders campaign, we will make a determination of re-enabling the campaign’s access to the system”.

Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told the Post that the Clinton data was never downloaded or printed, and placed blame for the incident with the vendor, NGP VAN.

The DNC says it instructed NGP VAN to immediately suspend the credentials of the campaign that inappropriately accessed data until a full explanation is received and proof is provided to the affected campaign that information and data inappropriately gathered has been disposed of.