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United States IT

Gov. Parson Doubles Down on Push To Prosecute Reporter Who Found Security Flaw in State Site (missouriindependent.com) 185

Gov. Mike Parson escalated his war with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday when his political operation published a video doubling down on his attack against a reporter who informed the state that a state website revealed teacher Social Security numbers. From a report: The video is produced by Uniting Missouri, a political action committee created by Parson supporters to back his 2020 election campaign. The PAC continues to raise and spend large sums of money to promote Parson's political agenda. It operates without direct input from Parson on its activities.

"The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is purely playing politics," the ad states. "Exploiting personal information is a squalid excuse for journalism." The ad comes less than a week after Parson's widely criticized demand for an investigation and prosecution of the reporter who discovered the security flaw in a state website, along with "all those involved." Parson read a statement calling the reporter "a hacker" to reporters gathered outside his Missouri Capitol office last Thursday, then left without taking questions. John Hancock, chairman of Uniting Missouri, declined to discuss any specifics about the video.

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Gov. Parson Doubles Down on Push To Prosecute Reporter Who Found Security Flaw in State Site

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:11PM (#61914829)
    "Gov. Mike Parson escalated his war with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch" ... "Uniting Missouri, a political action committee created by Parson supporters [...] It operates without direct input from Parson on its activities."
    Parson supporters *are* Parson according to the article. That's vaguely Lovecraftian.
    • The summary and title apparently don't have to have anything to do with each other these days. Our crack team of editors, and by that I mean our team of editors on heavy doses of crack, clearly don't give a fuck.

    • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:45PM (#61914983)

      "Gov. Mike Parson escalated his war with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch" ... "Uniting Missouri, a political action committee created by Parson supporters [...] It operates without direct input from Parson on its activities."

      Parson supporters *are* Parson according to the article. That's vaguely Lovecraftian.

      PACs built for a politician follow the politician's bidding.

      Even if they're not back-channelling directly there's enough gossip in those communities that it's not hard for the PAC to figure out what kind of message the politician wants to send and then they go to amplify that message. Conversely, if the politician thinks the PAC is going to far all they need to do is complain to a few people and word will filter back very quickly.

      If Parson was trying to bury the "hacker" story the PAC would have shut up about it, the fact they're weighing in means that Parson wants to escalate.

      • by fafalone ( 633739 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:54PM (#61915041)
        Quiet, you know if people realize how PACs aren't actually independent they'll start asking about the money too!
      • PACs built for a politician follow the politician's bidding.

        If you have proof of that, then there are people who you should contact, since it is illegal for Political Action Committees to coordinate with individual candidates.

        It's selectively enforced, but, if the candidate is a republican, I'm sure you can get any number of prosecutors to grab it up and run with it.

        • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @03:10PM (#61915105)

          PACs built for a politician follow the politician's bidding.

          If you have proof of that, then there are people who you should contact, since it is illegal for Political Action Committees to coordinate with individual candidates.

          It's selectively enforced, but, if the candidate is a republican, I'm sure you can get any number of prosecutors to grab it up and run with it.

          What's "coordination"? The PAC realizing that the politician is pushing message X and echoing the same message? The candidate saying "WTF is that PAC doing?" and someone overhearing and spreading the rumour until it gets back to the PAC?

          It's not "selectively enforced" it's unenforceable unless someone is dumb enough to actually coordinate directly.

          Most of the time these PACs are started by former campaign coordinators or advisors. They don't need to talk to the candidate to know what the candidate would want a PAC to do.

          • The FEC is absolutely toothless anyhow (see Daniels vs Individual #1), so even if Parson is directly telling them what to put in the ad, ain't nothing gonna happen.
          • by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @04:45PM (#61915489)
            If public statements don't count as coordination, then the rules are meaningless. "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?"
          • What's "coordination"? The PAC realizing that the politician is pushing message X and echoing the same message?

            Coordination means talking to each other about if he wants them to do it.

            If the PAC is merely pushing the same messages that they think the politician is pushing, then they're doing it, and he has nothing to do with it.

            If I say, "save the whales," that means I just said save the whales. It doesn't mean "GreenPeace just said save the whales, because Aighearach said it!" It just happens to be the same message. If I was inspired by GP to say it, it still would be me saying it, not them.

            It may by that the PAC i

        • by tragedy ( 27079 )

          They clearly do it all the time. Not just in smoky back rooms They loudly and proudly claim that they are working hand in hand with the candidate and/or their campaign.

    • How do you know when Uniting Missouri is speaking?

      Mike Parson's lips are moving.

  • Hey look (Score:5, Informative)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:12PM (#61914831)
    I swear to fuck, there needs to be some kinda intelligence test before you should allowed to run for office. This fuck has no experiences saying that he would be good at his job.
    • Re:Hey look (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xwin ( 848234 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:27PM (#61914901)
      That is what you get when you have a population that is uneducated and is allowed to vote. That is called democracy. Ideally you should give intelligence test before you allow people to vote and you want to make sure that voting people are concerned with the good of the collective. However we live in a real world where people are selfish idiots so we get the government that we deserve.

      The longer I live the more Star Trek like society looks completely impossible.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        > Ideally you should give intelligence test before you allow people to vote

        At this point I would settle for proof of US citizenship. But I'm pretty flexible.

        • Do you consider proof of citizenship to have a positive or negative correlation with intelligence?

          • Re:Hey look (Score:5, Funny)

            by SirSpanksALot ( 7630868 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:45PM (#61914985)
            Depends if you're a citizen. If you're a citizen, and can't produce proof - then you're likely a moron. If you're not a citizen, but can produce proof you are one anyway, you're probably pretty intelligent.
            • by sjames ( 1099 )

              On the other hand, it's easy enough to cough up some money for someone to produce fake papers as long as you're dishonest.

              No amount of intelligence can overcome a screwed up bureaucracy sufficiently to get it to acknowledge a simple fact, such as being a natural born citizen.

            • by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
              Why do you equate proof of citizenship, valid or otherwise, to be a sign of intelligence?
        • Re:Hey look (Score:5, Insightful)

          by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @03:03PM (#61915081)

          > Ideally you should give intelligence test before you allow people to vote

          At this point I would settle for proof of US citizenship. But I'm pretty flexible.

          The proposed "intelligence test" solves a problem, which is dumb people voting. Which is a real problem... but probably not one you want to solve with an intelligence test.

          On the other hand, "proof of US citizenship" claims to solve the problem of non-US citizens voting. The problem with this problem is.... well it's not a real problem [cato.org]. Sure, there's a small handful of incidents, but nothing that's going to impact the results.

          The ACTUAL problem that "proof of US citizenship" seeks to solve isn't non-citizens voting, it's poor minorities who support Democrats voting, legal voters who often have trouble obtaining things that qualify as "proof of US citizenship" [cnn.com]*.

          So I'm fine with requiring "proof of US citizenship" to vote, but you better ensure that it's simple and straightforward for all US citizen's to obtain and provide that proof.

          * Fun thing with that Texas law. It was back in 2017 when mail-in ballots was a thing only old GOP voters did, so they didn't actually do anything to "fight fraud" for mail-in ballots. How times change when mail-in ballots became associated with Democratic voters.

          • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

            One can argue that non-citizens voting is a virtue, not a problem. If they live in the US then they should be represented. Obviously, non-citizens NOT living in the US should not vote, but that is not the issue.

        • Oh, do you have evidence that non-citizens are voting for state or federal offices?

      • There's a difference between uneducated, and having been barraged with so much Bullshit via the media and those paying Facebook to disseminate Bullshit that the reality they perceive is not even based on reality.

      • Its really also because you have a system where you get to choose from two idiot parties. Really representatives are a sham to make the public think they are in control when in fact the wealthy elite with the power and money manuover people into power.

        Secondly you have to be a narcissistic to run for office. Any sane person realizes you cant run for office without realizing that they will find out you said a bad word in the third grade.

      • That is what you get when you have a population that is uneducated and is allowed to vote. That is called democracy. Ideally you should give intelligence test before you allow people to vote and you want to make sure that voting people are concerned with the good of the collective. However we live in a real world where people are selfish idiots so we get the government that we deserve.

        The longer I live the more Star Trek like society looks completely impossible.

        The problem isn't the voters but the institutions that suggested to voters that Parson's was a reasonable choice as a political candidate.

        That's the one thing a political party is supposed to be good at. Filtering out all the nutjobs before they get close to a position of authority.

        • That's the one thing a political party is supposed to be good at. Filtering out all the nutjobs before they get close to a position of authority.

          Yeah, I don't think either party has been good at that of late...

      • ... you want to make sure that voting people are concerned with the good of the collective.

        Even better, make sure the people running for office are concerned with the good of the collective -- 'cause increasingly that doesn't seem to be the case.

      • by suss ( 158993 )

        On the other hand, Idiocracy seems just like a documentary of the not too far away future now...

      • But you have idiot politicians with democracy and without democracy, in monarchies, dictatorships, republics, anarchic warlord domains, theocracies, and so forth. The only difference is that democracy allows a minor chance to affect what kind of idiots you have in charge.

      • Ideally you should give intelligence test before you allow people to vote and you want to make sure that voting people are concerned with the good of the collective.

        So only educated people who think like you are allowed to vote?

        Some time ago in Britain, only male property owners were considered competent to vote. Urban industrial workers were often completely unrepresented. Women were excluded without exception. After a century or so of universal suffrage, Britain has not suffered too much from the malign influence of the great unwashed deciding on who should represent them. Actually, it is the educated ones you need to worry about.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:29PM (#61914909)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        No one should be a career politician. It should be a task working and elected citizens do as a civic duty.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        The ephors were elected by the popular assembly, and all citizens were eligible. The position of ephor was the only political office open to the whole damos (populace) between the ages of 30–60, so eligible Spartans highly sought after the position.[4] They were forbidden to be re-elected and provided a balance for the two kings, who rarely co-operated.

        • How about we ditch elections entirely, and make it a public service by random lotto (like jury duty)
          • Read de Camp, The Fallible Fiend (1972), Ch. 7.

            Hint: The end-result is eerily like the prior U.S. President.

          • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

            > random lotto

            Woah, woah... I said 'working' - so not career politicians. But I also said 'elected'. They should at least be vetted by their peers. I don't think we should let any rando run office.

            • Witness Fallout: New Vegas and vault 11. Where a person was elected overseer for one year, and at the end of the year was sacrificed. Because no one wanted the job, the campaigning to try and lose was brutal and eventually led to violence.

          • Dammit! I got legislator duty again. Maybe I'll pleed competence to get out of it...

      • by Rinikusu ( 28164 )

        At least for the wealthy ones, you realize that it's far easier to just buy your politics to enact your agenda and avoid the crosshairs of public ire.

      • We've been warned about this extensively too:

        "The major problem... one of the major problems, for there are several... one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

        To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

        To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be al

      • Well, you could say that a self-proclaimed billionaire who figures that he can get a lot of exposure and marketing for his failing businesses by becoming president is doing the intelligent thing. Also that the person fully plans to do a half-assed job at running the country because to do a good job requires a lot of extra time and effort that no self respecting self-declared billionaire would want to do, and so the plans to be half-assed is an intelligent move. After all, as soon as you discard the goals

    • I swear to fuck, there needs to be some kinda intelligence test before you should allowed to run for office

      While it seems that having some tech proficiency would help. Surface level proficiency wouldn't help here. Understanding that HTML is transmitted as plain text across the wire and then rendered onto someone else's system is a bit past surface level.

      What needs to happen is that leadership should consult with their experts before spouting off at the mouth. "We're looking into it" is a perfectly fine answer, followed up by "we found no wrong doing on the part of the reporter, we've since identified the issu

      • Past surface level, yeah right. Tell him to sit at his computer, click view source on the menu. That's all that's required. If you can't and won't do that even after people no doubt tell you, that's being a fucking moron, not just being uninformed.
      • by sfcat ( 872532 )

        We've got experts that are more than willing to offer non-partisan answers to all kinds of questions, leadership just stopped listening to them.

        Part of the problem is that there is a kind of "expert" who runs around and claims everything is political. And that "expert" works at the same place as the real folks who offer effective non-partisan advise (the experts you reference).

      • Re:Hey look (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Coren22 ( 1625475 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @03:16PM (#61915125) Journal

        My guess of what happened in this instance is that Gov Parson went to the IT guy and asked what the article meant, and the IT guy CYAed that the reporter was a hacker, rather than the IT guy was incompetent.

        • If you mean an actual IT guy engaged in CYA, ok. But if you mean the state's appointee who's the effective CIO, then that guy likely doesnt know shit about IT anyway.
    • Do you want a Fascist or a Communist in charge? Or more accurately is it more important to keep the Communist out of office, or the Fascist out of office?

      The smart person, knows that people are not so pigeonholed, so when debating that are at a disadvantage, because 50% of the population has below average intelligence, to get elected they will need to talk down at their level. Which is often the "Other Guy is Scary Bad". We no longer debate politics, just fearmongering.

      So that means we will just get stu

      • Well, if the population is well informed and votes for a communist or fascist, then that's fine with me. However presumably if the form of government has a constitution that allows rights to the people and a rule of law that respects the rights of the people, then those elected leaders cannot easily turn a country into the sort of bogeyman dictatorship that one might expect. Thus, a socialist president in the US, hypothetically, is unable to do much on his own because the president does not have the power

    • I swear to fuck, there needs to be some kinda intelligence test before you should allowed to run for office. This fuck has no experiences saying that he would be good at his job.

      There is. It’s called breathing.

    • he's not, he's evil. Big difference. It's a simple calculation. It costs money to fix security holes and it's likely to get people poking around who the contracts belong to and why (Perish the thought there'd be any corruption). OTOH threatening a journalist is cheap and easy.

      Vote in your primary election folks. Avoid pro corporate politicians even if their ads are slick and they seem like good guys. Don't watch their speeches, they'll make you feel a certain way, and you don't want feelings, you want f
    • Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

      The voters of Missouri have elected a man who represents them--which is why he refuses to grant clemency to Kevin Strickland, [yahoo.com] a prisoner everyone agrees was wrongly convicted back in 1978. And because Parson represents his voters, he pardoned that crazy couple who pointed their guns at a bunch of protestors passing by their home.

      This sort of pandering via stupidity is necessary when competence is eyed with suspicion. And when someone exposes the incompetence that is also detrimental to the politician's co

    • The problem is that if you pass the intelligence test then you are automatically disqualified for politics.

  • by Headw1nd ( 829599 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:18PM (#61914857)
    Never admitting to any kind of failure while attacking anyone who points out your mistakes, along with nebulous threats of legal action? This seems familiar to me somehow, I wonder if the governor picked this up from watching someone else.
    • Never admitting to any kind of failure while attacking anyone who points out your mistakes, along with nebulous threats of legal action? This seems familiar to me somehow, I wonder if the governor picked this up from watching someone else.

      Well... it certainly seems to be a good way to bilk money from ignorant people who desperately want to be right.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:19PM (#61914863) Journal

    I used to live in Saint Louis. There are a lot of really good folks there, but the right wing Republicans are the biggest retards I've ever seen in person. They had the highest Peyton Place affairs that I've seen anywhere, cheating on spouses all over the place. One avowed church going coworker actually told me poor people should die if they can't afford a doctor (he didn't understand why I asked him if he actually went to church every Sunday.... his answer, "yes, but what has that got to do with it?). He also had affairs and bragged about them, as often as he could. But the topper was a guy who was a genetic engineer for Monsanto who told me he didn't believe in evolution / natural selection. I mentioned it after he told me during a bar conversation that he was a genetic engineer. I had said then, thank goodness there are some rational people who could believe in real science unlike so many in Missouri. That's when he hit me with, "I don't believe in evolution." WTF?? Absolutely true story, on my mother's grave.

    Anyway, so the fact that the moron the Missouri Republicans elected as governor doesn't surprise me with his supreme moronishness.

    • But the topper was a guy who was a genetic engineer for Monsanto who told me he didn't believe in evolution / natural selection.

      I've never met anyone who understood natural selection who didn't believe in it. This is crazy. My normal way of dealing with it is to explain natural selection so they understand it.

      • But the topper was a guy who was a genetic engineer for Monsanto who told me he didn't believe in evolution / natural selection.

        I've never met anyone who understood natural selection who didn't believe in it. This is crazy. My normal way of dealing with it is to explain natural selection so they understand it.

        To the extent that natural selection affects his job as a genetic engineer I'm sure it acts as if natural selection is true.

        Otherwise... why should he believe in natural selection?

        All that belief would do is damage relationships with his friends, family, and church community. That's quite a heavy cost to change a belief that doesn't materially affect his life otherwise.

      • But the topper was a guy who was a genetic engineer for Monsanto who told me he didn't believe in evolution / natural selection.

        I've never met anyone who understood natural selection who didn't believe in it. This is crazy. My normal way of dealing with it is to explain natural selection so they understand it.

        Really peculiar how someone would pursue a career as a genetic engineer without believing in a fundamental principle of genetics... And not believing in natural selection sort of implies a belief in creation or intelligent design, in which case one wonders how he justifies tampering with the Designer's designs? Probably the usual arguments of exceptionalism, e.g. God made us able to understand His Design so we can help Him Express the Divine Will through CRISPR. If this guy wrote an autobiography, I might

    • You have to see it as the GOP's social program. They found a place for the unemployable imbeciles of society and make them feel important.

      Mostly by having them join their party... might want to rethink that concept.

    • I had a colleague who did not believe in evolution. His mother, PhD in geology working for oil companies exploring porous rocks bearing fossil fuels millions of years old did not believe in evolution either and was a Young Earth Creationist. World was created 6006 years ago. "God is perfectly capable of creating the world pre-stocked with dinosaur fossils and starlight already in transit for billions of years in one instant!"

      . After gathering my jaw from the floor and affixing it back on my face managed to

      • by anegg ( 1390659 )

        He was miffed, "God's ways are mysterious and He does this to test our faith in Him". Liked him a lot, nice guy, so did not ask him, "Wouldn't an Omniscient God know already, before testing us, whether or not we had faith in Him?"

        If the Christian god exists with the attributes that some Christians attribute to him, he is a sadistic asshole.

      • Of course it may not have been the case with that guy, but getting a STEM education at some universities doesn't necessarily include critical thinking, even for a PhD.
  • when Gov. Parson is up for re-election.

    Sadly it's probably the last thing anyone will care about, or remember.

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:48PM (#61915005)

      As the late George Carlin said:

      "Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders."

  • You have got to be kidding me.

    I am so embarrassed for my state. Such a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars.

  • by Morpeth ( 577066 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:43PM (#61914971)

    viewing rendered HTML source isn't fucking hacking -- I mean has NO one in his circle taken the 5 minutes it would take to show and explain this?

    Just about EVERYONE is a hacker and criminal by this ignorant morons definition. ffs...

    Instead of worrying about how the hell some developer decided to embed SSNs in viewable HTML code, he attacks the person who spotted it?

    • You expect a politician to understand how the series of tubes works?

      Rather, I'd use it as a gauge how much that man knows about, well, anything he runs his mouth about. That's something you know that he knows fuck all about it and still blabs constantly, how much of what he can't shut up about that you don't know enough about is also utter and total bullshit, that's the question you should ask.l

      • by sinij ( 911942 )

        You expect a politician to understand how the series of tubes works?

        Is knowing it is not a dump truck [wikipedia.org] counts as understanding?

        • Not really, no. Because considering what kind of trash fills it today, a garbage truck isn't that bad a metaphor anymore.

    • You assume that the governor has surrounded himself with technologically knowledgeable people instead of sycophants or that he listens to people when they tell him things he does not want to hear.
  • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:45PM (#61914979)

    Next time we'll just don't tell you but sell it to your political enemy.

    Hey, whatever you wish, governor.

  • by RightwingNutjob ( 1302813 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:47PM (#61915001)

    is using a bullshit pretext to go after a reporter/publication he doesn't like using the force of the state to put some teeth into his vendetta?

    Sounds like an argument for defanging the state, just a little.

    But of course, that would mean the guy on the ass end of the stupid wouldn't be able to direct it at his enemies when he gets into power.

    So here we go, "Vote for us, we'd never misuse our authority. Pinky swear. We won't relinquish it either, but it's cool cuz we're the good guys."

    • It sounds more like an argument to kick out politicians who make laws about stuff they know fuck all about.

      Here's a proposal: If you can show that a politican doesn't have the first clue about something and he makes a law about it, the law is void. Not only would that clean up our legal system considerably, it would also show just how useless most of these clowns actually are.

  • by smap77 ( 1022907 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @02:52PM (#61915031)

    The advert is still there in the source for whitehouse.gov:
    https://usds.gov/ -->

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... [msn.com]

    When the feds rely on hacking for job postings... What, wait. I'm confused.

  • Shades of Tuttle, OK (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Jonathan C. Patschke ( 8016 ) on Thursday October 21, 2021 @03:24PM (#61915153) Homepage

    Has Governor Parson threatened to call the FBI [theregister.com] yet?

    In seriousness, though, a private actor would face all sorts of liability from accidentally publishing that sort of PII on a public website. It'd be really nice to see a federal agency hold his state to account as severely.

  • He's trying to use his own PAC to make it look like lots of people agree with his ignorant assessment in an effort to save face.
  • Do you mean clicking on "view source"

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