McCain campaign sells info-laden Blackberrys

Just as every losing political camp usually does, the defunct McCain / Palin campaign has been holding a fire sale to get rid of all its assets.  An investigative reporter saw some possible meat for a story and showed up to see what she could grab.  According to the story, "most of the good stuff was gone".  There were some laptops on sale for $400 - $600 a pop, and the campaign said the hard drives would be cleared before they were sold.  The story also said the reporter didn't have a password anyway, but the campaign never said they were encrypted (I wonder what could have been recovered).  So instead of going for the laptops, the reporter elected to pick up a couple of Blackberrys for $20 each.  And she promptly found that she got a lot more for her money than she expected.

From the story:

When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.

We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for “Citizens for McCain,” a group of democrats who threw their support behind the Republican nominee.  The emails contain an insider’s look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support.

But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists.

Oops. 

Another quote:

We called the McCain-Palin campaign, who says, “it was an unfortunate staff error and procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure.”

Uh huh.  Wonder how they are going to do that since it is all out the door?  Did they get information on all the people to whom they sold Blackberrys?  Are they going to call them up and say return their stuff?  Are they going to call all the people on the contact list on the Blackberrys and tell them to change their personal cell phone numbers? 

This is just one of those unfortunately unsurprising events that happen when people don't do what they are supposed to do.  And really, who was there to make sure it was done?  Is anyone with any kind of motivation still around in the McCain campaign?  They lost, and I imagine people are still bummed out.  They are just doing what they can to close up shop.  I am not excusing it, but this is bound to happen, especially when you have enterprising reporters looking for a story.

And that reporter is going a little further by asking the public if they found anything on the other Blackberrys that were purchased:

But we wonder-- Did we get the only Blackberry with personal campaign information in it?  Or did you get one too?

Let us know by dropping an email to fox5tips@wttg.com or calling our Fox 5 News Desk at (202) 895-3280.

We'll see what happens.  And a comment from the engadget blog:

When reached for comment, a campaign spokesperson said that "procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure," followed minutes later by a blank email CC'd to his entire address book with the subject line "We're so screwed."

Now THAT is funny!