Learning from the Sanders/DNC Data Skirmish

Some thoughts on the Sanders/DNC data flare up, an early skirmish in building our 21st century politics:

While what the Sanders campaign did was clearly wrong, the DNC's decision to shut off a candidate's access to party data was an epic, reckless mistake. The DNC must now not only take aggressive steps to ensure a safe, secure data ecosystem, it must establish a clear process for resolution of future data-based disputes/breaches. Their suspension of Sanders's access was not just hasty, it appears to have violated their contractual mechanism for resolving disputes like this, opening up the DNC to legal action and potentially millions of dollars of damages. There simply was no justification for the acts taken by the DNC against the Sanders campaign this week.

In coming days the DNC must do two things to re-establish trust in the data ecosystem the current team at the DNC inherited: 1) spell out a clear policy of how data disputes will be resolved so as to eliminate the specter of arbitrary, punitive actions by future Chairs/staff - what campaign will use the database if they can get tossed off and have their campaign shut down if they piss off the wrong people? 2) conduct the discussed independent security audit now so that the candidates and party committees using the database this cycle have greater assurance that it is working as promised.

The Chair would also be wise work hard to reaffirm the perception of independence of the DNC. Lingering doubts about favoritism and special treatment undermines the integrity of our primary process, and will make party unity in the general more challenging. Free and fair elections are essential to bestowing legitimacy to winners of a vote, which is why America has fought for so hard for open, transparent elections domestically and abroad for generations.

To be clear - the Sanders campaign did bad stuff, and there is a process in place to understand what happened and to take appropriate steps to address. But what the DNC did was an unprecedented and irresponsible intervention in the primary process. They too need to own it and help ensure it never happens again. And I write all this as an enthusiastic support of Hillary Clinton.

This piece was adapted from a series of tweets posted earlier this morning.

Update: In a new piece about the data skirmish, DNC CEO Amy Dacey writes: 

"On Thursday, further NGP VAN analysis revealed that it was very likely that a user had taken data out of the system during the breach. Upon learning that, the DNC had to suspend the Sanders campaign’s access to the voter file to ensure the integrity of the system. This action was not taken to punish the Sanders campaign — it was necessary to ensure that the Sanders campaign took appropriate steps to resolve the issue and wasn’t unfairly using another campaign’s data. This temporary suspension was well within the DNC’s authority. Moreover, the DNC was left with little choice in the matter when the Sanders campaign declined to respond in a timely manner to the requests for assistance with an investigation." (bolding ours).

This is the rub of the matter isn't it? Was the DNC within their right to supsend this campaign - or any campaign or state party - if the suspension doesn't follow the protocol layed out in the contract between Sanders/other campaign and the DNC?  If the authority didn't come from the contract, where did it come from exactly?  The DNC has to help all Democrats better understand this in the days ahead.