The U.S. Secret Service is investigating how personal details on thousands of campaign contributors to Norm Coleman, enmeshed in a court battle to win back his Senate seat, were dug out of his database and posted on the Internet.
Coleman, who said campaign officials found out about the hacking late Tuesday after getting calls from donors, called the online theft "obviously an attack on my campaign" but named no suspects. His lawyer, Fritz Knaak, said that while crippling Coleman's fundraising during the election trial was an obvious reason, the campaign had no evidence that political opponents were to blame.
"This is chilling. This is frightening," Coleman said after Wednesday's trial session. "We live in a world where privacy is hard enough to maintain as it is, and what little is left we find is compromised. ... I am hopeful, not confident, that law enforcement authorities who are involved will get to the bottom."
The data posting came as Coleman, a Republican, tries to gain enough votes in the election trial to overcome the 225-vote lead that Democrat Al Franken gained in a recount.
Knaak said the campaign doesn't know how someone obtained partial credit card numbers, card security codes and other data on more than 4,700 donors who gave as little as $1 and as much as the contribution limit of $4,600. The list also included the names of Coleman supporters who hadn't contributed, he said.
Notifying people on the list
Knaak said the campaign has been contacting people on the list to let them know what happened and assure them the incident is being investigated.
"Somehow, some way, this information got out and we think that there's been an ongoing effort," Knaak said. "But again, it's early. We're relying on federal agencies and the state agency to do the follow-up. We're told this is a very high-priority investigation for them, for obvious reasons. It's really an attack on the whole system."
