title:  Sanders Campaign Withdraws Lawsuit Against DNC After Investigation Shows No Theft Of Voter Data
text: You might remember a few months ago, the Bernie Sanders campaign filed a lawsuit against the Democratic National Committee for cutting off access to their own campaign data stored on the servers at DNC headquarters. The cut off came from when a few Sanders staffers found they could access protected, private information of the Hillary Clinton campaign, which was stored on the same servers.The DNC came out quickly and said that the Sanders staffers intentionally exploited software errors to gain access to the Clinton team s proprietary data. Sanders fired back immediately that the error has been a recurring one, and his campaign had attempted to make it known to the DNC that this was happening before, with no success in getting it resolved.DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said that the extreme move in cutting off access to the Sanders Campaign of even their own data was the only way to protect the other data on the servers. Wasserman Schultz also said that the Sanders campaign  not only viewed it but exported and downloaded it. Fast forward a few months and an independent investigation later, and it turns out that the DNC gave us the wrong story.After the independent investigation concluded, it was confirmed that the DNC had made assertions about what happened which were not supported by evidence and that the serious level of tampering everyone was led to believe happened did not occur.According to the Sanders campaign statement, the breach did not extend beyond 3 staffers and their manager. They had access for approximately one hour to Clinton campaign scoring models but not to any of the Clinton campaign s proprietary voter data, which was at the heart of initial reports.The Sanders campaign then released a statement saying the original claims by the DNC were  wholly inaccurate  and that the campaign never stole any voter data.The settlement of this lawsuit is a positive thing. However, the problems that led up to it have not been resolved.Over the past several months, more and more scrutiny and criticism have been being visited upon the DNC s leadership, as well as Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz. The data breach issue was an ongoing problem that wasn t resolved in a timely manner, the circumstances were misreported by the DNC and the action they took regarding the security loophole were called by many an overreach.Add on top of this the moves by DNC leadership to open the floodgates for corporate money within the party, as well as the DNC chairwoman s joining with Republicans to attack Elizabeth Warren s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and there are many calling for the DNC to find new leadership.It remains to be seen if Wasserman Schultz will keep her seat as a Congresswoman in, due to an unexpected primary challenge she is now facing. However, regardless of if she wins or loses, the DNC s own leadership does need to hold itself to a higher standard of accountability   especially regarding its leadership   for the good of both party unity and taking back Congress this fall.Featured image via wikicommons