Romney super PAC donors put at credit card risk with Lack of Online Security

Why turn off security on donations?  Only one reason and that is so a campaign can take money from people normally ineligible to give like foreign contributors.  No security and you can use prepaid credit cards so no one knows for sure who gave.  Turning off security has been part of the Democrat plan when Obama was running.  If you use prepaid cards, you cannot track the person who donated.  We have been saying the Romney camp was being run like the Democrats and looks like that could be a true statement.

Late Thursday, Restore Our Future issued a written statement saying: “Because we will be targeted by hackers based on your story, we made the switchover today.” It added a secured donation page and left the old one intact. Ms. Gross did not say that the group would notify those affected. 

The surprisingly amateur digital public face of the group that has had an enormous influence on the presidential campaign is telling about the nature of super PACs. While the presidential candidates bombard email lists with daily pleas for donations, the idea that a casual Romney supporter might be stirred to send money to the PAC seemed almost an afterthought.   

The Super PAC would have left the security hole open if not for this article from the Washington Times as they were afraid of being hacked.  By not notifying the donors that their information could be comprised shows a great lack of concern about those donors.  Anyone donating to Romney or his Super PAC better think twice if they want their information to be secure because this group doesn't seem to care as long as Romney gets his money.   This campaign's lack of ethics is astounding and even more is their lack of caring about donor information:

Romney super PAC donors put at credit card risk
Online security called lacking
By Luke Rosiak-
The Washington Times Thursday, May 3, 2012  

 The political fund that has raised more than $50 million to support Mitt Romney’s bid for the presidency has been collecting money online with a system so insecure that it exposes donors’ credit card information to even casual snoopers. 

Computer-security specialists say that using such low-tech systems can violate laws and that the group should notify anyone who has donated. 

Restore Our Future, the super PAC helmed by former top Romney campaign officials that runs ads attacking the former Massachusetts governor’s opponents, has for months been accepting credit card information without any type of security, leaving the card numbers easily accessible. 

“Quite frankly, the lack of credit card data protection on the site is unconscionable, and there is no excuse for it,” said Diana Kelley, an analyst at the technology firm SecurityCurve, which reviewed the site. “They should stop taking card data until the problem is remediated and should notify their donors that their card numbers were at risk and may have been compromised.” 

The lack of basic, standard methods for dealing with personal information means anyone on the same wireless network could effortlessly record a donor’s credit card number as it is submitted. The numbers also could be stored in the browser, and people could later use the publicly available donor lists to target contributors with a solicitation that would unknowingly cause the information to be sent to them. 

It also could indicate deeper problems that could jeopardize the financial information of some of the wealthiest men in America, technologists said. 

“This is pretty bad. It’s very unprofessional. And if a developer doesn’t know how to provide SSL security, it’s probably a safe bet that his server isn’t storing donors’ credit card information in a secure way, either. You’d be a fool to donate money through this form,” said Tom Lee, a computer programmer at the Sunlight Foundation, which studies money in politics.
SSL security is a protocol known as “secure socket layer” for encrypting information over the Internet. 

Told of the security hole Wednesday, Restore Our Future spokeswoman Brittany Gross did not express concern and would not say how many have given to the campaign via credit cards.

Excerpt:  Read More at The Washington Times 

If the FEC doesn't demand all the records from this Super PAC, they are not doing their job.  The following practice of the Romney Super PAC is so wrong they should be shut down and banned from participating in political campaigns.  IMHO, they are crooked:

The lack of a polished presence on the Web — its main pro-Romney pitch is titled “sample-page” — highlights broader absences. The super PAC has no office or phone number. No staffers appear on its payroll. A money machine for television ads, it deals in the millions of dollars with almost no organizational presence and often pays it out not to the actual recipient of the money, but to corporations designed as conduits. 

For his efforts in wooing donors, former Romney aide Steve C. Roche recently paid himself an $800,000 “fundraising commission” — through a payment to “Podium Capital Group” at a post office box. 

The maker of the super PAC’s website says it will create similar sites in as little as one day and for as little as $500, but disclosures in which political committees must detail how they spend their money also list no payments to that company.

It is more obvious by the day that the Romney campaign and its Super PAC are not ethical as rules don't apply to them.  Is this what a Romney Administration would be?  Rules are for the little people not the privileged?  This is worse then the Democrats in some ways.  They turn off security along with having a webpage they will develop to hide who you are by using post office boxes.  They are breaking every rule in the book to hide donations.

We have Karl Rove's Crossroads who doesn't have to reveal donors and now Restore our Future Super PAC who turns off security and openly flaunts the rules of the FEC.  What has happened to the Republican Party or are we just now finding out what has been going on behind the scenes for years as they were better at hiding their moves.  Since I donated to President GW Bush and always has to provide my security number from the back of the card, I believe it is the new way of doing business that Rove along with Soros started exploiting to the stage it is out of control.  Seems they believe that the only way to win a major election is to buy it using millions of dollars and unethical attacks.

No money in politics for any group should be secret on who the donor is as we need to know who is funding these campaigns.  I don't care if it is 5 cents or $100,000 that is donated as long as it is full disclosure as to who gave so we know who is really behind these campaigns.   These Super PACs are so far out of control on the Republican side it is embarrassing especially with Restore our Future who truly believes according to what we are finding out that no rules apply to them.

We had already heard that the Romney camp was making up phony companies names to hide donors and now according to the article it is true.

Romney and his campaign are rivaling Obama's in 2008 for lack of ethics and accountability.  I didn't think it was possible but the Romney camp may have taken it to a new low level in order to win the election for Romney.  Why would anyone vote for a candidate that has shown such poor judgement in his campaign from 'scorched earth' against other Republican candidates, obvious coordination with the Super PAC as people move from one part of the campaign to the Super PAC and back, and now this -- no security for major donors?  If he willing to skirt the laws as a candidate then what would he do as President?  This is so Nixonian that it is scary.