Rep. Anthony Weiner says social networking identity hacking is to blame for the lewd material that a conservative news website reported was sent from his Twitter and yfrog handles to an unidentified woman in Seattle.
The New York Democrat told POLITICO he thought it “obvious” that his account had been taken over, and he tweeted that his Facebook account had been hacked with the abbreviation “FB hacked.”
Continue ReadingA photo of a man’s bulging gray boxer-brief underwear was posted to Weiner’s account with yfrog — an online image-sharing site — on Saturday night, according to biggovernment.com, which is run by Andrew Breitbart. The photograph is from the waist down, and shows no face.
“The weiner gags never get old, I guess, ” the veteran lawmaker emailed a POLITICO reporter in response on Saturday.
“This evening a photo surfaced on Congressman Weiner’s yfrog account and in his verified Twitter timeline of a man in his underwear with an erection,” Publius, the handle for the site’s editors wrote. “The photo was reportedly sent to a woman on Twitter. We’ve protected her name and her account, which was at one time verified to be active but has since been deleted after the photo in question was deleted. Coincidentally, the rest of the photos in the congressman’s alleged yfrog account were also deleted around 11 p.m. eastern.”
Biggovernment.com writes that the woman in question is a college student who lives in Seattle and notes that another Weiner tweet from Friday, about an upcoming appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC program, made reference to when the program would air in Seattle.
After the incident, Weiner continued to tweet.
“Thanks to all my new followers im drawing close to Bachmann. #ScrappyChasingCrazy,” he wrote at 6:35 p.m. Saturday, in the last posted tweet.
Weiner’s office — generally one of the most press friendly around — did not respond to a request for comment on whether he has contacted federal authorities to report the alleged cyber-attack, which could fall under laws prohibiting cyberhacking and impersonating federal officials.
Whatever the case with the Weiner incident, it’s clear that the age of electronic communication is leaving politicians with even less privacy than they had in the past.
Earlier this week in Weiner’s home state, a special election was held to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of married Republican Rep. Chris Lee, who sent a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist. Previously, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 vice presidential candidate, was the victim of a cyber-attacker who hacked into her e-mail account and published the contents online.
In the Palin case, the hacker was convicted on two federal charges, including gaining unauthorized access to a computer, and sentenced to a year and a day in prison.
And if true, Weiner certainly would not be the first high-profile person to have his Twitter hacked — celebrities from conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly to pop star Britney Spears have had rogue messages posted to their accounts.
Weiner, 46, was first elected to Congress in 1998 after serving six years on the New York City Council. He ran for mayor in 2005 and is seen as the presumptive frontrunner for the 2013 race.
Weiner married Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in 2010 at a ceremony in the garden at Oheka Castle in Huntington, Long Island.
In recent years, the quick-witted congressman has become a hero to liberal activists, particularly those who supported including a public option in last year’s overhaul of the health care system. Though he didn’t win that battle, his constant presence on cable news programs boosted his following around the country.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55877.html#ixzz1NlPFRUpt
Typical American politician: obfuscating, self-righteous and attacking others for their own inadequacy. Instead of coming out and clearing up the matter, he makes claims that others manipulated the photo, describing it as an "hoax" and "prank" yet refusing to get the police involved for hacking into his personal files and disseminating pornographic material. If this is his cavalier attitude towards material he is expected to be entrusted with on his watch, how can he be trusted to maintain his community's security?
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