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| Hackers claim attack on Justice Department website - Reuters Posted: 26 Jan 2013 09:35 AM PST WASHINGTON | (Reuters) - Hackers sympathetic to the late computer prodigy Aaron Swartz claimed on Saturday to have infiltrated the website of the U.S. Justice Department's Sentencing Commission, and said they planned to release government data. The Sentencing Commission site, www.ussc.gov , was shut down early Saturday. Identifying themselves as Anonymous, a loosely organized group of unknown provenance associated with a range of recent online actions, the hackers voiced outrage over Swartz' suicide on January 11. In a video posted online, the hackers criticized the government's prosecution of Swartz, who had been facing trial on charges that he used the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's computer networks to steal more than 4 million articles from JSTOR, an online archive and journal distribution service. Swartz had faced a maximum sentence of 31 years in prison and fines of up to $1 million. The FBI is investigating the attack, according to Richard McFeely, of the bureau's Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. "We were aware as soon as it happened and are handling it as a criminal investigation," McFeely said in an emailed statement. "We are always concerned when someone illegally accesses another person's or government agency's network." (Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko; Editing by Vicki Allen) |
| Sen. Tom Harkin won't seek re-election in 2014 - DesMoinesRegister.com Posted: 26 Jan 2013 09:16 AM PST Tom Harkin, Iowa's powerful Democratic U.S. senator, won't seek re-election in two years, he told The Des Moines Register this morning. His retirement is expected to leave a huge void for Iowa - he will have been in Congress for four decades by the end of this term - but clears the way for Democrats trying determine their lineup for 2014. The next generation of Democratic candidates depended on whether Harkin, 73, chose to run again, party operatives told the Register for an article published Thursday. 1st District U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley of Waterloo is the favored replacement, Democrats have said. "I have mixed feelings," said Harkin, who was born in Cumming, has currently served in the U.S. Senate for 27 years and in the U.S. House 10 years before that. "You know what, it's somebody else's turn." He added: "To walk away from this position and this power is not an easy thing. But I think it's the right thing. And I have two years left. I'm not passing the torch sitting down, it's a running relay. I intend to be very active over the next two years." Today's news was unexpected: Many leading Democrats and Republicans thought Harkin, a powerful committee chairman, would run again. He and his Republican counterpart U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, 79, are a major force in federal government. And Harkin has been fundraising in earnest, including with a $1,500-a-person event scheduled for Feb. 25 featuring "Poker Face" singer Lady Gaga. Harkin has nearly $3 million in his campaign account, the second most money of any U.S. senator who is up for re-election in the next cycle. Only U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has more. In an interview in Des Moines this morning, Harkin said he made his decision a couple nights ago, after all the grandkids had gone to sleep and he was climbing into bed for the night with his wife, Ruth. He said one of his top reasons for retiring is to give himself more time with Ruth. He intends to take lessons they've been wanting to take for years - "I'm going to learn to dance," he said. "The job I'm in is really very consuming. I love it. I loved every minute of it," he said. "But there are are certain things we wanted to do together and live together in a way that we've not been able to do and we wanted to do it before it's too late. Iowans can relate to that, I hope." Later this morning, Harkin broke the news to the central committee meeting of the Iowa Democratic Party. He said his health is not an issue. He's in great health and so is his wife, he said. And he had no fear that he might lose re-election - he has the support of many Iowans, "including some Republicans," he told the meeting. Harkin is popular in Iowa, according to The Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll. Harkin has regularly earned job approval ratings in the 60 percent range, and 70 percent or higher three times. Asked who he thinks might run to replace him, Harkin said he read the Register's article detailing how Iowa Democrats were waiting for him to make his move before they decide which positions to seek. If Harkin chose to stay in office, Braley might have considered running for governor. Braley has been talking privately with party power brokers about that in the last couple weeks, the Register reported. If Braley runs for a different office besides the 1st Congressional District, Democrats have a posse of good candidates they'd like to field for that job. The race for governor is the most fluid, but decisions on who would run on the Democratic side also hinged on Harkin's decision. "As you so correctly wrote," Harkin said in the interview this morning, "this really opens up a lot of opportunity and it really cascades down. I don't know who. I'm sure very shortly people will be stepping up. I certainly don't want to be in any position of trying to hand-pick my successor. The Democrats will decide that." Harkin said he hopes Democrats select a nominee who is "smart, savvy, knows how to put together a winning campaign and is a good pragmatic progressive." Asked about Braley, Harkin answered: "Certainly he is one of the most talked about that I hear about from my fellow Democrats. … Let's take a little breath and see what happens in the next week or so and see what emerges." Harkin is a big voice on social issues, and he has the ear of party leaders. Since Democrats control his chamber, he can move bills and tuck in an amendment here or there. He has left a thumbprint on agriculture, improvements for people with disabilities, health care and various progressive causes for decades. Harkin shoulders an important assignment in the Senate: He's chairman of the HELP committee, which stands for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, a huge jurisdiction. The No Child Left Behind education law and the 2010 health care reform law — the Affordable Care Act, derisively called Obamacare — originated there. Those assigned to this powerful committee generally aren't supposed to serve on other committees, but Harkin has taken on three others: agriculture, appropriations and small business. Iowa Democrats reacted with strong emotion. "I'm flabbergasted," said Scott Brennan, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman. "But he'd never committed to running, which surprised me a little." Harkin has been a mainstay in Iowa politics since 1975. "There were years it didn't seem like there was a single elected Democrat in the state of Iowa, but Tom Harkin was the constant," Brennan said. "If anyone deserves to go out on top, it's Tom Harkin." "I'm weepy," said Araceli Goode, a member of the Iowa Democratic Party central committee. "It's hard to accept the truth that he's going to be stepping down." Iowa politics will experience a void, she said. "In a way, until we see who's going to be moving up," Good said. "It's going to be a challenge to meet those standards that he has set." |
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