Senator Bernie Sanders' campaign has had an incredibly bumpy ride along its hopeful road to the nomination. From its monumental rise in the summer of 2015 to its leveling off later in the year, the campaign had always been an anti-establishment one from the beginning, and that sort of action has taken its toll.
On December 17th, 2015, Bernie Sanders gained the support of progressive groups Democracy For America and the Communication Workers of America. On that day, the Sanders Campaign also announced a staggering 2 million individual contributions (though not contributors).
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However, that evening a very different story broke. The Sanders Campaign was blocked from accessing voter data in the Democratic National Committee's system (data that the Sanders campaign had gathered itself). The reason for this withholding of data is a breach of security by a Sanders staffer. The National Data Director for the campaign (along with an alleged 4 others) tried and succeeded at accessing private data of Secretary Hillary Clinton's campaign. This breach, according to the Data Director, was intended to test the depth of the security breach. However, the Clinton campaign and DNC claim that Sanders staff intentionally copied data from these files and stored them off the network.
As of this writing, the Sanders Campaign has sued the DNC, citing the detrimental, potentially catastrophic effects the blocking of data access could have on the campaign, especially so close to the Iowa Caucuses. There is also a claim that the DNC acted unilaterally in banning data access, considering the agreement signed between the Sanders Campaign and the DNC provides for 10 days to address concerns before action is taken. Data access has subsequently been restored.
Whether people believe in conspiracy theories or not, it is clear that the DNC is acting in a manner detrimental to the Sanders campaign. If the concern was about security, all candidates ought to have been blocked from data. If the matter was about punishment, the proper process should have been undertaken. Such an egregious security flaw should not have been taken to the press to begin with.
