A Reporter Is Under Investigation for Using the 'View Source' Function on a Website Because, right clicking on a site and pressing 'view source' counts as tampering. https://interestingengineering.com/reporter-on-trial-for-using-view-source-on-a-website
Missouri prosecutor declines to charge St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Parson targeted https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article258315738.html A Missouri prosecutor won’t charge a St. Louis Post-Dispatch journalist whom Gov. Mike Parson targeted for a criminal investigation after he revealed a data flaw in a state website that left 100,000 teachers’ Social Security numbers vulnerable. Cole County prosecutor Locke Thompson said in a news release that “it is not in the best interest of Cole County citizens to utilize the significant resources and taxpayer dollars that would be necessary to pursue misdemeanor criminal charges in this case.” Thompson, a Republican, had been reviewing the case since late December after a Missouri State Highway Patrol investigation. The reporter, Josh Renaud, released a personal statement late Friday. “This decision is a relief,” Renaud wrote. “But it does not repair the harm done to me and my family. My actions were entirely legal and consistent with established journalistic principles.” He added, “This was a political persecution of a journalist, plain and simple.” Renaud last October found more than 100,000 Social Security numbers of teachers and other state education department employees could have been publicly accessible because of a vulnerability on a website maintained by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). The Social Security numbers, the Post-Dispatch reported, had been exposed in the HTML source code of a state website, which anyone can access through a web browser with a few key strokes. Renaud notified DESE of the flaw and withheld publication of the story about it until the database was taken offline. The next day, Parson held a press conference labeling the reporter a “hacker” and, in an extraordinary decision, referred him for a criminal investigation. The revelation of the security flaw led DESE to spend $800,000 to offer credit monitoring to teachers whose personal information was left vulnerable. The department had planned to thank the Post-Dispatch before the governor’s office intervened, the newspaper later reported. St. Louis Post-Dispatch President and Publisher Ian Caso said in a statement Friday that the newspaper was pleased to learn no criminal charges will be pursued. He also called the governor’s accusations “unfounded” and aimed toward deflecting embarrassment “for the state’s failures.” “This matter should have never gone beyond the state’s initial, intended response, which was to thank the reporter for the responsible way he handled the situation,” Caso said. “Instead, too much taxpayer money has been wasted in a politically-motivated investigation.” The prosecutor’s decision brings to an end one of Parson’s most far-reaching public outbursts. Though he had previously lashed out at journalists for critical reporting of his administration’s COVID-19 response, calling for a criminal investigation of Renaud marked a new low in his relationship with the press and was widely panned by cybersecurity experts. Virtually no Missouri Republican politicians came to his defense. Renaud wrote that he hoped Parson would “redeem” the situation by apologizing, noting the governor’s scathing statement last week after hard-right conservative senators and anti-vaccine activists forced the ouster of the state health director. “More care was given to political gain than the harm caused to a man and his family,” Parson said then. Renaud said the words applied equally to Parson’s treatment of him, and called the investigation “one of the most difficult seasons” of a 20-year career in journalism. “The investigation has run its course,” he wrote. “So now I pray Gov. Parson’s eyes will be opened, that he will see the harm he did to me and my family, that he will apologize, and that he will show Missourians a better way.” Parson has all but refused. In a statement, his spokeswoman Kelli Jones continued to call Renaud’s reporting “the hacking of Missouri teachers’ personally identifiable information” and a “clear violation” of the state’s computer tampering statutes. “The state did its part by investigating and presenting its findings to the Cole County Prosecutor, who has elected not to press charges, as is his prerogative,” she said. Thompson said that “there is an argument to be made that there was a violation of law,” but said upon reviewing the case file, “the issues at the heart of the investigation have been resolved through non-legal means.”
Yep.. .the flaw Gov. Parson wanted to indict the reporter for has existed since 2011. Report: Flaw that exposed teacher data existed since 2011 https://apnews.com/article/technolo...ion-st-louis-64500e87ac92c9b6c538db570fa66ef6 ST. LOUIS (AP) — A flaw in a state database that allowed public access to thousands of teachers’ Social Security numbers has been in place for a decade before a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter exposed it, according to a report that was released Monday. Republican Gov. Mike Parson condemned reporter Josh Renaud last fall for writing about the weakness, even though the paper refrained doing so until after the state could fix it. Parson also said the Missouri State Highway Patrol would conduct an investigation, which culminated in the 158-page report that was released Monday. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that DESE spokeswoman Mallory McGowin told the patrol that Renaud hadn’t accessed “anything that was not publicly available, nor was he in a place he should not have been.” According to the report, McGowin also told investigators with the patrol that a vulnerability that left 576,000 teacher Social Security numbers exposed “would have been there since 2011, when the application was implemented.” The Post-Dispatch previously obtained records through an open records request showing that the state education commissioner initially planned to thank the newspaper for finding the problem. But the state instead issued a news release calling the reporter a “hacker.” McGowin said the database — like other state computer services — is actually overseen by Parson’s Office of Administration, which the governor controls. The highway patrol said it spent about 175 hours on the investigation. Three officers assisted in the probe. No cost estimate was provided. The report’s release came more than a week after Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson announced he would not be charging Renaud in connection with the investigation. The investigators also talked with cybersecurity expert Shaji Khan, who had verified for the Post-Dispatch that the flaw existed. Khan, who teaches at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, said he was alarmed by the information he’d received about the vulnerability. “He (Khan) stated by the time he was done looking, he realized how bad the situation was and indicated the state needed to be notified immediately,” the report notes. Khan’s attorney, Elad Gross, said last week that Thompson would not be charging Khan either. “Governor Mike Parson had no basis to instigate a criminal investigation into reporter Josh Renaud or cybersecurity expert Dr. Shaji Khan. These Missourians responsibly reported a security flaw on a public website that transmitted teachers’ social security numbers to every website visitor. They did the right thing,” Gross said in a statement.
This clown Parson is truly an idiot. Despite a 158-page investigative report compiled by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson showing the reporter committed no crime -- Mike Parson is still digging in and claiming the reporter hacked a computer system & stole personal information. Missouri governor digs in against evidence absolving reporter he accused of being a ‘hacker’ https://www.rawstory.com/mike-parson-2656841630/ Jason Hancock, Missouri Independent Gov. Mike Parson on Thursday once again refused to accept the conclusions of an investigation by the highway patrol and Cole County prosecutor surrounding a reporter who uncovered a security flaw in a state website. Speaking to a gathering of reporters and editors in the governor’s mansion for Missouri Press Association Day, Parson restated his accusation that a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch stole the personal information of teachers. “I don’t think anybody should go in and take people’s private information,” Parson said, adding: “Nobody has the right to take people’s personal information out and share it.” In fact, as documented in a 158-page investigative report compiled by the Missouri State Highway Patrol and Cole County Prosecutor Locke Thompson, the reporter simply looked at the source coding of a publicly available state website — something that is typically available to anyone using a web browser. What he discovered was that teacher Social Security numbers were mistakenly contained in the source code. Parson appears to believe what the reporter did next — contacting teachers he knew personally to confirm the Social Security numbers were real — constitutes stealing their personal information. That wasn’t the conclusion of either law enforcement or the prosecutor, who declined to press charges. Thompson told The Independent that if any crime was committed it was both unintentional and based on a law so broad and vague it essentially criminalizes “using a computer to look up someone’s information.” “Our investigation did not uncover any evidence that any of the (Social Security) numbers had been compromised,” Thompson said. Once the reporter confirmed the Social Security numbers of hundreds of thousands of teachers were at risk of public disclosure, he notified the state, explained how he found the flaw and promised not to publish anything until the issue was fixed. State officials wanted to thank him. But the governor instead convened a press conference to call the reporter a hacker and push for a criminal investigation. Even after the prosecutor’s public statements explaining why charges wouldn’t be filed, Parson has refused to back down from his claims. His reiteration of his allegations against the reporter Thursday came moments after greeting members of the media from around the state at the mansion with an exhortation of his commitment to transparency and press freedom. He said that since he took over as governor from his scandal-plagued and media-averse predecessor, Eric Greitens, he’s worked to “change the way the governor’s office reacted to the media. “I think it’s very important for people in elected positions or true public servants to be transparent,” he said. “I really do.” Yet Parson’s relationship with the press has been much more complicated. The governor regularly lashes out at perceived slights and criticism, culminating with his push for criminal prosecution of the Post-Dispatch reporter who he accused of trying to use the security flaw to embarrass his administration. In January, records obtained by The Independent showed that among the governor’s legislative priorities are changes to the state’s Sunshine Law that would permit government agencies to withhold more information from the public and charge more for any records that are turned over. Last summer, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Parson’s office cannot charge for time attorneys spend reviewing public records in case that alleged the office improperly redacted public records, charged exorbitant fees and knowingly and purposely violated the state’s open records law. Also at Thursday’s event, Parson was asked about the Republican primary to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt. The governor has not endorsed anyone in the race, and on Thursday declined to say whether he would be willing to support Greitens if he were to be the party’s nominee. Greitens resigned from office in 2018 while facing impeachment and felony charges. Many Republicans worry he could cost the party the Senate seat if he were to emerge from the primary victorious. While Parson acknowledged he “didn’t like the things that occurred when he was governor,” he declined to weigh into the race either in support or opposition of any candidate on Thursday. “I think there are a lot of really good candidates,” Parson said, later adding that his position on whether to endorse “may change.” Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. 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