Wisconsin’s Campaign Finance Information System (CFIS) was compromised in late November and nobody from the Wisconsin Ethics Commission seems to want to talk on the record about it.
But audio recordings obtained by The Federalist raise serious questions about the CFIS breach and the responsibility government agencies have to notify the legislature of integrated technology security threats.
Through the Backdoor
The breach occurred on the eve of Thanksgiving and continued for several days, a commission staff member told Adrianne Melby, a self-described “moral conservative” and arguably one of Wisconsin’s more passionate open government and election integrity activists. In attempting to check campaign finance reports that are stored on the CFIS site, Melby found the system inoperable and called the agency to find out what the problem was.
While Ethics Commission Administrator Daniel Carlton has refused to return multiple requests for comment from The Federalist about the breach, Melby had an illuminating conversation with an agency staff member identified only as Richard following the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The only “Richard” listed online as part of the Ethics Commission’s program staff as of June 2020 is a Richard Bohringer. Since Wisconsin is a one-party consent state, Melby recorded the conversation and provided the audio to The Federalist.
First, Melby spoke with a different staff member who wouldn’t say what caused the system shutdown, only that there were “some things that are currently out of our hands right now.” The staff member described the problem as a “maintenance issue,” and that the
