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AUG 18, 2017
UNLOCKEDLate last Saturday afternoon, Chris Vickery, a white hat computer hacker, notified Illinois elections officials that he had found the entire Chicago voter file unsecured on an Amazon Web Server.
By 5:30 p.m. Saturday, a Chicago Board of Elections spokesperson says they were notified that 1.8 million records of Chicago voter files with additional identifying information, like driver’s licenses and partial social security numbers, were exposed to public access. According to a spokesperson, the file, maintained by contractor ES&S, was secured by 9:44 p.m. Saturday evening.
ES&S has not been able to determine for the Chicago Board of Elections how long that file was unsecured. The Board is now reviewing their contract with the company, said spokesperson Jim Allen.
Whether or not the file was accessed by anyone before Vickery gave notice to election officials is under investigation with a third party forensic analyst, Crowdstrike, contracted by ES&S, says Allen. The data, which included names, addresses, dates of birth, partial Social Security numbers, and in some cases, driver's license and state ID numbers, was provided to ES&S by the Board of Elections so the company could maintain electronic poll books and verify voters on election day.
“ES&S has liability for this, period. This is our file that they agreed to protect,” said Allen. “ES&S will be responsible for any expenses or notices that will go out to voters. This was a violation of the terms of the contract for voter identifying information. The contract explicitly calls for the contractor to keep that data secured, period.”
“We’re into election day registration, so we need to look for duplicates. We’re trying to protect the security of the entire voting franchise so no one can vote twice,” said Allen.
ES&S is the only outside organization that obtains detailed voter file information, says Allen. One other company accesses data “in house” on Chicago Board of Elections servers.
“They transfer a very limited amount of public information for the chipollworker.com–name, address, year of birth, not vote history,” said Allen. Chipollworker.com is used to register election judges and coordinators in Chicago.
Chris Vickery, Director of Research for cybersecurity company UpGuard, acts as a kind of “cybersecurity good guy” by searching the web for databases with unprotected information, and then notifying the companies and organizations about the breach.
ES&S is a national election systems company based in Omaha, Nebraska that provides data management services and voting machines. Their voting machines came under considerable scrutiny nationally for poor security following the 2016 election.
“We deeply regret that this happened. We cannot stress that enough,” said Allen. -
At a meeting of the Chicago Plan Commission Thursday Ald. Michele Smith (43), a vocal critic of the Department of Planning and Development’s (DPD) North Branch redevelopment plan, testified against the sale of the Department of Fleet and Facilities Management headquarters. The 18-acre parcel fronts the Chicago River to Sterling Bay.
Smith argued the sale was "short-sighted and misguided."
"This is irreplaceable, priceless riverfront land,” Smith testified, “It should be retained for the public, to serve the 300,000 citizens surrounding the corridor now and to serve the untold tens of thousands who will be moving into the rezoned areas and the adjacent areas." Last month Smith lodged the same criticism against the department during a vote last month to repeal the strict planned manufacturing zoning designation.
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The Chicago Plan Commission approved all but one item on their monthly agenda Thursday: a proposed Clayco project in Uptown was deferred. Representatives from the Department of Planning and Development also briefed those present on new reporting requirements now in effect for all planned development applications.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel signed an executive order Wednesday mandating developers document efforts to include minority and women-owned firms as subcontractors and hire locally.
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Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle tapped Ammar Rizki Wednesday to permanently fill the Chief Financial Officer position. His appointment comes as several commissioners and state legislators are pressing for a repeal of the county’s beverage tax, which is expected to yield $200 million annually.
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Today, the Chicago Plan Commission will consider eight planned development applications, nearly half of which are amendments, and several land acquisition and disposition requests concerning the city’s plan to sell a Fleet and Facilities Management warehouse in the North Branch Corridor and relocate operations to Englewood.
Department of Planning and Development Commissioner David Reifman is also expected to brief the land-use board on new MBE/WBE reporting requirements for planned development applications. The Executive Order Mayor Rahm Emanuel signed Wednesday requires applicants to submit a signed affidavit explaining their efforts to “promote and incorporate participation by certified MBE/WBE firms and plans for local hiring.”
Past Coverage: Plan Commissioners Want Developers to Boost Minority Participation, Affordable Housing
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Campaign contributions topped $3.17 million in the second quarter of 2017. For Mayor Rahm Emanuel, City Treasurer Kurt Summers, City Clerk Anna Valencia, and the city’s aldermen, that total is just part of the $8.8 million in total cash on hand for the close of the quarter.
That total only includes personal campaign funds, not political ward funds, which most aldermen control as Democratic Committeemen. It also excludes independent expenditure groups, which a handful of aldermen also control.
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The Illinois Senate overrode Governor Bruce Rauner’s SB1 amendatory veto on Sunday with one Republican, Sen. Sam McCann (R-Plainview) voting with Senate Democrats.
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AUG 11, 2017
UNLOCKEDCPS CEO Forrest Claypool unveils district’s FY18 budget at Galileo Elementary School Friday afternoon.Chicago Public Schools unveiled what district CEO Forrest Claypool called a $5.75 billion budget “outline” Friday, stressing that too many unknown variables, particularly state action on a school funding reform bill, SB1, could significantly alter the district’s spending plan for the upcoming school year.
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This week on The Daily Line's Aldercast, we recap a time-honored and quintessentially Chicago tradition: Cook County Democratic Party slating. That is when all of Cook County’s committeemen get together to decide who will get a leg up from the party in the 2018 elections. Many of Cook County’s 80 Democratic Party committeemen gathered Thursday morning in the back room of Erie Cafe in River North to hear pitches from prospective county-wide office-holders to hear how they plan to handle the issues swirling around their offices: the fallout over Board President Toni Preckwinkle's sweetened beverage tax and questions about how Assessor (and party boss) Joe Berrios values properties (and donations from property attorneys).
Got questions, comments, or suggestions? Send us an email: [email protected]. -
Many of Cook County’s 80 Democratic Party committeemen gathered Thursday morning in the back room of Erie Cafe in River North to hear pitches from prospective county-wide office-holders. Each was given three minutes for their pitch, and two minutes for follow-up questions. Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6) chaired the morning’s proceedings. Tomorrow the committeemen will hear from statewide office-seekers.
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There’s been a flood of news on Cook County’s nascent beverage tax, which started hitting customers on August 2nd. The knock-on political impact for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has been brutal so far. She told party bosses at the Cook County Democratic Party slating on Thursday that her administration has been “particularly challenged” as of late, but stood by the tax, saying it “was the right thing to do,” to prevent hundreds of layoffs in key the county’s public safety and health departments.
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AUG 11, 2017
A panel Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson commissioned nearly a year ago to overhaul the police department's approach to “community policing” released a preliminary draft of their suggested reforms Thursday. Very similar to that of a police reform roadmap Supt. Johnson issued in March, the draft, which calls for significant changes in training and day-to-day policing, won’t be finalized for at least another four months.
This puts CPD in the considerable position of designing a plan and corresponding curriculum at the same time it undergoes a major hiring bump, and while the city renegotiates a ten-year old, recently expired contract with all rank and file police officers.
The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, the union that represents Chicago police officers, was not part of the drafting, and its newly elected president Kevin Graham would not comment on its proposals, since, according to his secretary, Thursday late afternoon was the first time he’d seen it.
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Mayor Rahm Emanuel intends to create a new finance authority to issue debt on behalf of the city, using new powers built in the state’s 2018 budget passed last month that the mayor called a “key part” in addressing the city’s debt load and slumping credit ratings. Mayor Emanuel briefly discussed the initiative at the city’s annual Investors Conference, a yearly closed-door presentation the mayor and his finance team give to bankers in order to bolster the city’s fiscal image.
Though the “new tool” had been in the planning stage for over a year, through the city’s lobbying efforts in Springfield, this was the first time he spoke about it publicly, even if for only a few minutes.
“It allows us to issue our G.O. – our general obligation debt – in a way that is much more financially viable for the city,” Mayor Emanuel said of the new mechanism two-thirds of the way into his speech. “It will create a revenue that is essential for the city to continue on the path or restructuring and rebalancing the finances to create the certainty and stability that’s essential for the economic growth for the city of Chicago.”
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AUG 09, 2017
The Council’s Finance Committee held a subject matter hearing– but took no action– on an ordinance and resolution from committee chair Ald. Ed Burke (14) that seeks to curtail price gouging of prescription drugs by pharmaceutical companies.
The hearing is the latest in a series of subject matter hearings the committee has had on the issue of prescription drugs, whether in relation the the country’s ongoing opioid crisis or the burden drug costs have on seniors and the chronically ill.
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AUG 08, 2017
Chicago Public School officials delayed Monday’s planned release of the district’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget, and announced the regularly scheduled August Board of Education meeting would be moved to later in the month as well. Instead, the district announced a number of “staffing changes… based on enrollment changes, program adjustments and/or changes in students’ academic needs.”
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