Salon.com > Jack Gillum

Obama political appointees use secret email accounts

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 12:54:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Some of President Barack Obama's political appointees, including the secretary for Health and Human Services, are using secret government email accounts they say are necessary to prevent their inboxes from being overwhelmed with unwanted messages, according to a review by The Associated Press.

The scope of using the secret accounts across government remains a mystery: Most U.S. agencies have failed to turn over lists of political appointees' email addresses, which the AP sought under the Freedom of Information Act more than three months ago. The Labor Department initially asked the AP to pay more than $1 million for its email addresses.

The AP asked for the addresses following last year's disclosures that the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency had used separate email accounts at work. The practice is separate from officials who use personal, non-government email accounts for work, which generally is discouraged — but often happens anyway — due to laws requiring that most federal records be preserved.

Romney mines personal data to target donors

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 15:13:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Mitt Romney's success in raising hundreds of millions of dollars in the costliest presidential race ever can be traced in part to a secretive data-mining project that sifts through Americans' personal information - including their purchasing history and church attendance - to identify new and likely, wealthy donors, The Associated Press has learned.

For the data-mining project, the Republican candidate has quietly employed since at least June a little-known but successful analytics firm that previously performed marketing work for a colleague tied to Bain & Co., the management-consulting firm that Romney once led.

The head of Buxton Co. of Fort Worth, Texas, chief executive Tom Buxton, confirmed to the AP his company's efforts to help Romney identify rich and previously untapped Republican donors across the country. The Romney campaign declined to discuss on the record its work with Buxton or the project's overall success.

The project shows that the same strategies corporations use to influence the way we shop and think are now being used to influence presidential elections. The same personal information that we give away, often unwittingly when we swipe our credit cards or log into Facebook, is now being collected by the people who might one day occupy the White House.

Mysterious donor to pro-Romney PAC identified

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 14:31:37 +0000

A once-mysterious donor who gave $1 million to a pro-Mitt Romney political action committee in April contributed the maximum amount to Romney's presidential campaign three weeks later, an Associated Press review found.

Edward Conard came forward this weekend as the man behind the donation from New York firm W Spann LLC, founded shortly before giving the $1 million check to Romney-leaning Restore Our Future PAC. W Spann dissolved three months later, business records show, prompting outrage from campaign-finance watchdogs who said the secret contribution violated the law.

Conard is a former executive at Boston-based Bain Capital, which was co-founded by Romney in 1984. Conard could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday.

Federal Election Commission records show that in May, Conard and his wife, Jill, gave $2,500 each to Romney's presidential committee -- the maximum allowed under federal regulations by individuals to presidential candidates. Edward Conard also gave $2,300 toward Romney's 2008 White House run, records show.

The new developments surrounding Restore Our Future's contributions show how political donors -- bound by dollar limits during each election cycle -- can now give much more cash to outside groups that favor certain candidates.