Reporters Buy McCain Campaign BlackBerry Devices at Sale Get More than They Bargained For

By Contributor Wireless and Mobile News on December 12, 2008 11:13 PM

Fox TV in Washington D.C. reporters Tisha Thompson and Rick Yarborough thought it would be fun to go a McCain Headquarters liquidation sale, yesterday. There were all kinds of tech goodies for sale including laptop computers and BlackBerry devices with dead batteries without chargers.

The laptops could not be accessed without a password and the reporters were assured that the hard drives would be wiped clean.

The best deal was for two BlackBerry devices at $20 a piece. They bought them and charged them up finding all kinds of interesting information. One BlackBerry had its contacts and emails from September until after the election, intact.

It was owned by a staffer who worked for "Citizens for McCain," a group of democrats who supported Mc Cain. A majority of the numbers were for private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists.

The reporters called a few of the private numbers and were told that it was a mistake and the contact were supposed to erased.

Then they called the McCain-Palin campaign, who said, "it was an unfortunate staff error and procedures are being put in place to ensure all information is secure."

Today, they found on the other BlackBerry more information and photos from the Republican Convention. It had contacts and emails including the phone number for former Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore.

FOX 5 called Gilmore on his cell phone.

"It makes me quite uncomfortable," he said, because, "it's a matter of principle. I gave that information to McCain headquarters and to have it sold is bothersome."

Comment from Wireless and Mobile News:

Gee that's a great deal on a working BlackBerry. Forget about the data most of readers would love not to have pay $200 and be in servitude to a two-year contract.

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