ST. LOUIS — Despite a prosecutor’s decision earlier this month not to file charges against a Post-Dispatch reporter who found a vulnerability in a state education department database, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson reiterated Tuesday that he believed the reporter committed a crime.
Speaking at a business ribbon-cutting event in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, Parson said he still had questions about the Post-Dispatch and reporter Josh Renaud’s discovery that teachers’ Social Security numbers could be exposed to the public due to flaws on a website maintained by the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“Why did you take people’s personal information out?†Parson said to reporters after the ceremony. “If you just wanted to disclose there’s a problem, OK, you could have done that without taking anybody’s personal information. That’s where the real problem is, and I think the answer still has to be said: Where’s that information at? What’d they do with those people’s personal information? We don’t know.â€
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Parson’s comments came a day after the release of a Missouri Highway Patrol investigation into the incident, which indicated that the flaw allowing a member of the public to access teacher Social Security numbers with a publicly available decoding application had been around since 2011. The police report included an interview with a state information technology employee who said the data should have been encrypted but wasn’t.
According to the Highway Patrol, Renaud told investigators he did not retain any of the exposed Social Security numbers. Renaud had verified with three teachers that the numbers included in the database code were Social Security numbers, and he said he did not share the numbers with anyone else.
Renaud, a data reporter for the newspaper working to compile teacher certification information from publicly available data, told the state of the flaw in October, and the newspaper delayed publication of his story until the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education could correct the problem. Education officials initially planned to thank Renaud in a statement, according to records obtained by the newspaper.
But the day after publishing, Parson held a news conference declaring Renaud a “hacker†and said his office had referred the matter to the Cole County prosecutor. Later, a political action committee aligned with Parson ran an ad congratulating the governor for “standing up to the fake news media.â€
Parson has cited that says computer tampering occurs if a person “without authorization or without reasonable grounds to believe that he has such authorization†discloses or takes data, or accesses a computer network and intentionally examines personal information.
A cybersecurity expert has called the state’s website configuration “a serious flaw,†and emails obtained through open records requests indicate an FBI official told state officials that it was not “an actual network intrusion.â€
Cole County Prosecuting Attorney Locke Thompson on Feb. 11 said he would not pursue charges against Renaud, saying there “was an argument to be made†the law was violated but that the “the issues at the heart of the investigation have been resolved through non-legal means.â€
Parson said Tuesday it was Thompson’s decision to make but reiterated his belief that Renaud did break the law.
“(Thompson) never did say the law wasn’t broken,†Parson said. “He didn’t say that at all. He basically said he didn’t want to pursue it because of the expense to the taxpayers in Cole County.â€
Responding to a question from Kevin Killeen, a reporter for KMOX (1120 AM), about whether he owed the Post-Dispatch an apology, Parson said “most certainly not.â€
“I think there’s a lot of political hype to this, but the bottom line is, the people I think that should be real concerned is, who got the information?†Parson said. “Who are the people that somebody took their information, and what’d they do with it? I mean, if anybody had to apologize, I would be thinking that somebody would be apologizing to them for taking their personal information out because nobody has a right to do that.â€
In this Series
Essential reading: Governor threatens Post-Dispatch after discovery of data vulnerability
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The Chat Room: How dangerous is Gov. Mike Parson’s failed attempt to prosecute a Post-Dispatch reporter?
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Inside the Post-Dispatch: Josh Renaud reacts to the Missouri governor's accusation
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No apology: Parson says he still has questions about disclosure of teachers’ Social Security numbers
- 22 updates