UPDATED 05:26 EDT / SEPTEMBER 15 2016

NEWS

Opinion: Paranoid much? Democrats believe that Wikileaks is hacking them

In an election season where neo-McCarthyism is now acceptable nothing should really come as a surprise but this might: the Democrats believe that Wikileaks is hacking them.

In a memo sent by the Association of State Democratic Chairs to members on Wednesday, the group warned those receiving the email to not visit and search the Wikileaks site as they may become infected by malware which they believe is specifically targeting the party.

“A number of chairs and state parties have been victims of hacks and impersonation recently,” the email, which was titled “Security Alert: Please Do Not Search Wikileaks!,”said, according to Politico.

“Due to the potential of malware attached to the site, we are under advisement from [interim DNC] Chair [Donna] Brazile to stay away in the interest of maintaining some security,”

DNC Chair Brazile is also reported to have said separately that “We would urge anyone attempting to access these documents [on Wikileaks] to proceed with extreme caution given the potential malware risks,” she said.

The memo follows both Wikileaks’ publishing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that the Clinton campaign claimed were obtained by the Russian Government, and a number of alleged cases where Democratic Party members have had their accounts breached and impersonated.

Paranoid much?

The paranoia about hacking follows the latest release of hacked emails from the DNC that included the perhaps not so surprising revelation that the Obama Administration sold off public offices to the highest bidder.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, currently domiciled in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to avoid arrest on trumped up charges of sexual assault, has been a long-term target of the Obama administration due to his role in publishing classified documents; Hillary Clinton was Obama’s Secretary of State during his first term and is likely to hold similar views about Assange and Wikileaks’ role given that many of the documents published by Wikileaks have been embarrassing for both the Administration, and Clinton herself.

While, as The Next Web rightly points out, there was a case of some malware being included in files made available by Wikileaks that pertained to the Turkish Government, there is zero evidence so far that malware has been included in the DNC documents released by the site.

A bit like the neo-McCarthyism being currently used by the Clinton campaign against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, there’s only one thing left to be said: paranoid much?

Image credit: gageskidmore/Flickr/CC by 2.0

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