Email, Website of Hawaii Lawmaker Hacked
UPDATED 6/3/11 5 p.m.
Hackers briefly seized control of the government email and website of Hawaii state Rep. .
The email account — reppine@Capitol.hawaii.gov — was taken over on Thursday, and follows the hacking of her website — — in late April.
Hackers put up “offensive” postings on her website, the representative said, and sent out an email calling her a “crook.”
Both accounts are now back in the control of Pine, the House Minority Floor Leader who represents Ewa Beach, Iroquois Point and Puuloa.
But Pine has alerted the Honolulu Police Department, the state Sheriffs Division (which provides security at the Capitol) and the FBI.
“The Legislature needs to take this very seriously,” Pine told Civil Beat Friday. “This is the coming future for all of us. Most private citizens don’t have the resources that lawmakers have to protect against identity theft, but we need stronger identity theft laws. This person stole my identity via the Internet.”
‘Offensive, False’ Content
Pine described the contents of the hacked email and website as “crazy things” that were “offensive, false, misleading information — and we can prove it in court.”
“I would rather not repeat it, because then they accomplish their goal and that will be the story,” she said. “The worst thing you can do is destroy a person’s character.”
UPDATE: Civil Beat later obtained a copy of the email in question, and Pine confirmed it. Though intended to be about Hurricane Awareness Month, the hacked email begins, “Kym Pine is a crook.”
The email continues, “After winning re-election in 2010, she refuses to pay the invoice to the Ewa resident who designed everything for her campaign …”
Pine declined to comment on the allegation, saying the matter is with the police.
Isolated Incident?
Pine said she did not know if other lawmakers had had either their email or website hacked into recently, adding that it is summer and a lot of lawmakers are not around the Capitol.
But Pine said the hacking effectively shut down her office’s ability to reach out to constituents for a number of hours. Her office now uses “new safety measures” to control the accounts.
“What is scary is that any elected official can be hacked into to and state government work can be shut down,” she said. “Imagine if someone hacked into the governor — he has the same system as me. It could ruin relations.”
The issue of hacked government Internet accounts has been in the headlines this week following the alleged hacking of a Twitter account used by U.S. Rep. Andrew Weiner of New York.
In addition, news broke this week that Google Inc. Gmail accounts of senior U.S. officials — including people who work in the White House — were by China-based hackers.
Adrienne LaFrance contributed to this report.
