The Daily Dot’s William Turton reported early Monday morning that Planned Parenthood’s website databases had been hacked late Sunday night.
Huge @WilliamTurton scoop on Planned Parenthood getting hacked. https://t.co/BeSlgzjUPy
— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) July 27, 2015
Planned Parenthood hacked, database dumped online: http://t.co/BzIctn5BRd
— The Daily Dot (@dailydot) July 27, 2015
Though the Washington Examiner and other outlets have picked up on the story, we remain skeptical of the reporting, especially when Turton writes, “Anti-abortion activists sparked the uproar earlier this month with the release of an edited video showing a Planned Parenthood director discussing the donation of fetus organs and tissue to medical research facilities, a legal but highly controversial practice.”
As tedious as it is to keep typing it, the nearly three-hour unedited video was posted simultaneously with the “highly edited” one, and a discussion of “donation” of tissue would hardly include haggling over prices of specific organs.
Nevertheless, the hackers, calling themselves 3301, are reportedly claiming they have obtained names and email addresses of Planned Parenthood employees as well as encrypted emails, which they will release soon.
Anti-abortion hackers claim to have stolen data that could take down Planned Parenthood http://t.co/JfRSatZAK3
— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) July 27, 2015
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Oh WOW! I hope Planned Parenthood has the FBI working on it.http://t.co/2IRWG9HgnF https://t.co/tEUOivovo6
— (((Str8Grandmother))) (@Str8Grandmother) July 27, 2015
https://twitter.com/AthertonKD/status/625664476734455808
Planned Parenthood Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens issued a statement regarding the alleged hacking.
New statement from @ppfa on alleged hack: pic.twitter.com/q1nV0dXeGo
— Irin Carmon (@irin) July 27, 2015
The statement reads, in part:
Extremists who oppose Planned Parenthood’s mission and services have launched an attack on our information systems, and have called on the world’s most sophisticated hackers to assist them in breaching our systems and threatening the privacy and safety of our staff members.
We are working with top leaders in this field to manage these attacks. We treat matters of safety and security with the utmost importance, and are taking every measure possible to mitigate these criminal efforts to undermine our mission and services.
The Daily Dot reports that the hackers “say they attempted to deface Planned Parenthood’s site” but were unable to … so much for that claim of the anti-abortion lobby calling on “the world’s most sophisticated hackers” to do its dirty work.
In a follow-up statement issued later this afternoon, Planned Parenthood said that both the Department of Justice and the FBI are looking into the data breach.
@ppact notifies FBI of website hack http://t.co/20v67Tvc1x So stop selling baby parts. Simple solution, really. #PPSellsBabyParts #tcot
— A Voice of Liberty (@avoiceofliberty) July 28, 2015
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