Unfair Park from p6 office,” Parker said in the statement. “She, astonishingly, attacks Venton Jones for not revealing his sexual orientation and HIV status by referencing his remarks in The Dallas Morning News discussing exactly those things. Thinly veiled anti-gay and transphobic insults reveal the character of this perennial candidate.” Parker added, “Politicizing someone’s sexual orientation and HIV status is unac- ceptable, particularly from a person who wants to be a public official. Crenshaw should immediately apologize.” ▼ POLITICS FOR FOX, WAR WOUNDS ARE OK TO TARGET I fornia Rep. Eric Swalwell criticized the FOX host. “I have had plenty of *policy* disagree- ments with @DanCrenshawTX but I have never have questioned his patriotism,” he said. “Just stunning to see Fox News tee off on a wounded veteran. Tucker Carlson isn’t man enough to give a finger nail for this country. Dan lost an eye. Case closed.” Cer- tain Republicans are also condemning Carl- son, including Gunner Ramer, political director for the anti-Trump Republican Ac- countability Project. It was “an absolutely terrible and disgusting comment” made by Carlson, who’s one of the most influential figures in the GOP, he said. Ramer notes that in focus groups, Repub- TEXAS REPUBLICAN DAN CRENSHAW BRUSHES OFF TUCKER CARLSON’S ‘EYEPATCH’ JOKE. BY SIMONE CARTER n 2018, SNL actor Pete Davidson made a joke that many didn’t find funny. He lik- ened Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw, who at the time was running for Congress, to a “hitman in a porno movie.” Crenshaw wears an eyepatch, having lost his right eye in 2012 to an IED while serving in Afghanistan. “I’m sorry. I know he lost his eye in war or whatever,” Davidson contin- ued, the crowd laughing. FOX News host Tucker Carlson slammed SNL following Davidson’s re- marks, for which the comedian later apolo- gized in a televised grovel-session. But now, more than three years later, Carlson is using similar language to describe the Texas congressman. During his show last Monday night, Carl- son attacked Crenshaw over his support for delivering U.S. aid to Ukraine. “The more I think about it, it takes a lot of gall for ‘eyepatch McCain’ to attack moms who are worried about baby formula as ‘pro- Russia,’” Carlson said, referencing the late John McCain, the long-time Republican senator, Vietnam War POW, 2008 Republi- can presidential nominee and Donald Trump foe. Carlson has previously said he’s “root[ing] for Russia” and has been critical of the $40 billion aid package considered by Congress, which would help Ukraine. In a different FOX segment, Crenshaw told host Trey Gowdy that some GOP argu- ments against the package seem “almost pro-Russia.” Some Republicans, such as former Presi- dent Donald Trump and far-right U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have argued that Congress should instead focus on trying to solve the baby formula shortage. But Cren- shaw said they are two separate issues, with the shortage stemming from manufacturing problems, not a lack of funding. In an emailed statement, Crenshaw said he’s not backing down. “You hurl juvenile insults when you 88 know you’ve lost the debate,” the Houston Republican said of Carlson’s remarks. “I stand by every word I said in my interview with Trey Gowdy.” Some Democrats have taken to social media to call out Carlson. In a tweet, Cali- lican voters nationwide largely report watching the far-right OAN and Newsmax networks, as well as Carlson’s show. The FOX host’s remarks illustrate how much the party has changed in recent years, he said. McCain went from being the Republican presidential nominee to a pariah following the rise of Trump, Ramer said. Carlson’s comments are a reminder that the GOP days of McCain and former President Ronald Reagan over; now, it’s the party of Trump and Carlson, which is bad from a “democ- racy standpoint.” Referencing the 2018 SNL segment, Ra- mer said there’s “selective outrage” when it comes to picking on war veteran Crenshaw. “The outrage that was there when Pete Davidson made his comments is not here at all when Tucker Carlson made those com- ments last night,” Ramer said, “because Tucker Carlson is one of the most influential voices for Republican primary voters, and just more broadly people that digest conser- vative media.” ▼ PRIVACY MISTAKE EXPOSES PERSONAL DATA, INCLUDING SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS, OF 1.8 MILLION TEXANS BY JACOB VAUGHN ONE MORE INTO THE BREACH I t’s relatively easy to find a person’s phone number, email and address online. But if you’re a criminal looking for Social Secu- rity numbers, it can be more challenging. That is, unless you caught on to the fact that the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) accidentally made all of that informa- tion available to anyone who wanted to see it for nearly three years. An audit of the department found it acci- dentally exposed the personal information of some 1.8 million workers who had filed compensation claims. The personal data in- cluded dates of birth, emails, addresses, phone numbers and Social Security num- bers. All of this information was available publicly from March 2019 to January 2022. In March this year, the department put out a public notice after its audit was com- plete, acknowledging the data breach. The audit was released earlier this month. On Jan. 4, 2022, the TDI “became aware of a security issue with a TDI web applica- tion that manages workers’ compensation information,” the department said in the March notice. “TDI immediately took the wikimedia commons application offline, quickly fixed the issue, and started an investigation to determine the nature and scope of the event.” The department said it will be sending letters to people who filed workers’ com- pensation claims in the nearly three-year period. The letters will have instructions for enrolling in credit monitoring service at no cost to them. If you don’t get a letter but have filed a workers compensation claim since 2006, the department said you may still be eligible for the free credit monitoring. Ben Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Insurance, said its inves- tigation into the data breach included identify- ing whose information was viewed by people outside the department. “To date, we are not aware of any misuse of the information,” Gon- zalez said in a statement last week. But the department is also providing 12 months of identity protection services for those affected. This includes fraud consulta- tion and identity theft restoration. The cause was apparently a glitch in the programming code in the department’s web application. The site everyone had access to for nearly three years was meant to be stored in a protected part of the online ap- plication. The coding glitch allowed everyone to access this protected part of the applica- tion. Once the department found out about the glitch, it took the application of- fline until the information was made pri- vate. Gonzalez said their investigation was not prompted by the state’s audit, which began last fall. “TDI identified the web application is- sue in January 2022 and, after correcting the code issue, reported it publicly, includ- ing issuing letters to potentially affected in- dividuals, posting notice on our website, and issuing a news release,” Gonzalez ex- plained. “The March 24 notice TDI sent to the media and consumers was not depen- dent on or initiated by the [State Auditor’s Office] audit, nor was the timing of that no- tice related to the [State Auditor’s Office] audit or report.” Gonzalez said the auditor’s office was working on its audit while the department Almost two million Texans’ personal information was publicly available through the Texas Department of Insurance for almost three years. was investigating the breach and was in the process of preparing notices. Tobin Shea, CEO of MindWise Cyberse- curity & Fraud Prevention, told the Observer the breach appeared “preventable.” “From the information I was able to find, this appears to be a very elementary level mistake when configuring access permissions that should have been caught by a senior developer or cybersecurity team member when the web application was published,” Shea said. “Even if it slipped past the development team, an ap- plication dealing with such a high volume of confidential, personal information should have undergone regular security testing and audits that would have ex- posed this issue.” Shea added, “If a bad actor found this ex- posed information, it would indeed be the jackpot.” On some level, obtaining this kind of in- formation is easy because so much of it is sold on the dark web every single year, Shea said. “The other factor in this equation is how the dark web obtains this information to sell in the first place,” Shea said. Usually, the in- formation gets out after a deliberate hack, but some may be looking for accidental breaches. “Since there are billions of websites on the internet, it would be nearly impossible for a hacker to quickly scan through all of them and check for compromised informa- tion,” Shea said. “Instead, companies that are known to have a lot of secure information in their databases are chosen as objectives, but op- portunistic attacks taking advantage of ac- cidentally unsecured information like this situation with the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) are still widespread,” Shea added. “It is imperative that every organization takes cybersecurity very se- riously since it’s impossible to know who a hacker’s next target may be.” MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 MAY 26–JUNE 1, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com
