"Scripps News reporters discovered 170,000 records online of
customers of Lifeline, a government program offering affordable phone
service for low-income citizens, that contained everything needed for
identity theft . Last year, the FCC 'tightened' the rules for the
program by requiring Lifeline phone carriers to document applicants'
eligibility, which led to collecting more sensitive information from
citizens. A Scripps News investigative team claims it 'Googled' the
phone companies TerraCom Inc. and YourTel America Inc. to discover all
of the files. A Scripps reporter asked for an on-camera interview with
the COO of TerraCom and YourTel after explaining the files were freely
available online. That did not happen, but shortly thereafter the
customer records disappeared from the internet. Then, the
blame-the-messenger hacker accusations and mudslinging began. Although
the Scripps reporters videotaped the process showing how they found the
documents, attorney Jonathon Lee for both telecoms threatened the
'Scripps Hackers' with violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA)."
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