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A multi-state spam effort targeting college students raised concerns of federal violations and a potential security breach prompting an investigation of Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign.

As she’d made clear during her appearance on ABC’s “The View,” Harris embraced the failures of her and President Joe Biden’s administration. However, with vibes being prioritized over policy, her campaign may have overstepped its targeting of low-information voters as university students across the country raised concerns about a data breach after they were solicited for support.

“MAJOR BREAKING: 150,000 students from ALL Arizona universities including ASU and UofA have received a text from Kamala Harris’ campaign telling the students to vote for her,” read a post on X from the College Republicans at Arizona State University. “If Kamala Harris has access to all of Arizona college students’ phone numbers, what ELSE do they have?”

A screenshot of the message showed that students were reminded that the deadline to register was Oct. 7 and referred to Harris and running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as the “underdogs in this election.”

At the heart of the controversy was the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which regulates access to information about the legal adults enrolled at schools that family members are entitled to.

In a statement provided to the New York Post, an ASU spokesperson argued they hadn’t violated FERPA, “The contact information of enrolled students (including their cell phone numbers) is a matter of public record. This is not ASU policy.”

“Under FERPA, it is considered ‘directory information,’ along with other basic information like the student’s major, dates of attendance, and enrollment status,” the spokesperson went on. “It is common for entities that want to advertise to ASU students to request this publicly available contact information — everything from apartment complexes, to credit cards, to political candidates.”

Likewise, Northern Arizona University Associate Vice President for Communications Kimberly Ott told the Post, “We receive these types of requests many times throughout the year and the requestor must pay for data they ask for.”

“Organizations can request directory information through the University of Arizona Office of Public Records. Under federal law, directory information is not considered private unless students opt to withhold it from public disclosure,” she said.

However, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk argued the data was not so readily available as his organization’s own get-out-the-vote efforts were allegedly denied access in the past.

“We at Turning Point Action have been reaching out to the universities in Arizona, asking if we could rent lists and get access to the data of students to get them to register to vote. We were told, ‘No, we don’t do that. We don’t do that,’” he said on “The Charlie Kirk Show.”

“Well, in a huge scandal, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona both shared all of the personal information and data of all the students, every single student at Arizona State University and sent out this text message, look at this — encouraging them to go vote and vote for Kamala Harris and register to vote,” Kirk went on before asking, “Where did they get this data? Who shared it with them? We’ve tried to get access to it; we were given the runaround. The Trump campaign tried to get access to it; they were given the runaround.”

Arizona state Sen. Jake Hoffman (R) was brought on promising to open an investigation as he told the commentator, “It looks like we have a potentially massive security breach at all Arizona public universities. You mentioned Arizona State and the University of Arizona. However, it was also Northern Arizona University that is wrapped up in this scandal. And in fact, I had a tweet that went viral on this, over 10,000 reposts, and in the replies there, I’ve received documented evidence from students in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and North Carolina that this exact same text message, or a very close variation of, was sent to all of their students as well.”

The senator went on, “…it looks the red carpet was rolled out to the Kamala Harris campaign, and that begs the question, what are these universities doing without public tax dollars, and why are they favoring one political party over another?”

Countering the arguments from the right, Democratic strategist Tony Cani mocked on X, “I know Republicans in AZ are ages behind when it comes to modern campaigning, but their ignorance doesn’t excuse this absolute lie that a test message like this asking students to register to vote is 1) election interference and 2) somehow against the law,” and alleged the assertions were simply “playing victim so if they lose, they can do the only thing they know how to do and spread conspiracy theories that claim the election was stolen.”

Meanwhile, ASU Republicans are seeking action presently as a lengthy letter detailed that the “student body is exploring their legal rights and positioning to hold the university accountable.”

Citing university policy about third-party access restrictions and state law preventing school resources be used “for the purpose of influencing the outcomes of elections,” they argued what happened was “a direct violation on many fronts such as violation of privacy laws (FERPA), breach of institutional policies, breach of confidentiality and damage to trust.”

Kevin Haggerty
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