Hacker infiltrates Twitter account of Chuck Grassley, PIPA sponsor and senator from Iowa

Chris Moody
·Political Reporter

The official Twitter account for Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa, was hacked Monday by someone who used the account to urge supporters to vote against pending bills that would increase regulation on Internet use.

Grassley is one of the original co-sponsors of the Protect Intellectual Property Act, and he supports the Stop Internet Privacy Act in the House. The bills, known as PIPA and SOPA, have stirred an uproar among many technologists and Internet users.

"Vote against ACTA, SOP, and PIPA, because this man, Chuck Grassley, wants YOUR internet censored," one of the tweets said. Another said, "Chuck is a supporter of SOPA, PIPA, and ACTA, meaning he wants no privacy for private accounts."

After about 30 minutes, the hacker tweeted the senator's password, and another user took it and changed it to lock the hacker out.

Grassley's spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment from Yahoo News. The tweets from the hacker have been deleted, but below are a few screenshots from the account.

The person who rescued Grassley's account set up an e-mail address, grassleytwitter@gmail.com, and posted a message on the Twitter account with the address for Grassley's aides to contact e-mail the address so this person could hand over the new password.

When reached at that address by Yahoo News, the person said he or she was "just trying to do a nice thing and turn it back over to the Senator." The Good Samaritan wrote:

I saw the event unfolding on TweetDeck. When the password came up I gave it a try, got in to my surprise, and changed it. I then set up a new email to keep from getting spammed, and waited for his office to reach out to me. They did and I assume everything is taken care of. Want to make sure that it's known I have nothing to do with the hacker, just trying to do a nice thing and turn it back over to the Senator.

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