A Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate encrypts data you enter on a given website, making it harder for hackers to intercept that information. The Republican failure to update their security certificate means that, as Google Chrome notes, “you should not enter any sensitive information on [that] site because it could be stolen by attackers.”
![you should not enter any sensitive information on [that] site because it could be stolen by attackers.](https://www.dfl.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Senate-GOP-Security.png){kind=link}
This completely contradicts information on the Senate Republicans website, which tells potential whistleblowers that “your submission, as well as your identity, will NOT be disclosed to the public without your express consent.”
DFL Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement:
“By failing to secure their whistleblower website, and by not taking that site down while it is vulnerable to hackers, Senate Republicans are betraying the trust of Minnesotans. They promised that any identifying information submitted to their website would remain private, but whether through gross negligence or disregard, Senate Republicans broke that promise when they failed to take the most basic steps to protect that information from hackers.
“It was clear from the start that this whistleblower website is nothing more than a stunt designed to score political points. Now we know that Minnesota Republicans are willing to expose whistleblowers’ private information to hackers and risk ruining careers in order to score those political points.”