The misuse of the word "hack" has reached untenable levels. Lately it seems that whenever a politician is attacked using technology, it's the result of a "hack."

By now most of you know about the flap involving Governor Schwarzenegger and unprotected files on his campaign server. If not, a recap: staffers working for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides discovered an audio file on Schwarzenegger's campaign web site that features Arnie saying some inappropriate things about Cubans and Puerto Ricans.

The Angelides team turned the file over to the Los Angeles Times and a controversy ensued.

The Governor's camp quickly leveled accusations at Angelides' campaign. "It's wrong, it's unethical, and it's a very big deal," said campaign manager Steve Schmidt. "The treasurer should denounce the unethical actions taken on his behalf," said Katie Levinson, communications director of Californians for Schwarzenegger. And then, the Sacramento Bee dropped the H-bomb: "Angelides camp denies hacking" read yesterday's headline.

Hacking is a serious charge. But in this case there is no evidence that any hacking took place. Apparently the offending files weren't password protected, and while they weren't offered to the public by Arnold's campaign, they were available to anyone with a little knowledge of the structure of web servers.

Whether or not Angelides had the legal right to download that file is a separate matter, and the ethics of such actions definitely can be called into question. But what occurred was not hacking.

Nevertheless, as Jenifer Fernandez Ancona at PowerPac.org was quick to point out, the Schwarzenegger campaign spun the "hacking" story rather than address the offending comments themselves:

Again, it is merely a distraction from the real issue -- Schwarzenegger behaving in a way that is unbecoming of a top elected leader in the largest state in the country... The tape story and Schwarzenegger's sexist comments reminded people that Schwarzenegger is a sexist pig, in part from the Times' coverage before the 2003 recall of dozens of women who said they were groped by him. That isn't so happy-making for his team and the Republicans, so they are relying on other, completely unfair, means to dig themselves out.

Arnold's spin appealed to fears about the evils of hackers and by extension, technology. Hackers can ruin everything; technology is suspect.

If to hack is to illegally break into a site, this is not hacking. No one is claiming that Angelides staffers broke into Arnold's site. They did take advantage of information that Arnold's campaign had inadvertently made available -- but that isn't hacking. Is the hacking charge just another case of blaming crazy, wacky technology for a campaign's ills, or is Arnold's camp really serious?

This case is reminiscent of Joseph Lieberman's server crash the night before the Connecticut Democratic primary. At the time Lieberman himself implied that his site had been hacked: "But of course that's the world we live in, that anybody, anywhere in the world, if able to, can hack into another site anywhere else in the world." However, his site probably crashed from being overwhelmed with fake traffic or because it was ill-prepared to deal with an influx of legitimate traffic.

But in both cases the hack-bogeyman reared his ugly head, providing an easy scapegoat when other issues were pressing.

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