Someone in need of a better hobby

Devon Townsend has pleaded guilty to charges relating to her stalking of Chester Bennington. Apparently, Townsend had access to US government computers and used that to monitor Bennington's movements. (Physical, rather than bowel, we think, although who knows what information the White House is gathering these days?)

Townsend claims:

"On at least one occasion, knowing that Chester Bennington was in Arizona, I travelled to Arizona solely for the purpose of trying to see him. While I was there, I monitored Chester Bennington's voicemails as a means of trying to locate where he might be eating dinner or lunch."

Townsend also used privileged information in order to threaten Bennington's wife Talinda.

Leaving aside the question of why on earth anyone would put effort into stalking Bennington, there's the wider question of what this shows about the state of US government information security. There's a massive slate of warnings on the website of Townsend's employers, Sandia National Labs, making all kinds of deathly threats about what would happen if anyone misuses their IT systems. That appears to be as much as they bother about in the way of security, though, if quite marginal employees can use their kit to gain access to ways into people's voicemail. You might wonder what a branch of the Department of Energy would need with access to such information. You might wonder what anyone needs with that level of access, and, if it is required, why more care isn't taken with it.