Download of Governor’s Audio Files was Legal

“The former Democratic gubernatorial candidate’s campaign did not commit a crime when it downloaded an audio file of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger saying Cubans and Puerto Ricans are feisty because of their mixed black and Latino blood, the state police said Friday. The campaign of former state Treasurer Phil Angelides said it obtained the file from a public portion of the Republican governor’s Web site, but Schwarzenegger’s staff said the audio files were obtained without authorization from a password-protected area and asked the Police to investigate. The California Highway Patrol concluded in a report released Friday that the administration itself put the recording on a Web site devoted to Schwarzenegger’s speeches, and that a password was not necessary to access the file. Cathy Calfo, who was Angelides’ campaign manager, said in an e-mail statement that the investigation ‘confirms what we stated from the outset: The governor’s taped remarks were publicly available on a publicly funded state Web site.’ She called the CHP investigation ‘phony’ and said it was launched ‘to intimidate.’ “