CALIFORNIA / Hacking of governor's computer suspected / Published comments had been taped, stored on office server

California Highway Patrol officials have opened a criminal investigation into "multiple" breaches and illegal downloads by outside hackers into the computers of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office, after an embarrassing private taped conversation was leaked last week to the Los Angeles Times, administration officials told The Chronicle.

"There is an investigation conducted by the California Highway Patrol on how the tape obtained by the L.A. Times was acquired," said a senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This is a criminal matter that has been turned over to the CHP."

The governor was criticized last week after the Times reported that during a conversation in March with Susan Kennedy, his chief of staff, and Gary Delsohn, his speechwriter, Schwarzenegger referred to Latinos and African Americans -- specifically Republican Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, who is of Puerto Rican descent -- as having "hot" blood or a passionate temperament.

The Times reported that the conversation had been taped as part of Delsohn's occasional practice to capture the governor's speech patterns for his work.

After the Times story on the conversation appeared, Schwarzenegger apologized Friday for the remark, saying he "cringed" upon reading it in the newspapers. Garcia, of Cathedral City (Riverside County), defended the governor, saying she took it as a compliment that she was "passionate" on issues.

But Democrats, including the party's candidate for governor, state Treasurer Phil Angelides, called the governor's remarks an affront to minorities.

The leaked tape sparked concern among administration officials because they said the governor has never routinely taped conversations of his staffers. Sources in the governor's office said working materials such as the tape made by Delsohn were available to only a few individuals in the governor's office, and there was immediate suspicion the tapes were obtained by someone hacking into the computers in the governor's office, where the tapes were stored digitally.

According to a senior administration official who spoke Sunday with The Chronicle, a preliminary investigation showed that an outside individual or individuals had apparently hacked into the computer servers of Schwarzenegger's office and downloaded the tapes.

"The state's computer system was breached from individuals using outside computers" on three separate occasions -- Aug. 29, Aug. 30 and Sept. 4, the official said, describing the breach as "a very serious matter."

Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's communications director, referred all calls to the California Highway Patrol.

Tom Marshal, spokesman for the CHP, confirmed Sunday that an investigation is under way into the security of the computer system in the governor's office.

Some experts said government computer systems are among the most vulnerable to outside hackers -- especially some systems used by California state agencies that are well known as antiquated.

"Government systems are penetrated on a regular basis," said Bev Harris, executive director of Black Box Voting, a Seattle-based group concerned about electronic voting and hacking.

"There's a lot of government offices that you wouldn't think would be vulnerable, but they have been penetrated," she said, citing the Pentagon as having its computers recently breached by a hacker.

Harris noted that research her group did in California turned up a surprising number of government computer systems that were more than 10 years old with little protection.

"There are lots of very antiquated databases in California," she said. "It's almost laughable what systems they are still using."

The Los Angeles Times story regarding the leaked tapes was published on the paper's Web site on Thursday and in the printed Times on Friday. Officials said it was unclear if the investigation would also involve any Times staffers.

An administration source said that a service used to transcribe the governor's conversations has been fully cooperative with the investigation and that there is "no reason to believe" that any of its staffers are involved in the leak.

Some Republican strategists, such as Jon Fleischman -- publisher of the popular FlashReport Web site -- have publicly speculated that Democratic operatives were behind the leak of the tapes. But Democratic party officials, including senior strategist Bob Mulholland, told The Chronicle last week that he had nothing to do with either the leak of the tapes or any hackers who might be involved.

Mulholland, who has been involved in past headline-making "opposition research" projects in political campaigns, said the governor's comments were "stupid," but he had no responsibility for getting them before the public.