The U.S. Secret Service is currently investigating the reported theft of presidential candidate Mitt Romney's personal tax returns which, according to those taking credit for the event, were taken from a computer in the Tennessee branch of PricewaterhouseCoopers on August 25. The hackers reportedly sent the data encrypted on a flash drive to both Democratic and Republican party offices, and are demanding $1 million from the GOP by September 28 to keep the information private.

The hackers said that they will make the information public if they are paid the million-dollar ransom by Democrats. Whichever side gets to $1 million first will have their way with the documents, the hackers say.

Reports of the alleged theft were first made public when the suspected hackers posted the letter to Pastebin.com, an online forum popular with hackers, on September 2. Since then, campaign offices have confirmed that they did in fact receive such a letter through the mail, with a flash drive attached.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Romney's accounting firm and the target of the alleged hacking, stated that there is no evidence that such a hacking actually occurred. "We are working closely with the U.S. Secret Service, and at this time there is no evidence that our systems have been compromised or that there was any unauthorized access to the data in question," said the statement.

As of Thursday afternoon, it was unclear to many observers whether the claims were merely a nonsensical attempt to get a million-dollar payday, or if they have any actual basis. Either way, this, combined with Tuesday's alleged FBI hacking, seems to suggest that hackers are getting political lately.

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