(AP) -- MEG KINNARD, Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - A judge has dismissed a lawsuit over a massive security breach at South Carolina's tax collection agency.
Circuit Judge G. Thomas Cooper said in an order Friday that the lawsuit hadn't gone far enough to prove that government officials were negligent in their care of taxpayers' records.
Former state Sen. John Hawkins filed the lawsuit last year after officials announced a cyber-thief had hacked into the state revenue agency's servers, taking unencrypted data from millions of tax filers. It was the nation's largest hacking of a state agency.
Hawkins accused agencies of failing to protect taxpayers and conspiring to keep news of the hacking from the public. Last month, Cooper dismissed Gov. Nikki Haley and the state's former revenue director from the lawsuit.
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