Members of the hacking group Anonymous say they've managed to infiltrate an Iranian government mail server and copy more than 10,000 internal emails and a series of images.

"The documents are from Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs' mail server which we took control over," said a member of the group who called himself Arash. He said he was the founder of Anonymous' effort to hack Iranian government computers, which began in 2009 after Iran's disputed presidential election and corresponding government efforts to suppress Internet freedom.

The documents, now freely available on Web sites, involve applications by foreigners for visas to enter the country. They are mostly mundane — applicants complaining about red tape, for example — though Arash said some of the disclosed items are potentially newsworthy.

"I saw some that were interesting, like a peace (organization) begging for a visa for its members to join a conference," he said.

The main goal of the ongoing attack, however, is to embarrass the current government, said Arash, who identified himself as an Iranian now living outside the country and requested anonymity.

"We organized this to damage (the) Islamic regime's cyber image near the election's anniversary," he said to msnbc.com in an email. "(The) documents prove that while (the) Islamic regime keeps investing in its cyber army and expensive hardware for filtering and analyzing the Iranian people's traffic, they can’t secure their most important mail servers."

Anonymous is a loosely connected group of hackers who have taken on celebrated causes, notably taking sides in the WikiLeaks controversy earlier this year when it launched denial-of-service attacks against companies like Visa and MasterCard for disrupting donations to Bradley Manning, the accused document leaker at the center of the controversy. 

But Anonymous takes on many causes; it announced stepped-up efforts to attack Iran in February when the government there announced it had created a new cyber police unit.  The announcement video was detailed on msnbc.com.

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Pharmacy giant Walgreens had to swallow some bitter medicine on Friday when it told customers that a computer criminal had stolen its e-mail marketing list. The criminal used the list to send out realistic-looking spam that asked recipients to enter their personal information into a Web page controlled by hackers.

"We are sorry this has taken place and for any inconvenience to you," the e-mail said.

No prescription information or other health information was stolen, the company said — the criminal only managed to pilfer customer e-mail addresses.

But even customers who had opted out of receiving marketing materials via e-mail from Walgreens had their addresses stolen in the heist. That means the firm stores customers' e-mail addresses even after they ask not to participate in e-mail marketing.

"We realize you previously unsubscribed from promotional emails from Walgreens, and that will continue," the e-mail to customers said.

Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin said criminals so far have not attempted to imitate Walgreens corporate logo in the phishing e-mail they sent to consumers.

"The e-mails said they were from another company and asked (users) to update some information," he said. Walgreens would never ask consumers to e-mail personal information like credit card numbers or Social Security numbers, he said.

The company "became aware" of the heist within the past week, he said. He refused to disclose the number of customers impacted by it.

"We are in the process of contacting those customers," he said. "We are not going to get into specifics."

Walgreens, which has $60 billion in annual sales, is expanding at an astonishing pace. In November, it added 50 stores to its ranks of 8,000 retail outlets across the country.

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Privacy advocates lost a friend last night when Rep. Richard Boucher, long-time Democrat of Virginia, got dumped. Boucher, who'd been in Congress since 1983, headed the Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee in the House of Representatives. In May, he proposed sweeping online privacy legislation, something that consumer advocates had been begging for -- the last time Congress directly addressed the topic was The Privacy Act of 1974, and a few things have come up since then.

Boucher's proposal would force websites to disclose what information they collected about consumers and why, force deletion or anonymization of data after 18 months, made opting out easier, and added some additional restrictions on third-party data collectors. It was criticized by both sides. Privacy advocates said it didn't go far enough -- "This bill really adopts and endorses an archaic ... notice and consent regime that we know does not work," said John Simpson from Consumer Watchdog at the time. Meanwhile, marketers said it would be the end of the free Internet. But at least it was a formal stab at the critical issue, something Congress had been avoiding for years.

And Boucher published a "discussion draft" of the legislation a full two months before he planned to introduce the measure in Congress, allowing 60 days for industry groups and advocates to offer feedback.

The law was never introduced.

But privacy advocates can take heart: Republican Cliff Stearns co-sponsored the privacy bill, and he will likely assume to chairmanship of the Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee. Meanwhile, another important privacy bill, known as the "Best Practices Act," remains in play, as sponsor Bobby Rush (D-Ill) was re-elected. His law would require Web users to opt in before their information is shared with third parties, though there are broad exceptions.

Meanwhile, Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) is among the candidates who might replace Boucher as Democratic leader of the technology subcommittee. Markey has been perhaps Congress' most outspoken advocate for privacy rights in the past decade, and he currently chairs the Congressional Privacy Caucus.

And it's important to remember that privacy is often seen as an above-party-politics issue. Libertarians and lefties tend to agree on leave-me-alone privacy principles. And that privacy caucus, which makes a habit of sending demand letters to companies like Facebook and Google after every privacy "oops," is co-chaired by Texas Republican Joe Barton.

There is fear, of course, that the GOP wave might have closed the window for a new federal privacy law, at least for now, as Republicans might spike anything that sounds anti-business during the current cycle. As a result, you might see some new online privacy rules, but don't expect The Privacy Act of 2011, or 2012.

Catch Bob Sullivan most Tuesday and Friday in his Red Tape Chronicles column, connect with him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter at @RedTapeChron.