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"Anonymous" Hacks Palin's Private Email
netbuzz writes "'Anonymous,' best known for its jousts with Scientology, has apparently hacked Sarah Palin's private Yahoo email account. Contents, including sample emails, an index, and family photos, have been posted by Wikileaks, which calls them evidence that the GOP vice presidential candidate has improperly used private email to shield government business from public scrutiny." Note that there is no easy way to tell if the material on Wikileaks is genuine or a hoax. Update by J : Genuine.
I, for one, think the laws should be applied equally to all parties regardless of their insane beliefs.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
C'mon guys. We all know that e-mail isn't very secure. I personally don't have anything in any of my e-mail accounts that I would be concerned about anyone else reading -but I'd still be offended if someone posted it public.
This is in poor taste.
Since when is it 'hacking' to guess that her email password is her zip code? You can't hack stupidity and ignorance.
I keep reading from a variety of sources that using personal email means surely she was hiding things from public scrutiny, from possible subpoenas, etc.
Okay, if you see proof of illegal activity in her email, then she was likely hiding it. But the public can't read her work email either. Using personal email does not necessarily prove motive or wrong-doing.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
This wouldn't have even been an issue if she'd used encryption.
Maybe high-profile leaks like this will help convince the public at large that encryption is beneficial, even if you aren't doing anything wrong.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
This is a really good reason why they should NOT be using their private email. Sure, using the government systems opens them up to having their corruption on record, but having it on something like Yahoo mail opens it up to something like this, potentially exposing WAY more information than that. Not that government email is unhackable, but I'd certainly expect it to be at least a little bit more secure.
On one hand.. I agree they crossed the line.. on the other I kind of understand people's motives. Now I am in no way shape or form advocating hacking someone's email account, but there's something important to consider here. There's a great article at NY Times which talks about Palin's rise in politics. Here's one excerpt:
Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.
If she does infact use her private email address for correspondence with other staff members or governmental bodies, can you really consider it a private email account anymore? I'm not asking for response from slashdotters with analogies here, but if she does infact potentially use her personal email to avoid subpoenas then why the hell should it be considered personal. She is paid by the taxpayers and they have a right to know what is going on. Why have her staff members been studying the use of personal email accounts for official business anyways?
Maybe the deal with her using personal email for work is just a rumor, and maybe the whole deal with "Anonymous" is not true, but still things aren't just black and white here.
If this is true, I think it's possible that Anonymous has just painted a gigantic bulls-eye on a free internet.
I am all for ferreting out corruption, but what I worry about is how many will paint this: "Terrorist Rogue Hacker attacks Vice Presidential Candidate."
What limits are there on privacy now? I hope I am wrong.
Good. Turn over your personal "public" email account and pw to everyone here on Slashdot. What? It's public!
He's not a public official and therefore doesn't have to.
>If that even happened at all, I could whip up similar screenshots in 5 minutes.
Similar, in the sense that it can be verified as authentic by authors of some of the content?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
As much as I think Scientology is a dangerous cult, the actions of Anonymous to date have been demonstrating that they are just a group of dangerous radicals. Anonymous is dangerous because they attack and slander groups they disagree with and hide behind masks so that their opponents can not adequately defend themself. Now, I know many of the people who hate Sarah Palin and the Republicans won't see a problem with this, but for a moment imagine how you would feel if a similar group performed the same action on Barack Obama (or a political leader in your own country) and see how 'wonderful' it would be.
it occurred to me the other day, the real reason for McCain choosing Sarah Palin has nothing to do with her leadership capabilities, its that she distracts people from the horrible failures of the Bush presidency. If the pundits tongues are wagging non-stop about Palin, that probably means they aren't spending too much time talking about Bush which is good for McCain. If the American people are repeatedly reminded of what a horrible failure the Bush White House has been, and what a big cheerleader McCain has been for said administration(at least since the Iraq war anyway), the less likely they are to vote for McCain.
All Palin has to do is keep the spotlight on her for the next 2 months and McCain may actually stand a chance.
Monstar L
As I understand it, what is in the emails isn't what's important. There have been several people accusing her of using her personal email account to conduct public business, in order to hide the emails from becoming part of the public record (sounds familiar). The catch was that the people who were supposed to be investigating this claim stated there was no proof, therefore nothing to investigate...
Now, there is proof...
What she said isn't the story, it's who she said it to.
I think you misunderstood him. His private email is private. His work email is also private (as it is a private business). There is no reason anyone should see any of his email.
Palin's personal email is private. As a public servant, her work email is public...at least to some degree. Not that anyone should have immediate access to it, but there are legal procedures in place on how the public can gain access, for example, in the case of a lawsuit. She tried to circumvent that by using a private email address. It's only fitting that everything in that account becomes public. That fact that she was stupid enough to mix private and personal email...well, thats just too bad for her.
Right, remember this is the same group that hacked an epilepsy support page to try to induce seizures. Also realize this is pretty much the opposite of constructive: Palin is being used as a distraction to keep us from thinking about real issues. This only furthers that distraction. It would be one thing if they found evidence of corruption, but this is merely digital tabloid fluff.
Anonymous is doing this entirely to feed their own egos.
This seems to spell out why, besides being able to avoid public oversight, someone shouldn't be using private email accounts to conduct government business. Shouldn't the bigger question be, why was she using a private email, accessible from any public network, that more easily exposed the people of Alaska, as well as herself, to hackers?
I would actually agree with you there, were it not for the fact that she had discussed using her Y! mail account as a way to conduct communications regarding state business that would not be archived, as the law requires. In other words, she wasn't just using it as her "personal" account to send family picnic invites and negotiate deals with wealthy Nigerians, she was using this account as a way to skirt the law and conduct official business in her capacity as governor without the accountability that the law requires.
Since she's advertising herself as a candidate with strong ethics who's trying to clean up government and get rid of backroom dealing, she clearly feels that she's not accountable to the same standard of ethics that others should be held to. This is a huge lapse in judgment that voters need to be aware of before they cast their votes.
1. Anyone hacking into anything should be shot.
2. If this happened to The One or Hilliary, 90% of Slashdot would be shitting their pants with indignation and outrage.
3. It's funny how the left is always whining about privacy but they seem to be the worst when comes to invading it.
We do it for the lulz.
Yeah, ever since Bourne Identity, I've come to rely on Matt Damon's advice more and more. I mean, I betrayed the organization because it was right, and he's got kick-ass fighting moves. That's the guy I want my political commentary from!
But I suspect secret service is investigating mostly to determine if there's a real security risk IE if she e-mailed out that there was a spare key to her house under a fake rock in the garden, or she was going to be in room 287 of the doubletree hotel.
I suspect the Secret Service is investigating mostly because this is high profile and will end up being publicly embarrassing. Not so much to Palin as to the people she was communicating with.
No doubt someone archived the entire account in their e-mail program and will dump it all online sometime before the election.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Slashdot readers and posters are very big on privacy.
...unless the privacy being violated is that of some politician they don't like. The ability to download and install Linux doesn't imply the existence of any consistent ethical system.
"McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign Manager Rick Davis: 'This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment'..."
When someone does this sort of hacking/eavesdropping/snooping to a government official, it's called "a shocking invasion of...privacy and a violation of law."
When the government does it to you, it's called the "Patriot Act."
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Wikileaks is NOT down. Just accessed it, albeit slowly, at 1915 ET.
Does anyone here honestly believe that many politicians of many political stripes -- including both Republicans and Democrats -- don't maintain personal email accounts on which "government business" has sometimes been discussed or conducted?
I think that I understand the reasoning of anonymous actions, in that s/he thinks Palin is doing wrong, and s/he wants to call attention to it.
This may just backfire, and generate support for Palin, thereby defeating his actions purpose. Indeed, this type of attack could even be used as a method for generating support by Palins camp.
The end is not justified by the means, and these types of attacks should not be pursued, either by the attacker, nor by the readers of such "information".
..........FULL STOP.
So far only two emails, some personal photos, a contact list and some inbox screenshots have been posted. Nothing incriminating.
Depends how you define "incriminating".
Work email goes to and from work accounts. Personal email goes to and from personal accounts. That's a policy common in corporations and in government, and is increasingly strictly adhered to the higher up the ranks you go.
As a member of public office, she is accountable to the public, and her email pertaining to her office is a matter of the public record, and subject to things like the Freedom-of-Information-Act (FOIA). Using a personal Yahoo account to conduct government business would be hugely inappropriate for a multitude of reasons; not least of which is undermines her accountability to FOIA.
In Palin's case its evident that a number of her contacts are @alaska.gov... meaning she was corresponding as 'personal palin' to other public officials using their office-accounts.
While perhaps not incriminating, it is hugely inappropriate. Either she was sending them personal messages -- which is inappropriate; she should have sent those to their personal accounts, or she was sending or receiving work related messages which is completely unacceptable.
Palin clearly didn't adhere to this separation of work and personal (hell, her "personal" account is 'gov.palin' which is itself inapprorpiate) and while I'm sure many many people are guilty of it, its still inappropriate, and most of us aren't angling to be 2nd in line to the presidency, so the scrutiny on her is warranted. It would be nice if we could unmask the other canditates personal accounts too, to have a more balanced exposee, but that's beside the point.
At first I thought citing Matt Damon as a source was just another Team America reference about uppity actors, but then I read what he said.
Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?
Considering recent results from politicians with experience, I think I'll go for the hockey mom.
Anonymous most likely are doing this because they got lucky. I would guess hack attempts are made at a number of public and political figures. If they have a successful strike, then I'd expect them to run with it. I wouldn't overplay the deliberateness of this.On the other hand if a possible vice- or actual president is daft enough to have unencrypted emails floating round a public system, then it's hardly surprising those emails surface. And anyone can be Anonymous - that's it's greatest strength (even more so than the technical competence of some of its members).
Now if they have found that she was conducting official business through private email accounts and was doing so to avoid scrutiny, then that is interesting.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
This is what I don't get, after reading about half of the posts in this thread: About 95% of the posts don't mention the right to privacy, at all. But monitoring e-mail traffic by secret service in order to catch terrorists or prevent possible terrorist attacks, is frown upon by the great majority of Slashdotters.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I'll take your NYTimes article and raise you a Financial Times editorial.
The dumbest thing the democrats have done so far in this campaign is focus on Palin. What the hell happened to the issue-driven debate? This was really the time for Obama&Co to shine, so if they botch the whole deal because they chose to make the election a question of character, which is the republicans' favorite playing ground, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.
Get back on topic!
I don't like Palin or the entire McCain campaign in the least... but how is this even remotely acceptable? We cry and bitch and moan about warrantless government wiretapping, yet when some group of a-holes breaks into an elected official's personal email account and posts screenshots on the web, we see it as just some more dirt on a candidate. The best word that describes that is "despicable."
Mark this as flamebait all you want, but people running for public office have constitutional rights too. I've always considered Anonymous a bit shady in their dealings, and this justs seals the deal.
Matt Damon or Lindsey Lohan would do the same to you, if you tell them, Obama is a crock... With Barbara Streisand singing a notch lauder to drown your screams...
Seriously, there is a good reason, Romans considered entertainers to be among the lowest class of citizens — above only prostitutes... They weren't even allowed to serve in the regular army units.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Can't get to the wikileaks site, but if the summary is correct, then this is interesting because in Florida, with the Sunshine Law, this could result in her prosecution. In Florida you cannot conduct, or even discuss, government business in private.
http://www.fsne.org/sunshine2005/news/history/index.shtml
For example, W. D. Childers went to jail for discussing government business in private.
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/10/08/State/Ex_Florida_Senate_pre.shtml
Not sure if Alaska has something similar.
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
When the McCain announced Palin as his running mate, I recognized quickly it was quite an ingenious move on their part. I wouldn't be surprised that one of the big reasons she was picked was because of all the issues and drama surrounding her. It is enough to create a media feeding frenzy, diverting the major coverage away from the issues that could defeat them. As they say no publicity is bad publicity, and all the negative coverage paints her as the victim or underdog, whom literature has taught us to root for.
"no publicity is bad publicity"
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about marketing. One of the first things I was taught in my marketing classes is how that is a crock.
Bad publicity has bankrupted companies, people and countries. It's drove people to suicide. There IS bad publicity.
Gone!
It's entirely likely that some scientologit did this and claimed that "anonymous" was behind it. Google for "operation freakout" for another example of the criminal nut-cult framing an innocent party for a crime.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?
Presumably the connection is that a creationist clearly lacks even a modest helping of critical and independant thinking.
it was quite an ingenious move on their part.
Particularly coming on the heels of Obama picking a career party hack who's spent half of his worthless life in the senate, dreaming up new ways to interfere in our lives.
"Change we can believe in"? Yeah, right.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
excuse me, but she lost her privacy rights on that account right at the moment she sent the first government related email, or replied to a government related email.
the fact that we weren't in the know in regard to her violation of law, her illegal act before the hacking, doesnt make her any more right about the matter. a crime is being committed, you just dont have proof.
its like someone filming a gang operation and publishing it, and then gang coming up and claiming that their privacy rights were violated.
Read radical news here
You misunderstand. Bad publicity is bad publicity. No publicity is also bad publicity. Sometimes slightly bad publicity can drown out the really bad stuff, or divert attention without hurting too much. Especially when the issue is not selling a product to make a profit (like a business), but flinging mud at a political opponent.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Except that's just not true. People put blinders on when it comes to their religion. For example, the best mathematician I've ever met personnaly was a prof at Rice University--an altogether brilliant man--who was a devout Christian. I doubt he was specifically a creationist, but he believed in literal interpretation of equally odd parts of the Bible. The last day of class before finals he would always give a lecture on the importance of developing a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and pass out Bibles or portions thereof. The students always put up with it because he was a once-in-a-lifetime combination of genius and great lecturer.
I can't explain it, but it's true nevertheless. Heck, look at William Buckley, certainlt a critical and indpendent thinker, who would present profund insight into the value of personal libery and personal choice, and then in the next breath condemn legal abortion as a great evil.
It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Holy shit. How you believe we originated really matters on whether you should have control of nuclear codes?
Maybe not, but if she's getting the launch codes, I sure as hell care about whether she is counting on the Rapture.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
It's not like Scientology is above framing somone for a crime:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Freakout
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology)
Except that no one has read the emails. The "damning evidence" is a screenshot with a few potentially public matter subject lines. The email from Amy McCorkell mearly tells her not to let criticism get to her. Is that an email between two public officials? Yes. Is it an email of public business? Not even close.
It's often said you can't believe everything you read on the internet, you're banking on something you haven't even really read yet.
She's probably guiltier than sin, but I try to wait till something is verified before I bring out the tar and feathers, especially if your news source is Anonymous.
Yeah, everyone knows actors should just stay away from politics. Now, who's this Reagan fellow I keep hearing about...
Presumably the connection is that a creationist clearly lacks even a modest helping of critical and independant thinking.
More specifically it's because I'm a biologist dependant on federal funding. There should be no one within arms reach of the federal budget who has such a flagrant misunderstanding of something so basic. She would have the power and the motivation to bring biomedical research in the US to a dead standstill. It's kind of like putting a pedophile in charge of the preschool.
Anonymous isn't a group any more then the western hemisphear is a group. There's not exactly an application. All this means is someone from 4chan got into her account and posted it for a laugh. Also: " It would be one thing if they found evidence of corruption, but this is merely digital tabloid fluff. " You won't find anything if you don't look.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
Yes, instead, let's listen to some anonymous, opinionated asshole on the internet. (And no, the irony that I'm also one of those assholes is not lost on me)
Just because someone's occupation might not be in high academic regard (i.e. an actor), does not mean he has no smart things to say.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine -- Robert C. Gallagher
You're giving 'Anonymous' a bit much credit there. Anonymous doesn't have an agenda, per se. They do it for the Lulz. Scientology is an easy target. Mrs. Palin is, if anything, an easier target due to her sudden and dramatic rise. I have no doubt in my mind that if Anonymous could find Mr. Obama's personal email account, they would do the same thing with exactly the same glee.
'Anonymous' extends from the anonymous posting habits on 4chan and certain other message boards, where it's easy to bullshit, dickwave, and otherwise behave in a sociopathic manner. They hate because it's fun and not because it serves any purpose. It's not about supporting one candidate or the other. It's about hatred, misanthropy, ego gratification, and taking sadistic pleasure in torturing someone. Bigotry, sexism, and racism probably play into the mix as well.
Anonymous published Mrs. Palin's email address with exactly the same glee that they would report a Camwhore's secrets to her family and school administration.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Sure, I'm happy to leave her alone -- so long as she promises to leave all of us alone. Her socially reactionary politics scare the bejebus out of me, and apparently quite a few other people too. With McCain 72 and quite possibly cancerous, a McCain win would put Palin a hop, skip, and cardiac jump from being in the driver's seat. If we're supposed to leave her alone, we need some guarantee that she's not going to do everything in her power to mold the country's society into her own warped ideal.
And so far, nothing she's said has been anything but highly alarming.
(If you were trying to be funny, sorry for missing your point -- your link just went to a generic E! list of videos, and I saw nothing specific about Palin.)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
And thus, by conducting state business on an outside, cheapo email account instead of the state-provided one she was supposed to use, Sarah Palin has exposed state business data to hacking, public exposure in potentially inappropriate ways, and corruption of data.
Shame on her!
The argument is valid no matter the messenger. Why wouldn't Matt Damon have valid opinions? Because he's good looking and stars in action movies?
The fact is if McCain gets elected Sarah Palin will be next in line to a 73 year old man with a history of cancer. (To paraphrase Damon again) we need to know if she really thinks there were dinosaurs here 5,000 years ago. That's pretty important information, troll.
I call BS, if ANY candidate's email was hacked, there will be sirens sounded and those persons hunted down. Don't make it a partisan issue. Each candidate should be checked for scrutiny. Digging up dirt is needed sometimes because if we took everything at face value, we will end up with another president like we have now.
-- Brought to you by Carl's JR
i dont get whether you are living in a parallel reality in which you have more choices or something.
...
you have 2 choices : obama. or mccain.
any sane individual chooses the better of available choices when offered.
unless you have the means to transfer a green martian to be president and magically set things straight that is
Read radical news here
Don't give the word more power than it already has. Anonymous doesn't exist. Anonymous is many individuals that act on a whim. Or in other words, everybody IS part of anonymous if you refuse to show your identity.
Also, no, anonymous is not only /b/. It's everybody.
Evidence? I thought this was all about mudslinging...
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
Hacking a citizen's personal email account should be punished. Hacking a governor's/VP candidate's personal email account should be punished any more severely than hacking a regular citizen's personal email account. I mean, there shouldn't be any government business in there, right?
The amount of paranoia, hypocrisy, cynicism and lack of critical thought here (both the action and the majority of posts) is astounding and somewhat depressing. She is just a person. It is possible to show some respect at that level? Happens to be on a bit of a Forest Gump ride. Could happen to anyone. She is either incompetent, in which case all the "evil secrecy paraonia" crap is unjustified, or she is quite competent and all this muck racking is just a cheezy way of not truly challenging the beliefs you are clearly so afraid of. How much are you a participant or even active agent in this circus? Hacking like this is an invasion of privacy. Hyperbole aside about the Patriot act. Get a clue about ends and means, think harder about what you really believe in.
Oh for fuck's sake! Nobody's denying her right to privacy. But when a public servant and possible soon-to-be vice president is too stupid to use a proper password for her email-account AND apparently uses yahoo mail to conduct shady business her right to privacy simply is not the most interesting matter at hand.
I consider my own right to privacy very important, but I would not expect any sympathy if someone pwns my mail account because I used my zip code as pw.
And despite also being wrong, hacking one persons account is something completely different than constantly monitoring everybody's communication and creating a police state.
Damn straight. In a sane society, to be trusted with the capability to kill millions of people, one must demonstrate a strong ability to engage in disciplined critical reasoning.
Creationists have demonstrated that they lack this ability.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Having someone who knows how to play politics, can talk to the right people on your behalf, and understand the balance of favors is a good thing. Obama can fight for change, make plans for changes, An experience VP can really help those plans become reality.
Obama wants change in the way the government works, this is good but you can't just start doing everything you want immediatly. If you so you will get no where.
Change is a process not a goal.
Nice of you to determine who is worthless and who isn't~
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.
No, it doesn't. Not necessarily. But being a creationist shows that you're willing to overlook overwhelming evidence in order to believe something written in the bible. What happens when there's a Second Cold War and the fundamentalist with their finger on the big red button starts reading about Noah and how God killed everyone but Noah and his family?
And remember, Bush's "crusade" is still killing people every day.
Evidence obtained in violation of the law may not be used against someone, even if the person violating the law is not acting on behalf of law enforcement.
It might prompt a lawful subpoena of said evidence.
Just callin' it like I see it.
Neither can the GOP.
I have no idea whether or not Anon was dumb enough to overlook this or they're on somebody's payroll, but not only will any of these emails NOT be admissable in any sort of meaningful investigation, but any lawyer/ PR spokesperson/ sympathetic pundit with half a brain will raise the very plausible question-
How long have hackers had access to her account?
Maybe those hackers sent emails to her government employees! Maybe she didn't send them at all! It's all a setup!
As a Canadian I have almost zero interest in this but I do need to ask: "Has anyone looked at the domain affixed to the the supposed Sean Parnell email?" The domain is not owned by the state of Alaska but by a media outlet in California. Emails that come from government sources usually have the core state domain: in this case "ak.us" I dunno about anyone else here but it just doesn't seem to add up. In this case I would have to call foul. There really isn't enough evidence. IF Palin was actually using this email address for business there would be a lot more traffic in the account. Funny enough almost all of the email subjects say "Hello". Unless somebody is sending me spam I can't remember the last time I received an email with the subject line "Hello"
I want the person with their finger on the button to think that they're going to murder billions, not send them all to happy fluffy fucking cloud world.
POTUS is no job for someone with a world view that's more conservative than the one espoused by the Catholic church.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
you owe your ass to them. they have shown you the potential vp (hell, even presidential) candidate of your country wantonly ignores law while conducting government business - YOUR business.
you owe infinite amounts of ass to them for saving your sorry single ass from living under such a shameless power abuser for the next 4 years.
Read radical news here
you dolt.
what you said basically means 'richard nixon had the right to withhold the tapes he was recording from watergate scandal investigators - because they were a private affair'.
its stupidity at its best.
this woman purposefully used a private email in order to avoid investigation of her conduct while doing government business - PEOPLE'S RIGHTS. constituents.
apparently she doesnt recognize constituent rights or anything - her rights are what matters, not theirs. she thinks she can wantonly ignore laws if it suits her.
there can be no privacy or rights in doing this.
Read radical news here
McCain said he doesnt know how to use email. bet he wishes his veep didnt either
anonymous is not even remotely associated with obama.
and karl rove isn't running McCain's campaign. you are ignorant.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Palin is trusting, which based on where she lives, is plausible. I heard most people in Canada don't bother to ever lock their doors. Using your zip code when the e-mail is self identifying is kinda stupid though.
People justifying this is bullcrap though, if someone walked into your house and started snooping around while you were taking out the trash, you'd want them arrested. Think of an web e-mail account as a free apartment. You don't own the property itself but what is inside is still yours (at least until you move out).
People sometimes forget the correct government e-mail account but remember the personal account. They send it to your personal account. There's no "undo" for sending e-mails unless you are under a MS exchange server. You tell them to stop doing that next time you see them in the hallway. This isn't her sending stuff out from the account, this is her receiving e-mail.
What is Obama? I thought he was a Christian too. From what I hear his church doesn't exactly put a mild spin on things. Or is the problem that Obama is from your party so his Christian views don't count? I am a devout Christian myself. I am also a scientist. I do not agree with Palin's views on creation. However, I don't think that having those views makes her any more dangerous when making decisions in office than someone who is convinced that Windows is the One True OS. Of course, she's just going to be the VP so will more than likely be responsible for setting the good china out for tea than making decisions. It's McCain and Obama we should be worrying about.
"terrorism" and "pedophilia" are the root passwords to the Constitution
I find it sad that any attempt to attack Palin is considered sexism or "negative campaigning."
The woman is a monster.
She should never have been chosen. the only reason she was chosen was BECAUSE she's as ridiculously evil as George W. Bush. If the Democrats don't attack her, they lose more than the election.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Anyone who is voting based on issues has already made up his mind. Unless you have strong feelings on one of the flip-flops.
Now it's time to convince the other 95% of the country.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Well, well. So VP candidates don't like being spied on any more than the general populace does. To bad *we* don't have the Secret Service to defend our privacy rights.
Someone went through the password recovery dialog and was able to guess answer "Where did you meet your spouse?".
Can someone give me the rationale for those password recovery mechanism that are usually far weaker than the passwords themselves? They seem like such a blatantly bad idea, that I must be missing something in failing to understand why they exist at all
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
William Buckley, certainlt a critical and indpendent thinker, who would present profund insight into the value of personal libery and personal choice, and then in the next breath condemn legal abortion as a great evil.
It just doesn't hold that believing in some crazy religious BS entails being stupid in other areas.
Committed atheists could easily condemn legal abortion as a great evil if they believed that purposefully killing a human being was wrong. Person-hood is the legal test for inalienable rights. The test could just as easily be "existing as a distinct being with human genes". Pro-life isn't just a religious cause, even though the religious folk are the most vocal.
Someone went through the password recovery dialog and was able to guess answer "Where did you meet your spouse?".
What's with that anyway? Sites insist on a long gobbledygook password (God forbid we use something that doesn't have digits and capital letters) and then let us change the password by typing in something where a list of 100 covers about 99% of the answers. Just how stupid are these supposed security experts?
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I'm a "fundamentalist" Christian (watch my karma go down :-) ), however, I don't believe I am a nutjob. I believe that many people who claim to be Christian today don't act like it, and thus, our country has a bad impression of Christians.
While there are a few issues I believe being a Creationist would have an effect on, for the most part, I'm not sure what would be entirely different. Some issues are not entirely Christianity-related, but opinion-related.
There a host of other issues out there, but that's where I revert into state's rights :-). That is because I believe the Founding Fathers intended a system based on the rights of states, and the citizens.
Obama is a socialist. I don't want that kind of change. On the other hand McCain isn't any better, just another version of the current administration. So, the choices appear to be keep the poor status quo or make a change toward socialism.
You think Obama is a socialist? Silly American, you have no idea what socialism is.
Oh, piffle. Just because I'm not infatuated by Obama doesn't make me a right-wing fanboy.
Would it help if I said that I find all three (D, R, and L) candidates giant shit-sacks? Probably not.
I've done the Outraged Partisan bit. I've tried the Fervent Ideologue schtick for a while, too. It's all junk. "If I vote for this guy, we'll have 14 hours of sunshine and unicorn farts for everybody! If the other guy wins, the tides will reverse, the Sun will dim, and my fridge will cease to store dairy and poultry at a safe temperature." Believing that there is a significant difference between one party and the other is an appeal to magic. It sure does feel good, though, right?
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Privacy for the individual is very important, but privacy is for individuals, not for government. People acting as agents of the government are not entitled to privacy during the time they are in that capacity. That is, the govenor of Alaska, when she is performing the duties of govenor of Alaska, should not and does not have any expectation of privacy.
If she gets AIDS, that's her problem, and a personal matter. If she has schitzophrenia, that's a different story. Once she's out of office though, and becomes a regular citizen again, she's entitled to whatever rights not taken away from every other citizen.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
She might be less shy with the nukes than she would otherwise if she doesn't expect to be on Earth when they land.
I want someone who knows, right down to her balls, that if she helps start an apocalypse, she's going to fry on Earth with the rest of us.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I'm very non-religious, having had most of the religion driven out of me by my experience at the Air Force Academy. However, I became fairly pro-life on all counts.
You don't need religion to be pro-life and anti-abortion (Two separate topics in my opinion).
I simply cannot find a more definitive point at which 'life' begins than at conception. It has nothing to do with my religion, but it is the most logical point at which you can say "Before that point, it was definitely not a human" and after that point "If we do not interfere, it will become a human". I've tried to rationalize abortion by looking at different stages of pregnancy, but I cannot find, or it hasn't yet been identified, that there is a singular event that bridges alive and not alive. Conception, is the most definitive point.
Of course, I'm also very much opposed to the death penalty.
I also, thankfully, have not had my beliefs tested at any extreme level (Child with downs syndrome, or due to rape, or had a loved one murdered and the suspect caught). I am very thankful for that. So while I do not know if I'm strong enough to hold to my convictions, I hope that I never have to face them, but if I do, that I remain true to my beliefs.
So please don't assume that it is just the religious that are against abortion. You can have completely secular objections against it.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
So Anonymous is like Al Quaeda then? A name for a concept that's treated like a group to sell newspapers.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Uh... TOP-FREAKING-GUN!!!! For that movie alone, I would forgive him if he were in "heaven's gate." Like how I forgive Mel Gibson and his crazy fundamentalist christianity because of braveheart.
And a few good men was good. I was trying to think up a pun there but it came out too lame.
1. Define "socialism" as you meant it above.
2. Why not?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Why can't you make something useful and sell it?
It must be nice on your planet where all knowledge is directly sellable and profitable! Biology is not all about making cures for the common cold and viagra. The most important work going on today is understanding the basics. Discovering a gene that maintains chromesomal integrity will get you absolutely nothing that you can sell but would be absolutely essential to a real cure for cancer. Just not directly. That's why the government gives grants, because the research that it buys proves its worth in the long run and isn't rewarded by market forces. Same reason the military isn't a private enterprise.
Being dependent on the federal government especially does not entitle you to run any portion of it.
I was explaining my reasoning for my statement that I didn't want a creationist in the white house, not saying I get to decide the next president. Keep up with the conversation or go play with your toys somewhere else.
What is a threat about Palin is not her inexperience, it's that her policies, ignorance, and will to corruption are essentially Bush on steroids. And the fact that McCain picked her is just one more piece on the pile of evidence that he has abandoned whatever principles he may ever have had, if any.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
If you vote for a third party, you may as well vote for whichever of the two candidates you hate the most because that's what you're doing.
Voting for a third party does not, never has, and never will, send a message. The two major parties are well aware of what the outliers in their party want. They don't care. Democratic candidates are not going to move further left, the Republicans are not going to move any further right, no matter if you vote for a Pat Buchanan or a Ralph Nader.
They're not going to do this because catering to the lunatic fringe loses you the middle which is where elections are determined. No one gives a rats if you vote for a lunatic fringe party because catering more towards your ideology would lose them the election faster than losing your vote.
As a side note, before you start throwing around the word "Socialism", learn what it means. By any global standard, Obama is not even remotely socialist. He believes in things like universal health care, but that's not socialism, it's just universal health care. If you don't agree with universal health care say you disagree with it, but don't try to claim that it's socialist and bury it under the "I hate the commies" pile.
You might also want to consider that the current Republican Administration currently owns controlling shares in the largest insurance company in the country, as well as two major investment bankers.
The "free market" ideals of the current government have forced them to take a more "socialist" control of the economy than any previous government in US history, just to fix up their mistakes.
Surely the most serious issue here is not whether a private email account was hacked or whether Sarah Palin tried to hide things from scrutiny, but the fact that she is putting government information - potentially sensitive and confidential - on a server outside government control. If this was a private company, she would probably be dismissed. It isn't much different from taking your work laptop computer home and leaving it in your car, something that usually has serious repercussions if it gets stolen.
This is something that should worry most American citizens - that and the fact that she seems to be even more ignorant about and less interested in international affairs than Bush. I really don't understand why it is that America keept electing politial leaders based on whether they appear to be good parents, "likeable" or good enough liars to look sincere when they talk about God. shouldn't they be elected for being good leaders, who have the knowledge and wisdom to handle the task? Who have the best interest of their people in mind? Who, in short, are aware that they are public servants and not divinely appointed kings?
Anyway, this is democracy, and America will get the leader they need; if you elect the McCain/Palin team, apparently you didn't learn the lesson with Bush and need another lesson.
Not at all. The fact she had a yahoo account was already made public what, a week ago? That's more than enough time to have an aid make a thorough scrubbing of her yahoo account and then leave it open for someone to "hack" into using a conveniently easy-to-guess password retrieval question.
This helps her with regards to her corruptions trials ("but there were no inappropriate emails, which was proven during the yahoo mail break in").
This helps McCain against Obama (the right-wing nutjobs are already painting this as left-wing hacktivism, instead of the skiddie crap we all know it to be).
She couldn't have had this turn out better for her if she had tried.
So they won't seize her computers they'll just ask and believe her when she says "no, I'm not using my private email to conduct government business" and leave.
This doesn't work for the plebian, nor for the powerful who have annoyed the more powerful.
They should now seize her computers and undergo investigation to retrieve all emails on that account. They won't, they'll spend all their time looking for the "perpetrator" of this attack.
This is what I don't get, after reading about half of the posts in this thread: About 95% of the posts don't mention the right to privacy
Get this: when discussing government matters via private email, Palin was not acting as a private citizen.
The reason why politicians are not supposed to use private email to discuss government matters is that public oversight on government activities is one of the pillars of democracy. Politicians essentially have no right to privacy when it comes to their performing their government duties; they are supposed to be open to public scrutiny.
What i don't get is why some people think that exposing corruption (or exposing the breaking of rules that are there to prevent corruption) is worse than the corruption being exposed.
historically science has been dependent on public funding because so much of science is trial and error. the act of finding something saleable can take generations of research/analysis, cultural adoption, etc.
even in playing rts games you see that "research" and "advancement" is something you undertake only after you've amassed a threshold surplus of resources in order to fund the research. in other words, your statement "make something and sell it" is misguided because a lot of important research is SOOOO far away from being market viable that it needs no-strings cash to fund it along.
this is actually the problem with big pharm - I worked at one for two years out of undergrad. There is such a focus on lifestyle/consumer drugs because that's what you can "make" and "sell" based upon the emotional desires of the consumer - often not so much for the greater good but more for short term profit.
in fact some argue that our economy has big problems for this same reason - there is artificial growth - based on ipod sales and back to school and christmas seasons, etc. and such - instead of real healthy growth based on fundamental economic staples. in short, the US has kinda gotten fat and decadent - and the thought process is - how can we keep this gravy train going? I'm as guilty as us all.
the consumer, contrary to popular opinion, is not always right.
un burrito me trampeó.
See, now, when I look at the stages of pregnancy, I see fertilization as "large cell plus tiny wannabe-cell equals large cell", not some sort of dramatic change worthy of special treatment... much less a supernatural event where a hidden deity sneaks a soul in, as claimed by the religious folks. This view is validated by the fact that a single fertilization can readily lead to two (or hypothetically more) resulting embryos, resulting in multiple unique individuals with identical DNA. This tells me that DNA is not really central to what it means to be an individual, unique person. Therefore, the moment when two haploid genomes join into a diploid genome isn't a particularly good moment to start saying that a cell has become a person.
Instead, I ask myself the question: what makes a person a person? And my answer is that a person (1) reacts to the surrounding environment; (2) remembers the past, learns from it, and makes predictions from it; and (3) has a personality, which seems to be a second-order effect of established memory plus genetic biases. (Yes, by this standard, many animals count as "persons". I'm not terribly concerned about that: in this context of "person", I'm concerned with how to treat a person ethically, and it's clear that animals with these traits must also be treated ethically.) And it's obvious to me that, while some of these things start while the fetus is in the womb — certainly the first, and the beginnings of the second — they definitely don't start until after the embryo has become a fetus, and based on how the brain works they definitely don't start prior to the formation of the human-style frontal cortex around weeks 22-26.
As a result, I don't see any moral issues whatsoever in abortion in the first trimester or the early second trimester, for the same reason I don't see moral issues in masturbation or exfoliation or hysterectomies. The bigger moral concern is the emotional well-being of the mother. Pregnancy is a big deal, after all: the choices surrounding pregnancy — abortion included — take on a very weighty importance due to their massively life-changing consequences.
Range Voting: preference intensity matters
I also realise it is a gross invasion of privacy, yet arent these emails meant to be public record?
Lighten up, "have you ever heard of Skara Brae on the Orkney Islands? Occupied from 3100 BC and with advanced sewer system." No, I haven't and doubt many others have either, and as much as that information will help me sleep better at night knowing all those people could crap hygienically I think next time you watch a film you should maybe not analyse every detail to extremes. Next you will be telling us that Brian wasn't the messiah just a very naughty boy.
Never mind his acting ability or lack thereof, he is a member of a pseudo criminal pyramid selling cult and legitimizes its existence by his membership.
Now if he switched to supporting the Freezone I might have more time for him but he is a figurehead for a vile cult and should be called out as a nasty piece of work.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
You think Obama is a socialist? Silly American, you have no idea what socialism is.
Don't be too hard on him/her. A common trait of that kind of (North American, US in particular - I have way higher regard for the typical Canadian) person is that the US is "The World"(tm). Any other country, place, system of politics or whatever, is mostly considered to be a figment of someone's imagination.
In other words: Thinking that Obama is a socialist (hah! yeah, it _is_ funny) is just a symptom of a much larger underlying problem.
The fact that the above mindset appears to overlap to a large extent with current US international policy is frightening.
the consumer, contrary to popular opinion, is not always right
The consumer is right, but the problem is that we've screwed up our educational system K-12, among other things, by arguing over ideological lines rather than practical ones. Extreme liberals want to fill classrooms with a bunch of white guilt stuff about slavery, the indians and the holocaust, and extreme conservatives, want to teach about Jesus. Well, here's the problem. Jesus and the Holocaust are all well and good, but they don't help kids learn how to do anything useful.
The biggest shortfall in our engineering right now is that kids actually aren't learning how to make things and be comfortable doing so from an early age. Every classroom needs to have legos and blocks for the younger ones, and in high school, you need to have CNC machines, CAD systems, chemistry labs and in the very least, every school district should have an electron microscope. People only believe in all of this earth is flat gobbledygook because all the tools that science has may as well be on another planet too, but if you put all of this stuff in kids hands, and from an early age... many can learn to think like engineers and scientists because they will be engineers and scientists. I know this sounds expensive, but, I am all for capping federal spending on entitlements for the elderly so that we can, instead, really just load up on our schools. I have no problem with a redistribution of wealth in education because it is in the best interests of the money'd classes to have smart people to someday become stewards of their corporations, rather than the retards that we have to day.
I mean, just imagine a classroom where you integrated engineering with algebra and then calculus so that, people can grasp and visualize things. You could easily show multiplication as an area and a volume problem with legos and show how calculating lets you know much material you need before you make it. You can use smaller and smaller blocks to plant the seeds of understanding limits and then calculus and then work in building shapes out of various curves and using the calculus to know how many blocks you need. Kids can learn about atoms and molecules by actually looking at them in an STM, and could have real chemistry sets and real motors and real generators and yes, lets cap lawsuits against public schools because some kids are going to get hurt playing with this stuff, but, such occasional injury is the risk that we have to accept to become a society of learning how to do things. But, at the end of the day, a young man or woman coming out of high school should have built their own electric motor, their own internal and external combustion engine, their own simple logical gate, their own computer, and synthesized a couple of different kinds of complex chemicals. I mean, I think teflon is something you could make.
None of this is even really out of the ordinary from what Americans had a century ago. Kids back then worked on farms and so got a good sense of how to fix things and make things because well, there wasn't like a Best Buy you would just return something too and things were so valuable that you just couldn't throw them away to get a new one. We need to put the positive aspects of that environment in place too.
Also, we really need to stop it with this first amendment crap taken to an extreme and get all of the junk off of the media. Parental responsbility is all well and good, but just about everyone is a parent, and you know there is a larger societal responsibility to not be programming ourselves with a steady diet of bad human behavior, violence, and smut.
This is my sig.
The COS has a long history of vindictiveness, and plenty of lawyers. They probably already threw resources at Anonymous equivalent to whatever law enforcement can do. The only thing law enforcement can add is warrants and subpeona power.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say he doesn't want to vote for a socialist because he's not a socialist and doesn't believe in socialism.
Socialism doesn't work because of the moral hazard issue. The lazy get to profit off of the labor of the hard working. Sure, you lift the bottom up a little relative to everyone else, but the cost is destroying innovation and potential for growth.
If I'm going to make the same if I mail it in and work 30 hours or if I work 80 hours, guess what? I'm mailing it in...
And yes, I do realize that this is a gross invasion of privacy, but you know what, I honestly don't care.
You should even if you don't care about Palin, because it has practical negative effects for the rest of us.
If we continue to escalate the personal attacks against candidates for public office, that will eliminate a large class of qualified people from running just because they don't want to subject themselves to that kind of punishment. We complain about the selection of candidates, but there is a strong selection bias here.
I have even heard commentators say that Sarah Palin should not have run because she would be putting her family through these personal attacks. If we eliminate all the people who don't want to subject their family to personal attacks, who are we left with?
I sure wouldn't want to run for anything that drew that many attacks.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
I agree to a certain extent. There are many substantive attacks to be made on Palin's policy positions (creationism, "I can see russia from my house," etc). However, attacking her experience would be a fine strategy in any other election, because usually candidates have 10+ years of experience in a collection of qualifying jobs (VP, Senator, Governor, Cabinet, General). It doesn't work in this election, because Obama is similarly inexperienced, and made a point of denying that it was a key issue when Hillary attacked him on it during the primaries. Democrats should have realized this, and not made "inexperience" the universal talking point, and instead given her enough time to make the silly policy statements that she inevitably would, then jumped all over those. One should note that Obama didn't directly attack Palin, it was the people and organizations around Obama that did, lending credence to the old maxim that, "elections aren't lost by your adversaries, they're lost by your friends."
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Oh, so you think she'll be able to predict the exact millisecond of the rapture and hit the launch button right before she's assumed into heaven?
Seriously? Look, there's no connection whatsoever between believing in the rapture and controlling nuclear weapons. None.
I'm not defending belief in the rapture; I think it's retarded, as belief in any doomsday story is retarded. But don't make shit up about Palin just because you disagree with her beliefs. The fact is, a person can have vastly different beliefs than you, and still do good in the world.
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