Palin Email Hacker Found

mortonda writes to tell us that the person responsible for breaching Sarah Palin's private email account has been found. We discussed the breach last Wednesday, shortly before the hacker, a University of Tennessee-Knoxville student, posted a message detailing his methods. Wired has a story examining the potential legal consequences for the hacker.

Comments

This Just In

[TheSpoom]

Cracker is an idiot. Ever hear of Tor? Or better yet, post the information on something like Freenet and just advertise it on Freenet somehow and let other people get the information out to the main web.

Of course, the fact that he posted his nick on /b/ when it's usually forced-anon anyway means he basically confessed. Not to mention that he said which proxy service he used -- note to criminals: if you want to get away with something, don't brag about how you did it!

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

The cracker is a /b/tard, don't think that you need to go into it any deeper than that.

I'm happy that some of that information came out. If it came down to it, I'd put in 10bux for his legal defense.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless someone just compromised that forum account and framed him.

Re:This Just In

[Elektroschock]

Let's say it like this: He or she is no hacker or cracker. It is just a usual internet user who did not obtain great skill.

Lessons:

* government users should not take yahoo (who ever came to that idea?)

* Anonymous communication matters

* Activities of governments should be transparent.

* It may help a person to become vice president who appears to be a nightmare and encourage anti-hacking regulations. Fortunately S. Palin has close affiliations with witch hunters.

Re:This Just In

[Hadlock]

The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email is that any email sent through those channels is archived for a Very Long Time as a matter of public record. Wondering what the clerk at the DMV is REALLY emailing about? Put in a freedom of information act request and it's all yours.
 
By Palin using yahoo, it's not closely watched and she can conduct official business off the record. It's very poor form to do so and is the real story here.

Re:This Just In

[Greyfox]

I have yet to see anyone ask Cheney or Palin if they feel they are above the law. Their actions seem to indicate they do.

I have trouble understanding why we put people with such obvious contempt for the law in positions that are in charge of it.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you a jew?

He's about as Jewish as he is a fucking monkey.

Re:This Just In

[Hadlock]

I have trouble understanding why we put people with such obvious contempt for the law in positions that are in charge of it.
 
Brilliant marketing, and the general public's desire to believe what they're told in hopes that it will come true. If the general public were half as smart as we give them credit for the world would have never seen Napoleian, Cesar (well actually the Romans solved that problem on their own), Castro, Hugo Chavez and more. But as the protestants like to point out, people are like sheep and will head in whatever direction the man who speaks softly but carries a big stick says.

Re:This Just In

[ZWithaPGGB]

She wasn't using the account for gov business, at least not based on what was posted on wikileaks, or according to the purported "Hacker". It was personal e-mail, in some cases about how she and others were being treated personally in the political arena, but not anything related to official government business.

As Officer Bar Brady says "Nothin to see here, move along now".

Re:This Just In

[__aaqvdr516]

And yet she believes judgment day is not far off...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4720440.ece

So why does she bother to "hide" using a non government email address when she believes the world will end within her lifetime? Makes you wonder which side of her mouth tells the truth doesn't it?

Re:This Just In

[John Jorsett]

By Palin using yahoo, it's not closely watched and she can conduct official business off the record. It's very poor form to do so and is the real story here.

OR, she could be obeying a governmental policy that says government accounts are not to be used for personal or campaign purposes. Did any of sample emails that were posted fall into the category of official business?

Re:This Just In

[ThinkTwicePostOnce]

What do you know, another politician's teenager! - a State Rep's son From Tennessee!

At least he didn't get some girl pregnant!

Re:This Just In

[Hadlock]

Email is a lot easier to record? There's always been a divide between the written and spoken word, from business deals (oral contract is only binding up to $500 in Florida), to courtroom hearings (hearsay, your word vs. mine, etc). You can request copies of government memos; email is electronic mail; it stands to reason that any official written communication should be kept. Lots of meetings are held behind closed doors because there's no written record for public consumption.
 
There's lots of other cases where emails are available for public consumption; for instance emails back to 1996 for the Seattle metro service are all available for review. On the flip side you have a matter of public record, historical records for data mining, and more. Imagine how boring history would have been if we didn't have access to Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln's personal letters today?
 
Governors aren't required to record their telephone conversations, although I know Nixon was a fan of doing so - which is partially what got him in trouble in the first place. I'm not sure what the outcome was in court about whether those are considered personal or not. I know in most states both parties have to be aware of the conversation being recorded. In Virginia(?) only one party is required to know that the conversation is being recorded.

Re:This Just In

[teknopurge]

But she didn't conduct any official business with the yahoo account! All that was in it were family pictures and emails to her friends. IMO, she did the correct thing by not using a govt.-paid for email account for personal communications.

Also, by the fact that you falsely stated she conducted "official business" with the yahoo account, I cannot help but think you have some type of bias, as why else would you blatantly falsify information???

Re:This Just In

[Cyberllama]

I disagree. It doesn't matter if it was, in retrospect, obvious. He found a pretty blatant flaw in the system -- in that the password reset function was woefully inadequate for figures who live a very public life since all the questions pertain to the customers private life. This flaw isn't really any less simple to implement than a buffer overflow might be, it just requires far less technical knowledge to do so.

Regardless, he found a flaw in a computer system, recognized it, exploited it, and gained access. Sounds like hacking (or cracking depending on how malicious you regard his activities to have been). Just because that flaw, in retrospect, was utterly stupid and obvious, doesn't really change that. Douglas Adams once wrote something to the effect that it takes a true genius to invent something which everyone recognizes at once as having been completely obvious but no one had ever made before.

Re:This Just In

[ccguy]

The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email is that any email sent through those channels is archived for a Very Long Time as a matter of public record

Not that I like her, but everyone's entitled to having personal accounts which should be respected.

If she used her .gov account for everything some people would be complaining about her usage of public resources to email her family.

Now, about what was found in the yahoo account: Obviously it would inadmissible in court, but it's very useful to her enemies anyway. Which I find disgusting.

Re:This Just In

[Hadlock]

Oh I definitely lean to the left and feel Palin would be grossly unqualified should the qualified (but very old) McCain were to have health issues requiring him to leave office. I missed the part on slashdot where I have to register my political bias! This isn't a newspaper I'm entitled to my opinion on the facts available to me. Also keep reading additional posts to see what else I have to say and why I came to that conclusion (i.e. recieving and responding to emails from Aides of politicalrelevance is activity I would consider official).
 
Which way do you lean? Left or right? Do you feel it in any way biases your thoughts/comments?

Re:This Just In

[L0rdJedi]

Let's say it like this: He or she is no hacker or cracker. It is just a usual internet user who did not obtain great skill.

Lessons:

* government users should not take yahoo (who ever came to that idea?)

* Anonymous communication matters

* Activities of governments should be transparent.

* It may help a person to become vice president who appears to be a nightmare and encourage anti-hacking regulations. Fortunately S. Palin has close affiliations with witch hunters.

Oh please. Here's the real lessons learned:

1. Don't make your security question anything that can be found online or don't discuss anything about it online (hers was where she and her husband met).

2. Don't enter your real birthdate anywhere online. Again, what places really need this for an online account except "social networking" sites? Even then, anyone you know is probably going to know when your birthday is anyway.

3. Don't use your real zip code.

All of the above would have completely prevented this "hack". It's not difficult to make up a birth date and use that instead. Same goes for a zip code (12345 anyone?).

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email...

Do you have any evidence of this, other than a few isolated emails?

People use a variety of communication systems. They talk on the phone, talk in person, email from various accounts, etc.

Most people make some attempt to organize this: a work phone number, a work email address, etc., but there is almost always some spillover. People socialize with other people they work with, and so there is bound to be some mixing among all of these types of communication. The only time that doesn't happen is when the consequences are huge, such as top secret information or something.

So what is your evidence that she did so to avoid record keeping and hide the information from FOIA requests?

It's very poor form to do so and is the real story here.

No, the real story here is our tolerance for people who harass, intimidate, violate the privacy of, or otherwise punish people who run for public office (or maybe just the people we don't like). We're never going to get good people to run for office if they are punished for doing so.

Re:This Just In

[MagdJTK]

If the general public were half as smart as we give them credit for the world would have never seen Napoleian, Cesar (well actually the Romans solved that problem on their own), Castro, Hugo Chavez and more.

The others are fair enough, but what's dog food got to do with it?

Re:This Just In

[Sephr]

Forum account? 4chan doesn't have 'accounts' to be compromised. And tripcodes don't give any user information, just verifiers the username. The only identifiable info on 4chan would be the IP.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

He put a name he uses elsewhere in the name field. That name was then connected to an email account.

Re:This Just In

[_KiTA_]

She wasn't using the account for gov business, at least not based on what was posted on wikileaks, or according to the purported "Hacker". It was personal e-mail, in some cases about how she and others were being treated personally in the political arena, but not anything related to official government business.

As Officer Bar Brady says "Nothin to see here, move along now".

Yeah, the emails with "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line from other officials in her administration really screamed "Not official government business" to me, too.

Re:This Just In

[_KiTA_]

Makes you wonder which side of her mouth tells the truth doesn't it?

She's a Republican Neo-Con. Her mouth isn't what side that noise is coming from.

Re:This Just In

[cmacb]

The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email is that any email sent through those channels is archived for a Very Long Time as a matter of public record.

Oh, you mean like the White House e-mails?

Now, before I get anyone confused, let me point out that White House e-mails were lost during the Clinton administration too. (People just seem to have conveniently forgotten about that one).

Is the issue one of "Open Government"? Fine, I believe in that too.

Sorry, but I don't buy the idea that one party or the other is the essence of purity in this area.

Years ago they were able to pass "Government in the Sunshine" laws in Florida and as an expatriate of that state I decided to read up on how things had worked out (since I hadn't heard the concept bragged about recently).

Apparently not so well.

Get this through your head: If people want to conspire they will find a way to do it, no matter what obstacles you put in their way. Having government archive e-mails (good in theory, bad in practice with the type of people who work in government) simply means they switch to Blackberries, monitor those they switch to text messages, monitor those they use use post-it notes, track those it will be mouth to ear whispers in a noisy disco somewhere.

The better apporach is to spot collusion from the outcomes and punish it.

Does the average Slashdot reader need to be shown an e-mail to convince them that Microsoft and Intel have worked together to lock up the PC industry? I don't, and I hope in the future, some Federal prosecutor has the brains and best interest of the county to follow the obvious tracks of collusion without the need of e-mail messages or post-it notes to guide him/her.

Selection of Yahoo for e-mail was stupid for no other reason that Yahoo is a lousy e-mail system.

But then again, I've watched Federal government people sign on to their e-mail at home and guess what?: It's web based. It has cookies, it's hackable, and of course, we have plenty of evidence that they lose things.

There are so many red herrings in this story it has gotten ridiculous. So far the only thing embarrassing about this story to come out is incompetence of some low-level Democratic operative, who at this point has actually committed a crime, and some equal incompetence (presumably) of some yet to be named assistant to the Governor who doesn't know how to do product selection.

If you think there needs to be transparency in government, fine. But you are going to have to do a lot more than the half hearted government archiving of e-mails that occurs now.

Start by mandating video of all government sponsored meetings that don't involve security clearance. Bug every room in Washington and post it all to You-tube. Make video Podcasts out of every meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus. I'm all for trying it.

Oh, but before you do, read up on the aftermath of previous open government efforts at the state level. It may open your eyes.

Hint: As advanced as modern medicine is, we still track the spread of disease by the spread of symptoms, not the travels of individual bacterium or bacteriophages.

Re:This Just In

[ryguy]

I happen to have some insight here as my mother is an elected state rep. Using any government resources (including email) for campaign purposes would be a huge violation and it can (and has) gotten many officials in a huge amount of trouble. A political campaign must completely separate itself from government supplied services. For example, my mothers legislative aide is not even allowed to leave work during working hours to help with a fund raiser or campaign even. (since the aide is paid for by taxpayer dollars and not paid for by the campaign) She has to hire people(or find volunteers) to manage the campaign and her legislative aide can only show up on her own time. (after 5pm)

There is a huge difference between what a campaign aide and a legislative aide can do for a politician.

Re:This Just In

[Rasit]

If the general public were half as smart as we give them credit for the world would have never seen Napoleian, Cesar (well actually the Romans solved that problem on their own), Castro, Hugo Chavez and more.

The others are fair enough, but what's dog food got to do with it?

Dog food? Didnt his whispering work?

Re:This Just In

[BenoitRen]

Napoleon wasn't all bad, though. Thanks to him our Belgian courts (among others) don't suck as bad as the Americans'!

Re:This Just In

[barzok]

12345 is a legitimate ZIP code (works better than pulling 5 digits out of your ass). I hear a T. A. Edison once did some work there.

Re:This Just In

[Elektroschock]

Ironically the Republicans offer the revolutionary and freaky program and democrats are conservative and modest.

I would like to see an intelligent, conservative right wing politician. But all you find is lies, stupidity and insults of the old crank. Obama plays moderate and so far did not make a single mistake.

It is not about Left or Right. It is freaks vs. conservatives.

Re:This Just In

[billcopc]

Nah, he's far below /b/tard level. /b/tards at least know to post Anon.

This kid is your typical attention-whoring suburban fuckup. He's probably going to grow up to be a nice little volvo-driving banker.

Re:This Just In

[skimitar]

Not that easy - 4chan blocks any communication from a known Tor proxy.

Freenet - maybe. But does anyone use it? Really?

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

You cannot attack her because that would make her a victim and she makes you appear rude.

Someone violated her privacy, broke the law, and distracted from other issues during the presidential election.

That's a little more than "rude".

As far as the usual political back-and-forth (the legal kind), every politician uses rhetorical shields to hide from legitimate criticism. Ultimately, the people decide what's a legitimate criticism and what is not.

Many people have decided that, yes, it is rude to criticize Palin for the actions of her daughter, or to question the parents of her youngest child.

But it's not rude to criticize her for supporting the bridge to nowhere, or some policy position you disagree with. If she tries to hide behind the "underdog" persona to avoid these charges she will be unsuccessful.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

Maybe she was using her personal email for her personal political career, and there is good reason for that to be marked "CONFIDENTIAL" without being official government business.

In fact, there may be laws preventing her from using government networks to discuss a political career.

You should really provide some specific evidence that she did something wrong, because I haven't seen any yet.

Re:This Just In

[Wakkow]

So how do the presidential candidates themselves run? They're getting paid their Senate salary while they travel around the country campaigning, aren't they?

Re:This Just In

[flyingsquid]

She wasn't using the account for gov business, at least not based on what was posted on wikileaks, or according to the purported "Hacker".

That's actually not true. If you take the time to look at the information posted on wikileaks, you'll notice a number of emails have titles such as "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax", "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", "Re: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", "Court of Appeals Nominations", "FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter". Those definitely sound like official state business, although it's impossible to know now that the account has been deleted.

As for the lack of any sort of incriminating information, what does that prove? It's not an official email account. There's no requirement that the information is archived; if any of the emails did contain information that would provide evidence of wrongdoing, Palin can simply delete them at any time. That's the issue: Palin promised transparency in government, but she's done the opposite, and has made herself unaccountable for her actions as Governor.

For the complete list of emails, see: http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_inbox_2008i

Re:This Just In

[Hadlock]

I just had a Belgian couple stay with me last night! couchsurfing.com ...anyways, your courts may be doing well, but from what they told me, you've been without a federal government for 6+ months now :)
 
What are the primary differences in the court systems?

Re:This Just In

[killmenow]

I have trouble understanding why we put people with such obvious contempt for the law in positions that are in charge of it.

It's easy: they promise to stop "baby killing" and gay marriage. Basically, it's our country's accepted form of religious extremism.

Re:This Just In

[Main Gauche]

I mean look at her statements. I mean for instance when she talks about her son beeing deployed in Iraq. Isn't it frightening to see an aspiring political leader buy into peasants propaganda?

When an elected official's son goes to Iraq, it's "peasant propaganda"? Well, when he doesn't, it's someone else's propaganda. I guess they're screwed either way!

Re:This Just In

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Now, about what was found in the yahoo account: Obviously it would inadmissible in court, but it's very useful to her enemies anyway. Which I find disgusting.

Apparently it's not disgusting as in just maybe she was trying to skirt the laws about recording matters relevant to public record, which seems pretty plausible given the leaked subject lines and leaked sample email? Why are "talking points" something that's personal and not public?

It's good to get personal stuff on a personal account, but it still looks much like she was doing some public work using that personal account too.

Re:This Just In

[Dachannien]

On the other hand, you can conduct all the non-government-business stuff you want over Yahoo without running afoul of various government regulations about misappropriation of resources.

For example, US federal rules forbid using government resources for personal money-making purposes, so if you're a government employee, you better not use your work address to conduct those eBay sales.

So, when it comes down to it, Palin really should use an outside e-mail address for non-government business purposes, but she's taking heat for it anyway, not because she did anything wrong, but because some of her opponents have no qualms about contorting the truth against her instead of criticizing her on any legitimate grounds they might find.

Re:This Just In

[NeutronCowboy]

I don't think you read the list very closely then. Here are some of the emails:
"Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans"
"Re: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues"
"Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions"
All these came from or were sent to government email addresses (as specified in her contact list).

I have no idea how these could qualify as personal emails. Especially in light of the fact that they came from or went to government email addresses. Either someone else misused government email resources, or she conducted state business via personal email. And the latter seems pretty damn likely.

Re:This Just In

[calmofthestorm]

Don't need to. If they couldn't find hte first guy, just grab one of the random /b/tards who was dumb enough to login from the info posted and claim he was the original.

You're still grabbing a felon.

Re:This Just In

[Yeff]

As the police like to say, "Criminals are stupid."

Re:This Just In

[calmofthestorm]

Your computer can break a tripcode in Not Very Long (minutes-hours).

Re:This Just In

[calmofthestorm]

You use that evidence to track him, other evidence to prove guilt.

Re:This Just In

[bobsil1]

She had two Yahoo acc'ts, the other was illegally used mainly for state biz.

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

I have yet to see anyone ask Cheney or Palin if they feel they are above the law. Their actions seem to indicate they do.

I have trouble understanding why we put people with such obvious contempt for the law in positions that are in charge of it.

Are Cheney and Palin not allowed to have personal lives? Should every conversation they have be public record? Should their personal emails be sent via government servers?

Sorry, but NO! There was no government business on her Yahoo account, so no law was broken. All the stuff I saw there WAS STUFF THAT DID NOT BELONG ON GOVERNMENT SERVERS! Prayers from friends and pictures of her kids have no place on government computers. If these WERE on her government account, then you'd have something, abuse of power or whatever. But they weren't, so there is nothing but what you make up. She was right to keep her personal crap on Yahoo!

Since no law was broken, why are you assuming that Palin feels she was above the law? I have trouble understanding why we put people with such obvious contempt for those with an (R) or (D) next to their name that they make stuff up to fit their preconceived notions and justify their irrational hatred.

Re:This Just In

[proverbialcow]

Obviously it would inadmissible in court

Why? IANAL, but as I understand it, the "fruits-of-poison-tree" argument only holds if it were the police (or investigative government body) who had accessed her account without her authorization or a warrant.

Anyone who IAAL: care to clear this up?

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

I am curious where you get the compelling evidence that someone you don't even know, and hadn't heard about until a month ago, is in contempt of the law? And what does Palin have to do with Cheney? It is like saying someone from Massachusetts is a murderer, so everyone from Massachusetts must be a murderer.

What is insightful in this comment?

Re:This Just In

[NotBornYesterday]

I know you're half joking, but I'd think that banks would prefer someone who can keep a secret. As a matter of fact, I'd think that any position that could use his meager skills also require the ability to STFU and be subtle.

Re:This Just In

[Rei]

No freaking kidding. The next time there's a widely publicized hack, is someone going to make a 4chan post taking credit for it under the name "president@whitehouse.gov".

Re:This Just In

[Kozz]

I'm sorry I have to ask, but wtf is "/b/" ? Is this some kind of reference to something on 4chan (something else I know little of)?

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

You got an extra i on the end of that URL - here is one the works:
http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_inbox_2008

Re:This Just In

[toby]

Isn't it frightening to see an aspiring political leader buy into peasants propaganda? She wants to get into a leadership position and talks herd. That is frigthening.

Sad to say, historically it wins elections. And if you can't win them that way, just fiddle with the results and the Supreme Court - like they did in Florida '00, Ohio '04, and shortly, the '08 election.

The irony is that the leaders who are elected in this way, are invariably the ones who attack and destroy democracies elsewhere in the world. And yes, we're as concerned as you are. The Republican ticket in '08 is very bad news for America and the world. :(

Re:This Just In

[Score Whore]

I have yet to see anyone ask Cheney or Palin if they feel they are above the law.

While they may both feel that way, Gov. Palin's use of yahoo email provides zero insight regarding that mentality. No one has identified a single email from her yahoo account that was of an official nature. Yes, there were plenty of emails to officials, but merely talking to a public office holder doesn't make the communication official and a matter of public record. In fact there were a number of emails of a political nature which would be flat out illegal to do over her official email system.

This is why, outside of partisan bloggers and ignorant commenters, no one anywhere is talking about Gov. Palin doing anything wrong.

Re:This Just In

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

That's actually not true. If you take the time to look at the information posted on wikileaks, you'll notice a number of emails have titles such as "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax", "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", "Re: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", "Court of Appeals Nominations", "FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter".

No, no, no...
Those weren't actual messages about government business.
They were just spam messages with misleading subject lines crafted to trick a politician into reading them.
Governors on yahoo get them ALL the time!
You should see the spam she gets now that she is a vp candidate - lots of messages that appear to be from Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Jerry Falwell and Bob Dole.

But open them up, and they are just advertisements for viagra. Wait a second, the ones from Bob Dole probably really are from him.

Re:This Just In

[British]

The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email is that any email sent through those channels is archived for a Very Long Time as a matter of public record. Wondering what the clerk at the DMV is REALLY emailing about? Put in a freedom of information act request and it's all yours.

I just assume getting a Yahoo email account working was faster & more efficient than getting a government-issued email account working. I mean look how badly the white house lost all those emails!

Re:This Just In

[New_Age_Reform_Act]

By using a free yahoo account, she helped save government resources for maintaining her email account. We need people like this for a balance budget. Not to mentioned a whole lot of money-saving measures she has done as a governor.

Re:This Just In

[jabithew]

Ever heard of Hans-Martin Tillack? His office was raided and his equipment seized by Belgian police because he had the audacity to protect a whistle-blower in a fraud case. He eventually got compensation, but as far as I'm aware he hasn't re-gained his possessions. I would bet money on the whistle-blower having been sacked by now. The whole sorry saga is here. In the mean time the accounts have not been signed off for the thirteenth year running (the Tories are reporting a fourteenth).

I hate it when we Europeans pretend to be so vastly superior to those ghastly Americans out of sheer ignorance.

p.s. I am a Europhile, I just don't think this kind of thing should be covered up out of misguided solidarity with the European Project.

Re:This Just In

[kisak]

Someone violated her privacy, broke the law, and distracted from other issues during the presidential election.

Palin wants to continue the policies of the current White House administration where everyones privacy can be violated by the White House without any consequences even though it breakes federal law. And by violating the air-heads yahoo account, it was shown that Palin has -- just like the current republicans in the White House -- used a non-governmental email account to hide how she uses the powers given her by her office. I feel hard to feel sorry for her and also, the finding is very telling about what kind of president she will be when McCain gets cancer and dies.

Re:This Just In

[jabithew]

Belgium uses the civil law system, otherwise known as the Napoleonic code. The majority of American states use English common law system*, which relies a lot more on judicial judgement and precedent (which have the same force as law itself, effectively allowing courts to legislate). Our common law actually has a lot in common with Shari'a in terms of how it works.

*CA, for example, doesn't. Neither does Scotland, hence English.

Re:This Just In

[ccguy]

It's good to get personal stuff on a personal account, but it still looks much like she was doing some public work using that personal account too.

Even if that was true, you would need some evidence *first* and then get access (by getting a warrant) to the email account.

Let me put it another way: Suppose this "hacker" got illegal access to another 15 email accounts and found nothing there - he was a bit lucky with Palin. If he didn't find anything useful, there wouldn't be a story about his break-in... yet 15 people would have had their privacy invaded by an idiot with no right to do so.

So tell me, if events had happened this way (which would be in fact be the case), what should happen now?

Invading one's privacy just to see if there's anything interesting is illegal, and with good reason. And honestly, I hope Palin gets away with _everything_ that could be in those emails, so next time people who don't like a specific politician play fair.

Re:This Just In

[rtfa-troll]

When an elected official's son goes to Iraq, it's "peasant propaganda"?

You've misunderstood the grandparent. He's not saying that she sent her son for propaganda. He's saying she's so stupid that she unthinkingly follows propaganda designed for peasants and sends her son to Iraq. Personally I think that it's good if representatives end up with some comprehension that their acts have consequences. Anyway; it's been suggested that there are various reasons why people end up in the army, not all of which are due to their preference. E.g. as a way of avoiding some kinds of legal case by getting the judge to see the better side of the person and the real wish to reform.

perhaps a more reasonable question would be what is so wrong with her that all her kids end up so messed up. True, it could just be bad luck, but I guess most people want their vice-president to be a lucky kind of person.

Re:This Just In

[CableModemSniper]

Presumably the legislative aide referred to by the grand-parent wasn't elected into that position, they were hired. I would imagine the theory is that by making it prohibited for the aide to work on the campaign during work hours, it dissuades the candidate from using the authority they have over the aide during work hours to get "free" labor at the tax payer's expense. Likewise, I imagine the candidates don't campaign when the senate is in session (or on the senate floor).

Re:This Just In

[ccguy]

Yeah, the emails with "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line from other officials in her administration really screamed "Not official government business" to me, too.

confidential in:spam

1-17 of 17

Go ahead and give it a try.

Re:This Just In

[eh2o]

Well under the Cheney/Bush/Rove interpretation, none of this is above the law because all that stuff is protected by executive privilege (and Palin is now using this also to bury the Troopergate and other problems). And, when that excuse runs out, they cite war-time powers. So, they claim that it isn't out of legal bounds, yet it is out of the bounds of public scrutiny or even congressional oversight.

Re:This Just In

[flyingsquid]

Personally, I'm fed up with all this "sexist" bullshit that's surrounded her nomination. Sure, nominating a female VP is historic (kinda sorta, since the Dems did it 24 years ago). Are we suddenly supposed to stop asking questions about whether this woman is experienced enough or capable enough to assume the leadership of the United States of America? We are, after all, engaged in two major wars.

And yes, small-town hockey mom becomes vice presidential candidate, that's a good story. It's like a Hollywood script, or a fairy tale where the girl raised on a farm suddenly discovers she's really a princess. Yeah, it's a cute story, and I hate to see a good story spoiled, but our economy is facing the biggest crisis since the crash of 1929. I want somebody smart and experienced ready to take over if anything happens to McCain.

But Palin simply isn't qualified. Her performance during the ABC interview revealed that she had virtually no understanding of American foreign policy. Anyone who regularly reads a serious news magazine like The Economist or a major newspaper like the New York Times or Washington Post would be familiar with the questions that Gibson brought up- the Bush Doctrine, the right of America to strike in Pakistan- but Palin didn't seem to have ever thought about either before. Palin argued, in all seriousness, than being able to see Russia from Alaska somehow gave her some sort of experience. That's like arguing that you're ready to engage in negotiations with Putin because you saw Rocky Balboa fight Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV".

After the ABC interview- watch it on YouTube, if you haven't seen it already- only way you can argue that Palin can be taken seriously is to lower the bar. The only way you can argue that she is qualified is to argue that as a woman, she can't be expected to have the same understanding of foreign policy as the men. Now thatis sexist.

Re:This Just In

[Elektroschock]

Yes, it is.

A soldier is a person who is lead by a leader and does not take the decisions. They are e.g. not in Iraq because they like it or not or they want to do good as they don't take the decisions.

There is really no point in talking about "support for our troops", meaning the sustention of the mission they carry out. It is a classic cover-up. A soldier is an object and leadership means to direct them in a responsible way. What bad leadership to use the object you lead to justify the decisions you made!

Michael Moore is a polemic but he is of course right that soldiers usually come from the lower class. They are guys who sell their freedom and are subordinated, relieved from personal responsibilities they are forced to kill or get killed. It is a burden not a virtue.

Now Palin even makes it worse. She buys into the propaganda that gets a life of its own.

Re:This Just In

[eh2o]

Well first off this hacker is stupid, no surprise he got caught. To do this right he would have downloaded the entire mailbox, not just made a few "I made it" screenshots. We really only got to see a couple of messages, and they are not particularly interesting.

Second, Palin has *two* Yahoo accounts. The one she is suspected of using inappropriately wasn't hacked. If the hacker was a bit more subtle--some social engineering, perhaps? I'll be the other one could have been breached also. By now she is probably well on her way to furiously deleting those messages.

Re:This Just In

[retchdog]

It's not uncommon to be fired for personal email on work time; often this is due to confidentiality and disclosure concerns.

Similarly, I think ideally that high-level public servants (R or D or L or whatever) should be required to use government email; two accounts, one work and the other personal, both with 100% retention and logging. The work account is automatically a matter of public record with some appropriate delay (a few days or weeks). Personal is private, but accessible with court order. If the court order comes in, and they find work on the personal email, it's serious trouble.

Secret projects, if necessary, can apply for protected emails on separate servers, which aren't released to the public until the scope of the project is over. (I'm not saying whether there should be secret projects one way or the other, just that it's easy to accomodate them anyway.)

Whether for reasons of government accountability (D), or national security (R), this just makes sense. If people don't like it, they don't have to become public servants.

Re:This Just In

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

But she didn't conduct any official business with the yahoo account! All that was in it were family pictures and emails to her friends.

Really? How do you know that?
Do these sound like personal emails to you?

Subject: Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax
From: Ruaro, Randall P (Deputy Chief of Staff)

Subject: FW: Motor Fuel Tax Suspension
From: Meghan Stapleton (Press Secretary)

Subject: RE: Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans
From: Nizich, Michael A (Chief of Staff)

Subject: Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions
From: Ruaro, Randall P (Deputy Chief of Staff)

Subject: RE: Please approve
From: Ruaro, Randall P (Deputy Chief of Staff)

Subject: Rural Wireless Service
From: McBride, Rhonda (Rural Advisor)

Subject: FW: DPS Employee Draft
From: Ruaro, Randall P (Deputy Chief of Staff)

Subject: Re: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues
From: McAllister, William D (Communciations Director)

Subject: FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues
From: Ruaro, Randall P (Deputy Chief of Staff)

Subject: Court of Appeals Nominations
From: Ruaro, Randall P (Deputy Chief of Staff)

Subject: another records request
From: Nizich, Michael A (Chief of Staff)

Subject: RE: Scheduling - Week of 08.10.08
From: Mason, Janice L (Scheduling Assistant

Subject: FW: Capitalizing on coal reserves, Crow Tribe strikes deal for $7B
From: Nizich, Michael A (Chief of Staff)

Subject: Status report
From: Ruaro, Randall P (Deputy Chief of Staff)

Subject: FW: Special session press release
From: Nizich, Michael A (Chief of Staff)

Subject: Followup.
From: Colberg, Talis J (Alaska Attorney General)

Subject: FW: CONFIDENTIAL Ethics Matter
From: Nizich, Michael A (Chief of Staff)

Re:This Just In

[GregNorc]

Wouldn't the FBI have subpoenaed the proxy host anyways, even if he hadn't confessed?

This is why you use multiple proxies (Tor is nice) and make sure some of them are in foreign countries.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

Palin wants to continue the policies of the current White House administration where everyones privacy can be violated by the White House without any consequences even though it breakes federal law.

Even if that's true, it's unrelated to the matter at hand. It's illegal for government to read your email without a warrant, and illegal for private citizens to do so without your permission.

It's hypocritical of you to stand for privacy rights when it suits your needs, but then act as an apologist for people who violate the privacy laws already on the books.

used a non-governmental email account to hide how she uses the powers given her by her office.

I still have seen no evidence that she used the Yahoo account for the specific purpose of hiding communications.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

Palin was using her personal account for government work, which is illegal.

Reference, please. Be specific: what kinds of email are required under the law to send using a government account, and what did a specific email contain that fell under that requirement?

And she's telling her staff to ignore subpoenas about whether she campaigned with state resources.

Reference, please.

Re:This Just In

[flyingsquid]

Sorry, but NO! There was no government business on her Yahoo account, so no law was broken.

Sorry, that's just not true.

Palin's Yahoo account contained emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax". Check the wikileaks site, it's all laid out for anyone to see.

Palin's account does contain emails that relate to government business. Saying "there was no government business on her account" over, and over, and over, as people seem to be doing in this forum, doesn't change the facts. Although that seems to be a common tactic for their campaign these days: repeat the lie so many times that it starts to sound true, like Palin's "I told them thanks but no thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere.

Re:This Just In

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Anyone who IAAL: care to clear this up?

IAAL: Is An Anal Lawyer?

Re:This Just In

[TheSpoom]

/b/ is the center of the internets.

OK, OK. /b/ is an image board on 4chan where many memes originate, and where a lot of actions by Anonymous are talked about. Anonymous pretty much originated from 4chan (among a few other sites) because of their "forced-anon" rule, which basically forces everyone to post anonymously.

Encyclopedia Dramatica has more but fair warning, it's definitely NSFW (as is /b/ itself).

Re:This Just In

[HungWeiLo]

For years, Republicans have been winning by pretending to be Democrats, and Democrats have been winning by pretending to be Republicans. That's the secret 11-herbs-and-spices recipe.

Re:This Just In

[Junior J. Junior III]

Same goes for a zip code (12345 anyone?).

That's the combination on my luggage!

Re:This Just In

[Matteo522]

All the evidence these wackos need is the (R) after her name. That's when she became guilty to them -- despite the fact that these are often the same people who get up in arms about any trivial violation of privacy.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

Funny, I clicked on every word in your post, and none of them were links to this damning evidence you keep talking about.

The most I've heard is that a few emails might have been marked "CONFIDENTIAL", but nothing explaining whether those emails are official government business or something related to her personal political career.

Re:This Just In

[gweihir]

Criminals are generally stupid. One of the reasons law enforcement has a pretty good chance of catching them.

Re:This Just In

[BenoitRen]

Yeah, damn those politicians. No side wants to admit on anything.

The primary difference is that here each party gets two chances. If you lose your case and disagree with the outcome, you can have it heard again a second time in another court. If you win, the other side can have it heard one last time if he/she thinks it can still be won. If you lose again, you'll have to accept it. It won't be heard again.

In the US you can get it heard over and over as long as you have money to pay your lawyers.

Re:This Just In

[Tubal-Cain]

If it came down to it, I'd put in 10bux for his legal defense.

Why? Whether or not you approve of what he did, the most expensive lawyers in the world can't change the fact that he did something illegal.

Re:This Just In

[BenoitRen]

Hey, I never pretended it was perfect. But at least it's not a case of whoever has the most money wins by having the case heard again and again.

Re:This Just In

[laird]

"But she didn't conduct any official business with the yahoo account! All that was in it were family pictures and emails to her friends. IMO, she did the correct thing by not using a govt.-paid for email account for personal communications."

This is incorrect. She specifically set up two Yahoo accounts, one for personal email (gov.sarah@yahoo.com) and another (gov.palin@yahoo.com). The latter was specifically set up because she could avoid Alaska's Sunshine Laws that require all government business to be archived and (with very narrow exceptions) available to the public. In the email archive is a discussion where she and her staff confirm that the use of the yahoo accounts hides their emails from court subpoena's, and she even reprimands one staffer for using her official email instead of the yahoo account.

So while Yahoo email accounts do have a legitimate expectation of privacy, I'd argue that Palin lost her claim to privacy when she engaged in illegal evasion of Alaska's Sunshine Laws.

Re:This Just In

[Tubal-Cain]

He's about as Jewish as he is a f****** monkey./quote>

What about a regular one?

Re:This Just In

[Blackknight]

Hometown, IL, zip is 60456. The bonus is that it's a real place. If you wanna be devilish say you're from Hell, MI.

Re:This Just In

[jp102235]

It is illegal to conduct official business on other-than-official comm devices in the federal govt (without permission / best interests, etc) ... not sure about alaska...

remember all of those laptops getting lost with SSN's and people bringing sensitive (Privacy Act of 1974) - style information home from work... So if I brought some work home with me and put it on my own mac, I would be breaking the law... I have actually had a administrator at work, about a year ago, lecture us about this (using gmail/yahoo/etc), it is expressly forbidden on the federal level. Those email sites are often blocked by many govt firewall's.

So by using yahoo SHE may have broken the law. interesting....

Re:This Just In

[nedlohs]

No, but it probably helps in getting a warrant to check for evidence in things they wouldn't be allowed to look at without a warrant...

Re:This Just In

[S-100]

No, the "whole reason" Palin used a Yahoo account for her personal mail is to avoid using government servers for personal affairs. Imagine the fake indignation if they found personal messages on her government account. They would all be saying how she was stupid for not using a Yahoo account for her personal emails.

I place the blame on the Secret Service for not locking down all these accounts in advance, especially with the intense interest in digging up dirt on the candidate.

Re:This Just In

[S-100]

Gee, a reasonable person might interpret "CONFIDENTIAL" as a private, personal message, which is what they turned out to be. You people look stupid grasping at straws like that.

Re:This Just In

[S-100]

Thank you, Kreskin.

Re:This Just In

[coaxial]

All you need to know, is that Cheney, Rumsfield, and whole lot are throwbacks from the Nixon administration, and want to "restore" the presidency to Nixon level. Now this would all seem relatively innocuous, or at least inane, until remember Nixon's famous quote from his Robert Frost interview:

"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

Interestingly enough, the Republicans like to talk big about the rule of law, but then turn around and have no problem with, and in fact argue that they are duty bound to ignore subpoenas. (Todd Palin, just being the most recent one; but that's small time compared to Rove and Harriet Miers.)

Then you also have this gang promoting the prima facia absurdity of unitary executive, and that the president can prevent investigations into himself and even pardon himself for any crimes, which of course aren't crimes, because "when the president does it, that means it's not illegal."

So yes. They do believe that they are above the law.

Re:This Just In

[Cow Jones]

1. Don't make your security question anything that can be found online or don't discuss anything about it online (hers was where she and her husband met).

Unfortunately, Yahoo doesn't give you a lot of choice there. These are the possible recovery questions:

• Where did you meet your spouse?
• What was the name of your first school?
• Who was your childhood hero?
• What is your favorite pastime?
• What is your favorite sports team?
• What is your father's middle name?
• What was your high school mascot?
• What make was your first car or bike?
• What is your pet's name?

Most of these answers are pretty easy to find out if you know the target, even if she's not currently running for vice president and having her past picked apart and published every day. For Palin, most of these answers are likely to appear in interviews, or are even on the public record (her school, her father's name).

What's so hard about letting users enter their own questions? I wouldn't feel safe with any of the questions in their list, but I could easily make one up that only I could answer. Sure, you could lie, but will you remember that lie in 5 years when you need to recover your password?

CJ

Re:This Just In

[smoker2]

If they were personal yahoo accounts why was one address "gov.palin@yahoo.com" when surely sarahpalin@ or some derivative would be available.

Re:This Just In

[daemonenwind]

Absolute tripe.

Do you have a job?

Do you have an e-mail account you use which is not associated with your job?

All these assumptions about what goes on in private e-mail accounts have not been substantiated. In fact, the cracker responsible said he went through Palin's e-mail, and found absolutely nothing.

Furthermore, since this cracker is the son of a Democrat, he would have known what to look for. Instead, he freely admits it's just stuff like communications with friends, casual conversations with other Republicans, and pictures of her kids.

There's nothing there - as the opposition party fully admits - but it sure doesn't stop the idiot conspiracy theorists from foaming at the mouth.

And one last thing: if you consider this to be a politically-used account, then what _exactly_ is the difference between this and Watergate?

Answer: nothing.

Re:This Just In

[Elektroschock]

Come on. A political leader does not require that sort of knowledge. The scandal e.g. about the Bush doctrine is that it is idiosyncratic and contradicts the Nuremberg principles and discontinues foreign policy. To say it is a "doctrine" is a joke, it is revolutionary politics. It shouldn't happen.

Now, a VP is a person to shake hands with African dictators. It is a symbolic office. That is why Obama was right to pick Biden instead of Clinton.

Financial crisis? Why not make some ideological proposals how to not fix it?

Re:This Just In

[Rob the Bold]

Someone violated her privacy, broke the law, and distracted from other issues during the presidential election.

I might cut someone a little slack for the first two, but "distracted from the issues" is indeed a serious crime that any political candidate or even average citizen would find shocking to the core.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

If by CA you're referring to Canada, that's not entirely accurate. Common law is used at the Federal level in Canada and all provinces except Quebec. French civil law was restored in Quebec by Great Britain under the Quebec Act, which was one of the Intolerable Acts that lead to the American Revolution.

Re:This Just In

[ksd1337]

First time I saw something that people would agree with here get modded troll. Don't know if this is good or bad though.

Re:This Just In

[LMariachi]

>> And she's telling her staff to ignore subpoenas about whether she campaigned with state resources.

> Reference, please.

http://www.adn.com/palin/story/530493.html

"Alaska Attorney General Talis Colberg said the governor, who was not subpoenaed, declined to participate in the investigation and said Palin administration employees who have been subpoenaed would not appear."

Palin's staff is ignoring supoenas, but parent has misstated what the subpoenas are about. They pertain to "Troopergate," not campaign financing.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it frightening to see an aspiring political leader buy into peasants propaganda? She wants to get into a leadership position and talks herd. That is frigthening.

Sad to say, historically it wins elections. And if you can't win them that way, just fiddle with the results and the Supreme Court - like they did in Florida '00, Ohio '04, and shortly, the '08 election.

The irony is that the leaders who are elected in this way, are invariably the ones who attack and destroy democracies elsewhere in the world. And yes, we're as concerned as you are. The Republican ticket in '08 is very bad news for America and the world. :(

What democracies have been destroyed? Surely you are not saying that Afganistan, ruled by the Taliban, and Iraq, who had a dictator named Sadam, were democracies. Your conspiracy theories about the elections being stolen have been proven to be wrong many times. Do you think the Democrats would have just given up if this had really happened?

Re:This Just In

[agrippa_cash]

I'm using Konq and my in-depth and intelligent explanation of the Common Law was eaten. My main point was that in general, the CL has been reigned in by statutes over the past 100 years. Judges still have a lot of wiggle room, but even the highest courts must rule consistent with statutes (or have the legislature amend the law to eliminate the offending juditial wiggle).

Re:This Just In

[spazdor]

But they can argue about just how illegal it is.

Re:This Just In

[spicate]

Well, her address book was full of "alaska.gov" addresses. Not definitive either way, but kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite right! Which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I did not kill my ex-wife and that guy whose head I bashed in.

sincerely yours,
O.J. Simpson

Re:This Just In

[LackThereof]

From what I've seen of it, he wasn't expecting to actually gain access, he was just dicking around, and so he didn't expect that he would need to take precautions.

Re:This Just In

[damn_registrars]

violated her privacy, broke the law, and distracted from other issues during the presidential election.

And just what issues have been discussed since she was announced the VP candidate?

The Palin nomination has done a fantastic job of taking the media's attention away from issues. How long was the "mainstream media" obsessing over makeup on farm animals?

Re:This Just In

[bjohnson]

In the emails that the investigating commission DID get, there are exchanges between Palin and her subordinates discussing whether they can evade subpoenas by using Yahoo, and other exchanges reminding people to use the Yahoo account, not the official governors one.

IOW, the ENTIRE purpose of her office using the Yahoo account was to obstruct justice.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

She's doing it this way exactly for the reason that she can do so without leaving a trail.

So the evidence against her is that there's no evidence against her? Wow.

Whether or not we can legally prove what she did, I think there is MORE than enough proof to convince myself that she did wrong.

I didn't ask for legal proof... just some kind of evidence.

Re:This Just In

[SL Baur]

He found a pretty blatant flaw in the system -- in that the password reset function was woefully inadequate for figures who live a very public life since all the questions pertain to the customers private life.

Strike the "a very public life" part and I agree.

Except for the "where did you meet your husband/wife" question, all of that information tends to be on people's resumes.

It's just a flawed system, *period*.

Re:This Just In

[IamTheRealMike]

No one has identified a single email from her yahoo account that was of an official nature. Yes, there were plenty of emails to officials

Eh? She's an official. She's emailing other officials. The emails are about state business. How can that possibly be considered not of official nature?

Re:This Just In

[SL Baur]

2. Don't enter your real birthdate anywhere online.

It's already online somewhere. My DOB appears on my passport and CA driver's license and lord only knows how many different computers throughout the world since I travel a lot and I'm always required to provide my DOB.

3. Don't use your real zip code.

Eh? The "zip code" (postal mail code) of the place where I met my wife is the only info that is secure, but it's only security through obscurity - there is no door-to-door postal mail there.

The lesson learned is that identity theft has been made trivial.

Re:This Just In

[oddfox]

So everyone gets boned because of one idiot who broke the law? This isn't a classroom where the person who doesn't fess up makes the whole class have to stay late after school. What justification do you have for ignoring the law to the great benefit of a few, turning away the rest of the people who did nothing wrong? Strange twist on justice and the rule of law you have there.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

And just what issues have been discussed since she was announced the VP candidate?

Palin has, through her actions or words, emphasized the following issues:

1. Abortion
2. Religion in public schools
3. Firearm rights
4. The role of the US government at home
5. The role of the US government in other nations

I disagree with Palin on some of these issues, but they are all legitimate issues.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

declined to participate in the investigation

No surprise here. Why would she voluntarily subject herself to that kind of distraction during a presidential race?

Palin's staff is ignoring supoenas

But is Palin telling them to, or are they just ignoring them? The post to which I replied said specifically that she directed them to ignore the subpoenas.

Re:This Just In

[jabithew]

CA=California. Quebec and Florida use some aspects of Civil law too, from what I remember. No major surprises really.

Re:This Just In

[jabithew]

That's not really the case here in the UK either, so not Napoleon's doing.

I'm glad your original post got some insightful mods, Troll was just wrong. Also Napoleon wasn't that bad. Unless you're a free trader like me. He did propagate the metric system though.

Re:This Just In

[Zarluk]

Not only that, but also his father is admiting it was his son who did it...

"Kernell, a Memphis Democrat, confirmed that it is his 20-year-old son, David, who is being widely named on Internet blogs and chatrooms in connection with an unfolding story about Palin's hacked e-mail accounts."

links: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080918/NEWS02/80918081/1006/NEWS01 and http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/palin_email_investigation_continues/.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

noko goes in ALL fields.

Re:This Just In

[ahaveland]

Your observation is inaccurate, we don't pretend! :-)

Re:This Just In

[Rei]

Yeah. He confirmed that his son is being widely named on blogs and chatrooms. No freaking kidding.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

In fact, the cracker responsible said he went through Palin's e-mail, and found absolutely nothing.

What was actually said:
I read though the emails⦠ALL OF THEM⦠before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governorâ¦.

And one last thing: if you consider this to be a politically-used account, then what _exactly_ is the difference between this and Watergate?

Well, for one, I don't think we're going to find any payouts to this kid from Obama's campaign bank account.

Re:This Just In

[ryguy]

In the Florida House there is a 1 month period when people are not allowed to have fundraisers for their campaign (when bills are being written) to make sure that bills are not being influenced by the fundraisers. This time period is when most opponents announce that they are running and they try to use that month to take the lead in fund raising.

Of course they do campaign quite a bit even when the house/senate is in session. If they were not allowed to, incumbents would be at a huge disadvantage.

Re:This Just In

[Phizzle]

Its amateur time! Heres from the article - "White hat hackers didnâ(TM)t even need proxy information to find the culprit because they discovered that the Rubico forum handle was linked to rubico10@yahoo.com.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it A few searches on Google and YouTube further links this email address to 20-year-old David Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. His father is Democratic Tennessee state representative Mike Kernell." Lol, son of a Democratic Tennessee state representative goes after the Republican Cougar. I bet his dad is going to get some attention from this.

Re:This Just In

[ryguy]

They are not allowed to use taxpayer dollars to travel on a campaign trip. US Senators get paid for the rest of their lives whether or not they are in office so it seems like a bit of a moot point.

Re:This Just In

[Khyber]

Let me give you one of the subject headlines form her email account - CONFIDENTIAL: Ethics issues.

Sounds a whole lot like government-attached work to me.

Re:This Just In

[greyhueofdoubt]

>>lots of messages that appear to be from Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Jerry Falwell and Bob Dole.

And the creepiest part is that Falwell has been dead for over a year!

-b

Re:This Just In

[rbanffy]

I am sorry to tell you but the lack of proper punishment pretty much demonstrates they are above the law. It's a good time to upgrade it.

Re:This Just In

[cpeterso]

emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax".

I receive spam like that everyday!

Re:This Just In

[BenoitRen]

I guess college simplified what Napoleon did for the court system. Who's responsible for the "two strikes and you're out" system then?

Re:This Just In

[Score Whore]

The emails are about state business. How can that possibly be considered not of official nature?

But they weren't about state business. They were about politics and those aren't state business and it would be illegal for her to use tax payer funded systems to advance political activities.

Re:This Just In

[funwithBSD]

He is not right:

      1. U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officerswho do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous HerÂitage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonÂstrates that the same is true of the officer corps.
      2. Members of the all-volunteer military are sigÂnificantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 perÂcent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) proÂgram, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoodsâ"a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.
      3. American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted perÂsonnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18â"24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelorâ(TM)s degree.
      4. Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service. Enlisted troops are somewhat more likely to be white or black than their non-military peers. Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of overrepresentation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007. New recruits are also disproportionately likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of SouthÂern military tradition.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/cda08-05.cfm

Re:This Just In

[ffflala]

*CA, for example, doesn't. Neither does Scotland, hence English.

That is not accurate: California is a common law state. Its recent same sex marriage decision is one example of its use of judge-made, aka common law.

Did you mean LA? I believe they are the only American civil law state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_law

Re:This Just In

[cat_jesus]

Many people have decided that, yes, it is rude to criticize Palin for the actions of her daughter, or to question the parents of her youngest child.

Many people are stupid. Sarah Palin and her husband *are* the parents of her youngest child. Of course we should question her.

Not only that but I think a frank discussion of her position on the efficacy of abstinence only sex education is warranted(this is the issue you were dancing around), especially when she is faced with the facts of her own pre marital pregnancy as well as her daughter's. If she is still going to try the same old failed policy of abstinence only sex education in the face of facts that it doesn't work then she's not fit to hold the position.

Re:This Just In

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And the creepiest part is that Falwell has been dead for over a year!

If you are a republican, it just means that your political party is the party of God.

If you are a democrat, well...

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

She said she would cooperate with the investigation.

I would see a problem with this if she changed her mind after the election, but I don't see a problem with volunteering to participate, and then declining later.

Not that cooperation with a legislative investigation is voluntary to begin with.

What exactly was she required by law to do, and then did not do? Clearly some aspects of participation are voluntary (for instance, testifying against herself is voluntary).

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

every member of her staff -- independently, with no guidance or direction from their boss

Maybe they were advised by lawyers not to respond. And that's perfectly believable if that's the legally wise thing to do.

If you become aware that your subordinates are doing something illegal

So she's supposed to hand out legal advice about the nuances of some legal proceedings? If they are following competent legal advice, and you don't know that they are guilty of any serious crime, I think a "wait and see" attitude is perfectly appropriate.

Re:This Just In

[jabithew]

Known as double jeopardy(I think) it is a constitutional right in the US. It was part of English law after the Norman Conquest of 1066, so a little before Napoleon's time*. I say was because the Criminal Justice Act 2003 did away with it in certain, vague conditions.

The reason the strategy you mentioned before works in the US is because legal costs are shared, whereas in the UK the loser pays the costs. This prevents people being sued into silence as they can be in the US (where even if they win their case they pay legal fees). Each suit is a new case and so does not immediately come under the restrictions of double jeopardy.

*Though it still came via France.

Re:This Just In

[Foobar of Borg]

and that guy whose head the real killer, whom I have vowed to track down, bashed in.

Fixed for you, OJ. As for the hacker, maybe he can get someone from the Cochran firm (which still exists, despite the fact that Johnnie Cochran is dead) to argue "If the IP address does not fit, then you must acquit!"

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

I'd say it's relationship would be described as "identity"

Someone violating a law on the books is very different from someone violating a law that you wish was on the books.

And some abstract Republican supporting a law that is unconstitutional is very different from Palin specifically supporting such a law.

Republicons can violate any constitutional protections they wish on their own say-so, but pry just a little into one of their lives and suddenly they're the champions of liberty.

I am consistently a champion of liberty and the Constitution, so you have not made the case that I am a hypocrite.

I would support the immediate end of all wiretapping of US citizens without a warrant. I believe it is unconstitutional to allow it.

By being a hypocrite, you do a lot of damage to the cause for liberty.

Do you think that the same people who want to spy on you with wiretaps will suddenly change their tune because someone, somewhere, hacked the yahoo email account of one of their political allies? I think it's much more likely that the privacy invasions just escalate until we have no more.

Re:This Just In

[billcopc]

I'd rather see him work in a bank, than have him screw up my Big Mac.

Re:This Just In

[Kozz]

you warned me... I want to bleach my brain. Thanks! (I think)

Re:This Just In

[Dan541]

By Palin using yahoo, it's not closely watched and she can conduct official business off the record. It's very poor form to do so and is the real story here.

I wonder how man other government personnel use non official email addresses to conduct business.

Re:This Just In

[extrasolar]

Actually, I think most of the people even here on slashdot would end up doing the same if you were in their position. There actually isn't that much overlap between activities needed to get stuff done (which, in politics, always involves placating the right people) and activities that can't be construed the wrong way.

Politics is all about making compromises, and the straightest distance between two points never a straight line. Politicians who are straight lines are the ones who are hardly ever able to accomplish anything.

And those of you who agree with the parent yet surf slashdot at work or have ever used your position for financial gain have some searching to do about your high-minded idealism. And then there are those who are too young--idealism is always easiest for you.

So what is the real story here again? Um... Hmm... I think someone used the word "hacker" and someone who thought it was still the 1990's got excited.

Re:This Just In

[Oktober Sunset]

when the parent said banker, he meant a merchant banker

Re:This Just In

[overunderunderdone]

I've heard this take on the story in a few places but I have a couple of questions about it:

1) Politicians are barred from using their public offices, phones, letterhead etc. for partisan political fundraising, organizing, campaigning etc. Does that extend to their official state email? I can't imagine it would be legal to send something like a campaign fundraising request out using a state email address. If that is the case having a private email account distinct from the official email would actually be required. Also in that case some of the emails would be scandalous if they were found in the official state email account (campaign talking points etc.) rather than vice versa. Does anyone here know what the legalities are of using state email accounts for partisan political purposes?

2) Have any emails of actual official business come out? Of the emails I've seen the text of it would be a stretch to call them official state business. We have a quite a few from other politicians or members of her cabinet, but they appear to personal messages: "We're praying for you, don't let the negative press get you down" or the Lt. Gov. complaining about a talk show host "Can you believe that jerk". In that case his complaints are about a political campaign and if it's unethical to use state resources for partisan purposes it might be unethical to convey using the state email account. So far the only evidence I've seen offered in relation to this particular incident that's cited as evidence of conducting state business is the fact that some of the emails are coming from state officers but the only text we have of those are in fact personal or partisan (which again it might be unethical if they WERE conveyed using the state email address)

The only subject line I saw on the list that appears like it might be state business is a draft email to Gov. Schwarzenegger regarding a container tax. But, since we don't have the text of that one we don't know for sure. The "hackers" stated objective was to find something scandalous or incriminating and he expressed disappointment that he didn't find anything. Since he became aware of the private email accounts existence because of the press coverage of the controversy over conducting state business using private email presumably he would be aware that any serious state business would fit the bill (though probably a minor scandal if the state business being conveyed wasn't scandalous in itself.)

From the subject lines and the text of the actual emails that came out the accusation comes across as pretty weak.

Re:This Just In

[Zeinfeld]

Many people are stupid. Sarah Palin and her husband *are* the parents of her youngest child. Of course we should question her.

If people set themselves up on a pedestal then they deserve scrutiny. Palin has endorsed the GOP culture wars, in particular the anti-gay hate plank. Palin campaigns on her family being an exemplar, so why not rub her nose in the fact that by the standards she set when grabbing for votes she is a failed parent?

Not only that but I think a frank discussion of her position on the efficacy of abstinence only sex education is warranted(this is the issue you were dancing around),

Its not just the abstinence only sex-ed, its the anti-science, anti-knowledge approach to government behind it.

Re:This Just In

[Rob the Bold]

Do you think that the same people who want to spy on you with wiretaps will suddenly change their tune because someone, somewhere, hacked the yahoo email account of one of their political allies? I think it's much more likely that the privacy invasions just escalate until we have no more.

I do not believe that they will ever stop until they are dead or in jail. You may call me a hypocrite if you wish. I call it schadenfreude when I see one of them getting it back, even if just a little. Just like how I oppose torture, but would be glad to see Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Ashcroft, et al waterboarded and more. How can I have it both ways? Executive privilege.

If I felt I were on the same "team" as any of these Rethugs, then calling for retribution in kind for what they had done would certainly be hypocritical. But I view these people are my enemies, and traitors to my country, not just abstract political opponents. And it is not hypocrisy to seek revenge on your enemies. It may not be forgiving, or tender-hearted, or Ghandi-like or even very Christian either. I'm a human with my own failings, one of which is slowness to forgive.

I admire the fact that you can still believe in constitutional rule-of-law despite what's happened in recent history. That is commendable. On the other hand, I just want to see the current administration get the Ceausescu treatment.

Re:This Just In

[Hadlock]

Clearly you never watched batman, the animated series growing up in the 90's. Department of Motor Vehicles. Here in Texas we have a more obscure name for it - Department of Public Safety, aka the Driver's License Bureau. Either way a 3 second google search will tell you.

Re:This Just In

[El_Oscuro]

And for my slashdot account!

Re:This Just In

[DECS]

And yet Palin hasn't really stated anything about her real views or policy decisions on any of those issues.

She's obviously against abortion, and clearly wants to overturn RvW by installing additional conservative judges on the SCotUS. But when asked about her views, she gives mealy-mouthed replies about how she 'respects the opinion of others.' She is fundamentally a bullshitter.

With 'religion in schools,' the real issue is that she supports radical fundamentalist Dominionism, the far right goal of establishing the US as a Christian Theocracy (minus any real elements of Christianity) that will spread Jesus over the earth (minus the teaching of Jesus). This isn't about 'can we pray in school' or 'can we respect the 10 Commandments,' but a radical effort to install CBN-style televangelist religion as the primary purpose of government.

This is a BIG FUCKING ISSUE that has been ignored and Palin has done her best to keep quiet, but her tape in June praising her "witch hunter" pastor that she credited with bringing her to the goverership of Alaska, and her efforts to get people to pray for her "will of God" pipeline and "will of God" war while telling Charlie Gibson that she would "never presume to know the will of God" should shock the shit out of anyone with an IQ above 60. She would be one cancer/heart attack episode away from turning the US into something that even GW Bush didn't really support.

Firearm rights? That's a significant issue in the presidential election? There is no threat of guns being taken away. There is threat of the Federal government becoming something you might want to take up arms against. This might be an issue if Obama was crusading for gun control, but he isn't.

"Domestic issues" - Right, which of those were raised? Which have Palin talked about? She steered Alaska through vast oil wealth while demanding massive Federal dollars to build unnecessary projects while supporting secessionists. What qualifications does she have to talk about domestic issues like the size of government, fiscal conservatism, and state's rights when she has demonstrated no principles and nothing but self serving hypocrisy ever? She's a big government, big spending Republican who taxes others so she doesn't have to pay them. She has no rational stance on domestic issues.

"Foreign affairs" - All Palin knows is that she "can see Russia from her house." She lives on a dead lake killed by poor city planning (building big box retail that runs its road waste into the lake) and refused make any efforts to help rehabilitate it. She doesn't know anything about diplomacy. She suggested going to war with Russia despite not even having met the people involved. She wants to stay in Iraq until "Al Queda is defeated" according the the McCain website. How is that possibly going to happen, and how would we ever prove it was? And remember how Al Queda wasn't in Iraq before the war started?

Palin has no legitimate stance on any real issues. She revealed not even knowing what Freddie Mae does. We don't need a bullshitter figurehead, we need someone who can present a stance on issues they can back up with reason and effectively put in place as a workable solution, regardless of whether they are more conservative or more liberal.

Palin isn't that, she's just a bullshitter who want to force her religion on America and make wildly bad spending decisions with the nation's resources and people.

The Big Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac Attack

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

This kid was very into servicing the community in which he participated. no, he was not a hacker, just an internet user like most of us. I recognized him from "popcorn." He did an excellent job of ripping hi-res softcore site content and rapidshitting it for everyone else. He was a virtual tagger, in that he made his rars with a password "popcorn." That was an annoyance, but he was one of few who put a pass on them so you could guess usually. Anyway, as an Anon, he delivered lots of high quality content. No he's not a hacker, no his Dad didn't put him up to anything, no this is not time for jerking knees. Just a kid that got in trouble. Hope he's okay. He didn't know how big this would be.

Re:This Just In

[jcnnghm]

If you want to talk about experience, keep in mind Obama's total lack of executive experience.

Re:This Just In

[Brain Damaged Bogan]

If you tell a lie loud enough and long enough the sheeple will believe it.

Re:This Just In

[tibman]

I can't comment on most of what you said.. but "They are guys who sell their freedom and are subordinated, relieved from personal responsibilities they are forced to kill or get killed. It is a burden not a virtue." .. that's just plain silly.

The Army isn't like a million men all led by one man. It's a hierarchy! Even if you are the lowest man you will sign for and be absolutely responsible for all your equipment. Then if you can prove via promotion boards that you aren't an idiot they promote you and you will be responsible for the lives and wellbeing of other soldiers. So on and so forth.

Contrary to the common belief that soldiers routinely kill people. Most soldiers (from Professional militaries of many nations) never see combat.

Re:This Just In

[suck_burners_rice]

Correction: She did NOT support the bridge to nowhere.

Re:This Just In

[rilian4]

from the article:
"Rubico says he didnâ(TM)t find anything incriminating and the emails were actually fairly mundane family pictures and correspondence."

Tell me again where the government business on this account is? Tell me also where there is a law that says an employee of the government is not entitled to private correspondence? I work for the state of Oregon. I have a government sponsored email account for use in my job. I also have multiple private accounts that can be used for private purposes...This kid seems to have gone into this account looking for incriminating or governmental business on this account (illegally, I might add) and found none. I see nothing wrong here.

Re:This Just In

[FlyDiesel]

Palin is only slightly more qualified than Obama, who claims that spending 5 months in the senate (when "[he] was a senator") and 1 .5 years "managing a presidential campaign" gives him the kind of experience needed to be president. After all, he spends all the money he raises as fast as he raises it, doesn't he? That makes him much more prudent than the congress and our current president, who spend money our children haven't earned yet. Besides, during his time in Iraq he was conducting his own foreign policy which was different than both the official policy of this country and the policy he articulated. In essence, he demanded that the Iraqi government set no timetables and permit no US withdrawals until after the elections.

Re:This Just In

[rilian4]

Except: Palin was using her personal account for government work, which is illegal.

Show me where. As I've already noted earlier in this thread. The kid who got into her account found nothing incriminating. If you are going to make that accusation, show us something to back it up.

Re:This Just In

[rilian4]

And by violating the air-heads yahoo account, it was shown that Palin has -- just like the current republicans in the White House -- used a non-governmental email account to hide how she uses the powers given her by her office.

This is patently false. The article says the exact opposite. Go read it. The kid who did this claimed he found "nothing incriminating" in the account.

If you have another example outside of this incident, please cite your source but don't blatantly misrepresent the facts here.

Re:This Just In

[RichardJenkins]

Maybe the cracker is a /b/tard who harbers a grudge against some suburban kid who's gonna grow up to be a volvo-driving banker.

Re:This Just In

[rilian4]

The entire basis of our legal system is innocent until proven guilty. You're assuming guilty until proven innocent.

Show some real evidence, and I will be on your side.

How could we afford, as a nation, for this kid not to have hacked her account?

We can't afford it because it turns justice on its ear. Don't accuse her of a crime without evidence, try her and convict her simply because you disagree with what she stands for. The Democrats have argued correctly, at least in most cases, that President Bush is doing just what you are suggesting with civilians by arresting, charging and convicting them with no evidence as terrorists. What you are doing here is the same principle. Gather your evidence legally and present your case. If you can do that and show she has misused her government account then she should face the consequences...

Re:This Just In

[cayenne8]

"Belgium uses the civil law system, otherwise known as the Napoleonic code. The majority of American states use English common law system*"

Louisiana uses Napoleonic law....things can get really strange down here legally sometimes due to that. Really different when you come from a common law state.

Re:This Just In

[Sabz5150]

Do you have any evidence of this, other than a few isolated emails?

"Other than a few isolated emails"? Isn't that all that is needed? That's like saying "You say he's a murderer? Do you have any evidence of this, other than a few isolated killings?" If you break the rules even once or twice, is it not still breaking the rules?

Re:This Just In

[DaoudaW]

Not that I like her, but everyone's entitled to having personal accounts which should be respected. If she used her .gov account for everything some people would be complaining about her usage of public resources to email her family. Now, about what was found in the yahoo account: Obviously it would inadmissible in court, but it's very useful to her enemies anyway. Which I find disgusting.

You are pointing out the real issue without reaizing it. She has a history of making the public private and the private public. Cases in point: she appears to have used her Yahoo account to hide conversations with state officials from public scrutiny which is clearly illegal, but she revealed details of ongoing cases to her husband Todd which he used to exert inappropriate pressure on those with whom she disagrees.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

Shhhhhh! You're going to blow my cover!

-Billco

Re:This Just In

[rilian4]

...establishing the US as a Christian Theocracy (minus any real elements of Christianity) that will spread Jesus over the earth (minus the teaching of Jesus)

I think you have hit the crux of a big problem within Christian circles in this country. I think many liberals, though not all, would be far more accepting of Christians(I am one) and their beliefs if more of them actually followed Jesus' teachings more closely. It is my opinion that hypocracy by Christians, particularly but not limited to those who are more publicly visible, has caused notable damage to the perceived image of Christians as a whole. I have seen similar feelings from several others saying they don't mind Jesus so much as they mind what some of those who claim to be his followers are saying and doing.

All I ask is that you don't judge all Christians as a whole based on the actions of individuals. None of us are perfect.

The final note I have is that one of Jesus' main teachings was to share his message of his teachings, his death and his resurrection and hence the forgiveness of sins all over the world. It should be noted that this was not intended as a decree for his followers to force everyone in sight to become a Christian. Simply spread the Word...

Re:This Just In

[Miseph]

"In the US you can get it heard over and over as long as you have money to pay your lawyers."

No, you can't. A higher court is able, upon the filing of an appeal, to deny the request on the grounds that no appeal is justified, and if a case manages to hit the Supreme Court there are no further appeals to be made (unless they send it back for retrial and there are appeals attached to that... which is extremely unlikely). It's more than twice, but there's a definite upper limit to how many appeals can be heard in US courts.

Re:This Just In

[eikonos]

Correction: She did NOT support the bridge to nowhere.

Yes she did.

Re:This Just In

[cashman73]

Oh, great! So now he can fsck up the economy even worse than Bush did!

Re:This Just In

[totally bogus dude]

I think it's more the style of writing. The ACs post is full of inflammatory terms, starting with "Partisan Political hack rags" and ending with "Obama is a fucking disaster waiting to happen". flyingsquid's post was not only much better written, but also avoided using inflammatory terms. It may have been just as critical of Palin as the ACs post was toward Obama, but the criticisms were written in such a manner as to sound reasonable rather than trollish.

Re:This Just In

[CyberSlugGump]

This incident also lends evidence to last month's article, Password Resets Worse Than Reusing Old password

Re:This Just In

[barzok]

12345 is the GE Power Systems plant in Schenectady, NY.

Of course, the ruse falls apart if you can't spell Schenectady on the spot and they want the city name for some reason.

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

Sorry, but NO! There was no government business on her Yahoo account, so no law was broken.

Sorry, that's just not true.

Palin's Yahoo account contained emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax". Check the wikileaks site, it's all laid out for anyone to see.

Palin's account does contain emails that relate to government business. Saying "there was no government business on her account" over, and over, and over, as people seem to be doing in this forum, doesn't change the facts. Although that seems to be a common tactic for their campaign these days: repeat the lie so many times that it starts to sound true, like Palin's "I told them thanks but no thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere.

What did the emails say? Why were they not released? Come on! If you had hacked into Palin's email, what would you release screenshots of first? Would you release a friend saying, "you have my prayers" or one that said "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax?"

Seriously, it's not that hard to fake a screenshot that put whatever subject line you want, ESPECIALLY if you have a good excuse for NOT releasing the email. I could easily fake a screengrab and have it say "I am a weenie!" from FlyingSquid.

Also, the "hacker" ( or whatever you wish to call him) said that he found nothing incriminating in there. You'd think that with all his research to find out where she met her husband, he would have come across that using personal email for government business was illegal. Double that when you consider that he is a state senators son himself!

As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care. When she does something that is worse than hanging out with a known and unashamed terrorist, let me know. And the fact that you care about her support or not for a friggin bridge, but that you don't give a damn about starting a political career at a guy's house that who said his only regret was that he couldn't have "done more" when speaking of his bombings, tells me that you more concerned about her having an (R) after her name than anything else.

Re:This Just In

[arb phd slp]

CA=California. Quebec and Florida use some aspects of Civil law too, from what I remember. No major surprises really.

Louisiana uses Napoleonic Code. More so than any other state.
Ever seen Streetcar Named Desire?

Re:This Just In

[darkmeridian]

One of the e-mails was entitled: "Draft letter to Governor Schwartzenegger / Container Tax". Another was "Fw: veep talking pts". There's also an e-mail between Palin and Sean Parnell regarding Sean's campaign for Congress. Parnell is the Lt. Governor of Alaska.

Anonymous wasn't smart enough to download all the e-mails but what do you think was in that draft letter e-mail?! No one is accusing her of anything wrong only because there is ACTUAL proof because Anonymous didn't download the messages, and because it's slimy to use stolen info to attack your political foes. But if you asked her under oath, Palin would probably have to admit that she's using her personal e-mail for at least some work-related e-mails.

Re:This Just In

[darkmeridian]

We're never going to get good people to run for office if they are punished for doing so.

Palin's nomination as the Republican candidate for VP seems to bear this out.

Re:This Just In

[arb phd slp]

If you want to talk about experience, keep in mind Obama's total lack of executive experience.

...or future Cabinet member Carly Fiorina's stellar executive experience.

Re:This Just In

[novakyu]

Of course they do campaign quite a bit even when the house/senate is in session. If they were not allowed to, incumbents would be at a huge disadvantage.

Given the disastrous re-election rate our incumbents have (something in the upper 80s I think), I'm not sure if I would be against such a prohibition. If we make it harder for incumbents to get re-elected (without an actual term limit, so that the good ones can always stay), there won't be so much clammer about reforming the Washington or the good ol' boys' network.

Re:This Just In

[TapeCutter]

"What democracies have been destroyed? Surely you are not saying that Afganistan, ruled by the Taliban, and Iraq, who had a dictator named Sadam, were democracies."

the west demanded the Palestinians have as a pre-condition for "statehood", Hamas won 70% of the vote in a "free and fair" election.

The reaction from the west was to cut Hamas out of the international banking system and re-armed the PLO. There west has a very long history of inciting civil wars and coup's, the landslide election of Hamas is just the most recent glaring example.

Saddam is an example of a western puppet that wasn't elected (or spotted) by the people. The other super-powers are no different, just take a look at Sudan or Chechnea[sic]. Democrat-Republican is a false dichotomy when it comes to foriegn policy. The world is governed by machevellian warlors and there ain't a god dammed thing you can do about it except refuse to shut your eyes and mouth.

Re:This Just In

[sn00ker]

I think you mean LA, not CA. The only state in the union that uses civil law rather than common law is Louisiana, and that's courtesy of their French heritage.
California may have codified some areas of legislation, but it's definitely not a civil law state. Most common law jurisdictions (I live in New Zealand, which is one of them) have some codified legislation, but that doesn't mean they have civil law systems.

Re:This Just In

[Antique Geekmeister]

I'll have to qualify it: she kept government correspondence in her personal email, and ignored FOIA and subpoenas for which she should have handed over that material.

Re:This Just In

[QuickSilver_999]

It is like saying someone from Massachusetts is a murderer,

Hey, don't talk about Teddy that way! You might upset the libdems on /.

Re:This Just In

[dbcad7]

You people are just nuts.. I have no doubt that you have also at one time spouted off the outrage at Bill for "lying" about a BJ, when the whole thing should not have been dragged into courts in the first place.. but it's perfectly ok to you, that all of McCain and Palin's campaign is lie after lie after OBVIOUS lie... because it's a republican that makes it ok.. I'm guessing you imagine yourself to be somewhat wealthy... but you don't get it, your letting yourself be screwed over for the uber wealthy just like the lower middle class and poorer people.. and the republicans only have plans to make it worse,, you really need to examine Obama's plans for the economy and you'll realize it's not the plans that McCain shows in his commercials.

But it's ok believe your hate filled crap about Obama consorting with terrorists, and being a Muslim and all the other crap that they talk.. you are going to be sadly disappointed come November. I can't wait for the debates, when you realize you have a choice between senility and intelligence and make a conscious choice to be stupid, like you probably did the last 2 elections. Thing is this time there will be a different outcome.

Re:This Just In

[QuickSilver_999]

One of the e-mails was entitled: "Draft letter to Governor Schwartzenegger / Container Tax".

Of course there is no email screenshot, and this could have been just a note saying "Hey Idiot, I don't like what you did." as a personal note.

"Fw: veep talking pts"

How does this relate to her job as Governor of Alaska? Do all emails between Biden and Obama need to be on government servers so they can be archived as well? And what would have happened if perhaps John had picked some Joe Blow off the street? Who wasn't part of government? Would we have to have given him an email account on a government server so it could be archived and subject to subpoena?

regarding Sean's campaign for Congress. Parnell is the Lt. Governor of Alaska.

And again this is government related how? If anything this shows that she is very conscious of not abusing her position by using a government account to discuss election things. In fact, if she had done it from a work account there would be many MORE questions, since you are not supposed to do any election related work from your government office. That's why some Dems and Reps in PA are facing some possible jail time, since they used staff and offices to raise money and run campaigns.

Again, I ask... Where are the work related emails? If I work for Company A and in my off time write a note to a rep at another firm telling him I dislike/like something that his company has done, I may send it from my home account to his home or office account. Nothing wrong with that. If I work for a company, I may use my private email to talk to Shirley in the steno pool about working for my election campaign for dogcatcher. I certainly would NOT use my company email for that. Nor would I send it to her work address. Get over it. From all the finger pointing you people have tried to slime her with, there is no there there at this point.

And lets face it... NO politician ever bothered to worry if something was "slimy." Slime is where they live, especially the ones that come out of the Chicago Democratic machine. They just would make sure they did it in a way that couldn't be traced to them... Like using someone's son so it could be written off as a "youthful indiscretion." Unless they're holding it for an October surprise (always a possibility with the Democratic smear machine), they would have had it out in the public already, and the MSM would have made sure it got wide distribution.

Re:This Just In

[QuickSilver_999]

I'd put in 10bux for his legal defense.

Good to know that you don't care about people doing illegal things just to TRY to get some dirt (even if they fail). So when we send covert operatives in to dumpster dive and hack into bank records to find out how Joe Biden is owned by the credit card companies (As one of my friends puts it, "You mean the Senator from MBNA?") Or when we dig to find out exactly HOW his house was paid for? Or perhaps dig into personal emails and such to find out exactly how linked Obama and Ayers are? Or Rezko? Will you put some cash in for those operatives as well?
You like this guy because he tried to "get" Sarah Palin. And as I have noted further down, didn't. If this would have been the other way around, you would have been bleating bloody murder about how horrible it was that a Republican would stoop to doing something illegal. Why you might even call it a Watergate! Perhaps this should be called YahooGate? After all, breaking in to email is to me the equivalent of breaking into a private office in a hotel.

Re:This Just In

[Requiem18th]

Rule #1 Fuckers Rule #1!!

Re:This Just In

[sumdumass]

I think he meant Canada.

Re:This Just In

[sumdumass]

I'm not sure your actually talking about double jeopardy. That is where the government prosecutes you more then one time for the same offense. It is enshrined in the constitution and is a basis for the system of laws and courts altogether. It is possible that a law pretends to do away with it but the constitution can be an affirmative defense against it. Double jeopardy doesn't protect against civil suits, just criminal.

The three strikes and your out, if I understand what was mentioned correctly is where someone commits or is convicted of three separate crimes of the same class and they are locked up for life. Some places narrow it to specific crimes like Rape or assault, burglary, robbery (armed or not) and some placed just do felonies period. It gets a little compounded because most misdemeanors can become felonies after repeat infractions too.

Re:This Just In

[QuickSilver_999]

spouted off the outrage at Bill for "lying" about a BJ, when the whole thing should not have been dragged into courts in the first place..

If a bank president, a CEO of a fortune 500 company, or a school principal did what BillyBob did in the oval office in THEIR offices, they would be removed from their post so fast it would make your head spin. And NOW and the gang would be out there screaming about how great it was that these people where removed. Okay, maybe not the school principal... All I ever asked for was that we hold out President to the same standard that we hold everyone else, from a CEO to an office manager in the most obscure branch office. And instead we got, "IT WAS JUST ABOUT SEX! IT'S PERSONAL! EVERYONE LIES ABOUT IT!" Try that one yourself next time you're fired for employee management fraternization. Bet it doesn't fly very far. (Actually had a boss and about 12 other people shitcanned for that at a company I worked for.)

lie after lie after OBVIOUS lie

Your opinion does not make something fact yet. Screw you.

I'm guessing you imagine yourself to be somewhat wealthy

Not even close. I'm Republican for many reasons, being wealthy ain't one of them. However, I do tend to believe that your absolute worst chance to be wealthy is to allow a government to snatch it all from you and give it away. I also tend to realize that people on welfare usually don't start companies and employ people. People who have worked hard to acquire wealth create them. Maybe it's so that they can get even more filthy rich, but at least while they're doing it they help others feed their families.

examine Obama's plans for the economy

I have. They amount to a grab of wealth from people that have produced it and a redistribution to the lowest common denominator (also known as the Democratic base) as a blanket giveaway for them electing him. It also will have the net effect of lowering my standard of living, since my Union contract does not change if the cost of living rises... Thanks Union! Good thing we keep voting for all those Democrats like you tell us to!

your hate filled crap about Obama consorting with terrorists

Ayers was a founder of the Weather Underground and did in fact participate, plan, and coordinate attacks on US government offices. Yes, the bastard is a terrorist, and should have been fried in old sparky for his treasonous acts against the USA. Instead he's got a comfy job in academia. And yes, he and Obama have been pals for a long, long time. If you associate with scum, then yes, I tend to consider you scum.

being a Muslim

Don't really care about this one, but I wish you would at least look into the facts of the matter that during his early schooling, according to his teachers and classmates, he was in fact a devout practitioner. He may not be any more, but I don't really care what religion a candidate is. That's more what the Dems like to pull out... "Romney is a *GASP* MORMON! Palin belonged to a *GASP* PENTECOSTAL CHURCH! Hide the children!" When you stop making an issue of our faith, maybe we'll stop making an issue of yours (or lack thereof).

you are going to be sadly disappointed come November.

Possibly. I am however happy that at least until the Libs get their way I still live in a country that allows for a free election. Eventually that will end, but for the time being, it is always a possibility that I might end up disappointed.

choice between senility and intelligence

Or... choice between inexperience and character
There I fixed it for you.

and make a conscious choice to be stupid,

Nope... I made the conscious choice NOT to drink the Hopey McChangitude FlavorAi

Re:This Just In

[Tubal-Cain]

So how do the presidential candidates themselves run?

For most of them, it's probably a slow, lumbering gait. Or maybe a waddle.

Re:This Just In

[Tubal-Cain]

Obama plays moderate and so far did not make a single mistake.

The his inconsistency and vagueness is cause for concern.

Re:This Just In

[sumdumass]

Actually you can. Clinton has done this, so has Bush and Cheney. The problem is that while any other person may be legally required to answer a subpoena, Certain political oriented people aren't necessarily those people.

The problem is when the move is politically motivated and extends past the collection of evidence. In Clinton's case, he defied subpoenas from congress and even got the Supreme Court to back him up. He refused to let his staff testify and so on. This also happened with the independent council and White Water where they wanted to subpoena white house attorneys to see if he discussed the mess with them. Of course the white house attorneys work for the government and lose a lot of the client privileges but it stuck here because the president needs the confidence that he can confide in advisers and counsel as a part of doing his job.

Palin has cooperated until this turned into a political witch hunt and then refused to do so. There is good reason to believe that the purpose went from investigating her actions and attempting to find a reason other then the stated one and I'm not sure what the employees could offer that would add much more then what has already been supplied. They haven't even determined that the reasons for the firings were shaky yet. Are we seriously supposed to believe that if the reasons he was fired was sound that just because there was a conflict where he refused to fire a trooper is reason not to fire him for the already sound reasons?

That's the problem I have. From what I can tell, the guy should have been fired anyways. Who cares what he thinks the motivation was, he deserved to be fired. When you fuck up, your not safe just because someone who might have been out to get you was there to catch it and do something they already wanted to do. But some how, Palin is Evil because she points this out and shows that the investigation has turned political. Either way, I support her just like I supported Clinton during the witch hunt on him. Now don't get me wrong, he did some bad things and got away with them, but they were looking under every rock he had ever cast a shadow on and that was wrong.

Re:This Just In

[rtb61]

Plus of course the additional technicalities of whose email it is. A web mail, it is most definitely not 'private' email and add to that if the Alaska government web access is provided by a proxy server as in normal, this is evidence of a failure by the IT staff to retain a copy of the logs as a matter of public record of all communications as required by law.

So is it illegally obtained evidence of the illegal act of attempting to hide questionable activities of the Alaskan government (brings to mind other instances where this vigilante effort has previously been approved by the FBI), is Yahoo the only one capable of pressing charges and is it likely to decline to avoid political entanglement, is the only recourse civil suit by Palin for the invasion of privacy unfourtunately all the emails would have to come out, is the deletion of an account that has also been used for government business a criminal act and, of course can you have 'private' email when it is on government infrastructure paid for out of the publics taxes and only intended for legal governing purposes.

Then there is of course the matter of the proxy logs and the deletion of the same, when government correspondence was been sent and received outside of the normal accepted email infrastructure.

Re:This Just In

[Capsaicin]

I have yet to see anyone ask Cheney or Palin if they feel they are above the law. Their actions seem to indicate they do.

Palin's position on this is, ahem, 'nuanced.' She appears to believe that the excutive is not entirely above the law, but that it is entitled to conduct itself in a prima facie illegal fashion until otherwise instructed by the judicature.

According to this article, she diverted $50k from the city highway fund to pay for a makeover of the majoral office. When she was told that it was illegal for her to make such an expenditure without the approval of council, she reportedly replied "I'm the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can't."

I have trouble understanding why we put people with such obvious contempt for the law in positions that are in charge of it.

Masochism?

Re:This Just In

[Thalaric]

Which is why I think Yahoo is partially to blame for allowing password resets from this kind of information. How many articles have been posted to slashdot about the insecurity of this method of authentication?

Re:This Just In

[vought]

Palin argued, in all seriousness, than being able to see Russia from Alaska somehow gave her some sort of experience.

I can see the moon from my house. Obviously*, I'm qualified to make policy for the space program.

*In bizarro Republican "Palin is qualified" upside-down land, that is.

Re:This Just In

[pimpimpim]

In fact there were a number of emails of a political nature which would be flat out illegal to do over her official email system.

Ah you mean the kind of e-mails she would otherwise be subpoenaed over. And exactly that is the reason why she should be using the official system for political correspondence only.

Re:This Just In

[jabithew]

I didn't, I meant California. I thought the ex-Spanish colonies still used elements of civil law, but I was wrong. Mea culpa.

Re:This Just In

[srussia]

Anyways, your courts may be doing well, but from what they told me, you've been without a federal government for 6+ months now :)

And that would be a bad thing how?

Re:This Just In

[makomk]

No need. This is 4chan - there are no accounts, no checks that the e-mail address you're putting on your posts actually belongs to you, exists, or is even an e-mail address in the first place.

Re:This Just In

[makomk]

He *claims* he found nothing incriminating, but from the screenshots of e-mail subject listings, either he's bullshitting (not unlikely) or he has no idea what he should've been looking for.

Re:This Just In

[SharpFang]

The problem with using Tor with connection with /b/ has a problem: most Tor exit nodes are already banned on 4chan, finding one that works is a miracle (but it's still worth viditing just to see some of the ban reasons)

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that you don't mention George Bush.

Re:This Just In

[DeanFox]

The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email...

Do you have any evidence of this, other than a few isolated emails? People use a variety of communication systems. They talk on the phone, talk in person, email from various accounts, etc.

Allow me to rephrase. "He is a serial murderer". "Do you have any evidence of this, other than a few isolated murders he committed? People die all the time, car accidents, slipping on soap..."

You know... Our current president lists the felonies he's committed in the thousands. Palin has already committed felonies and she's not even in the White House yet. This is a pattern I do not care to repeat.

JMHO -[d]-

Re:This Just In

[JeanPaulBob]

With 'religion in schools,' the real issue is that she supports radical fundamentalist Dominionism, the far right goal of establishing the US as a Christian Theocracy (minus any real elements of Christianity) that will spread Jesus over the earth (minus the teaching of Jesus).

Reference? In what way does she support radical fundamentalist Dominionism, the far right goal of establishing the US as a Christian Theocracy?

Seriously, you give no reason to think that's a serious concern instead of left-wing alarmism about politics you disagree with.

Re:This Just In

[motherjoe]

My rant for the morning!

At the company I work for we have to annually review and sign a, "Business Conduct Guide lines", package that specifically states how we are to use the information and technology used to transport and store that information.

I would honestly like to see that apply to all state and federal employees at all levels. It would read something like:

"Any email correspondence on any non approved, non standard, and unsecured system voids any validity of the content of that email for any intended official use. In other words, if it is outside approved channels it isn't valid and will not be considered for action and or response. Failure to do so will result in disciplinary action possibly leading up to or including dismissal"

Why is that so hard. If I were a STATE employee and I was receiving emails from someone named PALIN from YAHOO. You can get your government paycheck I wouldn't consider it legit and sure as hell would not honor it.

My .02

Re:This Just In

[giorgist]

Oh my goodness, Bush manadged to set a high bar on something after all.

G

Re:This Just In

[TJamieson]

+5 Snatch quote. Beautiful!

Re:This Just In

[umrguy76]

By Palin using yahoo, it's not closely watched and she can conduct official business off the record. It's very poor form to do so and is the real story here.

The real story is someone broke the law and will be prosecuted for it. That person is not Palin. There was no "official business" being done on Yahoo email, unless you count sending family pictures as official business.

Let me guess, you are one of the people glossing over the hacking of someone's personal email account but freaked out over wiretapping known terrorist's phone calls?

Re:This Just In

[tbannist]

There's a slight difference between a student resetting the password on a Vice-presidential nominee's yahoo account and the President sending people in to steal documents from the opposition party.

Frankly, if he hadn't hacked the account, you can bet the Chinese or Russians would have.

If it was Joe Biden's account that was hacked, I'd care just as much as I do now. In that I'd be more disappointed about the nominee's ability to keep their private email private, than the morality of the "cracker" who broke in.

Re:This Just In

[sumdumass]

Well, that's what I get for attempting to guess based on the logical surroundings of me.

Thanks for setting me straight on it :)

Re:This Just In

[pedestrian crossing]

As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care.

I guess that says a lot about your character.

When she does something that is worse than hanging out with a known and unashamed terrorist, let me know.

I don't know, how about marrying a secessionist?

And don't pretend that you wouldn't be using that to skewer Obama if the shoe was on the other foot.

Re:This Just In

[tbannist]

Many people have decided that, yes, it is rude to criticize Palin for the actions of her daughter, or to question the parents of her youngest child.

The only reason this is an issue at all is that the people Palin is associated with routinely denounce others for these very same failings. The policies of the Republican party increase the teen pregnancy rate because they oppose contraceptive education.

Here's an example of the usual rhetoric of the Republican media assets:

On the pinhead front, 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.

Now most teens are pinheads in some ways. But here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her or even over Britney Spears. Look at the way she behaves. - Bill O'Reilly

So, why is Palin's daughter different from Britney Spear's sister? Why is Palin less of a pinhead than Britney's mother?

Simple answer: Because she's a Republican and apparently that absolves her of all sin in the eyes of other Republicans. That's a system I have serious issues with.

Re:This Just In

[T.E.D.]

"Foreign affairs" - All Palin knows is that she "can see Russia from her house."

...except she can't. This particular meme is really starting to tick me off.

Wasilla is rougly 700 miles (as the crow flies) from any part of Russia. I'd wadger that a very large percentage of US citizens live closer to an international border than Palin does.

The parts of Alaska that can actually *see* Russian territories are in the Aleutian islands (well, there are two little islands in the Bering straight too, but its the same situation there). The inhabitants on both sides are Innuit, and don't care much about the "border". I'd also wadger that Palin has *never* been there, and if she did she'd see nothing on the other side that didn't look (physically and culturally) just like her side.

To claim that you can gain any insight into international affairs by standing in one remote Innuit island and peering over at the next one might be good for a laugh the first time you say it. To repeat it like its some kind of insight is just insulting to your listeners' intelligence.

Of course if anyone calls her on it, that's a good thing too. Any amount of time spent talking about such silliness is time distracted from our tanking economy, the two wars, the worsening diplomatic situations around the world, the worsening climate, and all other such issues that their ticket loses on.

Re:This Just In

[hypergreatthing]

her email was gov_palin@yahoo.com, there were several emails to .gov addresses. She and her staff asked legal sources if personal addresses could be subpoena(ed).

I think it's clear that certain lines were crossed here.

Or are you telling me that her IT staff is so incompetent they forgot how to access her governmental email address through her blackberry so that she recieved emails from her staff on her personal email address?

It's not that hard to NOT get emails on your personal address, and it's not hard to sign up for a yahoo account without stating that you're a elected public official as part of your email addy.

Then she had the account deleted during an ongoing investigation.

Re:This Just In

[vvaduva]

"she engaged in illegal evasion of Alaska's Sunshine Laws." What illegal evasion? Where does the law say that she cannot open an Yahoo account? You are making your argument out of silence, not to mention that the very fact that there was nothing incriminating found in the Yahoo account proves that she was in fact NOT trying to hide anything. If any politically-motivated asshat with would stop filing lawsuits over the most minor things, crap like this would not happen, but the fishing expeditions are forcing politicians on BOTH sides of the spectrum to do crap like this which makes government business either extremely insecure or very inefficient.

Re:This Just In

[hesaigo999ca]

Maybe he was the one to see the method on freenet and used it, and decided to take credit for the work, these script kiddies these days!

Re:This Just In

[cyberchondriac]

The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email is that any email sent through those channels is archived for a Very Long Time as a matter of public record. Wondering what the clerk at the DMV is REALLY emailing about? Put in a freedom of information act request and it's all yours. By Palin using yahoo, it's not closely watched and she can conduct official business off the record. It's very poor form to do so and is the real story here.

But there was nothing "incriminating" in her emails. She wasn't using it to "conduct business" to hide anything. So your argument is completely unsubstantiated.
I suppose Biden and Obama have personal email accounts with absolutely NO political related matter in them? That's silly, they all do - they're politicians.

Re:This Just In

[e-scetic]

Violated her privacy? Last time I checked she was American. She has none and should not expect any.

Re:This Just In

[intheshelter]

"As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care."

You have just summed up politics perfectly. You're hanging on to some propaganda about terrorists and yet you're perfectly happy to forgive lying for YOUR candidate. Feel free to vote for 4 more years of constitutional erosion and government by deception. Common sense has left the room.

LP.org
"For those who aren't sheep"

Re:This Just In

[X0563511]

What would stop me from posting things in someones name?

Re:This Just In

[Canislupus01]

Which is why 80% of Alaska hates her. Oh, wait they love her. My mistake. In fact she has the highest approval rating of any current Governor, I hear. "We don't need a bullshitter figurehead," And speaking of bullshit, you've got something on your lip there....

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

"As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care."

You have just summed up politics perfectly. You're hanging on to some propaganda about terrorists and yet you're perfectly happy to forgive lying for YOUR candidate. Feel free to vote for 4 more years of constitutional erosion and government by deception. Common sense has left the room.

LP.org
"For those who aren't sheep"

Typical. You took my comment completely out of context. Read the rest of it to find out WHY I don't care. Let me spell it out for you again:

Let's say Palin lied about using personal email for government business. Yeah, that would be pretty bad. Now, consider the FACT that Obama lied about having ties to a known terrorist. Hmmm. I think I'll take the lady who lied about email.
Oh, and the emails turned up nothing! So that should make the decision even easier for you.

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care.

I guess that says a lot about your character.

When she does something that is worse than hanging out with a known and unashamed terrorist, let me know.

I don't know, how about marrying a secessionist?

And don't pretend that you wouldn't be using that to skewer Obama if the shoe was on the other foot.

Let's see. Let's put shoes on both feet. Secessionist or terrorist. I think I'll vote for the secessionist. Which would YOU prefer? Remember, your answer will say a lot about your character.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

Firearm rights? That's a significant issue in the presidential election? There is no threat of guns being taken away.

Of course there's a threat. There are already laws that take guns from people, in some cases for misdemeanor crimes.

There are also laws on the books that prevent having a functional firearm in the home. If someone gets caught violating such an law, no doubt their guns will be taken and they will never be able to legally own guns again.

Palin has no legitimate stance on any real issues.

Just because you don't agree with her position on an issue doesn't make the issue itself any less legitimate, nor does it mean that her candidacy did not emphasize the issue.

Re:This Just In

[jadavis]

Sounds a whole lot like government-attached work to me.

Maybe it was for her personal political career (as opposed to official state business), and maybe there are laws preventing her from using state resources to conduct her political career.

That sounds pretty likely to me, given that "ethics issues" are often unrelated to official business, and often related to a personal political career.

Re:This Just In

[feed_me_cereal]

not only all of your very good points, but also: am I the only one who read the quoted text as sarcasm? I'm pretty sure it was, which makes the sprawling ranting response +1 funny to me, anyway.

The "cracker" was a moron. That might be the scariest thing about the whole incident. GP needs to understand: Joe Biden and Barack Obama, assuming they have such ties that GP for whatever reason takes as a foregone conclusions, WOULD NOT USE A FUCKING YAHOO ACCOUNT FOR STATE RELATED BUSINESS BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT RIDICULOUSLY INCOMPETENT!

Re:This Just In

[intheshelter]

Typical. You choose to ignore the truth. Palin lied about using email for government business. It is not only lying it's a violation of the law and the only reason to use email that way is to avoid disclosure. She's already acting and thinking like a crooked politician.

And what are these "ties to a known terrorist". Did you get that from Fox News?

Either way, you're willing to accept a lying crooked politician in Palin. Why is that? Rather than choosing a candidate who is honest and honorable you're choosing between different levels of crap (assuming your argument about terrorists is real, which I doubt). Instead why don't you pick a good candidate instead of the lesser of two shitty ones. Seems like common sense, but common sense goes out the door with politics, doesn't it:? . . . Typical indeed!

Re:This Just In

[Canislupus01]

Your premise (though wildly inaccurate) in no way supports your conclusion. Either make your statement: "the ENTIRE purpose of her office using the Yahoo account was to obstruct justice." Or back it with actual TRUTHS and make a case. You did neither.

Re:This Just In

[Anonymous Coward]

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative propaganda machine. Find a source worth trusting. I would take wikipedia over Heritage any day.

Re:This Just In

[cat_jesus]

"Executive experience" is such a bullshit line. I'd say running a national campaign and getting over 60 million dollars in a year is a lot more "executive" experience than most executives experience.

Yeah it's going to be real hard to switch from trying to determine how to persuade someone to do what you want them to do, to just telling them. I see it's just been a horrible transition thus far.

Keep in mind that the owner of a coffee shop has "executive experience", is that really what counts?

Moron.

Re:This Just In

[nEoN nOoDlE]

You're allowed to have a personal account, sure, but she conducted government business with her personal account. That's the real issue, not that she sends family photos around.

Re:This Just In

[pedestrian crossing]

I'm voting for the turd sandwich.

Re:This Just In

[Sj0]

Actually, their track record IS much better. I ran the numbers on the budget and deficit, for example, and found that they're much more fiscally conservative than the Republicans, when they control the executive. Since Republicans just buy everything on credit, they don't care about runaway spending, while Democrats tend to spend less and use less debt. The difference in terms of spending is a factor of 2, and the difference in terms of debt is a factor of 10.

Re:This Just In

[khallow]

Is it breaking the rules though? The "I try to CC all important mail to my work email" defense seems adequate here.

Re:This Just In

[intheshelter]

At what point are you going to put up the evidence for the terrorist claims you made? I'm waiting on pins and needles. . .

Re:This Just In

[cat_jesus]

Ties to terrorists? You mean like the Bush family ties to the Bin Laden family?

Re:This Just In

[Shadowland]

> Oh, great! So now he can fsck up the economy even worse than Bush did!

Yeah, but at least you'll be able to enjoy your burger and fries, which is all any of else will be able to afford to eat if the financial crisis keeps getting worse... :^)

Re:This Just In

[jcnnghm]

With your logic anyone that runs for the presidency, by default, has adequate executive experience since they have to be involved in a campaign.

Fuck you.

Re:This Just In

[intheshelter]

Ha, exactly! Apparently BOTH parties are tied to terrorism. Maybe we could vote 3rd party. . . . .how about LP.org?

Good comment though. It's almost like you were channeling the Daily Show.

Re:This Just In

[Bourbonium]

"What did the emails say? Why were they not released? Come on! If you had hacked into Palin's email, what would you release screenshots of first? Would you release a friend saying, "you have my prayers" or one that said "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax?"

Look, the "hacker" didn't even have the sense to scrub out the URL of the proxy server he used to get into the account before taking that screenshot, and he didn't even bother using easily available anonymizer tools like TOR to avoid detection. And then you suggest this asshat could have manipulated the screen capture to display only the incriminating emails instead of the boring shit? Jeezus Christ, he even used a handle connected to his own email account to brag about his exploit on 4chan, where anyone can post anonymously without risk of being identified. Some computer genius he turned out to be.

This was just a script kiddie exploit, not a hacker mastermind, yet for all his idiocy, he managed to do our country a tremendous favor: he exposed how a candidate for one of our nation's highest offices who is campaigning as a reformer of corruption is herself just as corrupt as any of the rest of them. Yeah, stop the presses, this is something no one else has ever thought about before.

John McCain claims he doesn't use email, which insulates him from this kind of exposure, but he chose a running mate who uses email (and very poorly, at that) to bypass government sunshine laws. Sounds to me like both of them have exercised extremely poor judgment, which pretty much disqualifies them from representing my best interests in Washington.

Oh, FYI: The emails were released. RTFA. If you want to know what the emails say, they're all available on wikileaks, or any one of its many mirrors. That toothpaste isn't going back into the tube any time soon.

Re:This Just In

[Ngarrang]

...Palin would probably have to admit that she's using her personal e-mail for at least some work-related e-mails.

She wouldn't have to answer the question. The information was discovered via illegal means and would be inadmissible in legal proceedings. Even now, she cannot legally be asked that question. And she doesn't have to respond, because officially, there is nothing to respond to.

Some of you people on here are such freakin' hypocrits. Private is private. Don't pick and parcel it. We are all either protected by the same right to privacy, or none of us are. Defending the hacker? Would you be defending the little brat if he has hacked YOUR e-mail and posted a screen print that showed a bank account number? Or maybe a message with a subject line like, "I enjoyed last night", and it had nothing to do with your wife?

Re:This Just In

[Bourbonium]

Now, consider the FACT that Obama lied about having ties to a known terrorist.

Err... [Citation needed]

Please.

Re:This Just In

[zzottt]

HAHAH that joke took me a few reads to get it... that dang F word is just too versatile.

Re:This Just In

[classyselection]

thats right bragging always lets the cat out. derrty http://www.classyselection.com/

Re:This Just In

[Hadlock]

You're an idiot. I don't care if I get modded down.

Re:This Just In

[gysgtmo]

Sounds like navy black shoe BS, the only thing you flew was a desk. Check your facts. Maybe you had a parrot teach you aboard ship

Re:This Just In

[Score Whore]

In fact there were a number of emails of a political nature which would be flat out illegal to do over her official email system.

Ah you mean the kind of e-mails she would otherwise be subpoenaed over. And exactly that is the reason why she should be using the official system for political correspondence only.

I think you misunderstand the concept of political. Political is about getting elected. It's about being a member of a particular party, such as a Democrat or Independent. Doing her job as Gov. of Alaska is not political, it's public service. If she uses publicly funded equipment to do political work (ie. Alaska Republican Party work) then she's committed a crime. If she uses Yahoo for that purpose then she hasn't.

Your argument is like saying "It's legal to break into your own home and smash dishes. It's illegal to break into your neighbor's home and smash dishes. So you'd better break into your neighbor's home." Sorry, but it makes no sense.

Re:This Just In

[protektor]

I call bull on this. Post your proof. It's easy to say they spend less but prove it by showing who voted for what and what pork projects were attached to each vote that they had to vote on, and who added each attachment and which party they belong to.

I think you will find just about everyone in Washington loves to spend the tax payer's money when they think they can get away with it, and when they think no one is looking deep into bills and stuff they just voted on.

Don't forget congress and the senate are so shady that most of them refuse to vote written but prefer a voice vote that is harder to prove who voted what.

Personally I think every single vote in Washington should have to be a written vote that is kept for at least 50 years. So we know exactly who voted for what. Also every thing that comes up for a vote should have every name at the top of who wrote the darn thing and who added what to it, all at the top clearly noted at, say 5-7 grade reading level. So that it is clear who did what and how they voted.

I think all laws/bills of the federal government and the states should have to be written at a 5-7 grade level so anyone in the country can read them and understand exactly what they mean. If a high school graduate can't understand the law as it is written, then it is a bad law. Since ignorance of the law is no excuse legally. For all of you out there saying well our high school students suck and are being graduated stupid. Well then stop graduating them and start flunking them out. Supposedly, according to one ad on TV we are like 27th in world for education at a high school level. We should be a lot higher than that in my opinion, at least in the top 10.

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

I was talking about William Ayers. You should be careful and make sure you know all the facts before you start trying to insult people's intelligence. Either way, it's a good think you posted as AC.

Re:This Just In

[suck_burners_rice]

Now wait a minute. That's a bridge to somewhere. Heck, there are a dozen people living there! Sure justifies a quarter billion bucks of government spending if you ask me. I'm saying she didn't support the bridge to nowhere and there's a difference: A bridge to somewhere takes you somewhere. A bridge to nowhere, on the other hand, well, you drive down that bridge and then disappear from existence. Like it's a portal to the Bermuda Triangle under a full moon during the summer equinox on Mars or something. Nobody wants that. But a bridge to somewhere, well, I'm only disappointed the government didn't pork-fund a trillion dollars for it to build the damn thing out of gold and diamonds.

Seriously though, thanks for the articles. Damn politicians. I never said they're perfect. Only that they're a helluva lot better than the good-looking dude from Illinois. He's bad news.

Re:This Just In

[eikonos]

Damn politicians. I never said they're perfect.

Is it okay for her to tell a lie? If we just accept it when a politician lies and shrug it off, will they ever stop?

Only that they're a helluva lot better than the good-looking dude from Illinois. He's bad news.

Why is he "bad news"?

Re:This Just In

[LMariachi]

Okay, I may have oversimplified -- there may be a very few reasons one can refuse to fully cooperate with a supoena, "executive privilege" being among them. I honestly don't know under what circumstances that might apply to a state governor. Regardless, Palin's status has not changed due to her VP nomination. Any grounds she has now to claim immunity from investigation existed (or didn't) well before she entered the national spotlight. Is she claiming that her gubernatorial counsel was incompetent, and only the superior advice of the McCain campaign's crack legal team showed her the light? Again, "it's politically motivated!" is not itself sufficient cause to break the law. The subpoenas are valid. She needs to come up with a reasonable rationale for blowing them off, and so far she hasn't done so.

P.S. "B-b-b-but Clinton!" doesn't cut any ice here, any more than "B-b-b-but Nixon!" would have during Clinton's impeachment proceedings.

Re:This Just In

[LMariachi]

Right. The feds come to your office demanding you turn over spreadsheets pertaining to their investigation of your boss' frauds and embezzlements. You hold fast, resolute, secure in the knowledge that your probably criminal employers will go to the mat for you, rather than pinning the whole malfeasance on you and leaving you twisting in the wind!

Hey, you should come work for me. I'm running low on stooges lately.

Re:This Just In

[Sj0]

I'm going to call bullshit right back.

Accounting for inflation, The Bush Administration, who controlled the congress, the senate, the judiciary, and the executive, has increased the federal budget and the federal debt more than any presidency since the end of WWII. I don't give a fuck WHAT excuses they use. They controlled the country, and if they couldn't keep a handle on spending despite the fact that the democrats were totally impotent, then maybe the Republicans need to step aside and quit pretending they're competent to run the country.

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

Typical. You choose to ignore the truth. Palin lied about using email for government business. It is not only lying it's a violation of the law and the only reason to use email that way is to avoid disclosure. She's already acting and thinking like a crooked politician.

I saw the screenshots before they were scrubbed and saw nothing that was illegal. Care to provide a link that I may have missed that shows "illegal" activity? There is none. That's why this is such a joke.

And what are these "ties to a known terrorist". Did you get that from Fox News?

No, Google. Search for "Obama William ayers" HERE if you are too lazy to do your own research.

Either way, you're willing to accept a lying crooked politician in Palin. Why is that? Rather than choosing a candidate who is honest and honorable you're choosing between different levels of crap (assuming your argument about terrorists is real, which I doubt). Instead why don't you pick a good candidate instead of the lesser of two shitty ones. Seems like common sense, but common sense goes out the door with politics, doesn't it:? . . . Typical indeed!

You have not shown that Palin is a lying cooked politician. But you do have a point, we need a third party candidate. Unfortunately, we won't until we pass some sort of legislation that states that a President must receive so many electoral votes (or percentage) in order to win. If they don't, there is a run off between the top two candidates. Louisiana does this with their local elections and it works pretty well.

Re:This Just In

[jabster]

Personally, I'm fed up with all this "racist" bullshit that's surrounded his nomination. Sure, nominating a black Presidential candidate is historic. Are we suddenly supposed to stop asking questions about whether this man is experienced enough or capable enough to assume the leadership of the United States of America? We are, after all, engaged in two major wars.

And yes, bi-racial community organizer guy becomes presidential candidate, that's a good story. It's like a Hollywood script, or a fairy tale where the little boy raised on a farm suddenly discovers he's really a prince. Yeah, it's a cute story, and I hate to see a good story spoiled, but our economy is facing the biggest crisis since the crash of 1929. I want somebody smart and experienced ready to take over next January.

But Obama simply isn't qualified. His performance during his numerous interviews revealed that he had virtually no understanding of American foreign policy. Anyone who regularly reads a serious news magazine like The Economist or a major newspaper like the New York Times or Washington Post would be familiar with the questions on foreign policy- Is Iran a "grave threat" or not, is he really going to invade the soverign nation of Pakistan- but Obama didn't seem to have ever thought about either before, offering different answers depending on what day it is. Obama argued, in all seriousness, that a sight-seeing trip to Europe somehow gave him some sort of experience. That's like arguing that you're ready to engage in negotiations with Putin because you saw Rocky Balboa fight Ivan Drago in "Rocky IV".

After the listening to Obama--you can watch all of his multiple stances on many issues on YouTube--only way you can argue that Obama can be taken seriously is to lower the bar. The only way you can argue that he is qualified is to argue that as an African-American, he can't be expected to have the same understanding of foreign policy as a white man. Now that is racist.

Better?

-john

Re:This Just In

[jabster]

oh just wait.
  a bit late, but see my reply to the flyingsquid. :)

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

Now, consider the FACT that Obama lied about having ties to a known terrorist.

Err... [Citation needed]

Please.

Google is your friend. May I suggest "obama ties to terrorist" as a good starting point. If you don't have access to Google, let me help you out:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/8/22/obama-needs-to-explain-his-ties-to-william-ayers.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers

Need more?

Re:This Just In

[ArcherB]

Ties to terrorists? You mean like the Bush family ties to the Bin Laden family?

The Bin Laden family has disowned Osama Bin Laden. They have even assisted the US intelligence in finding him. And if Obama had ties with the Ayers family, and the Ayers family had denounced what William Ayers had done, it wouldn't be a big deal.

Besides, Bush is not running for reelection.

Re:This Just In

[intheshelter]

"I saw the screenshots before they were scrubbed and saw nothing that was illegal."

I saw the screenshots before they were scrubbed and saw personal email being used for government business. That is not a joke, it is illegal.

"Search for "Obama William ayers" HERE if you are too lazy to do your own research."

First, if I was too lazy to do my own research then I probably wouldn't Google it, would I? Second, I did just Google it and found this story ( http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/02/obamas_weatherman_connection.html ) which rightly points out that the attempt to tie Obama to terrorism is BS. Did YOU do any research or just repeat the crap handed out by the Republican party? He doesn't have any "ties" to any known terrorists unless your definition of "ties" is they both lived on the same planet.

"You have not shown that Palin is a lying cooked politician."

If she used personal email to do government business then she broke the law. She's not stupid, she could have used her government email address but she didn't? Why? I have a business of my own with an email address associated with it and personal email account and I never mix the two. What would be the point? The only reason to do that on her part would be to avoid having some government related emails archived. She did something illegal and for dubious reasons and therefore she's definitely already on the road to corruption if she's not already there.

Obama did nothing illegal but you're condemning him. Palin did something illegal and you're letting her off the hook. How convenient.

Re:This Just In

[sumdumass]

Any grounds she has now to claim immunity from investigation existed (or didn't) well before she entered the national spotlight. Is she claiming that her gubernatorial counsel was incompetent, and only the superior advice of the McCain campaign's crack legal team showed her the light? Again, "it's politically motivated!" is not itself sufficient cause to break the law. The subpoenas are valid. She needs to come up with a reasonable rationale for blowing them off, and so far she hasn't done so.

I was involved in a burglary and a shooting back in the 1990s. Of course I didn't do anything wrong but I serviced an alarm panel the night the place was robbed and I had the gun that stopped a person stabbing the proprietor of the establishment. I answered questions and cooperated with the police until I learned that I was a suspected accomplice in the crime, then I lawyer'd up and didn't say a thing without him approving my every word. Now, this is only barely relevant because it shows how your actions change when the situation changes. To make a long story short, the crook did something to the alarm to stop it from protecting a door. This stopped it from being armed at night and I was called to fix it. While I was tracing the wiring, the crook entered the building and the owner startled him in which he stabbed the proprietor in response. I heard the scream followed by a loud crash, entered the room to find the crook standing over the proprietor, saw the blood, pulled my pistol and told him to back away, he turned and lunged at me with the knife, I pulled the trigger and shot him in the chest just under the collar bone on the left side taking a lung out and fracturing his collar bone in the process. He lived.

But when one of the cops attempted to claim that I was in on it and set the situation up just so the crook could enter the building without the alarm going off, I stopped offering anything at all and shut up. You see, the situation changed and no longer was I telling the story of stopping a guy from being murdered, I was defending my own freedom. The same is happening with Palin except instead of going to jail she is being politically smeared. If she wasn't obligated to cooperate beyond what she already has offered, but did so anyways, as soon as her situation changed and it stopped being about the truth, she has every right to change her willingness to participate.

You also don't know that she is breaking the law. Your just assuming that without justification. If she has a right to not be held to the same laws that you or I would be held to, or if the law is being improperly applied, then she isn't breaking it. She would be asserting rights that are either inherent in the legal system or specific to her job position. So far, She hasn't been charged with breaking the law, she hasn't been convicted of it, she has only stopped cooperating with something that went from finding out what happened to attempting to gain political leverage. That isn't right. Politically motivated prosecutions aren't right. Politically motivated investigations aren't right. Do you get the point here? It aint right.

P.S. "B-b-b-but Clinton!" doesn't cut any ice here, any more than "B-b-b-but Nixon!" would have during Clinton's impeachment proceedings.

Well, you see, we live in the real world here. This isn't some fictional make believe of what should be right and wrong, what Clinton did was set a legal precedence which in the real of which you keep accusing Palin of breaking, is more then appropriate. Because of actions that Clinton took, and because those specific actions were adjucated in a court of law, and because that court of law sided with him, both Clinton and that court of law made it legal for others to precipitate similar actions in similar circumstances with the same outcome.

Now, I didn't say But Clinton did something illegal so everyone else should be able to do something illegal, I said that he did somethin

Re:This Just In

[funwithBSD]

Here, let me go edit the wiki entry for you so it matches what I posted.

Still trust it?

Re:This Just In

[LMariachi]

Sorry, the tags weren't obvious, given how many people are suggesting the same thing with a straight face.

Re:This Just In

[commodoresloat]

This kid was very into servicing the community

Good! Tell him to get me a beer.

Re:This Just In

[commodoresloat]

Furthermore, since this cracker is the son of a Democrat, he would have known what to look for.

Because those blasted sons-of-Democrats know everything! Even if he was too stupid to post anonymously when bragging about his crimes.

Re:This Just In

[commodoresloat]

Same goes for a zip code (12345 anyone?).

That's the zip code for 123 Fake Street in Springfield!

Re:This Just In

[Elektroschock]

I am sorry. That is news to me. Don't expect me to buy into it.

Re:This Just In

[Elektroschock]

Exactly.

Of course you are held accountable to do what you are supposed to do. I was speaking of 'personal responsibility'.

Most soldiers don't actually kill persons. But you sign up to kill and get killed.

For a soldier it is formally no problem to defeat a target by killing that person. Unfortunately we are humans and it is difficult to confront that you caused the death of another person. Killing in war is not "murder" but the effect is the same. If it does feel good you should worry about yourself.

For a soldier it is formally no problem to get killed as it is his professional risk. But his family will see things differently. You also have a leadership problem. Most of the cases military organisations don't work very efficiently. So you have "guilt". You did mistake x and soldiers you work with die.

You drive through areas and see those dead children your fellow soldiers who dropped the bomb didn't.

The standard narrative pattern of war is that the hierarchy has to tell you, you did everything right. Your fellow soldier gets killed. So the government needs to say he did it right, it was honourable or for a cause etc. You can't tell the family "he had bad luck" or talk about professional risk.

Re:This Just In

[Elektroschock]

I am speaking of communication strategy, not of contents. The vagueness is part of the strategy.

Re:This Just In

[HorsePunchKid]

Obvious reply: I'd rather have him screw up my Big Mac than my Freddie Mac.

Re:This Just In

[funwithBSD]

Buy into what? It is an objective observation based on independent data.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05952.pdf

if you want to see the raw data collected by the GAO.

Re:This Just In

[laird]

Alaska's sunshine laws are quite clear, and require that all communications related to performing your job, including email deliberations and and all drafts of documents, must be archived. While she may have forgotten it, all government employees work for the public, and are paid by the public, so the public gets to review everything that they do in order to decide whether they've done the right thing.

To be clear, the law does not say that she cannot open a Yahoo account. The law does, however, say that she must properly archive all communications that are in any way related to her doing her job.

Yes, oversight can be a hassle. But in the long run lack of oversight is much worse, since it enables abuses and corruption. So while you can call oversight by names like "fishing expedition", I'd still rather have private citizens be able to call government employees to account. Luckily the law agrees with me, making Palin's evasion of oversight illegal. :-)

Re:This Just In

[Corporeal Punishment]

maybe the person didn't care if they were caught?

Re:This Just In

[Bourbonium]

Sorry. I thought you were referring to some kind of breaking incident. The Bill Ayers story is old news, and as I understand, Obama has never denied meeting with Ayers and Dohrn back in his early Chicago days. Hell, if you're going to accuse all radical college professors of being terrorists, you could prosecute a dozen or more of my old teachers at the University of Texas and send the whole lot of them to Guantanamo. They weren't Weathermen, but enough of them were idealistic and unapologetic communists. As far as I can tell, they're still walking among us and about as dangerous now as they were then.

"Hacker"

[Verteiron]

So "hacking" now includes password guessing?

Re:"Hacker"

[yincrash]

Sure. Why not?

Re:"Hacker"

[Helios1182]

It is usually the easiest way for a lot of systems; that, or just ask the user and they will tell you.

Re:"Hacker"

[swabeui]

If you have followed the story, he didn't guess the password. He used publicly available information to fool Yahoo's password recovery tool to give it up.

As simple as it may sound, it is a bit more involved than 'guessing' a password.

Re:"Hacker"

[Ritchie70]

Not even password guessing. He apparently took public information about her and reset the password.

If anyone wondered if demanding date of birth, home town, etc. was a BAD way of determining identity, this should resolve that for them.

Re:"Hacker"

[colfer]

Yahoo lets you answer the backup questions and then reset the password to one of your choice? I didn't know it was that insecure. Normally a system would email you a reset link, but I guess Yahoo users might not have another email address. Sounds like Y should give you the option of disabling this cracking feature. Either you have a it send the reset link to a backup email or to a registered phone number for SMS text. How does Gmail do it?

Re:"Hacker"

[Shihar]

First, it wasn't password guessing. He exploited Yahoo's password recovery system to get it to reset her password. He basically used public information to pose as Palin and convince Yahoo's password recovery system that he needed the password reset. Exploiting such a weakness in the system is, by any standards, "hacking".

Second, after he got in, he than went through all of her e-mail. Breaking into a system, even if it had been a password guess, and then going through its contents is again, by any standard standard, hacking.

I loath Palin, but this guy is going to get what he has coming. Even shitty and crazy humans who think the world is a few thousand years old and much to my horror might be president one day, get legal protection. It isn't like the police can go, "Yeah, he hacked in, but Palin kinda sucks, so I think we will let this one slide".

Re:"Hacker"

[Hal_Porter]

Even on services that don't you can always one of the questions that allow a string and set it to some long string of capital and lower case letters, numbers and punctuation chars.

E.g place of birth

N3ArAlph@C3ntur1!

Re:"Hacker"

[Tatarize]

Apparently the question was where did she meet her spouse. And everybody already knows they eloped out of highschool about seven months before their first kid was born. So "Wasilla high" reset the password.

I'm glad my passwords are like "na;nl;awiwoacf" and other crazy crap like that (no I don't use that password). But also those damned reset questions are a massive security hole.

Re:"Hacker"

[TubeSteak]

If you have followed the story, he didn't guess the password. He used publicly available information to fool Yahoo's password recovery tool to give it up.

And somehow that turned into headlines that say:
Palin Email Hacker Impersonated Her, Stole Password

http://www.google.com/search?q=palin+impersonated
Even the Associated Press went down that road.

Re:"Hacker"

[Free the Cowards]

I'd say it's less involved, not more. Answering a question which is a matter of public record is much easier than trying to guess someone's password.

I've always thought that those "security questions" were a giant security hole. This just goes to show that it's true.

Re:"Hacker"

[flosofl]

...they eloped out of highschool...

er... eloped after college. They *met* in high school.

Re:"Hacker"

[TempeTerra]

...[exploiting a password recovery system is] by any standards, "hacking"...[reading mail in another person's account is] again, by any standard standard, hacking.

No. No, it's really not. By <i>some</i> standards yes, but being so insistent that it's hacking is just plain wrong. I understand that be gained access to the account by guessing the answer to the password recovery question. There was no abuse of the program (user: Sarah^ SELECT * FROM PASSWORDS...) or circumvention of security measures - the security just sucked because she used an obvious password recovery hint. Sure, it was wrong and all that and was obviously against the wishes of the account owner, but it's on the same scale as reading somebody's email when they forget to log out of a public terminal. It's an abuse of privacy but calling it 'hacking' is just being melodramatic.

Re:"Hacker"

[TempeTerra]

(bollocks. Repost with proper formatting, Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!)
 
...[exploiting a password recovery system is] by any standards, "hacking"...[reading mail in another person's account is] again, by any standard standard, hacking.

No. No, it's really not. By some standards yes, but being so insistent that it's hacking is just plain wrong. I understand that be gained access to the account by guessing the answer to the password recovery question. There was no abuse of the program (user: Sarah^ SELECT * FROM PASSWORDS...) or circumvention of security measures - the security just sucked because she used an obvious password recovery hint. Sure, it was wrong and all that and was obviously against the wishes of the account owner, but it's on the same scale as reading somebody's email when they forget to log out of a public terminal. It's an abuse of privacy but calling it 'hacking' is just being melodramatic.

Re:"Hacker"

[slashgrim]

...they eloped out of highschool...

er... eloped after college. They *met* in high school.

I guess that rules Tatarize out as possibly involved...

Re:"Hacker"

[icydog]

Yeah, when will they figure out the difference between stealing and pirating?

Re:"Hacker"

[cryptodan]

But also those damned reset questions are a massive security hole.

Uh no they aren't. Its not the question that is the security hole its the person creating the answer. When I use the secret answer method, I always type in something that a close relevance to the true answer, but without giving anything up to be guessed. My wife can't even guess my passwords, and she has known me for 7 years.

Re:"Hacker"

[Snaller]

"As simple as it may sound, it is a bit more involved than 'guessing' a password."

But not much.

Re:"Hacker"

[NotBornYesterday]

Slashdot dictionary:
hacker n, one who is skilled with computers, esp. if those skills are gained by exploration and experience vs. formal education
cracker n, one who breaks into systems

Rest of the world:
hacker n, one who breaks into systems
cracker n, toasted wafer of bread, often served with cheese

AFAIK, Kevin Mitnick more or less said that any crack you can do by obtaining the pw through easy means (social engineering, etc) is better than resorting to exotic measures.

Re:"Hacker"

[narcberry]

Umm, didn't he impersonate her by deliberately clicking on the "forgot my password" link and give information as if he were Palin?

After impersonating her, didn't he take control of the password of the account? Isn't that stealing her password?

I'm sorry, as bad as the press is, they weren't stretching the truth one bit.

Re:"Hacker"

[mgblst]

that is exactly what he did. How else could you describe it to a lay person?

Re:"Hacker"

[ebuck]

If this is hacking, I guess shifting your car into 3rd gear is hacking the system to go a little faster than 2nd gear.

He used the system as it was designed. He didn't exploit any bug or software weakness of the system, the weakness was inherit in the design of the software; what yahoo considered a feature is really a steaming pile of problems-to-be-addressed-later.

Palin wasn't forced to use yahoo, nor did she do any kind of analysis of how suitable yahoo would be for her (admittedly illegal) endeavours. This means that she flunks on my tech ticket. Add to that the use of real world answers which can easily be googled, and it's obvious she's not even considered what security means.

It would have been trivial for her to put down a few dollars a month ($10/mo) and have a better (and supported) email account. Better yet, she could have her own email server set up in a private virtual machine ($20/mo + setup costs).

She should be used to having someone else do stuff for her, being a governor. Oh wait, that's it! She couldn't ask anyone else to help her because they'd likely report her ass for breaking the law!

I don't like what the guy did to get his info, but really this starts too look more like a botched attempt at whistleblowing than an act driven by criminal intent. I mean, where's the damage? He didn't delete anything, nor did he send emails posing as the governor. He even went out of his way to tell her that her account had been accessed by himself. She wasn't denied access to her account, because she could use the same stupid password reset web page he used!

Odds are this guy's going to have the book thrown at him hard. All over an act he performed that didn't cost Palin a dollar and exposed that she was consistently and deliberately violating her own state's law.

Shame on you Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no evidence that we know of that this kid was indeed the hacker other than a post on /b/. And accepting a post on /b/ to be reliable information is like... trusting /.'s front page.

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

When you put untrusted evidence on untrusted slashdot, the two cancel each other out, making it the truth.

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the OP but apparently the FBI served a search warrant at Mr. Kernell's residence at UT. Link. I hope the FBI had more evidence to go on than some posting on /b/.

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[S-100]

Plenty of evidence. The most compelling is the purely circumstantial fact that Palin's email password was changed to "popcorn", and the guy under investigation's name is... Kernal. Har.

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[smoker2]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/palin_email_investigation_continues/

Re:Shame on you Slashdot

[makomk]

Yeah. That'd be more useful as evidence if it wasn't for the fact that 4channers often use "popcorn" as a password for Zip files uploaded to sites like Rapidshare. Basically, all the choice of password says is that the user was a 4chan regular.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Equal punishment?

[tooyoung]

I would hope that the punishment would be the same as would be handed out to someone that hacked my hotmail count.

Not that, you know, I have a hotmail account...

Re:Equal punishment?

[Hal_Porter]

Yeah, just like the punishment to the Watergate burglars was the same as that meted out to regular burglars.

Fact is bugging your political opponents is Serious Business legally.

Re:Equal punishment?

[enjoyoutdoors]

Like the GOP staff that used an exploit to read their oppositions email? Hmm, there were no legal consequences in that case. Maybe there should have been? Report Finds Republican Aides Spied On Democrats http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E0D7103FF936A35750C0A9629C8B63

Re:Equal punishment?

[ravenshrike]

Assuming the system is anything like moodle, it sounds like the information was available to all users, and therefore cannot be considered illegal to access.

Re:Equal punishment?

[slashgrim]

I would hope that the punishment would be the same as would be handed out to someone that hacked my hotmail count.

The enormous amount of spam in your inbox is punishment enough for anyone cracking your hotmail account.

Re:Equal punishment?

[slashgrim]

Like the GOP staff that used an exploit to read their oppositions email?

Exploit? You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does?

The memos were hosted on a publicly searchable shared folder...that would be like putting up a web page for Google to search and complaining that the opposition read your page.

The GOP staff should have informed them of the loose security!

Re:Equal punishment?

[pipingguy]

Didn't the Watergate badguys do time?

Re:Equal punishment?

[im_thatoneguy]

If I remember my US History correctly all of the watergate burglars were charged with obstruction of justice, illegal campaign activities and purjury.

I don't remember any "burglary charges" being brought.

If this kid were an Obama staffer then he might face some sort of illegal campaign activity. But seeing as this was a simple account 'hack' it should be treated like my Steam Account being stolen.

Re:Equal punishment?

[im_thatoneguy]

Sorry wrong group of Watergate crooks. A little wikipedia search informs me they served about a year in prison. But were not charged with anything besides standard burglary charges.

Re:Equal punishment?

[fermion]

I believe the punishment should be the same as those who intend to defraud the public trust by willfully, or perhaps ignorantly, using unofficial channels to conduct government business. The republicans have set a precedent on this by prosecuting Clinton over similar ethics violations while he was governor. Now lets see it they have the character to do so to one of their own.

Re:Equal punishment?

[enjoyoutdoors]

It wasn't like "google". They had not secured the folders. The people who read the emails had to go into folders marked with the names of the people and add .pst files to their outlook. That takes purposeful intent. They were not in a searchable web html site. It is completely different than "google". I am not saying that the person who went into Palin's email should not have consequences, just that the consequences and outcry about these things should have some consistancy. Further, I doubt this will get to court. If the "hacker" has good council they will claim that there were state emails there, which makes them part of the discovery process, and subpeona them. What all this really outlines is that we need more appropriate process and law about both what constitutes electronic privacy, reponsabilities of entities that protect that privacy, and stronger laws to keep politicians from using private email to skirt open government.

Welp

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess not even 7 proxies could save you.

hehe

[nawcom]

From what I saw from one of the screenshots, the person was using one of the web based proxies, I forget which one. Too bad he wasn't thinking too well when he wanted to remain anonymous. When you visit /b/, you kill as much brain cells as 12 ounces of vodka when you drink it in under 10 minutes. I've checked /b/ out just for the hell of it. Their interaction with females consist of "tits or gtfo". I'm not surprised.

Either way, it's too bad the other email address didn't get checked; then perhaps he could of gotten the interesting emails.

I assume the kid is screwed

[smchris]

"It would be a stretch to charge a felony [in the Palin case], but if they want to be hard on [the hacker], they could do that,"

Let's see. Hacking into the Republican VP candidate's email under the Bush regime. Gosh, what are the odds they will find a judge who will bite on the felony rap? I mean, really, if any words comes to mind when I think of Neocons it must be "forgiving" and "merciful".

Re:I assume the kid is screwed

[Hadlock]

Felony charge would be terrible PR for republicans. If it were any other time but election year they could string him up by his thumbs. Most likely charges won't be filed... if they are it'll be after the winning party is sworn into office, and then plead down to a misdemeanor. You have to be awful poor or kill someone to get a felony charge brought up to you and have it stick... especially with a father heavily invested in state politics.

Re:I assume the kid is screwed

[Hadlock]

Reading your post, it's clear you've never seen a legal process up close, let alone watched court proceedings before. The reason the felonies you see on TV, vs what most cases are actually tried as, shocker - is that they're unusual! Imagine the news showing something new. Imagine that! Actually a very, very large portion of crimes end up getting plead down to misdemeanor, and then wiped out completely upon completion of community service. I dare you to spend a day down at the city court house and see what actually goes on down there.

Important

[jav1231]

The important thing is that prosecution comes. Regardless of the politics involved, if there's no charges then any online email service is essentially useless for private communication. Not to mention the law on such matters doesn't "matter."

Re:Important

[zippthorne]

If he's a student, I hope Palin opts not to press charges, or pushes for a slap-on-the-wrist. Some kind of punishment that will sting, but won't be career ending.

Regardless of the politics involved, if there's no charges then any online email service is essentially useless for private communication.

No, they are *already* useless for private communication. Email is sent in plaintext across networks, and regardless of prosecution, the attack vector used here is a pretty easy one. If your email is unencrypted, or you're using easily looked-up information as passwords or recovery questions, then it's not private. period.

It would almost be better not to prosecute at all, if it has the effect of making people aware of, and take precautions against, the complete lack of privacy already extant.

Re:Important

[Curtman]

if there's no charges then any online email service is essentially useless for private communication.

It's obviously nowhere near as private as you think it is.

Re:Important

[jadavis]

If he's a student, I hope Palin opts not to press charges,

I wouldn't be too surprised if she tried to mitigate the punishment he received so she didn't appear "mean".

However, it's mean to everyone else who might want to run for office to not punish this person appropriately.

At some point we have to say "no, this is not OK". This student has become severely misguided if he thinks it's "cool" to attack people he doesn't agree with politically (and break the law in the process) and cause this kind of disruption on a national scale during a presidential election.

We'll get more and more of these people the more apologists like you they have.

This is like the people who throw pies at Ann Coulter because they disagree with her ideas. It's a socially regressive mob mentality and for some reason has become socially acceptable on college campuses (when directed at conservatives, at least).

It would almost be better not to prosecute at all, if it has the effect of making people aware...

More excuses. People have many vulnerabilities, and the pain of having one of those vulnerabilities exploited is reason enough to be "aware" of them. For those who do exploit others' vulnerabilities, they should be punished according to the law.

Re:Important

[offrdbandit]

I hope they throw the book at him. He made it very clear he understood the potential consequences of his actions, yet he still did it. When you make a conscious decision, you deserve no leniency.

Re:Important

[jav1231]

Actually it does compute. The difference is he didn't pluck the "postcard" out of the air nor did he intercept it. He reset her password. Essentially, he didn't capture anything in transit, he broke into her account.
As for your political rant, OT.

Re:Important

[S-100]

Um, it's not up to Palin to press charges or drop charges. This was a criminal offense, and Palin's testimony is not likely needed to prosecute him.

Considering how in his "confession" he went in to try to find information to "ruin" her, and that he disseminated her children's private photos, phone numbers and email addresses, I hope she goes for blood as any good mom would. The little punk's elected Democrat representative father taught him well.

Re:Important

[zippthorne]

Considering how in his "confession" he went in to try to find information to "ruin" her, and that he disseminated her children's private photos, phone numbers and email addresses, I hope she goes for blood ...

That's... actually a pretty good point. I was only thinking of the "irresponsible, immature not-quite-adult does something that's a lot worse than he thought it would be" part.

Re:Important

[BIGELLOW]

Saying that the fact that email is unencrypted or there are easy-to-look-up security questions does not mean that "it's not private."

Privacy is a right, not a sign of proper security. If I leave the front door of my house unlocked, it doesn't mean that I am giving permission for someone to walk in and take things.

Is it easier for someone to do? Sure. Do I still have privacy? Absolutely. Do I have security? No.

Security is locking your doors or securing your passwords. Privacy is when people abide by the laws and don't tread where they don't belong.

While I don't believe the punishment should be too harsh... what this person did, whether online or not, is against the law. Forgiving this with no punishment or a reduced punishment would suggest that everyone's private lives are fair game, as long as nobody gets physically hurt.

Re:Important

[novakyu]

Not mine. There is a standard for using strong encryption when sending email, it's called STARTTLS and it has been in the SMTP standard for more than a decade.

Well, from your computer to your SMTP server, yes.

But, if you had a Yahoo! account, and you sent an email to a Gmail account, how do you think the email will be sent across these two servers? PLAINTEXT.

Truth is, unless you encrypt the email body itself with something like PGP (using GnuPG, etc.), at some point it will be sent across *some* network in plaintext.

Re:Important

[zippthorne]

The issue of the privacy of webmail is really quite separate from what the cracker did, except that it is an additional vector by which your "right" to privacy can be easily violated.

These services are not secure and don't offer much, if any technical privacy. You're left with legal recourse after the fact. But then, of course, it's too late, the genie's out of the bottle. Palin can't secure her old email no matter how harsh the penalty is.

My tongue-in-cheek suggestion that we might be better off if no punishment is given was to counter the phenomenon whereby once the kid is punished, people will think, "that's the end of it, now email is safe again." When all that'll really have happened is that in one high-profile case, the perpetrator will have not-quite-gotten-away-with-it.

Re:Important

[BIGELLOW]

I see. Well, I suppose that is true for those who think that way. I never do.

I understand that e-mail isn't hacker-proof, that my home is not burglar-proof, that I will eventually die one day, and that no matter how safe of a driver I am, I will likely end up in an accident some day.

I also understand that in the event that my e-mail (whether it is web-based, or is supposedly a "secure" ISP-based solution) is hacked, my home is broken into, my health fails me, or I end up in an automobile accident... that if there is someone else who is responsible, that they will face consequences.

These consequences aren't meant to make email safer, make my home more secure, make me healthier, or make me more comfortable about getting into my car again... it's meant to equalize the balance of responsibility. That if someone wrongs me, they face consequences... and if I wrong someone else, I shall face consequences... and in the end, fair is fair.

It's not just about safety or privacy... it's about equality and fairness.

Was thsi guy really a grea hacker?

[SupremoMan]

I read in some article that even thou he used a proxy, he posted screenshots which listed the address of the proxy... which would be retarded, unless it was a fake address that was intentionally posted and was in fact different.

As if

[v(*_*)vvvv]

...anyone would even care if this were anyone else's email account.

Seriously, how many yahoo accounts get hacked a day? And WHO cares? Seriously, does ANY DA care about those crimes and looks to prosecute? Yahoo definitely doesn't care. And what are the victims suppose to do? Call 911? The FBI?

DAs are given the authority to use the law to prosecute who they want. It should be that the law tells which DA to prosecute which crime, and not the other way around as it is now.

I can't wait until someone hacks her paypal account.

Re:Public Records

[Hungus]

Why is Sarah Palin using a private account when she is Governor?

Because there are laws in place that say what you can and cannot do with government services and equipment. What you do not seem to get is she was abiding by these laws. Thats why she has 2 (or more) email accounts. The hacker ought to be prosecuted, he even said he did it with malicious intent

I really wanted to get something incriminating which I was sure there would be

but guess what? he found squat and diddly.

I read though the emails... ALL OF THEM... before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor.... And pictures of her family

And Links To Others...

[maz2331]

They might give the kid a partial immunity deal if he gives up someone in office or the Obama campaign.

It's been reported that his father is an ultra-liberal Democrat in state office - who does have some serious connections with the Obama campaign.

IF (big "if") there is any link to any campaign, then we have almost the exact same thing as Watergate going on here. This would then be the first "-gate" scandal since the original that actually deserves the name.

Can anyone say "what did they know and when did they know it?"

Re:And Links To Others...

[nstlgc]

The guy was a /b/tard. You can keep your Republican propaganda for yourself and kindly shut the fuck up.

Re:And Links To Others...

[Hal_Porter]

They might give the kid a partial immunity deal if he gives up someone in office or the Obama campaign.

It's been reported that his father is an ultra-liberal Democrat in state office - who does have some serious connections with the Obama campaign.

IF (big "if") there is any link to any campaign, then we have almost the exact same thing as Watergate going on here. This would then be the first "-gate" scandal since the original that actually deserves the name.

Can anyone say "what did they know and when did they know it?"

I hope they threaten this guy with serious jailtime and he implicates the Obama campaign in return for immunity.

Re:And Links To Others...

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy was a /b/tard. You can keep your Republican propaganda for yourself and kindly shut the fuck up.

He's also from a Democrat family. Doing exactly what Democrat sites like, say, Democratic Underground espouse.

I guess the nuts don't fall too far from the tree, eh?

Kinda like those Democrat family members who slashed tires on cars owned by Republicans back in 2004. They went to jail.

Face it. You're just pissed he not only got caught, but he pretty much proved all the fantasies about Palin misusing email are just that: fantasies.

Re:And Links To Others...

[FooGoo]

The story states that "Tennessee university college student and son of state democratic representative Mike Kernell."

Re:And Links To Others...

[X0563511]

Nothing deserves the -gate suffix, the only reason it's called Watergate is because it happened at the damned "Watergate Hotel"!!! Stop sticking it where it doesn't belong!!!

(annoyed by 'troopergate')

Re:And Links To Others...

[commodoresloat]

Actually it does show Palin was violating the law. But apart from that, I think you mean "Democratic," not "Democrat." The latter is a noun.

Re:Democrats

[Adrian Lopez]

I'm glad to see Wikileaks is back up, along with the Palin article. For a while I thought it was being censored by the thugs in charge.

What a shame the media is focusing on the hacking angle rather than on Palin's inappropriate use of personal communications channels for government business.

Not much of a "hack"

[Irongeek_ADC]

Calling this guy a hacker is a wee bit of an overstatement. Here is a video reconstruction of what he did: http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=videos/how-sarah-palin-email-got-hacked Not really a "Hack", just using the password recovery process.

Re:Not much of a "hack"

[jadavis]

Does that matter at all?

Last 8 years have ripped you off all your

[unity100]

constitutional rights and freedoms.

is this the behaviour we should expect from republican party ?

oh wait - yes it is !! because THEY DID IT.

and thats coming to you from a turk living in turkey. go figure the grimness of your situation.

Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[SuperKendall]

By Palin using yahoo, it's not closely watched and she can conduct official business off the record.

Or you know, she could in fact SEND PERSONAL EMAIL. Are you saying that no government employee should be able to have a personal email account? Then I guess you're OK with AT&T recording phone conversations without a warrant, because if government employees should not be able to have any private life why should you?

The kid even said there were NO incriminating emails in the account (see: Wired story). So get off your high horse and allow for humans to be humans and have something of a life, even if it's one of your dreaded Repuglithuggnaughtterizies.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Hadlock]

I haven't read her email, but what I've heard was she was corresponding with heir aides about how to handle PR on several negative issues. It's a blurry line but I suppose that could be considered personal. Probably best to have made a phone call instead.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[jadavis]

It's a blurry line but I suppose that could be considered personal.

So we have two people:
(1) Sarah Palin, who may or may not have crossed a "blurry line".
(2) Some punk who obviously broke the law, caused chaos, and distracted from other issues during an election for the US President.

Maybe you should reconsider how quickly you accuse people without evidence. I'd also be interested to know how you would have reacted if the perpetrator instead attacked Obama and ended up being connected to an elected Republican.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Jack9]

Most of the newsbits explicitly mention that "Governor Palin has come under media criticism in the past week for using private email accounts to avoid Alaskan freedom of information laws." Neither of you seem to have even read the original story?!

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Hadlock]

I'm sure my reaction would have been less had it been a democrat - afterall, that's the definition of political bias, isn't it? Can you post the emails where she is discussing things with her aides for us to review? I haven't read her personal email myself, but if you'd like to enlighten us, I'd be happy to discuss it, rather than defend against acrid remarks. I don't see any issue with laying blame on an issue that would never go to court. It's another matter entirely to assign blame based on bias for more serious matters such as theft and murder.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[_KiTA_]

So we have two people:
(1) Sarah Palin, who may or may not have crossed a "blurry line".
(2) Some punk who obviously broke the law, caused chaos, and distracted from other issues during an election for the US President.

(1) Sarah Palin, who is actively interfering with an investigation into "Troopergate" (a bipartisan investigation, one that the deciding vote was cast from the representative of her home town, I would also hasten to point out), has a record of abuse of power, corruption, and mismanagement.

(2) Some kid who broke the law, caused chaos, and chipped the little mask of Professionalism and Competence that Karl Rove is trying so hard to put around Palin and McCain.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Keebler71]

Wait a second.. it depends on what the "negative issues" were. If these were issues relevant to Alaskan politics and she was discussing them with her aides, then maybe this could be problematic for her. But if this was about the PR handling of issues related to her VP campaign then she would be wrong to use her official account and by all means she should be using a personal (or republican party) account. You can't use state resources (i.e. email accounts, office time, phone charges) to advance your political career.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[atraintocry]

Let's say that hypothetically, she was discussing government business on a Yahoo! account. One later crime committed against her does not mean she gets a pass on her own. Plus, she might be Vice President. Hell, maybe even President. So it does matter a bit more than what some punk does.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Stalyn]

Actually she was using her yahoo email accounts to conduct state business.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Hubbell]

The only people who wanted to 'investigate' this 'scandal' (she pushed to have a trooper, her brother in law or ex brother in law, i forget which at the time, who fucking tasered his 10 yr old step son, who drove in his cruiser drunk multiple times, and was caught hunting illegally, fired, as well as actually fired the commissioner of whatever organization/department for repeatedly going behind her back to push his own agenda/budget plans and ignoring the budget he had been handed by her) are people trying to attack her. It's such a bullshit case that the only reason it is 'news' or even happening is because of everyone holding up Obama the Messiah as if he's jesus himself.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[jadavis]

You're the one who said: "The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email is that any email sent through those channels is archived for a Very Long Time as a matter of public record."

With that kind of an accusation, it's your responsibility to provide the evidence. I can't prove a negative.

I don't see any issue with laying blame on an issue that would never go to court.

That's an interesting ethical position; I do not share it. You made a declaration that could be damaging to her reputation, and you should only say something like that if you can back it up. Otherwise you're just lying to hurt someone.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[jadavis]

Sarah Palin, who is actively interfering with an investigation into "Troopergate"

She has not been convicted of any wrongdoing, nor does this have anything to do with the matter at hand.

How does this justify making unrelated, unsubstantiated accusations about the reasons she's using Yahoo email?

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[jadavis]

has come under media criticism

Anonymous critics can say whatever they want, so it's pretty meaningless.

You didn't provide a reference, so I can't specifically refute this. However, the original story here:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/32838

says "does appear to indicate that she has been using it for both private and official business".

"appear to indicate" is a much weaker statement than the declaration to which I was responding.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[jadavis]

One later crime committed against her does not mean she gets a pass on her own.

I did not say she should get a pass. However, accusations should be backed up with evidence.

The person I responded to said "The whole reason Palin is using Yahoo instead of government sponsored email is that any email sent through those channels is archived for a Very Long Time as a matter of public record.".

I have not seen any evidence that says she sent or received these emails specifically to avoid record keeping, even if it was improper.

So it does matter a bit more than what some punk does.

What some punk does, and whether we protect candidates against that behavior, affects the future candidates for any political office in the country.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[jadavis]

He's a punk for showing us another facet of someone who is in the running for an office in the higher end of executive U.S. Government.

I'll repeat myself, because apologists like you don't seem to get it:

What some punk does, and whether we protect candidates against that behavior, affects the future candidates for any political office in the country.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Hao Wu]

Actually she was using her yahoo email accounts to conduct state business.

No, that evidence against her was illegally obtained. Geeks love that excuse when they commit crimes.

Besides, the most likely thing is that her opponents created the account in her name. It's possible, so it's likely. Get your nerd reality in line.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[quantaman]

By Palin using yahoo, it's not closely watched and she can conduct official business off the record.

Or you know, she could in fact SEND PERSONAL EMAIL. Are you saying that no government employee should be able to have a personal email account? Then I guess you're OK with AT&T recording phone conversations without a warrant, because if government employees should not be able to have any private life why should you?

No one cares if she uses yahoo to conduct personal business. What they care about is using a clearly insecure yahoo account to conduct government business, especially if one of the stated intentions in doing so is avoiding subpoenas.

The kid even said there were NO incriminating emails in the account (see: Wired story). So get off your high horse and allow for humans to be humans and have something of a life, even if it's one of your dreaded Repuglithuggnaughtterizies.

The kid was an idiot.

"An index of the e-mails in her inbox, which includes sender, subject line and date sent, indicates that Palin received numerous e-mails from her aides in the governor's office, some of which could be work-related.

An e-mail from her press secretary, Meghan Stapleton, indicates the message is about the "Motor Fuel Tax Suspension".

The subject line of an e-mail from Randall Ruaro, her deputy chief of staff reads, "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger." Another one from Ruaro says, "Please approve" and another one is about "Court of Appeals Nominations.""

Granted, a lot of her staff consists of old high school buddies which explains some of those messages but a lot of those appear work related.

No one is defending the fact that the kid did something wrong but he's kinda irrelevant. For someone claiming to be vice presidential material to be conducting state business over insecure email, with the stated purpose of thwarting the intention of the law, in just wrong.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Qrlx]

PERSONAL EMAIL

I might accept the assertion that it's a personal account if her email address was sarah.palin@email.com. But the email accout that was hacked is gov.palin@yahoo.com.

When you use your official title, you're acting in your official capacity. Not to mention, some of the email subjects clearly indicate official state business.

Two things strike me about this incident:
First, we have the uncomfortable truth that Gov. Palin denied doing this, and now we know she was lying. Second, it speaks to her judgement that she chose a Yahoo! account to do this.

To put it in attack ad format:
VOICEOVER: Sarah Palin couldn't even keep her "personal" email secure. How can Americans trust her to keep our nation secure?

IMAGES: Slow-mo of Palin scowling, Katrina montage, and beleaguered 9/11 onlookers. (But don't actually show 9/11 itself because that could backfire.)

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[athdemo]

It's possible, so it's likely.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or retarded.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[oddfox]

This is a governor whos administration has been openly hostile to an open and transparent mode of operation. Bill McAllister, her communication director as governor, provides a voice clip here where you can find out just how desperate these people are to make excuses for doing nothing more than finding loopholes in the law to try and disguise what they really are talking about. At the end he says "in fact the final decisions will be public, will be documented and will be substantiated and they always have been."

So basically, shut up and stop trying to listen in on what's going on behind the curtain and be happy with what we decide to show you is the real deal. If she's this disdainful of actually wanting to prove to her constituents in Alaska that she's done no wrong and doesn't want to do anything wrong, then why doesn't she just backtrack and say you know what, you're right, I talked about transparency and open government, let's get right on that.

The fact that anyone can look at all this and not see anything suspicious just goes to show how blindly one can follow a political ideology, regardless of who's "championing" the cause, which she certainly is not as far as what Republicans truly want in office. Is it really enough for you that she wants to drill? That she wants to overturn Roe vs. Wade? What on Earth can people see in this snake? I can understand Alaskans loving her because she's always talked up Alaska first Alaska first but the rest of the nation should be terrified that Palin takes the exact same approach to governing as Bush and Cheney when it comes to divulging information.

P.S. -- Remember that "Bridge to Nowhere"? Still going on. And now there's the completed "Road to nowhere". Oh joy, she's just full of straight talk just like Johnny.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[db32]

I can't believe this shit is modded insightful. The judge even admonished the Palins for trying to destroy this guys life. Most of the claims are pretty much hearsay, and at least two of them you cite have been explained. Wooten may not be a great guy, but the shit her family has spewed is a gross over exaggeration. All of her claims of "being tough on corruption" are bullshit. She took tons of money from the bridge to nowhere project. McCain HIMSELF even called her projects out specifically when he was attacking pork spending (wonder why the sudden change of heart...God damned sellout used to have at least some ethics and purpose). She has a tremendous history of abuse of power with this, her dear ol "shadow governor" hubby who seems terribly involved in state business, and then there is the numerous other cases of her firing everyone in her path that didn't do her bidding. She is right in line with the Bush/Cheney method of 0 accountability, above the law, I do what I want style government.

Then there is the issue of her being against teaching evolution. Or the issue of her refusing to fund sex ed classes and demanding abstinance only education (I bet her daughter would have prefered to know how to use a condom about now). We also have her silly "ebay" jet crap...which didn't sell on ebay and was prompty sold to another of her Republican cohorts in a no bid sale for less than market value.

That crazy double talking bitch has no place in our government. And for all you who think Obama's minister was a wackjob, you should check out Palin's. I think the crap Obama's pastor said was pretty bad, but chasing witches out of town just takes the fucking cake.

It is on the news because she is a stark raving mad, clueless, and evil bitch of a woman who will do anything to get her way and dodge any kind of accountability. To include the SAME GOD DAMNED STUNT that this administration pulled by illegally outsourcing emails on government business to avoid the archival requirements. All of this from the party that expects me to believe "if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" applies to everyone but them.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[SuperKendall]

Two things strike me about this incident:
First, we have the uncomfortable truth that Gov. Palin denied doing this, and now we know she was lying.

Actually we know the opposite since the DEMOCRAT who read the emails, with every motivation to magnify the least flaw, says there was nothing improper. Thanks for playing though.

Second, it speaks to her judgement that she chose a Yahoo! account to do this.

My god you aren't a Hotmail man are you? In this day and age?

Yahoo is a perfectly fine if somewhat venerable email account system. My wife still uses it, and I have an account there (perhaps you forget they own Flickr and use Yahoo accounts for that login?). Really it's more the pure techy crowd that has gone all in with GMail.

I see nothing wrong with having a Yahoo email account for personal email.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Jack9]

A weakness in American law is the inability to concede fact without a judicial trial or other arbitration. It only "appears to indicate" in America, in other places it's not required that there be a tribunal in prima facie. The "weaker statement" is a matter of cultural subjectivity or ignorance, depending on your point of view.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Ardipithecus]

Odds for Palin becoming Pres., ~1/6 according to this guy at CNBC

Feeling Lucky? The Odds of a President Palin
http://www.cnbc.com/id/26738380/site/14081545

About the same odds of surviving one round of Russian roulette.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[novakyu]

You're full of shit. Nobody is calling Obama Jesus

Right. They are just acting like he is. Real difference.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[daigu]

The email address was gov.sarah@yahoo.com. Seems like a poor choice in name selection for a "personal" email account.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[Qrlx]

I see nothing wrong with having a Yahoo email account for personal email.

Neither do I.

In the eyes of many, including the law, there is something potentially wrong when a public official conducts state business "off the books," as appears to be the case here. Her inbox, along with a bunch of fluff, contains emails from her staff on work-related subjects.

If she didn't act with impropriety, there's certainly the appearance of impropriety.

You mention your wife still uses Yahoo! Is your wife a governor or other public official? Does she conduct government business from her Yahoo! account? Does she use her Yahoo! account for purposes which demand oversight by Sarbanes-Oxles or HIPAA?

There is a difference between the actions of a public official and a private individual. Of course Sarah Palin is allowed to have a private life, and a Yahoo! account.

She can even invite the public into her private life and that of her family, her unwed pregnant daughter, her Iraq-bound son, and her retarded newborn. Though inviting the scrutiny of the press upon my children seems like a very questionable parenting decision to me.

But it's not a two-way street. She is not allowed to use the privacy and inaccountability of a Yahoo! account to shield her official actions as governor from the legal scrutiny under which public officials operate.

Have a nice evening.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[makomk]

Actually we know the opposite since the DEMOCRAT who read the emails, with every motivation to magnify the least flaw, says there was nothing improper. Thanks for playing though.

Well, the person who read the e-mails and who identified himself using the e-mail address of a Democrat's son on a forum that doesn't validate posters' e-mail addresses did, anyway. There's no evidence that he was the person that he claimed to be - in fact, it'd be really stupid to use your own e-mail address in the circumstances.

Re:Why can't a government employee use Yahoo?

[I'm not really here]

I'm not defending her, but since her account was hacked, what stopped these emails from being fraudulent. Additionally, since we only received screenshots, and not a dump of the entire account, what is to say these were not simply photoshopped? I think they were real, and I believe she was illegally avoiding using the gov't email for dubious reasons, but seriously, what stops all of this from simply being that she was framed?

Re:Democrats

[wampus]

No, but its pretty predictable for teenagers and /b/tards...

Oh boy!

[Kylere]

Regardless of who the account belonged to, I support them frying this guy. We are a nation of laws not of men. I support freedom of speech, I support net neutrality, and I support internet freedom. I do not support some loserboi playing with peoples email accounts.

What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

I want everyone here to think about how they would respond if the report were about Barack Obama's e-mail account instead. Just shut the fuck up.

step to step guide how not to get caught

[sam_paris]

1) Buy cheap pc using cash (OLPC or similar)
2) Find open wifi network, choose a place far from where you live
3) Connect to TOR and do your dirty deeds
4) Clean finger prints from PC and trash it, far from where you live

OR

1) Goto internet cafe, ensure cafe has no security cameras
2) Pay with cash
3) Connect to TOR and do your dirty deeds
4) Clean finger prints from computer

Profit?

Re:step to step guide how not to get caught

[Anonymous Coward]

Trashing the PC is absurdly paranoid. This would be more than sufficient:
1) Live in a large-ish city. Go to a popular cafe with free wifi and find a corner where nobody can see your screen.
2) Reset your MAC address to something random and connect. Bonus points for hacking into a WEP network accessible from the cafe.
3) Tunnel through Tor and do exactly what you need to do and nothing else.
4) Disconnect, reset your MAC. Stay a little while, finish your drink, and leave.

Even that's a little overly careful. Do that and there's no conceivable way to be caught. In this age of ubiquitous wireless networks, anyone who hacks from their own account richly deserves to be caught.

Re:step to step guide how not to get caught

[Kuutti]

And remember to switch your mobile phone off or even better, don't take it with you at all!!

Re:step to step guide how not to get caught

[Toll_Free]

"In this age of ubiquitous wireless networks, anyone who hacks from their own account richly deserves to be caught."

I would go so far as to say that any script k1dd13 that uses his own account, or a traceable one, shouldn't have the word "Hack", "Crack" or any other term used towards people who actually have a modicum of intelligence of computers at all directd towards him.

Reminds me of a friend who wanted an account on a linux box I had running of a corporate DSL line. I used it for NMAP, etc. of the internal network, but was nice to have a machine on a private subnet just running.

Until DoE called me up 4 weeks later to ask why this machine (with the network regg'ed to me) was attempting to access a few of their subnets, scanning for hours at a time.

I wonder if they are related?

--Toll_Free

Re:step to step guide how not to get caught

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Use a LiveCD of some sort
2. Change Mac address on your laptop
3. Connect to an open network

Less cash involved here.

Re:step to step guide how not to get caught

[Profane MuthaFucka]

It's not paranoid. Without camera or eyewitness evidence that puts you on the connection at the time of the hack, the only other way to prove anything would be possession of the PC. So don't be seen by anybody, use an untraceable PC that you trash, and keep your mouth shut. At that point it would take a freaky accident to get caught.

Oh yea, don't use the PC for anything else before the hack, and don't even turn it on until you are ready to do the hack.

For my next post, I'll describe an easy process for getting on an airplane even if your name really is Osama Bin Ladin.

Hacker

[Phroggy]

Using this label gives this guy far too much credit.

Re:Hacked?

[larry bagina]

hey retard, he didn't guess the password, he had it reset.

A Guesser, not a Cracker. Certainly not a Hacker

[Anonymous Pundit]

Two problems with the headline Palin Email Hacker Found:

1. This news came out days ago. Slashdot is now as timely as the dead-tree old media?
2. As the subject line says, the guessing involved to gain access to this email account required no technical skill so shouldn't be called hacking or cracking.

A better headline would have been Legal punishment options for Palin email thief.

it WOULDNT

[unity100]

because barack obama is not someone that tries to evade public oversight by using private emails for government work.

so shut yer trap.

Re:it WOULDNT

[zippthorne]

So, you're saying that, because Obama doesn't use private email for government work, you'd definitely be OK with someone "hacking" Obama's private email and posting it to the world?

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[Anonymous Coward]

You're posting here, using racist codespeak (Bubba?), advocating for the physical and/or sexual abuse of someone who hacked a Yahoo account?

Fucking fascist.
- The Big Lebowski

You can't conduct state buisness.

[Tatarize]

A number of those emails seem to be very state-businessy looking at who they are all from. And apparently they were using those accounts in order to have the ability to quickly delete any email they wanted rather than be subject to maintaining them for FOIA requests.

Re:Public Records

[s7uar7]

Because there are laws in place that say what you can and cannot do with government services and equipment. What you do not seem to get is she was abiding by these laws. Thats why she has 2 (or more) email accounts. The hacker ought to be prosecuted, he even said he did it with malicious intent

You have sarah.palin@yahoo.com, spalin@yahoo.com or moosehunters4ever@yahoo.com for personal emails. What you don't have is gov.palin; anything sent or received in her capacity as governor should go via her .gov address.

Re:Public Records

[TubeSteak]

I really wanted to get something incriminating which I was sure there would be

but guess what? he found squat and diddly.

Diddly squat... in that e-mail account.
She had another yahoo account that was not cracked, was under investigation by the Feds and has since been deleted.
Nobody really knows wtf is going on.
Or at least nobody who knows can/will publicly say anything.

One way to get more information is with a public records request to Alaska for all e-mails to/from gov.palin@yahoo.com & gov.sarah@yahoo.com

Re:Public Records

[blind biker]

It's sad that her personal correspondence, pictures and information was made public like this, but I'm glad it turned out she's OK. From what I've learned about her, she seems like a nice person.

The fundamentally flawed "Password Recovery"...

[Doug52392]

First off, I don't think this guy was really from "Anonymous" or anyone like that - I think he was just someone who wanted attention.

Quoting from TFA:

As detailed in the postings, the Palin hack didn't require any real skill. Instead, the hacker simply reset Palin's password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse -- the security question on her Yahoo account, which was answered (Wasilla High) by a simple Google search.

This proves how fundamentally flawed the "Password Recovery" system, used by many websites, really is. Even if this had happened ot an average Joe guy, all one would have to do to get his security question answer is simply know the guy and his past. The questions are SO GENERIC that anyone could easily guess or find out the answer!

Like the common "Mother's maiden name". All you need to do is Google the target's full name! If the target or anyone remotely related to them ever made a family tree, you'll find the tree - including the target's mother's maiden name.

So if it's THAT EASY for an average guy, doing this for a politician whose ENTIRE LIFE STORY has been told countless times on TV, online, on the news, and on the radio, is as simple as one Google search.

I hope everyone running for President right now learns this, and, when someone becomes America's next President, has the sense to change this issue (cough)Obama(cough).

Re:The fundamentally flawed "Password Recovery"...

[Toll_Free]

Yeah, you keep dreaming that the US of A has progressed far enough to elect a blaq mang.

Ain't gonna happen. Unfortunately, but it won't.

Obama / McCain 2008 would have been the ticket. Someone with a track record of public service and who doesn't always agree with his stated group, and Obama, who can bullshit congress to get anything passed. I mean, he has bullshitted his way to the point where he is now.. :)

Anyway..

--Toll_Free

Re:The fundamentally flawed "Password Recovery"...

[m50d]

I don't think this guy was really from "Anonymous" or anyone like that - I think he was just someone who wanted attention.

You say that like there's a difference.

Huh?

[apparently]

He used publicly available information to fool Yahoo's password recovery tool to give it up.

Huh? The system worked as designed; he didn't "fool" anything.

Re:Huh?

[slashgrim]

He used publicly available information to fool Yahoo's password recovery tool to give it up.

Huh? The system worked as designed; he didn't "fool" anything.

Think about that for a second. So causing a buffer overflow is not "fooling" the OS to run arbitrary code...it's just the "system work[ing] as designed"?

If this happened to someone besides Palin, would you have the same opinion?

The ctunnel guy is a dick

[permanentE]

From the ctunnel website: "Because government subpenoa could require us to hand over our server access logs, access logs are regularly deleted to protect your privacy. " This guy is a dick because he should have deleted his logs right away when he first caught wind of the Palin thing. Instead he waited for the FBI to call him and threaten him not to delete the logs before they got a subpoena. Actually, I always wonder, why keep logs at all?

Re:The ctunnel guy is a dick

[stox]

Knowingly destroying evidence is a felony, and if proven would have resulted in far more jail time for the owner of ctunnel than the worst case for the person who broke into Palin's email.

Re:The ctunnel guy is a dick

[LanceUppercut]

Incorrect. Or, more precicely, irrelevant. Evidence becomes "evidence" only after the official request to retain it has been submitted throuth the court. Until them everybody can destroy everything. There's no felony in it. Every company in the US has the policy of continuously "destroying the evidence" (email, papers, etc.), which gest suspended only when the company is involved in litigation.

Re:The ctunnel guy is a dick

[Toll_Free]

Umm.

Except where you know the information you are destroying can / will / should be used as evidence.

It doesn't come down to the actual act, it comes down to the intent of the act.

--Toll_Free

Re:The ctunnel guy is a dick

[u38cg]

WTF? Why the hell are logs not automatically written to /dev/null? I mean how fucking pointless is it to run a proxy and *keep* the logs?

Re:Public Records

[AncientPC]

Why is Sarah Palin using a private account when she is Governor?

Because there are laws in place that say what you can and cannot do with government services and equipment. What you do not seem to get is she was abiding by these laws. Thats why she has 2 (or more) email accounts. The hacker ought to be prosecuted, he even said he did it with malicious intent

That's not why she uses personal e-mail accounts for state business.

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.

Re:just tell me

[sglewis100]

from what i came to understood by reading you americans' posts on slashdot, american conservatives tend to label anything that is pro-freedom or free speech as 'left'.

I'm not sure illegally accessing someone's Yahoo account and posting the contents online is exactly pro-freedom or free speech. Doesn't really matter what your politics are, hacking or otherwise accessing without permission somebody's email account isn't permissible.

wtf are you doing on a 'left leaning' website anyway ?

I don't come here for politics, I come here for news related to technology. Did I misread the mantra here too?

Re:just tell me

[Naomiah]

That's not fair. American conservatism has a proud tradition of carefully defining itself and its deeply held ideological beliefs by whatever will piss off the other side. If the left would stop being enamored of free speech and freedom then the conservatives could snatch these concepts to back up their rhetoric about them and score some extra RP votes.

Would they mobilize the whole CIA for me...?

[Joce640k]

If somebody hacked my email would they start a huge investigation or is justice only for the privileged few.

Re:Would they mobilize the whole CIA for me...?

[Elektroschock]

1. carry out negative campaigns and spread blunt lies.
2. Speak out against negative campaigning.
3. Profit

What you mean is:
1. I am one of you
2. But I'm your VP candidate.
3. FBI

Keep it simple. Modern politics must be simple because you only have 30 seconds and a few soundbites to get your lies across.

Worth to watch again:
Adam Curtis documentary Century of the Self 4/4 where he speaks about modern campaigning under Clinton.

Re:Would they mobilize the whole CIA for me...?

[Arterion]

DING DING DING.

I wish I still had mod points, but this is the real question. I'm sure this kind of stuff happens all the time. Does anyone give a damn? No. For anyone to really care about this, especially those who are in an uproar, they've got to be a Grade A hypocrite.

But then again, we already knew that was the case.

Re:Would they mobilize the whole CIA for me...?

[Overly Critical Guy]

Presidential candidates with 120 days of an election generally get government protection, such as from the Secret Service. The FBI will step in to investigate incidents as needed.

Re:Would they mobilize the whole CIA for me...?

[Shadowlore]

That depends, are you governor of one of the largest states in the Union? Do you potentially have state "secrets" the FBI has a reason to investigate? Or, most importantly, are you an officially recognized candidate for President of the United States? I'm guessing that since you used "CIA" instead of FBI and exaggerated to mobilize the whole..." that you are not, and wouldn't know the difference if they did.

You see, the SS has a mandate to "protect" "certain" candidates for POTUS and VPOTUS, and investigates identity theft. You think someone "cracking" into a VPOTUS candidate at the level of Republican or Democrat candidates might qualify under those categories? Damned straight they would.

Were you complaining the the Secret Service (perhaps you would have said CIA) has been guarding Obama since May 3rd? I suspect you were not. Why then, well before he had clinched the Democrat nomination? Threats apparently made against him, and apparently most important - he was drawing large crowds.

As I see it, if the FBI/SS/DHS *failed* to respond it would be a dereliction of duty, be it Obama, Biden, McCain, Palin, Paul, or even Kucinich.

Besides, why would anyone want to hack your email you can't even read articles correctly, or demonstrate basic understanding of the issue(s).

And finally, yes we "lower echelons" are quite simply of lower importance on such otherwise legally "minor" crimes/offenses. Deal with it by taken genuine action, rather than whining.

Or become an important politician.

Get the facts

[pkinetics]

This was Palin's private email address, where she conducts personal activities. The fact that there are might be some work related stuff is not that big of a deal.

Note some of the "work related" stuff were personal comments, not work related, about the topic.

It is illegal for government representatives to use their work related email for anything not related to work. Most recently up here, state legislators were campaigning for others and their party, on work time and work emails. This is a clear violation of the State's Ethics.

So its not surprising that Sarah would have a personal account where she does personal things.

Re:Get the facts

[Hadlock]

So is it illegal to operate state business on a personal email account? I agree that there is some spillover and it's hard to avoid it completely. She does seem to do a good job with separating work and personal email (as others have pointed out), but if it is illegal to conduct state business outside of the review of the public, at what point does it become a worthwhile criminal investigation?

Re:Get the facts

[ryguy]

From everything I read, she did not conduct state business on her personal email. She conducted campaign business on her personal email. It would be illegal to conduct campaign business on her government email.

Re:Get the facts

[bledri]

She does seem to do a good job with separating work and personal email (as others have pointed out), but if it is illegal to conduct state business outside of the review of the public, at what point does it become a worthwhile criminal investigation?

I think that lack of transparency is exactly what allows the US politicians to mislead the public so effectively and has been a major contribution to the current state of affairs. Therefore I'm a fan of having investigations into these actions and prosecuting to the fullest extent so that our elected officials have an incentive to follow the spirit of the law.

The only hope we have of making "of the people, by the people, for the people" more than a cute quote is to hold the bastards (and bastardettes) accountable to the people.

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[sglewis100]

The name of the email accounts were gov.sarah and gov.palin. So, yes, these were used in her official capacity as the governor.

What? So if her personal vehicle had a license plate that said "govsarah" that's being used for official government business? I have an IM account with my company's name in it. I don't use it for company business, I use it so people can identify if I'm at work or not when they see me signed on.

Because Yahoo is not for gov business.

[drerwk]

Do you know that she seems to have been using the account for gov business? No matter what the kid said or saw there is more to it than you seem to know.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/17/palins_yahoo_account_hacked.html

Among the e-mails released as part of the records request in June were several from Frye asking a state official whether private e-mail accounts and messages sent to BlackBerry devices are immune to subpoena, then reporting the answer to the governor and her husband, Todd, who also uses a Yahoo! mail address.

Asking if Yahoo accounts are subject to subpoena and relaying the answer to the governor suggests to me that the accounts were not simple private email accounts.

Re:Because Yahoo is not for gov business.

[Shadowlore]

Asking if Yahoo accounts are subject to subpoena and relaying the answer to the governor suggests to me that the accounts were not simple private email accounts.

If that is what you want it to suggest, sure.

It could also suggest that they were trying to clarify if they were or not for other reasons. Change "personal email" to "personal phone" and how would that change things? People use their private email for a great many things, not all of which *should* be available to body, subpoena or not. Maybe she wanted to know if her personal email was subject to subpoena because she might be discussing, oh I don't know, personal matters there? Maybe she and her hubby could be discussing personal medical matters, family financial matters, or just what movies or products they did or did not like. Or perhaps her and here daughter might be discussing certain personal matters?

The question is valid for anyone going into that office, or any public office.

Should you r work be able to demand, and receive, your personal email records? I'm pretty sure most of /. would say "hell no". And for good reason.

An no, that someone *might* be doing something you don't like in personal email is not justification regardless of party. After all, they could do it over their personal phones and nothing would really change.

The main difference is that "it could be recorded" is true but has a qualifier: it would need a warrant of some sort. Email has a big advantage for the would-be Big Brother because you can go back and get copies prior to suspecting and investigating. That is something many should be considering, not just OK-ing it because they may or do disagree with the target in this case.

Yet more reasons you all would hate me as an elected official: my email will be encrypted and of course if I were doing anything possibly shady it would not even be in email. First rule of fight club and all.

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[jadavis]

As for the hacker, hopefully the Feds will give him a nice long stay in a real PMITA prison with a guy named Bubba.

Your post was great until you said this. People should be punished according to sentences under the law, not subjected to the arbitrary abuse of other prisoners.

Re:Public Records

[Keebler71]

Because she isn't supposed to be using her official government account to send family photos and discuss politics not related to her job as governor... which is apparently exactly what was in her non-official, personal email account. How dare she follow the law like that!

Slow News Day?

[Tyketto]

The Age in Melbourne Australia reported this two days ago. I love how slow the US News outlets are...

Re:Slow News Day?

[everphilski]

Yeah, slow news day, multiple conservative blogs fingered this kid late last week.

(Mainstream media is in the tank for Obama, that's the reason for the "slow reporting" ... but then again I'm a conservative so I must be biased)

pose it backwards

[unity100]

because obama doesnt use private email for government work, TO ESCAPE PUBLIC OVERSIGHT, it would be an invasion of privacy to hack his account. a total personal affair.

whaddya know, palin DOES use her personal account to dodge public oversight.

its not a personal matter to hack his account. its a public matter.

Re:pose it backwards

[zippthorne]

From the horse's mouth:

I read though the emails... ALL OF THEM... before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff , some clerical stuff from when she was governor.... And pictures of her family

(emph. mine)

Now, where's your evidence that Obama doesn't use his private email to avoid FOIA scrutiny?

Re:just tell me

[unity100]

it is NOT her yahoo account anymore. at the moment she used it for correspondence of government affairs, that account has become a public property.

it is not only permissible, but mandatory to make its contents accessible to public.

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[ravenshrike]

I think of Bubba as a fat white guy myself. Just because you've watched too much Forrest Gump does not mean you should project your own prejudices on others.

well

[unity100]

the records of the shit palin has been pulling in alaska are NOT lost, and she is still trying to escape justice.

innocent until proven guilty. even if obama was guilty of anything, you dont have anything but zits and tits to support your argument.

whereas proof of palin's power abuse and dodging of public oversight are right in front of your eyes.

well i would

[unity100]

if those republicans didnt mess up ENTIRE world in various ways in the last 8 years.

im not gonna even talk about the wars and unrest they stirred, or what did they try to do to internet. just the latest mega global crisis is enough.

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[Keebler71]

From the looks of the screenshots, it was used for personal and political communications.

This HAS to be done to avoid a charge of "misuse of state resources" - ie: doing "political activity" via public networks, which is illegal. Congressmen have gone to prison for doing just that.

Sorry but you are wrong. It might be wrong to do official business on a personal email account though. There is nothing wrong with doing political business with a personal email account. From the leaked emails that I have read, it looked like she was discussing campaign (non-state related) and encouraging a friend in the conduct of their congressional campaign (again, not state business). In fact, if she *were* to use her official account for such political campaign related activates.... that would be illegal! Unless she was conducting official state business with this email then she is in the right here...

FYI, she gained her reputation as a reformer early in her political career when she turned in the head of the republican party of Alaska for doing exactly what you seem to be saying she should be doing (he was using state time to do party business).

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[klenwell]

What I've seen here is that Palin properly followed the demarcation line between "official business" which is done via official state systems, and "private communications" which may NOT be done via state systems.

Then you've seen only what you've wanted to see. Palin thoughout her time in office has consistently blurred the official with the personal.

For starters, if she wished to keep the line clearly marked, she should have chosen an email handle other than gov.sarah.

Then there's this from the New York Times:

While Ms. Palin took office promising a more open government, her administration has battled to keep information secret. Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a "personal device" like a BlackBerry "would be confidential and not subject to subpoena."

Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account "when there was significant state business."

On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin's state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: "Frank, this is not the governor's personal account."

Mr. Bailey responded: "Whoops~!"

Whoops, indeed. I wouldn't consider this a distraction from the issues, especially given the Bush Administration's record. I find it among the scariest aspects of her prospective election.

The Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/us/politics/14palin.html?pagewanted=all

Re:just tell me

[unity100]

apparently you have not been reading slashdot, since you are unaware what those conservatives have been doing to anything regarding freedom, in the last 2 years. and leave aside personal freedoms, but technological freedoms and traditions.

its not forward thinking and liberal to allow fundamentalist propaganda to propagate itself. if it is, then you have to allow nazis to propagate their neonazi ideologies too, because not doing so, would be contrary to freedom of speech, and liberalism.

there are a point where conservatism becomes proto-fascism. american republicans are way past beyond that point.

Re:Answering a question is not hacking.

[pilsner.urquell]

No, it's cracking.

Re:Public Records

[Hungus]

What you imply and what the current public evidence suggests are not mutually exclusive, but yor implication is at best supposition on your part.

How about a cup of shut the fuck up for once?

[amn108]

Hackers could never shut their mouths properly. They do all kinds of variously clever stuff, but it all has to be "shared" with all and everybody, including people who don't give a shit.

To paraphrase here,
"The greatest hack the Devil ever pulled is convincing the Internet he don't exist."

You left facts behind a while ago

[SuperKendall]

I missed the part on slashdot where I have to register my political bias!

You don't, but you should ponder carefully that your bias is now distorting your view of facts to the degree that it's so obvious where your biases are.

In companies I've worked for I send personally email to some people as well, because I get to know them and some conversations are just more personal. That you cannot recognize this line exists informs us that you have reached the state of Total Subject Demonization, and cannot be reasoned with - or indeed, seem to see reason. And that is sad.

I would fully expect Obama to have a personal email account, and to have used it to send emails to people like Biden or Hillary. Yet I see nothing nefarious or wrong with that. Some conversations must be allowed to occur outside the channel so sometimes feelings can be vented and real things can be said.

Re:just tell me

[sglewis100]

I have to admit only glancing at the article and the accompanying screenshots, but it seems that many out there have read every word of the coverage and nobody finds any official business conducted through that account. By the way, two elected officials corresponding by email is still not automatically government business. "Hey Sarah, it's John - please tell your husband I can't watch his snowmobile race, I have to be at a town hall meeting that night, but thanks for the offer."

Furthermore, if there is disclosure to be made, I don't think that falls to some random guy who changes her password.

And even if there was government business going on, then there are two legal issues, hers, and the hackers. Vigilantism is best left for movies.

So you never send email to co-workers

[SuperKendall]

Do you know that she seems to have been using the account for gov business? No matter what the kid said or saw there is more to it than you seem to know.

I'm not sure how YOU know that given that the kid did not think so. Read the wired story, he said there was nothing there. Sending email to co-workers is not a crime. Have YOU never used a personal email account to send email to people you work with? Guess you're hiding something too!!

You obviously just have it in for her and she can do no right.

Re:So you never send email to co-workers

[RpiMatty]

But the person who said there is nothing there, is the same dumber than dumb /b/tard who posted with a nickname traceable to him...

Re:So you never send email to co-workers

[drerwk]

SuperKendell, there has been concern about her use of Yahoo long before the kid hacked the account. Note the FOIA request in the article I linked. And I don't know anything about the content of her Yahoo email. But why does she need to know if the account is safe from subpoena if she does not use it for gov business?
No, of course I do not use my personal email for work related messages. Nor do I use my work account for personal email. And I am just a little drone in the private sector, a governor is a public servant and should certainly know better.
Lastly, why on earth would you trust this kid to have done a complete check on her email - he is obviously not the brightest bulb in the room.

Re:So you never send email to co-workers

[SuperKendall]

SuperKendell, there has been concern about her use of Yahoo long before the kid hacked the account. Note the FOIA request in the article I linked. And I don't know anything about the content of her Yahoo email. But why does she need to know if the account is safe from subpoena if she does not use it for gov business?

Guilty until proven innocent. Truly the liberal way of life. You must be guilty if you ask about people being able to open up your private email, I mean it's not like anyone would not just welcome that with open arms.

Lastly, why on earth would you trust this kid to have done a complete check on her email - he is obviously not the brightest bulb in the room.

You guys sure do spread the memes quick now. He's too stupid to understand her email! Why should you trust him!

Except that he was smart enough to social engineer her account and was motivated enough that he was looking hard for something he could use against her. Your arguments crumple like the constitution you are trampling on by approving violation of her private email.

Re:So you never send email to co-workers

[Maxmin]

Nobody has to "have it in for her" if she is under suspicion of having broken the law. Don't you know? All suspects are entitled to equal treatment under the U.S. Constitution.

According to Time, Palin's Yahoo accounts were already being monitored by Federal investigators, researching the Troopergate case.

Palin's other Yahoo! account (gov.sarah@yahoo.com) had already been hacked, so to speak, by federal authorities who are investigating her role in the firing of Walt Monegan, Alaska's public safety commissioner. Critics charge that Palin fired Monegan for refusing to dismiss her former brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper. (The scandal has already earned a -gate suffix.) After Tuesday's hacks were made public, both private accounts were deleted -- an act that could technically constitute destruction of evidence.

The Alaska governor could also face charges for conducting official state business using her personal, unarchived e-mail account (a crime); some critics accuse her of skirting freedom-of-information laws in doing so. An Alaska Republican activist is trying to force Palin to release more than 1,100 e-mails she withheld from a public-records request, the Washington Post reported last week.

Given that she apparently conducted official business through the accounts, and that she subsequently deleted the accounts, it appears that she may well be in violation of multiple laws, in multiple jurisdictions. Destruction of evidence will be a particularly sticky charge for her attorneys to deal with. And of course, that particular crime is a felony, so the penalty could land her a prison term longer than her potential four-year term as VP.

Sounds like there is enough evidence made public already (and who knows what the Feds drummed up while watching her), that she can be investigated for multiple violations of the law. If found to have broken the law, she should be indicted and prosecuted, and pay the price for having broken the law.

Nobody is above the law, least of all a member of the "party of the rule of law."

And given that she is running for a top federal office, you'd want her to step forward and clear her name, wouldn't you? Make plain that she's a law-abiding citizen, worthy of your vote, certified free of legal problems, so she can hold office? Or at least continue to hold the one she's got now?

In some certain ways, she's the perfect successor to Cheney. The secrecy thing, pursuing political vendettas, disregard for the law, that type of stuff.

Re:So you never send email to co-workers

[Maxmin]

Nice red herring you're spreading there, SuperPalinFanBoy!

Were you unaware that "presumed innocent until proven guilty" simply means that she cannot be thrown into prison or otherwise penalized for alleged crimes without a trial? However, it does mean that we can refer to Republican Vice Presidential Nominee Sarah Palin with terms like suspect, under investigation, alleged criminal, and the unindicted governor -- until such time that she's been indicted, prosecuted and sat for trial.

Then perhaps we'll refer to her using terms such as felon, criminal, the former governor, the convicted former governor, the governor who resigned to start her jail sentence, or maybe the disgraced former governor, or maybe just jail bird (my personal favorite.)

But for the circumstance that the attorneys general for the jurisdictions under which she has been alleged to have broken the law are all Republicans, I'd have rated this a likely indictment.

Time will tell whether the "party of the rule of law" will follow through on their commitment to uphold the law.

You might say...

[DirtySouthAfrican]

Anon delivered.

You don't know that

[Snaller]

"She wasn't using the account for gov business, at least not based on what was posted on wikileaks, or according to the purported "Hacker". It was personal e-mail, in some cases about how she and others were being treated personally in the political arena, but not anything related to official government business."

You don't know that. It could have been deleted. The claim is that she used yahoo to not keep a trail, so why keep a trail. You delete them.

"As Officer Bar Brady says "Nothin to see here, move along now"."

Yeah, turn the back while we rape nature, kill the wildlife and pollute the oceans.

Re:You don't know that

[NotBornYesterday]

"She wasn't using the account for gov business, at least not based on what was posted on wikileaks, or according to the purported "Hacker". It was personal e-mail, in some cases about how she and others were being treated personally in the political arena, but not anything related to official government business."

You don't know that. It could have been deleted.

Did you just use imaginary evidence to try to convict someone in the court of popular opinion?

I think your tinfoil hat is on too tight.

Re:You don't know that

[c6gunner]

You don't know that. It could have been deleted.

So you're actually arguing that no government official should even be allowed to HAVE a personal e-mail account?

What about phones? Shall we take those away from them too? After all, they might use their personal cell-phone to conduct government business. Better have them all carry only government-approved phones, monitored 24/7 by the NSA.

Oh, and while we're at it, what about face-to-face conversations? We can't archive those! We'll have to wire every politician with a helmet-cam and microphone, and then archive the feed and make them available under the FOI act.

Or better yet, make them into a reality show! We could make millions! FOX executives, if you're reading this, have your people call my people, we'll do lunch.

Re:You don't know that

[digitalchinky]

This entire slashdot story is about a guy who accessed a yahoo account that he did not create. Big deal. This happens how many thousand times each day because people are stupid? What makes this case any different to some random spouse gaining access to a husbands account without permission? Or some idiot at work, or a friend, or someone who you borrowed a laptop from, or the idiot on the backend of the wifi box in starbucks, or your ISP, or the NSA, or whoever.

Anything more than a minor slap on the wrist would be too much punishment for the kid, this is something that routinely goes entirely unpunished. Even when the guilty parties are known.

Re:You don't know that

[Snaller]

"Did you just use imaginary evidence to try to convict someone in the court of popular opinion? "

No, I corrected a fallacious unproven postulate.

"I think your tinfoil hat is on too tight."

And I think you are way to young to have internet access.

Re:You don't know that

[Snaller]

"So you're actually arguing that no government official should even be allowed to HAVE a personal e-mail account?"

Wow, logic isn't your strong side.

you wouldnt make a good judge or lawmaker

[unity100]

its irrelevant whether they just said 'hi' to each other, one using private email, other using govt. email.

its still a violation of the laws. you CANT use your private email to correspond with someone through govt. email. thats as simple as that.

vigilantism is unfortunately a necessity of our times, because we are living in times in which people are being stripped of all their modern constitutional rights by many governments around the world. there are noone but you, the people, to protect your interests. not even senators or representatives.

Re:you wouldnt make a good judge or lawmaker

[sglewis100]

its irrelevant whether they just said 'hi' to each other, one using private email, other using govt. email. its still a violation of the laws. you CANT use your private email to correspond with someone through govt. email. thats as simple as that.

It's actually not irrelevant whether they said hi to each other. I actually used to say hi via email to my father using his .gov email address as the "To" all the time. Like every other branch, his branch of the government had very specific guidelines for personal use of the account, and the computer in general. He did personal banking from time to time I believe on his office computer, during lunch time, when it and many other web sites were permitted. Others (porn) were always forbidden. You actually can as a government official both maintain a private email address AND send non-official business to a government address.

I have read a few references in some of the coverage to there being a second account (not hacked) that has allegedly been used for government business, but unfortunately for the hacker that claim is still apparently unsubstantiated, and also he didn't hack THAT account. I guess he was more interested in posting family photos from her Yahoo address.

vigilantism is unfortunately a necessity of our times, because we are living in times in which people are being stripped of all their modern constitutional rights by many governments around the world. there are noone but you, the people, to protect your interests. not even senators or representatives.

Right. Because we are being stripped of our rights, the solution is to invade personal email accounts. Do me a favor, don't hack my account and I promise not to tread on you man!

Re:you wouldnt make a good judge or lawmaker

[unity100]

It's actually not irrelevant whether they said hi to each other. I actually used to say hi via email to my father using his .gov email address as the "To" all the time. Like every other branch, his branch of the government had very specific guidelines for personal use of the account, and the computer in general. He did personal banking from time to time I believe on his office computer, during lunch time, when it and many other web sites were permitted. Others (porn) were always forbidden. You actually can as a government official both maintain a private email address AND send non-official business to a government address. I have read a few references in some of the coverage to there being a second account (not hacked) that has allegedly been used for government business, but unfortunately for the hacker that claim is still apparently unsubstantiated, and also he didn't hack THAT account. I guess he was more interested in posting family photos from her Yahoo address.

its irrelevant. if some law says you cant take a govt. car out of business hours, you cant. its regardless whether you use it for personal business or not, if you do.

same goes for the email - you cant use a personal email to correspond with .gov addresses in any fashion, IF you are a government employee. thats simple as that.

Right. Because we are being stripped of our rights, the solution is to invade personal email accounts. Do me a favor, don't hack my account and I promise not to tread on you man!

precisely. what do you think it would be like ?

what you propose is like saying 'but we are people too, we also have rights' to french aristocracy in 1780, who had the power on grounds that their privileges and rule were from divine origins, and it was reflected in the laws passed in last 3 centuries.

Re:you wouldnt make a good judge or lawmaker

[sglewis100]

its irrelevant. if some law says you cant take a govt. car out of business hours, you cant. its regardless whether you use it for personal business or not, if you do. same goes for the email - you cant use a personal email to correspond with .gov addresses in any fashion, IF you are a government employee. thats simple as that.

But does it in Alaska? Has anyone confirmed that no, you can't ever email an Alaskan government official and have a personal conversation to his or her official email address? This would be different than most branches of the government I know of. As I already stated, my father worked for a federal branch, and explicitly was allowed (in some instances) to do just that - use it for personal emails during break/down times. This policy applied to elected and non-elected personnel within his branch.

And no, I don't support vigilante hacking of Yahoo email accounts. That surprises you? Or did you think everybody was all for it?

Re:you wouldnt make a good judge or lawmaker

[unity100]

its a federal law. valid everywhere. its freedom of information act.

And no, I don't support vigilante hacking of Yahoo email accounts. That surprises you? Or did you think everybody was all for it?

it doesnt surprise me. it saddens me. its like a heroic behaviour lending the rights of people who seek to deprive you of your rights. naivety at best.

Re:you wouldnt make a good judge or lawmaker

[sglewis100]

You keep confusing the two issues. The law about conducting federal business is not the same as a government official being allowed to have personal email addresses and/or occasionally use a government computer and account for personal use when following procedures.

And neither are related to the Freedom of Information Act which you are correct in it's universiality. That said you can't just walk in and take anything you want from anywhere you want. There are actual (non hacking) procedures.

And before I sign off this thread, where again are those incriminating emails that WikiLeaks didn't post? Be nice if the heroic act of vigilantiasm paid off with more than personal pictures posted for ... for ... umm ... Yeah, I still don't know how that helped preserve my freedom. I mean skip the official acts of office and post the baby picture. Good thing he's around.

Re:Public Records

[BlueStrat]

Why is Sarah Palin using a private account when she is Governor?

Because there are laws in place that say what you can and cannot do with government services and equipment. What you do not seem to get is she was abiding by these laws. Thats why she has 2 (or more) email accounts. The hacker ought to be prosecuted, he even said he did it with malicious intent

I really wanted to get something incriminating which I was sure there would be

but guess what? he found squat and diddly.

I read though the emails... ALL OF THEM... before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor.... And pictures of her family

I'm sure I'll get modded down to non-existence for this reply, but I've got tons of karma to burn.

Burn, baby, burn!

You know that the fact that no state business was being conducted through those email accounts means diddly and squat to the haters. They'll just say "well she has other accounts we don't know about, or she deleted them" and despite all the evidence to the contrary, maintain that somehow she's a criminal because she doesn't bow to the lefts' agenda.

Truth doesn't matter to the haters on the left, only their rabid hate and their wish to silence and destroy anyone who dares disagree with them. Laws, rights, and freedoms should only protect *their* guys, because *they're* the "good guys". She's a conservative Republican, which to the haters on the left makes her not-human, so she doesn't get to have rights or enjoy the protections of law and due process. Since she's a conservative Republican, any methods used to injure or destroy the woman and anyone close to her, including handicapped children, are perfectly fine and justified tactics to the haters.

The level of hypocrisy, douche-baggery, outright denial of reality, and visceral hatred by many on the left is beyond the pale. They even hacked Bill O'Reilleys' website and grabbed user registration information and email addresses because he dared have an opinion they don't like about the obtaining and subsequent publishing of the Palin personal emails.

Maybe Obamas' and/or Bidens' personal email accounts should be hacked, if hacking Palins' personal account is ok. I wonder if the haters would be fine with *their* guys' personal emails being published? I'd be willing to lay strong odds that there would be a lot more red meat there than anything found in Palins' emails.

Cheers!

Strat

Quote of the day.

[SanityInAnarchy]

good job /b/, this is why we cant have nice things.

That statement, verbatim, applies to so many things in life...

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[calmofthestorm]

Oh so you support child porn? The kid's not of age...

Re:Public Records

[Snaller]

"but guess what? he found squat and diddly. "

Are you saying Palin is too stupid to figure out how to delete mail?

Seems != Guilty Even for a Republican

[WED Fan]

Do you know that she seems to have been using the account for gov business?

(Emphasis added is mine.)

So now, "seems" is enough to rate a finding of guilty in your book? It's funny, I've seen many a political discussion on /. and when the person in question is a liberal/Democrat, then "seems" means we should either find the person innocent in the court of public opinion, or at least reserve judgement until a court renders theirs, and then maybe even say the person was railroaded. However, when the person in question is a conservative/Republican, then "seems" is the equivilent of caught-red-handed-flail-them-lock-them-up-throw-away-the-key.

It seems to me that many who are afraid the "other side" will destroy the Constitution are all too ready to destroy it when its someone they disagree with who will be the victim.

Not a very open-minded, nor enlightened approach.

Please have the courtesy of reserving judgement until such a time all the facts are in.

Re:Seems != Guilty Even for a Republican

[drerwk]

I am not saying I know that she is guilty of anything, I am mostly saying that taking the word of the leet hakor that there was nothing in the email pertaining to government business is naive. And I am saying that government busness should not be done via private email; if she did in fact do so.

Re:Seems != Guilty Even for a Republican

[Rob the Bold]

Please have the courtesy of reserving judgement (sic) until such a time all the facts are in

Request denied. Slashdot is not a court of law, and judgments and opinions expressed by its membership are not binding on anyone. As such they may be made and expressed with too few, just the right amount, or too many facts.

Re:Seems != Guilty Even for a Republican

[oddfox]

Please have the courtesy of reserving judgement until such a time all the facts are in.

You mean the facts from the investigation the McCain/Palin camp has been trying to stall ever since she got put on the ticket? Now she simply is doing what her current mentors do when they get subpoenaed: Act like they're above the law and ignore it. I'm all for working with the facts, but so far the only facts we have to work on is that the communication we have heard about using private email accounts is that they want to make sure those communications on those accounts are sealed from the public. You do not use your personal email address for official government business and correspondence, period. That's why she and McCain are so afraid of getting nailed before the election is done.

Re:Seems != Guilty Even for a Republican

[jonaskoelker]

We found a witch! May we burn her?

Assclown, anyone?

[Toll_Free]

This kid is an assclown, and deserves to have the book thrown at him.

POS's like him are the reason you now get sued for breaching someone's network, rather than given a job.

Hopefully He's already seen Office Space, so FPMITAP (Federal Pound Me In The Arse Prison) won't be so foreign to him (In reality, He'll be stuck in Lompoc Federal Criminal Training Center... Err Correctional Facility).

Seriously, the act, dessiminating the information and just being a straight assclown for the fame of it makes him deserving of a technical Darwin award. And thanks for taking the legitimacy out of security work, idiot.

--Toll_Free

Re:Answering a question is not hacking.

[Toll_Free]

It's actually more social engineering than anything else.

--Toll_Free

Nail Him To The Wall

[jesdynf]

I believe this man, who has illegally spied on a member of the government, should face the full and certain penalty that those who illegal spy at the /behest/ of the government should face.

No penalty for this unconscionable breach of privacy is too harsh or severe, no fine too large, no jail term too great. He should face them---

Oh? Really? I guess that does change things, doesn't it.

Re:Nail Him To The Wall

[Zorque]

Except that those Government emails are supposed to be releasable upon demand to the public, whether by a court order or other means. If there actually were any sensitive documents in there, well, that's why you don't use Yahoo mail for your government business.

Re:Nail Him To The Wall

[jesdynf]

Well, yes, of course that's true. I was really trying to make a reference to the immunity for illegal wiretapping Congress passed.

Re:Nail Him To The Wall

[zobier]

*Votes for retroactive immunity for David Kernell*

Re:just tell me

[BlueStrat]

its not forward thinking and liberal to allow fundamentalist propaganda to propagate itself. if it is, then you have to allow nazis to propagate their neonazi ideologies too, because not doing so, would be contrary to freedom of speech, and liberalism.

Apparently you've missed the marches held by the American Nazi Party, all legal and everything.

Nice Godwin-ing of the thread, though.

Cheers!

Strat

Actually No

[SuperKendall]

Though there seem to be some people that agree with your distortion the ACTUAL GUY WHO READ THE EMAILS said there was nothing incriminating. And your opinion seems to rest on this sentence from your article:

"And, he said later, she appropriately uses her personal Yahoo account for political activities."

When read carefully that means the email is being used appropriately, which means state business that is public is not discussed there.

Re:Actually No

[Rob the Bold]

. . . the ACTUAL GUY WHO READ THE EMAILS said there was nothing incriminating.

And if you can't trust the legal opinion of the guy who cracked her account, who can you trust?

Re:Actually No

[Stalyn]

Heh.

In response to similar but separate public records requests, McLeod and Henning this summer received four banker boxes of e-mail and telephone records for two Palin aides: Frank Bailey and Ivy Frye. Henning was operating on behalf of the Valley group Last Frontier Foundation, which lists property rights and public records as among its core issues on its Web site.

...
As far as McLeod can tell, all but one of the e-mails to the governor used her private e-mail address. The one time an aide e-mailed the governor's state account, he was reminded not to.

"Frank, This is not the Governor's personal e-mail account," an assistant to Palin wrote to Bailey in February.

"Whoops~!" Bailey responded in an e-mail.

The state withheld about 1,100 e-mails, citing exemptions for deliberative process, executive privilege, attorney/client privilege, privacy and personnel. If McLeod's appeal fails, Henning said he's going to take the matter to court.

Re:Actually No

[SuperKendall]

And if you can't trust the legal opinion of the guy who cracked her account, who can you trust?

Well being a pragmatic person I'd have to say we can probably trust someone who had access to the entire set of emails and a motivation to find something bad, far more than we can trust some obviously partisan troll on Slashdot claiming that Palin has abused personal email with no proof.

Again, he has read her emails - you have not. Not nice to call him an idiot by the way, I don't think he's an idiot - just unethical. Just like you yourself are quite clever, though breathtaking hypocrtical.

Re:Actually No

[Rob the Bold]

Not nice to call him an idiot by the way, I don't think he's an idiot - just unethical.

WTF?

Re:just tell me

[unity100]

aaaaah.

no i didnt. i see the nazi party in action everyday on cnn. if you are still not aware, their general secretary sits in white house.

he has executive powers to snatch anyone from the streets, without asking, or telling anyone, on any grounds, and holding them for undefined durations for example.

examples are endless. this is just one.

dont keep the illusion that you are living in a modern democratic country.

Re:just tell me

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

but it seems that many out there have read every word of the coverage and nobody finds any official business conducted through that account.

Here - glance at this

Furthermore, if there is disclosure to be made, I don't think that falls to some random guy who changes her password.
Vigilantism is best left for movies.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

What BS

[DragonFire1024]

This is nothing more than crap. No one has found this "hacker" and no one knows where he is. The article linked in this post tells of ways they are trying to find him/her/them but there is NOTHING that says he was found. In fact the only news sources saying he was, is the website in this post, and slashdot. I can see FOX News not doing simple research on this, but /.? Fact is I know for a 100% fact that 1) no one knows who the hacker(s) are 2) no one knows where they are. 3) I can say for a fact that anyone involved with this is safe and sound.

I don't care that he's a student

[patio11]

Assuming what I've read is accurate:

* He admits his objective was to gain material to use to sabotage Palin's bid for VP
* He hacked into the email account of the freaking governor of Alaska to do so
* He knew that, unsurprisingly, this is both illegal and a real bad idea

You're a college student? Lovely. I'm sure they'll let you take correspondance courses from prison. You can complain to the guy in the cell next to you, who was a high school student when they busted him for posession with intent to sell. Boo hoo, you're comfortably middle class and should have your felony excused -- tell it to the dealer, he'll have plenty of time to listen to you.

Re:I don't care that he's a student

[zippthorne]

Ok, I'm already feeling a little too liberal for today, but.. why should a high school student get sent to PMITA prison because of possession of a little controlled substance?

For adults, that have full faculties (or ought to) I can understand, and a college student is certainly old enough to be such an adult (but the way colleges are setup, unlikely to actually have started displaying the responsible behavior one would expect.

But we really ought to be careful how much "book throwing" we do to minors. Prison, in most cases, is probably not the desirable action. Transportation is.

But frankly, I think it is Palin's choice of whether or not to pursue any action, and I hope she is more magnanimous than most people would be. At least then, the Democrats won't have any way to make hay over it.

Found? Not at all.

[DragonFire1024]

This is nothing more than crap. No one has found this "hacker" and no one knows where he is. The article linked in this post tells of ways they are trying to find him/her/them but there is NOTHING that says he was found. In fact the only news sources saying he was, is the website in this post, and slashdot. I can see FOX News not doing simple research on this, but /.? Fact is I know for a 100% fact that 1) no one knows who the hacker(s) are 2) no one knows where they are. 3) I can say for a fact that anyone involved with this is safe and sound.

Re:just tell me

[BlueStrat]

aaaaah.

no i didnt. i see the nazi party in action everyday on cnn. if you are still not aware, their general secretary sits in white house.

he has executive powers to snatch anyone from the streets, without asking, or telling anyone, on any grounds, and holding them for undefined durations for example.

examples are endless. this is just one.

If you seriously equate Bush/Republicans with nazis, then you're simply too far gone into moonbat territory to even reason with. I wouldn't be surprised if you're a "truther" too.

See kids, this is what happens when you let blind, unreasoning hatred drive your life and world view.

dont keep the illusion that you are living in a modern democratic country.

Oh I don't, since we haven't lived in a democratic country in the USA since the its' founding as a democratic *republic*.

Cheers!

Strat

How soon we forget

[Media_Scumbag]

As others previously posted, there is much more at stake here:
1. She has little understanding of the principles of security protocol and best practices by making it so easy to get into the Yahoo account.
2. It appears she is not using the account for official business beyond providing a cc: for emails that are official, so that she may check them remotely.
3. How does anyone really know what she's using the Yahoo account for, if she's been deleting mail that could cause her trouble, knowing that there had already been attention focused on her for this?
4. This has to stop. When government ceases to operate with accountability, it is no longer being run with the consent of the governed.

Re:How soon we forget

[gujo-odori]

Uh, how, exactly, did she "make it so easy to get into the Yahoo account?" I don't know if you have a Yahoo account or not, but if you do, then you know perfectly well that the account holder doesn't choose the password reset questions, Yahoo does. That's probably an inconvenient truth, because it blows your entire premise, but truth it is.

I'd bet it's also pretty likely that she's had this Yahoo account since before she was a governor, or even a mayor. In other words, at the time it was set up, the security level was probably good enough, as it is for the Yahoo account I have.

There is, however, a pretty good security case against Yahoo here, who IMO is guilty of the things of which you accuse Palin. It goes like this:

1) They don't let you make up your own security questions. Bad.

2) The ones they choose for you aren't so hard to break if anybody knows the real name associated with the account and there's much info about you online.

3) The let you reset the password right there online instead of sending a randomly generated new password to the external account associated with the Yahoo account, or sending a password link to the external account. WTF? That's a security failure so basic they should be deeply ashamed of themselves. This is the really huge security failure, the one that let him break into her account. If they'd just sent a new password to her "real" email address, he never could have compromised her account so easily. He would have had to at least try phishing her and/or compromising her external email address.

Of course, if he'd done that, he'd be in even bigger trouble. I hope they make an example of him. Not because he broke into a politician's account, but because he broke into anyone's. I'd want him keel-hauled, hanged, drawn, and quartered if he broke into mine. A shame we don't so that sort of thing anymore.

Re:How soon we forget

[burning-toast]

The problem is not that she made the yahoo account easily accessible, it's that there were e-mails in the account which look suspiciously like they should have never existed there in the first place.

Do you really store e-mail so valuable in a yahoo account which would make you that upset if someone broke into it? Really? Do you mail (postal) letters to people with a pile of cash inside when you pay your bills? That would be about as foolish.

The principle of the matter isn't that a yahoo account was breached, it's that there was a politician keeping government messages inside.

If he "broke in" and ONLY found e-mail with baby pictures, some family reunion stuff, her asking someone to lunch, etc. do you think this would have made a story at all?

Re:How soon we forget

[gujo-odori]

Do I? No. Do most people? Probably.

But, most people store emails like that in non-webmail accounts, too. If they're doing so on a Windows machine, the security of that is probably not >= to the security of doing so on a Yahoo or Gmail account. Most people also have so little clue about security that they may or may even be running AV software, and many of those who do so don't keep it up to date.

As for it being a story, yes, it would have been a story no matter what he found, because he bragged about it. Any time someone does something like that to someone running for high office, it's going to be a story. If someone threatened a candidate with a squirt gun, it would still make the news.

Re:How soon we forget

[Media_Scumbag]

It doesn't matter if you get to choose the question, because you get to choose the answers; You have control of that part, therefore it can be secure as you want. Ever think of answering those questions w/o using autobiographical data?

Re:just tell me

[BlueStrat]

since the its' founding

Darn! I even previewed that too. /:|

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[xenotoxin]

In the US "Bubba" is a normative designation usually for poor, white, southern "cracka" jailbird types. So go try to play your phony "uber-left" emo-punk race card elsewhere.

Stupid Socialist

Re:just tell me

[sglewis100]

Here - glance at this

I did glance at the original WikiLeaks article. Of the posted screenshots, the closest one to politics seems to be an email in regards to someone's recent campaign? I believe those explicitly should be done via private email, and not a .gov address, no?
Then I saw there was a ZIP file, and thought "wow, maybe I'm wrong, maybe she did it, and there's tons of evidence". So I just now downloaded it (open mind and what have you). I saw:

• Two family pictures.
• A bunch of subject lines whose actual message contents were inexplicably not provided.
• The same five Yahoo screenshots with absolutely no damning evidence.

The real question I still have is - where's the beef?! He had access to every email, and rather than post something clearly indicating official government business he posts some family snapshots, an email about a political campaign, and her address book? Oh and a bunch of subject line, including one that was apparently a "draft" letter to the Governator, which might be related to campaign issues and sure, might be official government business. There's no way to know, since nobody bothered to post the actual email. Wikileaks rarely holds back - if they have more email, and it's evidence against her - where is it?

Look, if he broke the law, prosecute him. If she did the same, do the same to her. But contrary to your claims otherwise, there is no restriction on having a Yahoo email account if you are an elected official (by the way if I was elected Governor, I'd probably add another alias to my account and add Governor, hell, I'd be bragging all over town). There's also no restriction on sending an email from a personal account to a government account. As I've already stated, I used to do it all the time. Only reason I stopped, is the government official I knew retired.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

That's rhetorical, right? Clearly, gangs of Internet hackers is an excellent choice.

Privileged

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone said on the wired blog, if she is not a terrorist what does she have to hide? She is a law abiding government official. This was her personal account. It must therefor not contain any official emails either. Hence, all these must be personal emails and and again since she is not a terrorist she has nothing to hide. But wait ... the Republicans felt that the "pig comment" was directed at her. Now I understand: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others".

& that's one reason why

[toby]

on my proxy servers, I don't keep logs. :P

Re:Public Records

[smoker2]

....some clerical stuff from when she was governor....
ORLY ?

Re:just tell me

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

IOh and a bunch of subject line, including one that was apparently a "draft" letter to the Governator, which might be related to campaign issues and sure, might be official government business.

Are you kidding me? You are being willfully ignorant here. There are well over 15 subject lines from people in her administration that even the most dedicated palin supporters would be hard-pressed to justify as being personal and you just wave it all away.

As for why wikileaks doesn't have the text of the messages? Seems like the cracker was just a dumb kid who apparently didn't realize the magnitude of the information he had stumbled upon.

But contrary to your claims otherwise, there is no restriction on having a Yahoo email account if you are an elected official

WTF? DO NOT PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH. My 'claims' -- my ass.

There's also no restriction on sending an email from a personal account to a government account. As I've already stated, I used to do it all the time. Only reason I stopped, is the government official I knew retired.

What a ridiculous red herring. Are you the governor's chief of staff? Are you the state attorney general? Are you the Governor's press secretary? Director of communications? No, you were not even a part of the government when you 'did it all the time.' That you would even cite your personal example of the actions of a regular citizen as some sort of defense for what Palin and her political appointees were doing shows that you are either completely ignorant of the facts, or a total political tribalist.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

That's rhetorical, right? Clearly, gangs of Internet hackers is an excellent choice.

Damn straight it is rhetorical. You just don't understand the definition of a rhetorical question.

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[S-100]

Bubba can be black or white. In the 70's, there was Bubba Smith, a big-ass black NFL hall-of-famer. Bill Clinton's nickname (at least a nickname that's said to his face) is Bubba. Jimmy Buffet's nickname is also Bubba. And then there's Bubba from Forrest Gump...

But where is your indignation about Sandra Bernhart's recent statement threatening her with being "gang raped by my big black brothers". But for the hypocritical haters on the left, the stereotyping and threats of rape and violence are mere entertainment.

Eh, nothing to worry about.

[EvilStein]

The FBI or NSA probably has them all neatly archived somewhere for her anyway. :)

Get your talking points straight.

[Grendel Drago]

... everyone holding up Obama the Messiah ...

Get your talking point right; he's "Obamessiah". Sheesh. Can't these people at least afford high-quality dittoheads?

Even easier

[Quiet_Desperation]

1. Don't post a message anywhere describing what you did

Re:Public Records

[spicate]

but guess what? he found squat and diddly.

The kid was too stupid to keep from getting caught; why should we take his word for it?

Re:Public Records

[LackThereof]

some clerical stuff from when she was governor.

That right there is government business. That should not be on a personal account, able to be erased forever on her whims, rather than stored securely on a government machine in compliance with FOIA.

You don't have to lower the bar....

[raehl]

We lowered the bar 8 years ago. She is, frankly, almost as qualified to be President as the current President. About the only differences are that she's governor of a smaller state (but it's closer to Russia), while Bush co-owned a sports team Palin just talked about sports teams, Palin is even MORE of a religious conservative than Bush, and Bush's parents had the political clout to get him through Yale instead of community college.

Of course, we haven't exactly been doing well with the current President....

That should be the message. "Sarah Palin: Even less qualified than George Bush."

Re:You don't have to lower the bar....

[Canislupus01]

Barry, Don't you have a community to organize somewhere?

Go for the felony to the max

[Quila]

If the government treats this for what it really is, which was a kid who was curious to see if he could do this

That's wrong. The guy already said he did it in hopes of digging up useful dirt on Palin, the obvious only reason to do that being to influence an election, or maybe get in good with his dad who's a Democrat legislator and Obama supporter. They need to dig, dig, dig, threaten him with the max felony to see if he was put up to this by anyone.

Hi there, wrong way

[SuperKendall]

Did you miss the part where those were emails FROM OTHER PEOPLE to the governor? The issue at question is her sending government emails using the private account. I get a lot of email myself I never respond to.

Furthermore, since those emails were obtained just fine there seems to be no need to open up the private email account.

You do seem to be awfully confused about what belongs where, it's like you've never worked for a company yourself.

Re:Public Records

[nahdude812]

You're right, by his own admission he didn't find anything obviously incriminating; but once this all got started, it seems likely if there ever was anything; she'd have deleted such incriminating emails well before there was any formal request for their contents.

I think only Yahoo! has the capacity to say for sure whether or not she illegally used personal accounts for non-governmental business. I would have been extremely surprised if any such emails still existed when the formal inquiries began.

Re:just tell me

[pilsner.urquell]

That's not fair. American conservatism has a proud tradition of carefully defining itself and its deeply held ideological beliefs by whatever will piss off the other side. If the left would stop being enamored of free speech and freedom then the conservatives could snatch these concepts to back up their rhetoric about them and score some extra RP votes.

That is because that is all the other side knows is anger. Yes, we do piss them off but only because that is all that is left over there. They are mad and they strike out at anything. One does not have to go out of the way to raise that anger, it is just there. In fact it is hard to get away from!

Oh BTW, it isn't fair because life isn't fair. Didn't you learn that early in your adulthood?

What are you talking about?

[apparently]

The "Secret Question" system is completely worthless, and doesn't require any sort of "hack" to defeat; what does this have to do with whether it was Palin?

Above the Law

[DesScorp]

"I have yet to see anyone ask Cheney or Palin if they feel they are above the law. Their actions seem to indicate they do. "

But... using a third party email service isn't against the law. If you don't like it, then push for a law that mandates all official communications go through official email channels.

This is like saying someone cheated on their taxes if they put their money into a legal tax haven. If you don't like it, make the tax havens illegal.

Obama is next to go to jail

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy was hired by Obama to do this. Obama will soon be following this guy to prison. Obama is a criminal and encourages criminal activity

Using Yahoo

[DesScorp]

"And by violating the air-heads yahoo account, it was shown that Palin has -- just like the current republicans in the White House -- used a non-governmental email account to hide how she uses the powers given her by her office."

Uhh, if you don't think Democrats do this too, you're either naive or foolish or both. And it isn't illegal to use third party email for official communications.

Sexist questions

[DesScorp]

"Are we suddenly supposed to stop asking questions about whether this woman is experienced enough or capable enough to assume the leadership of the United States of America? We are, after all, engaged in two major wars."

If that was all that was being asked, you'd be right, but when the press indicates you're a horrible mother by running for high office, they've crossed the line. No one asked Joe Biden if he was a bad father when he took office 30 years ago, a widower with two boys that depended on him.

Ask Palin all of the pertinent questions you want, but be honest, much of the crap being slung at her isn't about questions of fitness for office or policy, but tabloid crap like "so, did your daughter really give birth to Trig the retardo boy?".

Re:Sexist questions

[cat_jesus]

No one asked Joe Biden if he was a bad father when he took office 30 years ago, a widower with two boys that depended on him.

No one had to. He decided not to take his position because of his boys but he was talked into it by the democratic leadership. They even swore him in in his sons' hospital room because he wouldn't leave their side.

Of course you're also assuming two boys is equivalent to 4 kids plus one retarded kid and that the vice presidency is equivalent to a senate position.
Biden didn't uproot his kids in order to be a Senator. He took the train home every night to be with them.

Ask Palin all of the pertinent questions you want, but be honest, much of the crap being slung at her isn't about questions of fitness for office or policy, but tabloid crap like "so, did your daughter really give birth to Trig the retardo boy?".

OK, I'll bite. Who asked that question of her? In fact when has she answered any questions other than one super soft interview by Sean Hannity and another very controlled interview by Charlie Rose? I've yet to see her on any Sunday morning political show, yet everyone else seems to make them.

On a different note, I notice that even though her claim to have stopped the bridge to nowhere has been thoroughly debunked, it does not deter the McCain campaign from retelling that lie over and over.

Re:Sexist questions

[DesScorp]

"OK, I'll bite. Who asked that question of her?"

Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, an old, established, and prestigious news and politics magazine, still insists that the onus is on Palin to prove that Trig is really hers.

"On a different note, I notice that even though her claim to have stopped the bridge to nowhere has been thoroughly debunked,"

Uhhh, that's because it hasn't been.

It's wrong no matter whose email.

[suck_burners_rice]

Unfortunately, it seems that everyone is a hypocrite nowadays. Some kid breaks into Palin's email and it's treated like no big deal. From TFA, he's just a curious kid, he'll probably get away with it, worst case, zero to six months in jail. But God forbid if he had broken into, oh I don't know, Obama's email, the whole world would demand for that kid to fry in the electric chair. We're not talking about the subtle legal nuance of whether an email that was unread or read is considered a stored communication under some obscure law or another. We're talking about a person's personal information being stolen without their consent and widely distributed on the Internet. I don't give a damn if it's Palin's email, Obama's email, or your grandma's email. It's wrong.

Re:just tell me

[sglewis100]

What a ridiculous red herring. Are you the governor's chief of staff? Are you the state attorney general? Are you the Governor's press secretary? Director of communications? No, you were not even a part of the government when you 'did it all the time.' That you would even cite your personal example of the actions of a regular citizen as some sort of defense for what Palin and her political appointees were doing shows that you are either completely ignorant of the facts, or a total political tribalist.

Actually the point wasn't that I sent the email, it was that the person is question was subject to those rules, and in fact was a person who would have to take disciplinary action against others he managed should they violate those rules, and that he clearly was given an outline of when it was allowed and when it was not. I don't think the Governor's Chief of Staff sets those rules, by the way, and I certainly doubt the press secretary does either. Director of Communications? Yeah, no.

As for why wikileaks doesn't have the text of the messages? Seems like the cracker was just a dumb kid who apparently didn't realize the magnitude of the information he had stumbled upon.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? By Wikipedia's definition, it's the question of who watches the watchers (and other definitions). I thought this guy was a vigilante hero. Now he's just some dumb kid. By the way, I don't think it was "information he had stumbled upon". I stumped upon a twenty dollar bill once in the street. I didn't trick the teller into giving it to me from someone else's account.

Again, if he's some vigilante hell bent on justice, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. Complain all you like, but I doubt you'll change my opinion. If he's just some idiot cracker as you suggest, then it's definitely something that should be prosecuted. He then wouldn't even have the "it was in the name of justice" crap to go on.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

whereas...

[speedtux]

Our common law actually has a lot in common with Shari'a in terms of how it works.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at. Historically, British and US law have worked well in ensuring liberty and progress for their people.

I don't think one can establish that one system is "better" than the other by example, but since you do give examples, keep this in mind: Napoleonic law was created by a military dictator and was the basis of both Nazi and Vichy law.

Re:whereas...

[jabithew]

I mean that common law allows judges (wise men, if you will) to legislate, much as Shari'a does, or did for a long time. I was trying to avoid the implication that it has the same goal, because it most certainly doesn't.

I think that generally the judges and lawyers seem to make better decisions than the politicians. Consider the role of the Law Lords in defending civil liberties here in the UK.

An easy way to make this more secure

[El_Oscuro]

Just use something you can remember that is not online for all your online questions. Look around the room and find something with a name on it and just use it, regardless of the question. Or pick a number you can remember, or both. My mothers maiden name? 42 or maybe 12345. The name of my pet? Lysol. Make sure it has nothing actually to do with you. Probably use some word/number combo to make it a little more secure, but make sure it is easy for you to remember, and use the SAME answer for all questions. Otherwise you will never keep it straight.

One exception the SAME answer is for financial accounts. Pick a different answer for those type of accounts than the other ones. That way, if someone hacks the crappy website you posted a blog for last week, they can't steal your recovery password for your bank.

You'd bone any chick on TV, Beavis.

[HornWumpus]

HuHuHu.

Re:Public Records

[moortak]

Actually as a hate filled person on the left I find the hacking of the email account and website to be a silly juvenile tactic, and one that should be punished. That said I would rather see her strung up for any misuse of email through proper legal channels. Life is so much sweeter when you can both win and do the right thing.

Not a Smaller State

[cyberpear]

About the only differences are that she's governor of a smaller state

Actually, Alaska is much larger than Texas:

Alaska 570,380 square miles Texas 268,820 square miles

Alaska is more than twice the size of Texas.

Re:Public Records

[BlueStrat]

Actually as a hate filled person on the left I find the hacking of the email account and website to be a silly juvenile tactic, and one that should be punished. That said I would rather see her strung up for any misuse of email through proper legal channels. Life is so much sweeter when you can both win and do the right thing.

If evidence were legally obtained through due process showing she's actually broken a law, then I'm all for having her pay the legal penalty, as I would any other person. Politicians do NOT lose all personal rights and freedoms under law because one disagrees with their political positions. Performing illegal acts because one thinks *maybe* she *might* have done something wrong because someone dislikes their views, is in itself flat wrong. I would be just as outraged if it were Biden or Obama this happened to. Wrong is wrong.

I also do not generalize that all or even most people who hold left-leaning views are hate-filled, unreasonable, or approve or condone these illegal and reprehensible actions.

Would it be ok for a neighbor to break into your house and ransack it looking for evidence of a crime and publishing pictures of the entire contents and all documents found because they think you *might* have done something illegal, because, you know, they never did like or trust people who were a part of $SOCIAL|ECONOMIC|RACIAL|SEXUAL|POLITICAL group anyway and were hoping to dig up dirt to damage or destroy you and/or anyone close to you?

Cheers!

Strat

Hypocrites

[MacDork]

I love how the people who were most against telecom immunity are now cheering on this illegal invasion of privacy. Meanwhile, those who didn't care when the government illegally spied on millions of Americans now care all of a sudden about the privacy of one little individual.

Re:Public Records

[moortak]

I agree wrong is wrong. That is why I condemn the acts of hacking. I think most of the people that are drawing attention to potential misdeeds hold the view as I do that the topic of conversation should be on the pre-existing allegations of wrongdoing, because it is already obvious that the kid is in the wrong. The more interesting hazy moral ground is what it means for her and us if, as some of the subject headings seem to imply, this kid did find evidence of wrongdoing. Do you think it is irrational to discuss what his unethical actions may have brought to light about her own actions?

Realpolitik thereof

[KudyardRipling]

This fellow is what as known as a useful idiot. The Democratic Party benefits from his conduct and he goes to jail for his conduct. No one in the Party will defend him, lest a situation not totally unlike Watergate arise. It would still be political suicide for them to put their money where there mouth is and get him one of those trial lawyers working pro bono or via defense fund.

sloppy reporting

[pat sajak]

99% of the coverage of this story has been pure shit everywhere i read it. "Palin Email Hacker Found" is pretty misleading considering they haven't found him. there is a big difference between "finding him" and having a good lead (the lead being that the hacker used a proxy, and it should be traceable, but hasn't been traced YET)

here's what we know, which is next to nothing:
-someone who posted on 4chan, a board which has no user accounts -- you are who you say you are -- claiming to be the hacker. he leaves a name for everyone: "rubico". no email address.
-someone notices that a son of a democrat has a an email address which includes the word "rubico", and everyone makes a huge leap and decides this is our guy.
this is all we know.

google "rubico -palin", you'll find the word "rubico" is used by many people for a number of things, about 253,000 things actually. is it a lead, sure. but lets not be so quick to pronounce the case closed.

and if i wanted to go into conspiracy mode: this person claiming responsibility for the hacking is by no means the one who did it. in fact, all he did was profess sarah palin's innocence of any wrong-doing, and leave a very obvious clue behind which points the finger at someone else.

democratic representative Mike Kernell

[Anonymous Coward]

>>a Tennessee university college student and son of
>>state democratic representative Mike Kernell.

Nobody expect me seems to find this fact VERY interesting? The son of a (D) state representative? Now, you can all conjecture over Palin's need for having a personal email account, but this is very fishy...

Re:just tell me

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Actually the point wasn't that I sent the email, it was that the person is question was subject to those rules

What is your point? That a private citizen used a personal mail account to send a message to a public official? REALLY? I must be missing something because it would be absurd if you thought that had any relevance to one public official communicating with an another public official about official government business via personal email accounts that were deliberately used to reduce the chances of a successful subpoena of those communications.

Again, if he's some vigilante hell bent on justice, I think this is the wrong way to go about it. Complain all you like, but I doubt you'll change my opinion

You said: Vigilantism is best left for movies.
My point is that when the people who make the rules are the ones who violate them, then the only people who can enforce them are BY DEFINITION vigilantes. Ergo the rhetorical question, where the answer is IMPLICIT.

That is a GENERAL rule. You want to get all worked up over the fact that this SPECIFIC time the vigilante wasn't a 'professional' go ahead, its called missing the forest for the trees.

Hacker? REALLY?

[Thad Boyd]

I've been disappointed, but not surprised, to see the MSM refer to this break-in, which apparently consisted of knowing Palin's zip code and date of birth, as "hacking", but I expected better of Slashdot. I mean, never mind all the hand-wringing about the differences between "hacker" and "cracker" over the past 25 years, people at LEAST used to have a higher standard for what "hacker" meant than "someone who can use a phone book".

Re:Public Records

[BlueStrat]

I agree wrong is wrong. That is why I condemn the acts of hacking. I think most of the people that are drawing attention to potential misdeeds hold the view as I do that the topic of conversation should be on the pre-existing allegations of wrongdoing, because it is already obvious that the kid is in the wrong. The more interesting hazy moral ground is what it means for her and us if, as some of the subject headings seem to imply, this kid did find evidence of wrongdoing. Do you think it is irrational to discuss what his unethical actions may have brought to light about her own actions?

I believe that evidence obtained illegally or through illegal actions should never be allowed to stand in a court of law. It's the whole "I had to break the law to serve the law" theme. Once that's allowed, what/who is next, for what reasons? A little hacking this time, next time maybe they'll find it necessary to go a little farther. How far is too far? What if it's you or someone you love?

Apparently nothing of any significance at all was found in Palins' emails, as evidenced by quotes from the hacker himself and what's been posted of her emails. With all the opposing parties' legal wolves ready to rip Palin apart at the slightest excuse, the silence regarding the emails themselves speaks volumes. It's not ok to break the law and invade someones' privacy just because you really, really, really, *REALLY* hate them and what they stand for politically. Ask yourself if you'd be as ok with it if the situation were switched to Obama and the Rezko case and a Republican politicians' kid as the hacker.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:just tell me

[sglewis100]

What is your point? That a private citizen used a personal mail account to send a message to a public official? REALLY? I must be missing something because it would be absurd if you thought that had any relevance to one public official communicating with an another public official about official government business via personal email accounts that were deliberately used to reduce the chances of a successful subpoena of those communications.

I guess I still don't see THAT email. I'm just going to drop this thread until I do see that email. Where was it again? Look, it's great that you and I obviously agree that somebody doing that would be wrong. But I'm not going to applaud this guy hacking her account and NOT posting an email like that, but rather an email about a campaign and a few family photos. He's not serving any public interest in his flouting of the law, nor was he serving any vigilante needs in this country. It's a separate debate whether such vigilante action was warranted at all, but CLEARLY that was not his motivation, or if it was, he didn't find anything worth posting. For the record, the point of the original statement about a government official having personal emails go through a government email or a personal email system was in regards to this, up the thread quite a bit:

its irrelevant. if some law says you cant take a govt. car out of business hours, you cant. its regardless whether you use it for personal business or not, if you do.

Now that quote isn't from you, but you wanted to know what my point was. The point I was making originally was in response to that statement. The point I was making was: that statement is patently not true as pertains to email from a government servant. That's very separate from the claims you make (that she was conducting official government business through a Yahoo account). I doubt very much that any of this is what motivated the guy who broke into her account. Even if I were an adamant supporter of rampant vigilante activity in almost every case where it was remotely justified, that's just not what motivated this guy who seemingly broke a law. I believe it was you who said:

Seems like the cracker was just a dumb kid who apparently didn't realize the magnitude of the information he had stumbled upon

So I say throw the book at him. If he were some vigilante there'd be some wiggle room in some minds, I suppose.

My point is that when the people who make the rules are the ones who violate them, then the only people who can enforce them are BY DEFINITION vigilantes. Ergo the rhetorical question, where the answer is IMPLICIT.

Obviously I disagree. There are countless times when someone making a rule is not the same person who enforces/prosecutes that same rule. And in this case, the rule that it's claimed (without any concrete evidence) she broke was not a rule she broke or is responsible for enforcing, it's just a rule that exists and applies to her that she's being baselessly accused of violating. In any event, enjoy the rest of the thread, clearly your opinion isn't going to change, and we obviously won't be agreeing.

His Dad is a democratic state represenative

[psychosmyth]

I got some idea where this came from. His address is listed too. David Kernell. He was having a party when they came knocking, I guess a farewell party? I need to check if he is in the LUG. I'd hate to have that kid's crap forwarded to me. He is not officially charged yet. Oh and please back off on Palin. Good grief! Anonymous was not involved. I know.

Can we try to be a little more precise here?

[hey!]

We seem to be dealing with a false dichotomy here. It is not the case that any kind of crime against privacy is justifiable if it finds something. Nor is it the case that an invasion of privacy excuses any improprieties that were found. Logically the two are completely unrelated.

I think Governor Palin's privacy was violated, and that the violations uncovered evidence of impropriety on her part -- specifically conducting state business via a personal account. The rules broken here are to protect the public: from invasion of privacy in the case suspicion only, and from government officials evading accountability by hiding their conduct of public business.

Of the two, I judge the privacy violation more serious, but neither of the violations here are things we want to encourage. Of the two, I'd say the account cracker ought to do jail time or public service, and the governor ought to promise to stop mixing private and public business and voluntarily appoint a trusted third party to, for some period of time, examine her private email correspondence and vouch that she is not conducting state business with it.

Re:Can we try to be a little more precise here?

[jadavis]

Logically the two are completely unrelated.

I agree completely. However, I never said she wasn't guilty of some impropriety, nor that being intruded upon is an excuse.

and that the violations uncovered evidence of impropriety on her part

As I understand it, there are laws preventing politicians from using public networks to advance their own political careers, and therefore must conduct their personal political business using their own resources.

So, what makes you so sure that she was conducting official state business with the yahoo account, and not just advancing her own political career?

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[dwpro]

Racist? How?

Update: doesn't look like it's this kid

[Rei]

Link

Meanwhile, Gabriel Ramuglia, webmaster of Ctunnel, the proxy service used to attack the Yahoo account, has identified the IP user of the perpetrator but he doesn't think it points to Kernell, Computerworld reports.

"Because I'm not in contact with the Internet service provider, I'm not 100% sure of where the IP is based," he said. "But from what I can tell, the IP address doesn't look consistent with the media reports."

The FBI will be able to close the loop, though, with the records of the ISP to which that IP address is assigned. Ramuglia said it is a small, residential ISP.

Now, it's always possible that he compromised someone else's box or drove a long distance away to someone else's computer.

Perspective

[dsmall]

I think John Nance Garner has the best view of the Vice Presidency: "Not worth a bucket of warm spit".

This was FDR's Vice President before Truman (1933-1941).

I think all this attention is a bit over the top.

When LBJ was President of the United States, and word came that Winston Churchill had died, and of course the United States had to send someone to the funeral, a staffer suggested "Send Hubert.", and Lyndon said, "Hubert who?". Someone had to gently remind LBJ that Hubert Humphrey was his Vice President.

    Anyone remember George H.W. Bush's Vice President? Dan Quayle? My favorite quote from him was, "I like coming to Latin America, but I don't speak Latin."

      And frankly (let me be honest here) when they were Vice Presidents both George H.W. Bush and Albert Gore had a special, amazing, +10 ability to stun audiences with boring speeches. There were rumours at the time that they ran Windows NT inside as their internal operating systems. I've begun to believe that something about the office of Vice President causes a sort of virtual lobotomy to occur.

      If either Sarah whatsername or ... is it Joe or Ed? whatzisname get elected, I expect that's about the last we'll hear from them.

      This was a pretty boring election, really, until Sarah ... what IS her name? ... showed up with her snow-mobiling husband. This gave the media someone to smother and fume and pontificate about. And then the media got to fume about its own behavior. But that stuff has a limited half-life because the media is the only one who cares about that. (The media is worth only a cup of cold spit, you see).

*grin*

Dave Small

Re:Public Records

[moortak]

I agree in a court of law his findings mean nothing and should mean nothing. That said she is up for election for a pretty major (if rather cushy)office. In a situation like that fishy email subjects are something to be asked about. If this were Obama, Biden, or even Kucinich, I would still condemn the act and hope for a discussion of the contents of any damning material found.

Re:Public Records

[BlueStrat]

I agree in a court of law his findings mean nothing and should mean nothing. That said she is up for election for a pretty major (if rather cushy)office. In a situation like that fishy email subjects are something to be asked about. If this were Obama, Biden, or even Kucinich, I would still condemn the act and hope for a discussion of the contents of any damning material found.

That's the problem right there. Who decides what's "fishy"? There's no "there" there in the Palin emails, yet all her correspondence is now published on the internet. If someone hacked Obmamas' or Bidens' email account(s), found nothing, but published everything anyway (including their childrens' email addresses) you'd be ok with that?

By the way, this has been refreshing to have a discussion with someone on the "left" who can have a reasoned and respectful debate. Even though we may disagree on many political topics, I salute you sir. I wish more people on the left could conduct themselves with the dignity, intellectual honesty, and intelligence you've shown here. Bravo, sir, bravo! :)

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Nail Him To The Wall [OT]

[jesdynf]

Troll? Really? I hardly think so.

Re:Update 2: looks like it *is* this kid

[Rei]

Link

Ramuglia said Sunday that the IP address he found in the proxy service logs didn't "look consistent" with reports identifying Kernell. By today, however, he had changed his mind.

"It became clear that the ISP, in addition to serving Illinois, also serves Tennessee, which means that the IP address could actually be consistent with the news reports," Ramuglia said today.

Re:Public Records

[moortak]

People who can politely disagree are pretty rare on both sides. Now on with the show. Yes, I would be equally fine with the publishing. In my case that consists of shock and general dismay, but I disagree that there is nothing in the emails. Many of the headings seem to rather strongly imply that government work was being handled through back channels. I don't believe that justifies the actions of the hacker, but it points to a potential case of major misconduct on her part as well. While such actions are nothing new in the corridors of power I firmly believe that we should do all we can to stop or prevent such behavior. (by this I am not refering to the hacking rather a more proactive use of the vote)

Re:Public Records

[BlueStrat]

but I disagree that there is nothing in the emails. Many of the headings seem to rather strongly imply that government work was being handled through back channels.

Headings mean nothing, zip, zero, nada. For example, an email from the (deputy? assistant?) governor to Palin with the subject line: "Budget" could be discussing the fact that his personal budget won't allow him to buy that rifle to go moose hunting with Palin that weekend.

Why is it that you have such a hard time accepting there's nothing there? Even the hacker himself, whose *whole motivation* was to *set out to find* dirt/wrongdoing in the first place, and who I'm certain would've been willing to crow at the top of his lungs about anything that could have even *remotely* be questionable even stretching the definition, said there was nothing there. Do you think he suddenly turned into a loyal Palin lackey and covered for her?

Is it really so hard to believe that Palin may *not* be the corrupt criminal scumbag that so many are trying to portray her as? It seems to be really really reaching, especially at this point, to try to claim, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that there's evidence of wrongdoing in those emails.

Cheers!

Strat

Re:Public Records -- The Catch-22

[commodoresloat]

You're the first "libertarian" OR "centrist" I've ever heard of that advocates rape, torture, and murder as legitimate tools of a modern day penal system.
 
I'm intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Public Records

[moortak]

Unfortunately politicians as a group have done little to inspire me to place much trust in them. Yes, I will agree that the headings could be innocent. i also believe we should hold our political figures to a higher standard, not just avoiding impropriety but also the appearance of such.

Thinking Ahead...

[maz2331]

Nope - but I know how the guys in the political world work. ANY link, however tenuous, is enough to start an everlasting investigation.

Most of these are just witch hunts done for political advantage.

It's what they've done to every administration since Nixon.