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Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted
doomsdaywire writes "A University of Tennessee student who is the son of a Memphis legislator has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail. [...] If convicted, [David C.] Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release. A trial date has not been set."
This is the dumbest crime ever. If he really did it, I just wish he would say, "Yeah I did it, I'm an idiot - just look at my goofy hair." Then they could cite him with a $200 fine for disorderly conduct and we could all move on with our lives. But the fact that he's pleading not guilty is going to give this whole thing legs both in the court and in the media.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Obviously, the perpetrator was not entitled to any of the information contained within that Yahoo! email account and should be punished for breaking the law. What sucks is that he not really being punished for breaking the law, rather he's being punished for making Sarah Palin and thus the GOP look bad.
Personally I forgot it happened until I saw this story. At least the trial should bring this back out into the open... But my guess is that nothing will happen to Palin and this guy will get punished. Sorry, I'm just your typical American who has lost a great deal of faith in our government, economy, and legal system.
For some reason the uber-parent failed to mention this, but the TN State legislator is a Democrat. May or may not mean anything, but odd to not mention it, isn't it?
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Except she wasn't conducting business illegally, and I'm puzzled as to why you'd falsely post that as a justification for an immoral and illegal act. As the hacker Rubico apparently said:
See, for example, here:
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/17/the-story-behind-the-palin-e-mail-hacking/
Personally, I prefer Tina Fey to Sarah Palin, but the emails I saw reprinted, while to political colleagues, were the kind that would be illegal (at least at the federal level) to send using government email accounts. For instance, she talked about her Lt-Governor's election campaign. Doing that kind of business on state accounts is a no-no.
But even if all that were not true, you're saying it's just fine to hack into someone's personal email account because you suspect they are guilty of something. So it's fine for the police to do that to you? You must love the Patriot Act and think it doesn't go remotely far enough.
Call that 1984.
Even if Palin had improperly conducted state business on yahoo (which would be stupid and illegal), hacking her email account is still immoral and illegal. I'm surprised that many people who normally are pro-freedom turn out to have very situational ethics when it comes to people they regard as political enemies. As others have said in this thread, a guy called Richard Nixon seemed to think that way.
What strikes me about Obama, Biden and McCain is that whilst they may have some level of corruption I think to be fair on them all they do genuinely believe they can better the country if they become president.
Palin is the only one out the 4 who strikes me as only seeming to care about increasing her power rather than improving the country.
Unfortunately the example it makes is that you can get away with crimes as long as the victim isn't important.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
According to The Anchorage Daily News her use of secret accounts for state business was already an issue before McCain selected her as his running mate. A records request this summer by a fellow Republican (Andree McLeod) turned up the fact that she was playing fast and loose with the state records laws.
The Republicans in Alaska had had just about enough of her before McCain swooped in. There was bipartisan support for several investigations against her and a growing consensus towards impeachment.
Now, of course, that's all forgotten, at least in some quarters.
I think that's the whole point. They haven't seen the emails, but their existence has been made clear by (among other things) the privilege logs, other e-mails, and sworn testimony of her staffers. So far, she's refusing to turn them over.
--MarkusQ
She's no more a separatist than any other Alaskan. There is not a functioning separatist movement in Alaska any more than there is in Texas (which has it's groups claiming that the state is a republic not a state and there-fore should stand on its own). Efforts to create one in order to paint Palin in a bad light are simplistic and misinformed.
As for being an idiot, I disagree. She's managed to leap herself onto the national stage in a relatively short time period. I don't think it has been a carefully planned assault, but certainly she has managed to accomplish some quirky set of actions that have enabled her to reach this point. I've no doubt there are thousands of other budding politicians out there on city/county and state levels who are trying to do the same and yet there she is.
However, that being said, I don't think she's really the type we want in the VP role right now. Nothing to do with her experience, imho, but perhaps more to do with her social/moralistic convictions.