Slashdot Mirror
Palin Email Snoop Found Guilty On 2 Charges
netbuzz writes "A federal jury in Knoxville today has convicted David Kernell, 22, of two charges — misdemeanor computer fraud and felony obstruction of justice — in connection with the 2008 episode where he accessed the personal Yahoo email account of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and then initiated a worldwide rummaging of its contents. The obstruction charge carries a maximum prison term of 20 years."
No, that's not it. As long as the person is not working as an "agent of the state", anything they do is admissible. This came up when a hacker kept hacking into pedophiles' computers and turning them into the police. The courts ruled he was not working as an agent of the state, since the police had no control over him.
Two years only happens in extenuating circumstances (say, a woman kills her rapist after the fact; it's murder, but it's really hard to apply a tough sentence). Murder is rarely punished with a mere two years. That said, sentencing guidelines are fscked up, because it's always easier to appear "tough on crime" than it is to establish just guidelines.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
it's not worth that much to keep a man behind bars for guessing a password.
Up to one year for guessing a password. 20 years for lying about it.
Too lazy to look up the details, though, so no "informative" mods for me.
You think that proof is required to get modded up as informative here on /.? You must be new here.