Slashdot Mirror
Palin's E-Mail Hacker Imprisoned Against Judge's Wishes
Em Adespoton writes "It was a computer security story that made headlines around the world, involving the private emails of a woman who could have become Vice President of the United States. And now, it's ended with a young man sent to a federal prison, hundreds of miles from his family home. David C Kernell, the hacker who broke into Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo email account, is reported to have been sent to jail despite a judge's recommendation that he should not be put behind bars."
"That is not the situation that his friends and family were hoping for, however."
No offense, but too fucking bad. Considering the state of our legal system, the guy was lucky to not get boned for the full four crimes he was initially charged with (which would have been a lot longer than just a year, by the way). He committed a crime, one that I personally feel has far-reaching effects as one's e-mail inbox should be considered fairly private. Yes, it was Sarah Palin, and I can't stand her either. Doesn't mean that this guy shouldn't be held accountable for his actions.
"The US Bureau of Prisons, however, has decided to make Mr Kernell serve out his term in the low-security prison camp nearly 300 miles from his home in Knoxville, Tennessee."
Seriously guys, when you're incarcerated, you don't have a choice which facility you will be housed in. The USBOP is obviously making an example out of this guy, and I can totally understand why. What I don't understand is why this article seems to be doing a lot of crying on behalf of Kernell. Don't commit the crime if you're going to whine all the way to prison. It's that simple.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
People still know where he is...
Not even cracked. Please stop talking about this guy like he has some computer wiizardry - he guessed at recovery questions. If I leave a riddle taped to my safe that gives the combo when solved, how angry can I be when somebody figures it out?
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
... lest Palin draws a gunsight around his head...
Palin was conducting government business in that personal yahoo email account. So what does she get for doing that?
This kid exposes her wrong doing and he goes to prison? Did we become soviet during the 2008 election?
I speak from first hand experience that even if you're innocent, the system will do their best to get their hands on you in the worst possible way if they want to make you pay for something, possibly unrelated. For me it was a friend who did stupid stuff and I was trying to talk him out of it. The caught me on a technicality and got me in jail and then "accidentally" shipped me off to a medium security prison where I stood toe to toe with a guy who was facing 246 years(that is not a typo). All just to make me talk. I never did..fuck 'em.
I think the sad thing here is that this guy's future is pretty well screwed for what was (from memory) a fairly impetuous and unsophisticated crime. Sure he should be held accountable, but sending the kid to an institution where he is more likely to be released into a world of criminality with contacts that may like to exploit his rudimentary skills is probably not serving the best interests of his community.
If the Judge didn't want him to go to prison maybe he shouldn't have sentenced him to prison time...
Is there some law of prison quality that states the comfort of prison is inversely proportional to the distance from the prisoner's home? A small enough data sample sort of points to this as house arrest is probably the most comfortable, but i think the hypothesis falls apart after that. Many people who are in prison might not even have a good home.
For me, I'd think it would be the opposite. I think if i land in prison, i'd rather not have a steady influx of family visitors. I'd hope i was as far from home as possible.
The account he broke into was being used by Palin to conduct state business that she wanted to hide from being recorded in her official state email account.
Just a reminder.
For as much as I agree with the judge (and am an anti-Palinite), I'm not so sure why he should be an exception.
I know very little about American law, but if the judge recommends a particular sentence, who has the power to change that?
America, Home of the Brave.
The kid got caught breaking the law and goes to prison for the crimes he committed. What's so wrong about that part of the whole story?
obstruction of justice
Maximum 20 years in prison
$250,000 fine
5 years supervised release
Basically he panic and tried to cover his tracks. Sure he was found guilt and punished, but this punishment is stupid, spiteful, and harmful to society as a whole.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Is there something she wants to hide from the public?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
So first of all - please do not say her name - she is like Beatleguice and will continue to stick around as long as you talk about her.
However, I have to chime in and say that I believe this to be an absolute travesty of our justice system... Thousands of people get their email's "hacked" daily, so why would we give one person special treatment? This is democracy inaction.
I'm still up in the air about which one is the anti-christ... Oprah or Miss Alaska... remember, don't say her name!!!
To everyone saying he "shouldn't be locked away in a hole with more dangerous people", this kid's being put into a "minimum security resort", not a "federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison", to quote Office Space. The worse people he'll run into are probably embezzlers.
First, I acknowledge that there are inequalities in our justice system, that some people who have done more serious crimes, sometimes face lesser penalty. Also, not all those convicted are guilty.
But, just because the email account belongs to a politician *you don't like*, doesn't make it legal for someone to hack their email accounts. Do computer accounts deserve legal protection from people breaking into them? I think the answer is yes, and I believe most people would agree you have a reasonable expectation of legal protection for your private or business (if you own a business) computer accounts.
Just because not everyone who hacks into accounts is caught, doesn't mean that those who *are caught* and convicted by a jury should not face the punishment for their crimes. Now, perhaps it was a mistake for whoever sentenced this fellow to ignore the judges recommendation. However, if the judge only *recommends* a sentence, but is not tasked with actual sentencing, then it is ultimately not his decision. His decision is guidance, not binding.
When you hack into other people's accounts, you're committing a felony. There's nothing unjust about sending a felon to prison.
You just don't get it: It does no matter who the victim was. Law should apply the same for all citizens.
Also, I see a tendency in the comments here where the ones that tend to sympathize with Palin post as Anonymous Cowards. Why is that? Are you guys ashamed of showing your name next to your ideas?
Another potential crime which is not often spoken about was that in doing so, he also inadvertently managed to prove that the then-governor of Alaska was using her private email account for conducting state business, something against which there are very strict compliance rules, and that according to many was a clear breach of protocol on her part. These emails are supposed to be archived and later visible to anyone who wishes to see how state business is conducted, but cannot if she used a private account. In a similar vein, the Republicans in power during the Bush years suffered an unfortunate and accidental 'total erasure' all their emails from the White House servers including any backups there may have been for a period of well over a year, which only the more cynical among us would link to the possibility that this may just have been done so that no incriminating evidence could ever be found with regards to what was really discussed when the war in Iraq was started under false pretenses, and other trivial, inconsequential matters. "Real Americans" would far more readily accept the idea that the government losing all of this data and never keeping a single backup of it was a totally unexpected thing, and that's that.
Yes, I think that what this young man did is reprehensible, but so are the other points above, none of which ever got pursued (to my knowledge). That stinks of a real and pretty obvious double-standard of accountability. Sweeping them under the carpet by employing some other distraction was the only magic trick required...
No wonder they hate ***leaks so much. The sort of action which might just begrudgingly force them to come clean about their own practices and start having to play by the rules themselves. For that reason, expect stiffer sentences for similar crimes in the future, to prevent anyone from ever seeing all of this dirty laundry being aired.
Why is the US Bureau of Prisons deciding the punishment instead of a judge?
Please, protecting people and businesses from having others illegally gain access to their private accounts is not some obscure, ridiculous 300 year old law. It's completely reasonable for it to be a felony to illegally access other people's accounts. It's also completely reasonable to send someone who broke the law by hacking into someone else's account to jail for doing so. You do the crime, you do the time.
We're not talking about one of those legal technicality laws that make criminals out of almost everyone. We're talking about purposely using technical features to gain access to an account which you have not been authorized to access by either the person who 'owns' the account, or by a court through a search warrant. (Yes, I realize that there are issues of the federal government itself doing warrantless wiretapping of the Internet, but that's another issue; yes, it's hypocritical, but at the same time, just because the government is violating our rights, doesn't mean it should be ok for everyone to violate our rights - you don't solve problems by creating additional problems).
Actually, your sentence should have been longer, specifically, by just one letter: a.
Maybe they're afraid someone is going to hack into their slashdot account. After all, if there's a significant body of commentors stating that it's just fine that this guy hacked her account because they happen to disagree with Sarah Palin politically, then why wouldn't they hack anybody's account that they happen to disagree with? There seems to be a certain lack of respect for privacy, civility, respect for others, and the rule of law here on slashdot.
It's somewhat unsettling.
I know someone who went to a minimum security prison. I suppose they might not all be alike but if they are sending him to one anything like my friend went to he has a year vacation to spend playing playstation games and/or in a gym occasionally interrupted by a class or two.
Now.. trying to find a good job with a conviction on his record once he gets out... That's the part which will suck for him.
He just reset a yahoo password without taking any precaution.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The tragedy here is that no private citizen can ever hope to be protected with this vigor. They've crucified someone because of who the crime was committed against, not based on the crime. It's a tragedy of our legal system, which is no longer even remotely about justice, the good of the people, or reforming criminals. It's about money and power. (Making money for those in power.)
I would whole-heartedly agree with "if you can't do the time, don't do the time" if there were a snowball's chance in hell that when my private accounts were hacked, there would be similar penalties. What do you think would happen if any one of us were to call the police and say "my email account was hacked"? I bet we'd be lucky if they didn't try to press charges against us for wasting their time.
I think the "300 miles from home" observation is misplaced. Prison is never fun, but better to do your time with white collar criminals than with habitual sadists, rapists, and murderers who've spent most of their lives behind walls and gun towers. I think the BOP cut him a huss.
Even so, the sentence was disproportionate for young first-time offender. Its only purpose is an attempt to deter computer crime. If it does that, then the young jailbird will be a martyr to a good cause.
This person hacked someones email, I don't care that it was a public official or not. Prison is right where he belongs. I am not advocating a huge sentence, a 2 year stay would be enough. Minimum Security, no computers, no access to the net in any way. That would be enough I think.
Actually his sentence should have been longer by an "a" and a space.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
And Palin believes the e-mail issue may have caused her the Whitehouse? Lipstick on a pig indeed.
While the Declaration of Independence does not have the weight of law, exactly, it very much informs our national laws.
From the document:
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. . .
. . .For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
While that just deals with the issue of the locality of trial, it does present an idea that justice should be relatively local. Trial should be local, and probably, incarceration should be local. You probably shouldn't incarcerate felons from California in, say, Maine or Florida.
For one thing, we try not to punish the families of criminals. This is why we allow family visitation rights. If you deny the criminal visitation rights, even if you think that's appropriate (say for someone convicted of murder, where the victim's family is cut off from the deceased), the problem becomes that you punish the innocent along with the guilty.
Relatively local incarceration means that you allow the innocent family members of the guilty to still be able to visit.
That said, this being a Federal crime and a Federal prison, it's not unreasonable that a convict would serve his term at a facility a few hundred miles away - I don't expect the Federal government to maintain a prison even in *every* state, let alone multiple per state. You commit a federal crime, it's not unreasonable for you to end up in a federal prison maybe one or two states away, if that's the nearest suitable facility for you to serve your sentence at.
Folks, take a look at the charges he was convicted of. Then think about this sentence.
Mr. Kernell was convicted of two charges. For breaking into Sarah Palin's email account, he was convicted of a misdemeanor for unlawful computer access. But a misdemeanor isn't enough payback for embarrassing one of the political elite. So he was also charged with a felony account of obstruction of justice. The FBI says that he erased data off of his computer. Specifically, he deleted his copies of Palin's emails, and then defragged his disk. He also cleared his browser history.
Well, duh. The kid did something stupid. When he saw what an uproar he had created, he tried to make it all go away. Wow, that really is grounds for a federal felony charge.
This isn't justice folks. This is payback for embarrassing one of our betters.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
So this is what it all comes down to ?
The "greatest" country in the world found to be run based on the tantrums of an elite few ?
Who would have thought...
If the elite doesn't like you, it doesn't matter what the judge say, they'll get rid of you anyway.
It seems more and more obvious that the Ameritards are simply bullies who like to boss people around.
Europe and Asia should really cut relations with them soon because no matter what they'll be always the school's bully.
Can we please free ourselves from the american-spread misconception that they are the best ? Can we please stop handing them over whatever they like ? Can we please stop bending over backwards for them ?
We are only feeding their endless greed and tantrums by giving in to them.
--
http://www.twilightcampaign.net/
Looks like the majority opinion is that Mr. Kernell (what a cool last name for a hacker) deserves punishment. I don't agree.
What of Yahoo, for screwing up and making it so easy to crack email accounts? If the hacker deserves punishment, shouldn't Yahoo be punished also?
And Palin? Shouldn't she bear a little responsibility too? I don't like those "security" questions. You shouldn't use publicly available information like the actual date of your birthday for any security purpose, though we're all pushed to do so. If Palin didn't know that, she should now. But using a different date is not much help. Dates are too weak.
Suppose the hacker had been a nation, like, say, China? How do you punish China? Trade sanctions? Maybe even... war?? Ludicrous. Shows how petty this crime is.
Everyone ought to be grateful the security hole was revealed. Otherwise, this could have gone on indefinitely. Now any governments that were using this to quietly spy on Yahoo email accounts may no longer be able to.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Social Security was founded in part to clear the way for younger workers.
So many old dudes were working until they dropped, youth and vigour was flailing for social security was founded to get a lot of people out of the working category
now that so many people on social security are again working until they drop-- whats the government to do?
hmmm.. I like your plan
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I don't have a problem with him serving a little time. What worries me is all those CIA agents running around completely free.
No, the "ease of break-in" doesn't make a difference, except where you have *contracted* to take certain precautions against theft as a risk mitigation factor, and then you fail to fulfill your obligations under that contract.
The police don't let a thief go because he took stuff from an unlocked house. The ease with which the thief broke in has no bearing on whether or not he committed a crime.
And in response to your P.S.: http://www.adn.com/2010/01/22/1106051/judge-sides-with-state-palin-in.html
A judge has ruled that she did nothing "illegal" in using personal email as she did. Is it sloppy? Sure. Is it a gray area? Sure. Is it something where she complied with the letter, but not the obvious spirit of the law? You betcha. Could she have shown better judgement? Absolutely. But when a judge issues a ruling that she didn't do anything illegal, and you continue calling her actions "illegal," well... it just suggests that you're blinded by partisan hatred for the woman, rather than an objective assessment of the facts.
And let's be clear about one other thing: as governor of Alaska, Ms. Palin is subject to the ALASKA state laws that govern email retention. If she had been elected to federal office as our Vice President, *then* she would have been subject to FEDERAL email retention requirements.
"Reporters looking for a meaningless scandal or Fox "news" trying to wreak the opposition are doing the same thing with the same intent as much as possible within the law "
I wonder why people like you have a bad view of FOX while completely ignoring CBS and Dan Rather. When you start bashing CBS (MSNBC and the rest) for their clear bias towards the (D) as much as FOX has bias towards (R) then I'll listen. It is pretty transparent bias.
Remember, it was the MSM that blamed SP for the recent shooting in Phoenix. The Shooter was just nuts, and not part of anything related to SP, but I don't see any of them making apologies for jumping the gun there.
Bias? NOOOOOO /sarcasm'
BTW, I have no use for SP. She is just an amusing foil for the leftwing MSM press who are just as stupid as her.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
So first of all - please do not say her name - she is like Beatleguice and will continue to stick around as long as you talk about her.
Beetlejuice. Betelgeuse. Please pick one.
its not so private as you think. if you are at work, your employer has the right (so they say and so they act) to look at your emails (live or on disk) all they want. they can tap your phone, too, at work.
If you're referring to accessing your private e-mail from a work computer, you are not correct. At least, depending on where you are, you are probably not correct. There will probably be more battles fought over this, but there's a sensible precedent to draw upon.
I'm also pretty sure that unless you sign something agreeing to have your phone calls monitored, or you are otherwise told beforehand, standard wiretapping would apply in listening in on your personal phone calls, even if placed from a work telephone. They can certainly tell who you called and when, but not what you're saying, without agreement beforehand or a subpoena.
Can they monitor this stuff? Sure, just as you can go get your neighbor's snail mail out of their mailbox and pore through it. They can't can't do it legally.
Maybe some insurance policies won't pay, but police will still investigate and arrest anyone caught with some of your stuff.
If I remember the story correctly, he correctly guessed 3 security questions that were on her wiki page. Like "Where were you born?" "Name of your first daughter" etc... I take offense that such an act is considered "hacking" in the eyes of the public. This term sure has devolved since phone jacking decades ago.
My working presumption since I learned Eudora has been that the 'net is inherently -- and more to the point, OBVIOUSLY -- insecure. When my email traffic isn't scanned automatically by the NSA, the KGB, Mossad, MI6 and all their various subclients, maybe I'll believe some kid isn't reading my stuff.
The only real preventive measure against email surveillance is glasnost -- be open, be boring, be unafraid.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
If you want to know why people harp on FOX instead of CBS and Dan Rather there is a really simple explanation. When Dan Rather's whole mess came up he resigned and others were fired. When Olbermann made a donation to a candidate during a race he was suspended. When similar issues arise FOX does nothing. Are the other stations angelic arbiters of some perfect neutral truth, no, but they at least make an effort to keep up appearances.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
Before everyone jumps to conclusions shouldn't we know how often these recommendations are followed. If the BOP usually ignores judges this is nothing. If they almost always go along with judges there might be a reason to be concerned.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
When you ignore the justice system and do whatever you want, isn't that contempt of court (or criminal behavior, depending who's doing it and when)?
There are only 3 reasons:
1) Correction
2) Prevention
3) Punishment
It kind of sounds pretty much like a vindictive #3 to me.