Palin's E-Mail Hacker Imprisoned Against Judge's Wishes

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Palin's E-Mail Hacker Imprisoned Against Judge's Wishes

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 14, 2011 @03:09AM from the grizzly-justice dept.

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."

16 of 502 comments (clear)

Too fucking bad.. by intellitech · 2011-01-14 03:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

"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.
1. Re:Too fucking bad.. by zach_the_lizard · 2011-01-14 03:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Perhaps they feel, as I do, that the punishment is out of proportion with the crime. Should he be punished? Yes, he should; he accessed email without permission. Maybe levy a hefty fine; no one was physically harmed or deprived of property, and he is no danger to society. As such, he doesn't deserve being locked away in a hole with more dangerous individuals.
  
  --
  SSC
2. Re:Too fucking bad.. by Amorymeltzer · 2011-01-14 03:18 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It's probably because of this:
  
  BBC News, however, reports that US government officials have intervened, and Kernell has begun serving time at federal correctional institute in Ashland, Kentucky.
  When most people think of an ideal criminal justice system, they think of judges and juries, not government officials. This system does not seem to be a well-oiled machine:
  
  The BOP is not bound by judicial recommendations, one legal expert said federal sentencing was often "arbitrary". "The judge can give either incarceration or probation, but if it's incarceration the state gives power to the Bureau of Prisons to determine the nature of incarceration," said Professor Robert Weisberg, director of the criminal justice center at Stanford University in California. "There is not a general or uniform US rule," he added. "There is huge local variation."
  
  --
  I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
3. Re:Too fucking bad.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-14 03:19 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Do you have any idea how expensive it is to keep a person in jail?
  Locking people up because they are stupid is enough to bankrupt any country. A much better punishment for nonviolent crimes would be community service (scaled to fit the gravity of the offense), where there's a net gain for society.
4. Re:Too fucking bad.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-14 03:20 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I see it the other way around, for such a crime to deserve a prison sentence it should be much more severe. Guessing someones password to yahoo mail, does not seem like a severe crime to me, if anything Sarah Palin should be schooled on password security and disciplined for sharing sensitive information over yahoo of all things. I work for a bank, and if i had emails on yahoo related to my work and got caught, i would be dismissed, end of story.
  Making examples of people just because they have upset a celebrity figure is barbarian and i'm glad i'm not an American if this sort of thing is acceptable there. Where i come from everyone is equal, a crime against a politician holds the same weight as a crime against your average citizen.
5. Re:Too fucking bad.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-14 03:23 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Let me preface this by saying that the guy was an idiot and had absolutely no right to go reading someone else's email. He deserves some form of punishment. The legal system is supposed to be fair and consistent, however, and that does not in any way appear to be the case here. Take a look at a few other crimes which have been treated equally harshly.
  
  Seriously guys, when you're incarcerated, you don't have a choice which facility you will be housed in.
  Sure you don't get a say, but I find it a little surprising that the judge's recommendation was ignored.
  
  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.
  The fact that they are making an example of him seems to reinforce the view that an individual invading the privacy of a political figure is somehow worse than the reversed situation. Sounds like a very bad message to be sending, to me.
6. Re:Too fucking bad.. by Monkeedude1212 · 2011-01-14 03:28 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This.
  Most people argue that the prison system is to seperate the dangerous individuals from society. This guy is not a danger to society, no one is in danger of getting hurt. Put him on Parole for 2-4 years with community service where all his network access has to be reviewed by a parole officer. Long reaching, annoying punishment, that contributes back to society instead of sapping money.
7. Re:Too fucking bad.. by jeffmeden · 2011-01-14 03:34 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Net gain to society? WTF. Are we advocating low impact crimes to help society? I can see some PSA's now - "Forget Jobcorps, come hack email accounts with us and help your community!"
  This line of thinking also states for future potential crimelords that if you hack into email, your time is a walk in the park. If there is no deterrent then what is the point of the criminal justice system?
  Wow, way to completely miss the point. Read sentences much? He meant that the COMMUNITY SERVICE was a net gain for society, since the perp has to do something productive to earn his forgiveness, instead of being locked up and supported by taxpayers.
8. Re:Too fucking bad.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-14 03:40 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Pretty much. In this day and age, it surprises the hell out of me that he thought he could get away with something as easily noticeable as hacking a presidential candidates email...unless he knew he wouldn't get away with it, and didn't care.
  
  Oh, he was dumber than that. He was dumb enough to leave identifying information in the screencap (screencap is SFW, some of the ads are NSFW) he took.
  By leaving the URL visible, it didn't matter how many proxies he was behind. There was a clear chain of evidence linking him to The Incident. Unsurprisingly, the Party Van showed up, and the rest is history.
  Anonymous is legion, but on occasion, some Anonymous are very, very stupid. When Anonymous ceases to be anonymous, Anonymous thinks it's pretty funny.
9. Re:Too fucking bad.. by Temposs · 2011-01-14 04:06 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The reality is that the US prison system is formed around the principle of punishment. If threat isolation was the primary motivation, our prison system would look much different than it does.
  The system we have is descended from the mode of Christian thought that when a sin(crime) is committed, penance.is needed in order to make the person right with God. So, the prison system is set up as a kind of forced penance through societal punishment, This is why we still have the death penalty, too, while most other developed countries do not.
  
  --
  Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon. -Orson Scott Card
10. Re:Too fucking bad.. by anti-pop-frustration · 2011-01-14 04:11 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Exactly, do you even think for a second that this guy would be sitting in a federal prison if he had guessed your neighbor's Yahoo account security question?
  
  This is very much a case of a commoner being dealt a disproportionally harsh punishment because the victim is part of the ruling class.
  
  And Sarah Palin didn't even get a slap on the wrist for using her private email to shield government business from public scrutiny.
  
  I remember September 2008, wasn't this the time wall street bankers nearly crashed the world economy? Anybody charged, convicted or sitting in a federal prison yet?
  
  The system works.
11. Re:Too fucking bad.. by jahudabudy · 2011-01-14 04:59 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The reality is that the US prison system is formed around the principle of punishment.
  
  And profit. Prisons are sub-contracted to private interests, that are paid in part on a per convict basis. There are documented instances of judges being convicted of taking kickbacks to supply more "product" to the prison industry, i.e. prisoners. There are simply some functions in a civilized society that must be stripped of profit motivation in order to insure justice.
  
  --
  ...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
12. Re:Too fucking bad.. by zach_the_lizard · 2011-01-14 05:03 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  I think that it's gone far from some idea of penance. It seems that it's merely about retribution, a model of justice that serves no one.
  I take that back; it does serve a few; the prisons and police get large amounts of taxpayer money, and the prosecutors and politicians get their "tough on crime" bona fides. The rest of us, though, suffer.
  
  --
  SSC
13. Re:Too fucking bad.. by jollyreaper · 2011-01-14 05:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  The fact that they are making an example of him seems to reinforce the view that an individual invading the privacy of a political figure is somehow worse than the reversed situation. Sounds like a very bad message to be sending, to me.
  That's precisely the problem. I doubt I could get the cops to even talk to me if I said someone hacked my account. We have a case of a bad divorce and a guy reading his wife's email getting a felony conviction. I wonder just who her daddy is.
  When justice is not applied equally and fairly, we have a serious problem. Someone steals my car, the cops aren't likely to ever catch him. Someone steals Palin's car, he's probably going to get 20 years in supermax.
  
  --
  Kwisatz Haderach
  Sell the spice to CHOAM
  This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
yeah...if you piss someone off.. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-01-14 03:19 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
Judicial recommendation =/= prison placement by celticryan · 2011-01-14 03:20 · Score: 5, Informative

FTFA:

"The judge can give either incarceration or probation, but if it's incarceration the state gives power to the Bureau of Prisons to determine the nature of incarceration," said Professor Robert Weisberg, director of the criminal justice center at Stanford University in California.
If the Judge didn't want him to go to prison maybe he shouldn't have sentenced him to prison time...