Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Indicted Palin E-Mail Hacker Tried To Scrub Computer

Twenty-year-old David Kernell, the son of a Tennessee Democratic lawmaker, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for hacking into a private e-mail account of Gov. Sarah Palin, downloading some of the contents and posting the information on another website. According to the indictment, Kernell attempted to scrub evidence from his laptop computer that he had hacked into Palin's e-mail account once he knew that he was the subject of a federal investigation. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of five years if he is found guilty, but it is unlikely he will serve a day in jail given that he has no past criminal record.

1 comment:

David said...

Hackers are criminals, I think we can all agree on that.

In addition, shouldn't it be absolutely horrific that a governor used a personal Yahoo! email address to conduct government business, as has been reported?

First, there's the Sunshine problems, which, as I understand it, make using an email address like that illegal, but even more to the point, a Yahoo! address is not secure like a .gov address, so the fact that some a$$hole hacker broke into her account should illustrate her incompetence in using such a loose account in the first place!

But no one's talking about that. *sigh* If I was a government official, especially like a governor, I would cancel all my hotmail, gmail, Yahoo!, etc. accounts. Or at least stop using them and definitely NEVER use them for government business.

Anyway, I can't find your email in your profile, maybe I didn't look closely enough, so I'll ask this question separate from this thread: are you comfortable supporting McCain after he did a 180 on GLBT civil rights by speaking at Falwell's "university" after previously calling Falwell an "agent of intolerance"?

What scares me is not McCain's newly found position on gay marriage--I'm quite happy it's not being used to hijack this election as it has been used in the past--it's that he changed so many of his views to become an acceptable Republican candidate for president.

That kind of obvious pandering and flip-flopping scares me, because it means we don't know the real John McCain. We just know the one who really, REALLY wants to get elected.

Evident hypocrisy that's explained by ambition unnerves me. Who is this guy, really? Why was he so different only a couple of years ago? How far will he go to appeal to his base?

Anyway. I think my email can be found in my profile; if not, my gmail is dchunter, so email me if you care to respond personally. I'm curious.