Sarah Palin tells court that email hacker disrupted campaign and personal life

[G_j]

Source: Guardian UK

Sarah Palin tells court that email hacker disrupted campaign and personal life
Former economics student David Kernell faces up to 50 years in jail if convicted of hacking into email account


Sarah Palin today addressed the jury at the criminal trial of the man accused of hacking into her email account during the 2008 presidential election campaign.

Palin spent 45 minutes in the witness box in a federal court in Knoxville, Tennessee where David Kernell, 22, faces up to 50 years in prison if found guilty of four charges.

Palin told the court that the "disturbance" to her email had disrupted her personal and political life. "If the intent was to disrupt it, it was successful. It caused a huge disruption in the campaign," she said.

The prosecution alleges that Kernell, then an economics student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, broke into Palin's Yahoo! email account gov.palin in September 2008 by answering simple security questions. He gained the information from Google, including her date of birth, the postcode of her home, and where she had met her husband, Todd. He is accused of changing her password to "popcorn" and posting some of her email contents on the internet under the pseudonym "rubico".

The 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate told the court she first learned she was the victim of hacking on TV when she was on the campaign trail in Michigan. "I saw a picture of my kids on the television screen," she said.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/23/sarah-palin-email-hacker-campaign

[Submariner]

1. It caused a huge disruption in the campaign," she said.

Well then....Kudos to David Kennel for single-handedly bringing down the McSame-Palin-in-the-ass campaign.

Cheers to you, and a big Thank You.
:toast:

[paulsby]

2. give the guy 6 months and move on

seems a reasonable sentence

[NecklyTyler]

6. Give David Kernell a medal because his action narrowly averted disaster for the United States

If a senile old coot and a dipsy-doodle wing nut were elected, we would be experience 101% unemployment

[Psephos]

17. Sounds about right. n/t

[activa8tr]

3. I am of the opinion that Sarah Palin was the one that

disrupted the entire Presidential Campaign of 2008 and her personal family life too!!!

I'd like SARAH to spend some time in jail, but, unfortunately, disrupting a Presidential Campaign and family life is not a crime.

I'm more of a mind to reward this guy, and offer him a job with some branch of the US Counterintelligence agencies.

[thecrow]

4. BUT... the GOP operatives who broke into Landrieu's office

intent on messing up her phones?
Nada.

[Brother Buzz]

15. IOKIYAR

[Hawkeye-X]

5. I call bullshit.

Why the fuck would Sarah Palin have a Yahoo account when she has ak.gov account that is more or less secure than the Yahoo account.

Acquit the hacker, and put Sarah Iquitarod in prison.

Hawkeye-X

[LiberalFighter]

8. Because she wanted to keep some of her official business secret from required FOIA

[DissedByBush]

9. That assumes knowledge on her part

She probably had the Yahoo account before becoming governor, and like an idiot she kept using it even for official business.

Hacking is serious business though, no matter the target.

But to be honest this is really, really low on the totem pole for hacking. It wasn't really "hacking" but guessing password verification questions.

The physical equivalent: You have a crappy lock on your house, he jiggles the handle, the lock opens, he comes in and rummages through your stuff without breaking anything, and posts a couple of your embarrassing letters online.

This is a first offense. Three years probation and doesn't touch a computer for six months.

Case closed.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

11. The email was [e-mail].

It was created AFTER she took office. Furthermore, if you read the emails, it's quite clear they were up to no good and intending to shield their communication from the law. Her and her henchmen/women took precautions to notify when they were on a personal vs. official account.

[DissedByBush]

12. Good point, and you answered the question

There's nothing to call BS about.

She's an idiot, doesn't know or care to know about the relative security of the systems.

She just did what she wanted to do.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

13. I guess I shouldn't be surprised or amazed but WTF is she doing ...

... in Tennessee testifying against some piss-ant kid? Oh yeah, 'cause she's a professional victim.

[DissedByBush]

23. It's a criminal trial

The prosecutor wants her to testify.

I'm surprised she didn't sue him.

[Tx4obama]

7. Palin hacked into state employees emails and was never arrested

ARREST PALIN NOW!
http://www.adn.com/2004/11/19/510276/palin-explains-her-actions-in.html

[activa8tr]

21. Geeze! It never ceases to amaze me as to what Sarah can

get away with.

Sarah getting rich on not doing a job, ripping of millions from the ignorant suckers who think she's somehow important.

[LiberalFighter]

10. She was an idiot for allowing her accout to be hacked so easily.

50 years is way too much of a sentence of this type of offense.

As for disrupting her campaign and personal life. Bullshit.

[alp227]

14. With all her power abuses as Alaska governor Palin's a bigger criminal than Kernell n/t

[MadMaddie]

16. Yawn!!

she saw a picture of her kids on the television screen.....

If the kids lawyer is any good he should ask outside of the pictures that the kid might have posted were her kids at any other time on the TV?

Give the kids some time and move on. Just because the victim is Wailen Sarah doesn't mean he should get more time.

[flvegan]

18. A Yahoo! e-mail account???

Oh Sarah, your ineptness keeps me laughing.

ZOMG! Some1 hacked my [e-mail] account!!

Fucking idiot.

[groundloop]

19. Someone too stupid/corrupt to use secure gov account thinks she's ready to be president !!!!

My take is that she's really really PO'd because she got outed.

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

20. Poor thing... cost her the Presidential seat.

oh wait, she was running for VP...

[Bluestar]

22. This is ridiculous--I am hopping mad over this! If this poor kid gets

50 years or anything close to that for hacking the Queen Idiot's email account, I give up. We don't even give some murderers this kind of a sentence. He should be punished, but this is beyond the pale. And why is she even pressing charges, making headlines by going down to Tennessee for this trial. She is such a media whore that she would ruin another person's life for more press coverage. There are no words, this woman is evil incarnate.

[quakerboy]

24. Interesting

anything even resembling 50 years would be a massive injustice. How often does one college student guess the password of the guy down the hall so they can pull some stunt with their email? Oh, right, I'd be willing to bed that happens at least every hour. Are they going to jail?

How about the China hacking google thing? Are they going to see consequences?

Or the climate email thing... is Sarah demanding people be punished for this?

Or the FBI spying on peace activists. It seems safe to guess their emails were not held secure. What consequence is there for them?

What an overblown POS case. At most this should have come to a quick out of court settlement where the guy agreed to do some community service.

[Regret My New Name]

25. 50 years?? People get less for murder.

Seems more like a community service thing than anything. Have him teach email security tips to kids and seniors... You know, like not using information that is easily obtained for your security stuff...