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What a dumb crime. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:5, Insightful)
When the maximum penalty is 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, "Guilty" is a dumb thing to say.
You can't make a deal with a prosecutor if you have zero leverage.
Remember, because of lawyers, common courtesy is dead. For example, you can no longer apologize at the scene of a car accident that's your fault, because then you might be sued.
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Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Gee, I wonder why the system is failing (Score:5, Insightful)
Gosh, why is the system failing. What could possible have happened to the US and democracy in general. Could there be some clue. Maybe something in your post. Geez, lets see.
Personally I forgot it happened
The powers that be thank you, dear consumer with the attention span of a kitten in a chicken plucking factory.
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Re:Gee, I wonder why the system is failing (Score:5, Funny)
The powers that be thank you, dear consumer with the attention span of a kitten in a chicken plucking factory.
Dear poster, I am literally in awe of your skills with the metaphor. This has to be one of the best things I've ever seen.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know from where you post, but in the USA very few (actually, I can't think of any) professions have a legal salary cap.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
Media publication of this information has nothing to do with whether or not the data was obtained illegally. News organizations publish information obtained from criminals about their criminal acts on a regular basis, and most of them are willing to shield their sources against investigation.
The fact that Palin was using non-state-sanctioned e-mail for purposes of administering the state is, if not outright illegal under either federal or Alaskan law, certainly underhanded and something that the people should know about.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's all well and good, but bragging to the world about what you did because you thought it would make you leet is still stupid.
I personally think this deserves punishment, regardless of whose email account he happened to crack. It doesn't matter if it was the Republican nominee for VP or Joe Six-Pack's, and it doesn't matter what portentous revelations came of it.
But the punishment needs to fit the crime. Certainly any sort of jail time would be excessive to say the least. But kids like these need to understand that there are limits and rules which are more important than having a chuckle with the internet. At the very least it should be a lesson on how not to announce to the world what you did.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the key. How many webmail accounts do you think are compromised every day in the world? Now, how many are investigated by the secret service and result in a federal indictment?
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Interesting)
Except she wasn't conducting business illegally, and I'm puzzled as to why you'd falsely post that as a justification for an immoral and illegal act. As the hacker Rubico apparently said:
See, for example, here:
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/17/the-story-behind-the-palin-e-mail-hacking/ [michellemalkin.com]
Personally, I prefer Tina Fey to Sarah Palin, but the emails I saw reprinted, while to political colleagues, were the kind that would be illegal (at least at the federal level) to send using government email accounts. For instance, she talked about her Lt-Governor's election campaign. Doing that kind of business on state accounts is a no-no.
But even if all that were not true, you're saying it's just fine to hack into someone's personal email account because you suspect they are guilty of something. So it's fine for the police to do that to you? You must love the Patriot Act and think it doesn't go remotely far enough.
Call that 1984.
Even if Palin had improperly conducted state business on yahoo (which would be stupid and illegal), hacking her email account is still immoral and illegal. I'm surprised that many people who normally are pro-freedom turn out to have very situational ethics when it comes to people they regard as political enemies. As others have said in this thread, a guy called Richard Nixon seemed to think that way.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
Politicians don't deserve the same freedoms as citizens. Sorry to say this but they cannot be trusted with as much freedom. The most a citizen will do doesn't matter to national security w/e. But the president/vicepresident, congresscritters they can cause really big problems and when there are allegations of corruption and wrong doing they should NOT get the same level of privacy citizens are supposed to (but dont get regardless). Look up congression level hacks and almost ALWAYS corruption is found. Sorry, privacy is nice and all but when you find they took a few hundred grand or a house in bribes (previous congressmen) then the hack was well justified. Its the same as hacking/investigating people when you have a warrant. The bar should simply be set lower for politicians since they seem to set it lower.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great. So the Obama campaign will be publishing all of Joe and Barrak's e-mail in the next few days then. 'Cause, how can we know if they're conducting public business with those private accounts, unless we see it all??
The Big Rule of a democratic society is Equality Before the Law. Same rules for everyone. So if Palin's e-mail must all be public record, then the same goes for Biden and Obama, and Kennedy, and everyone else. And you.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
I do think that Bidens and all other congressional emails (through GOV accounts) should be available/read by 3rd party. And when corruption is found like in palins case...
Uh, nothing was found. You can keep saying that, but there was nothing there. Sorry.
If a congress person (palin)...
Palin is not in Congress. She is the governor. That is an executive position.
She fired the Chief because he was going after funding after Palin denied it. He was trying to go over the Governor's head to get things done. Governor's don't like that much. What would your boss do if you went to his boss, or more accurately, the head of a different department to request funding after your boss had denied it? I suspect you would end up in the same place as this particular chief.
...then she should have her logs checked. Seems pretty simple... citizen emails would not need to be public because we don't make billion dollar decisions.
Government officials are still citizens. They deserve privacy just like you or I do. If they are not above the law, then they have the same rights as you or I. Otherwise, we would be allowed to see into the private lives of the old lady at the DPS office. She is just as much a government employee as the governor.
But, hey! Don't let the facts cloud your judgment.
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Re:You have to fight dirty... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? The contents of the emails were generally posted on-line. Which emails were you referring to?
In any case, remember that the appropriate standard here is what ALASKA law says she should do with her email. The current President is in some hot water over the Presidential Records Act, but that act doesn't apply to the Governor of Alaska.
If you have both personal and business relationships with people, it's quite common for information to be intermingled in personal and business email accounts. Nothing generally wrong with that.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
How could you have learned that?
The entire mail archive was posted to wikileaks. Post ONE email from that archive (with appropriate obfuscations, of course) that supports that claim.
note: I'm not suggesting that she did or didn't do anything, only that I'm not convinced the evidence available supports the claim that she did.
note2: I'm not going to look through the archive myself. I don't want to look through someone else's private mail, and the burden of proof falls on the claim that she did commit wrongdoing, anyway.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand, the archive didn't make it; just a few screenshots before the guy freaked out and asked 4chan to glom it for him, which is when/where someone changed the password and alerted Palin. (The screenshots are also supposedly what made it possibly to backtrack him through his weak-sauce anonymizer.)
In short, epic fail for Palin and this cracker schmuck. But a quarter million $ and 3 years? Not going to happen. This kind of thing happens hundreds of times a week, if not day. How many times a day in the US, does someone steal a piece of physical mail (a Federal crime)? Probably in the thousands.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
To the extent that there may have been e-mail there that was intended to avoid Alaska's public records law, there could have been a crime. However, we will now never know if that alleged illegal activity was taking place, because by compromising the account, this bozo gave Palin a perfect excuse to close the account and (presumably) destroy all the evidence. (And any evidence that can be recovered will be tainted.)
Given the presumption of innocence in US law, we now must presume that she did nothing wrong... even if she had in fact been doing exactly what is alleged. Way to go, fella!
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
I learned that Sarah Palin was illegally using personal email accounts for business email
Um, that's perfectly legal.
What you meant to say was that she was illegally using personal email accounts for government business, which is not.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
Close your eyes; it's not illegal.
The freedom of information act would disagree.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called incorporation [wikipedia.org], so yeah FOIA applies no matter what the Alaska law says.
Also, she hasn't been elected yet, so don't try to the whole "executive privilege" thing either.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
"Incorporation" concerns the Bill of Rights and various other rights. FOIA is an act of congress that applies to certain documents of certain federal agencies. FOIA is not a right, and thus is not incorporated.
-Loyal
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Incorporation would not apply here (Score:5, Informative)
Incorporation applies via the 14th amendment to rights guaranteed by the bill of rights and other constitutional mechanisms. The Constitution does not grant a right to our government's communication to the public, which is why we have the FOIA. It also doesn't prohibit them, since it's not even discussed in the Constitution in the detail that's covered by the FOIA and related state laws, therefore it falls under the purview of the 10th amendment, which leaves the matter to the states and their residents to decide.
The FOIA act does not grant a new right under the Constitution, and Congress does not have the authority, even under the expanded Interstate Commerce Clause rulings, to force open such communications. Therefore it is not incorporated by precedent into state laws and actions. It is thus functionally invisible to the 14th amendment.
That said, she's probably fair game under Alaska state law, as it should be, since she's only accountable to Alaskans at this point given the only elected office she holds.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
It is illegal. Alaska has sunshine laws, also known as open government laws or freedom of information laws. Sarah Palin has violated these laws by conducting government business on private email accounts. [1]
She has also violated the law by directing her staff not show up for subpoenas. [2]
She has also violated the law by attempting to use her position to get her sister's ex-husband fired from his job. [3]
She has also violated the law by taking per diem payments from the Alaskan state government for staying in her own home. [4]
She has also violated the law by not paying taxes on per diem payments made for her children's travel at taxpayer expense (sometimes even out of state). [4]
And most Alaskans are pissed at her for allowing the McCain-Palin campaign to take over their state government. [5][6]
"Gov. Sarah Palin maintained a private e-mail account that she used to communicate with a small circle of staff members outside the state government's secure official e-mail system, according to the Wasilla company that established the site."
Huffington Post, October 1, 2008 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/30/AR2008093002699_pf.html [washingtonpost.com]
AP, Sep 26, 2008
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOTk11gvqDAgD0cY3i4WjI_2YOxwD93EOUE80 [google.com]
Washington Post Sunday, August 31, 2008
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/30/AR2008083002366_pf.html [washingtonpost.com]
AP October 7, 2008
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/07/state-reviewing-per-diem-payments-to-palin-1/ [washingtontimes.com]
AP, Wed Sep 17, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080917/ap_on_go_pr_wh/palin_mccain_operatives [yahoo.com]
Los Angeles Times September 21, 2008
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-troopergate21-2008sep21,0,2158301.story [latimes.com]
Log: References added, per request.
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Insightful)
For the slow: Lots of older folks, especially, are not completely tech-savvy. It doesn't mean that they are incompetent at their jobs.
I'm also willing to bet that if this had happened to Joe Biden, these types of comments wouldn't be thrown around so liberally (har har, pun not intended, but realized and appreciated after typed).
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Re:indict Palin (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:indict Palin (Score:5, Informative)
Why should she be indicted? None of her emails were very inappropriate.
Government officials have record and reporting requirements. By using an external E-mail provider, she avoided those.
even though her personal emails have been exposed and cleared as appropriate
The account was called "gov.palin" and contained messages like this:
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Sarah_Palin_Yahoo_inbox_2008 [wikileaks.org]
Let it go--she obviously wasn't, and we know that thanks to the idiot who accessed her emails.
She was using the account inappropriately, that much is clear. One can argue about whether this should be a big deal, given that there was no obviously incriminating information she was trying to hide.
I'd usually say this shouldn't be a big deal. But given her apparent history of abuse of power, this is quite relevant.
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Security fix (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Security fix (Score:4, Funny)
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How strange! (Score:5, Funny)
My understanding was that illegally wiretapping American citizens carried neither fine nor penalty.
Bummer (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
One can only hope that he is prosecuted to the exact same extent that he would be prosecuted for hacking my Yahoo mail account.
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Re:Bummer (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, he is.
Please stop reposting from the DailyKos.
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Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
He is being punished for breaking the law. He is being prosecuted for making Sarah Palin look bad.
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Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
he's being punished for making Sarah Palin and thus the GOP look bad.
He's being punished for breaking the law in a high-profile way. Millions of people get away with speeding every day, yet if I were to speed past a vigil for children killed by reckless drivers, and TV cameras caught it and it became a big news story, I'd expect to get busted for it. High profile crimes are typically prosecuted in a high profile way.
As for the assertion that it made the GOP look bad, how so? There was nothing incriminating there, he even commented himself on how disappointed he was when he was unable to find something to use against her. If anything, it's a net positive for the GOP since they've been victimized by a crime from Obama's supporters without any damage being done in the long run.
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Re:Bummer (Score:5, Insightful)
> rather he's being punished for making Sarah Palin and thus the GOP look bad.
That would only make sense if he actually *found* any of the kind of thing he was looking for and, thus, actually made the aforementioned persons look bad. The only people who really look bad here are Yahoo, and perhaps other sites that follow a similar practice of encouraging users to use fundamentally highly insecure "Security Questions.
At worst Palin comes off looking she's not a computer security expert (everyone who is surprised about this, raise your hand), and at best she comes off looking like she has nothing to hide. The only way she'd look bad out of this would be if she got hateful and vindictive and angry about it and started screaming for justice, but she presumably has better political sense than that, having already run a successful campaign for office at the state level.
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Some are more equal than others... (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times a day do bitter exs break into each others accounts? Nothing ever comes of those incidents.
Re:Some are more equal than others... (Score:4, Informative)
It probably helps to be a public personality, but there are cases where people breaking into less-than-presidential-candidate-email have found themselves losing to the law:
http://news.google.com/news?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&tab=wn&nolr=1&hl=en&q=%22Larry+Mendte%22&btnG=Search+News [google.com]
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Balance (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it just me, or does that sound a bit excessive for guessing the answers to her all-too-obvious "forgot password" questions? I'm not saying he shouldn't be punished, but no actual harm was done. How does this compare to what the punishment would be for, say, hacking into an ISP's mail server and obtaining root access? Or defacing a company's web site?
And the moral of the story is... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you do something illegal, STFU!
-jcr
*Democrat* State Legislator (Score:5, Interesting)
Did I miss something? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Interesting)
According to The Anchorage Daily News [adn.com] her use of secret accounts for state business was already an issue before McCain selected her as his running mate. A records request this summer by a fellow Republican (Andree McLeod) turned up the fact that she was playing fast and loose with the state records laws.
The Republicans in Alaska had had just about enough of her before McCain swooped in. There was bipartisan support for several investigations against her and a growing consensus towards impeachment.
Now, of course, that's all forgotten, at least in some quarters.
I think that's the whole point. They haven't seen the emails, but their existence has been made clear by (among other things) the privilege logs, other e-mails, and sworn testimony of her staffers. So far, she's refusing to turn them over.
--MarkusQ
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Re:Is that fine a bit large? (Score:5, Insightful)
Enough with this.
I can't believe how many blindly partisan people simply ignore the violation of her privacy.
Would you have the same attitude if you had been the victim?
You'd be OK with someone hacking into your email, or perhaps browsing around your home to look for something that *might* indicate that you've done something wrong?
Would you say, "I guess I had it coming"?
I think it's sad that this (eternal) election has divided American citizens into Republicans or Democrats and not much else.
Damn.
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Re:Is that fine a bit large? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately the example it makes is that you can get away with crimes as long as the victim isn't important.
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Re:Is that fine a bit large? (Score:5, Insightful)
John McCain can't type because his arms were repeatedly broken by the Vietnamese while he was a POW. Why do you insult disabled veterans?
Well, that's what his campaign claims when the embarrassing topic of his technological ignorance comes up. On the other hand, here [flickr.com] you can see him firmly holding a pad in one hand, while signing his name with the other hand, standing up, with no awkwardness that I can observe. He's hardly an invalid. If he can do that, he can type on a keyboard.
While I respect McCain's sacrifice 35 years ago as a single data point, unfortunately he's also proved himself to be a dishonorable liar since then.
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