Palin E-mail Hacker Indicted 846
doomsdaywire writes "A University of Tennessee student who is the son of a Memphis legislator has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of hacking Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail. [...] If convicted, [David C.] Kernell faces a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a three-year term of supervised release. A trial date has not been set."
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I'm sure Slashdot's privacy hypocrites... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you might call them *Presidential* standards...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy [wikipedia.org]
why parent offtopic ? (Score:1, Informative)
so, government is ok when it ILLEGALLY wiretaps its citizens, but its not ok when the citizen does it ?
whats this, love of fascism, idiocy, morondom ? which ?
or did republican party unleashed a chapter full of registered members on slashdot ? i have noticed that A LOT of comments pointing to misdeeds of the current administration and the republican party and its candidates are being modded down with irrelevant moderation selections lately.. EVEN if you recite highly relevant, proven, undeniable FACTS. or is it a fault with the moderation screening process ?
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]
Turned himself in? Really? (Score:3, Informative)
Is this paragraph from the article misleading? I assume what they are getting at is that he didn't try to run away. I don't think he voluntarily went to the police and told them what he did. He was investigated and got caught, or at least the evidence points in his direction. Now he will take the heat like a man.
Either way, when he gets out of jail, he is going to get some major liberal/hacker tang!
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.
Re:Is that fine a bit large? (Score:3, Informative)
Not really relevant, since old persons don't use email. Just ask John McCain.
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?
Re:How strange! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:indict Palin (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, Alaska Public Records Act. [sunshinereview.org] FOIA is a Federal law, not a state law.
Re:Some are more equal than others... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:How strange! (Score:3, Informative)
that's not fraud, it's something else
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.
Re:How strange! (Score:4, Informative)
Using your logic, because police officers detain suspects we the public should be able to as well. [wikipedia.org]
Or are you suggesting that people aren't allowed to detain those they catch stealing from them? You should not be calling anyone's argument "weak".
You seem to be unaware of the fact that all the powers of (our) government are granted by those that it governs, as are all the laws the define legal behavior for both the government and citizen alike. It starts with Constitution and derives from there.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
The entire archive wasn't uploaded as far as I know, unless it was done long after the buzz died down, there were screenshots of like 3 emails, a couple of family pictures and contact list.
Basically the guy just released enough to prove he did it, I doubt he cared about the rest of it. He just wanted to look like an internet tough guy.
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.
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bummer (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Should make for a great trial! (Score:3, Informative)
Where has reading comprehesion gone :/ (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:2, Informative)
This case is getting special attention because of the attempt to influence the election. The same was true of the case in Milwaukee a few years ago when a bunch of tires got slashed for political reasons (they were on vans that were going to bring voters to the polls on election day).
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
Wikileaks hasn't posted the full e-mail archive to the general public.
The Guardian looked through them, and found e-mails related to a draft letter to Gov. Schwarzenegger, discussion of nominations to the state court of appeals, and emails from "DPS" - the department at the center of Troopergate.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2008/sep/17/uselections2008.sarahpalin
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
Classic lack of understanding... (Score:4, Informative)
...encapsulated in one, simplistic know-it-all sentence.
The so-called Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP) no longer exists, and hasn't since 17 January 2007 [nytimes.com].
All surveillance was happening under the guise of the Protect America Act [whitehouse.gov], which was designed exclusively to allow foreign intelligence collection without a warrant when the traffic travelled through the United States, whether incidentally or by design. Foreign intelligence collection is always allowed without court oversight; the changes explicitly allowed such collection on US soil as long as the target was reasonably believed to be a non-US person physically outside of the United States, regardless of the other end of the conversation.
Now the Protect America Act has expired with its automatic sunset, and all surveillance must again happen only via FISA [washingtontimes.com], as amended.
Also, TSP, in its entirety, was never as clear cut as being simply "legal" or "illegal" (court decisions on individual aspects aside). Those who claimed that it was "illegal" did so largely for political reasons. The other mistake is equating "traffic that *could be* listened to" with "traffic that *is* listened to" -- unfortunately, they are not at all the same. This also ignores that to even determine whether traffic is subject to legal collection, it must -- to be blunt -- actually be able to be collected. Thus the things like "secret rooms" at telecom facilities.
Having the capability to instantaneously examine traffic of international origin, where one or both endpoints of a communication are international, necessitates such wholesale monitoring capability. However, such capability being present does not imply its use for all traffic.
There are two issues here:
1. Monitoring the contents of a communication
2. Monitoring the metadata or "envelope" (source and destination information) of a communication
The first is allowable without a warrant or court oversight when one or both endpoints of the communication are international, and when the target of such monitoring is a non-US Person outside of the United States. Such foreign signals intelligence collection does not require a warrant or court oversight.
The second point above has multiple functions. One is using advanced data mining techniques to look for troubling patterns in communications.
Such collection has been found to be legal without a warrant or court oversight by the US Supreme Court:
Source: Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) [findlaw.com]
Courts have subsequently found that pen register statutes apply similarly to computer network addresses known as IP addresses, lists of web sites visited, and the "envelope" of an email message -- its To: and From: addresses and related information. The NSA itself has long understood that while the capture of the "metadata" of communications is fair game, the capture of the *contents* of the conversations of US Persons is not, without a warrant:
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bummer (Score:3, Informative)
Right, because the SON of a CONGRESSMAN (D) hacking into accounts for POLITICAL GAIN isn't "bad" because it is a (D) CONGRESS person. If this had been flipped around 180 degrees, I bet it still would be (R) bad (D) good.
Partisan HACKS like your are idiots, because all you see is (R) bad (D) good.
I HATE our (USA) politics because it is run by stupid idiots, who think everyone is like them (ie stupid).
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:5, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, 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.
I've always been told that most engineering fields, doctors, and athletes, have salary caps. I tried doing a google search, but all I get is page after page talking about salary caps for various sports leagues, so at least the athletes have salary caps, although from the results it looks like those are mandated by the leagues, not law. Seeing as I can't find any results to backup that statement I guess I'll have to retract it, but the rest of the post is still valid, and we do give the lawyers and judges way too much power. I wish we could come up with some way of separating attorneys and politicians, otherwise it's the case of the fox guarding the hen house.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:3, Informative)
And even in professional sports it's not set by the government. The owners and players often agree to some cap on a per team basis. Sports like baseball have a 'soft' cap where you can spend all you want, but have to pay a luxury tax.
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:3, Informative)
News flash... politician's enemies dislike her!!!
Palin essentially ran against the Republican party in Alaska, of course they've had enough of her. She came to fame by accusing the (still sitting to this day) Republican Party Chairman of corruption (he ended up paying a record fine) and filing an ethics complaint against the Republican State Attorney General (who resigned due to the scandal). She then ran against the sitting Republican Governor (and father of the current Republican Senator) and went on to support the (under Federal investigation) sitting Republican Congressional Representative's primary opponent. She went on to becomethe first prominent republican to break with her former patron the indicted Republican Senator Ted Stevens calling on him to come clean on the corruption charges against him (he describes his relationship to her as "frosty"). Lower down the food chain given the number of Republican state senators and representatives currently indicted, under investigation or already convicted of various corruption charges the conviction among them that Sarah is "not a team player" is frankly the most positive fact about her.
It is quite possible that Sarah Palin used personal email to conduct state business... though apparently in a willy-nilly manner since the emails are *from* and *to* state accounts suggesting foolish ignorance more than systematically trying hide something. It's also quite possible that she abused her power to try and get her former brother-in-law fired. Though if as alleged he made death threats against her father that's arguably not corruption... and if it is it's at least of an understandable sort. Compare those charges to the level of institutional corruption, bribery, kickbacks etc. rampant among those bringing these ethics charges against her and it seems pretty weak stuff.
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:3, Informative)
I do not think you know what you are talking about. Executive privilege is used TO RESIST SEARCH WARRANTS. That is why it is used and when it is used.
Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege [wikipedia.org]
Re:What a dumb crime. (Score:2, Informative)
I actually HAVE tried reporting a federal offense to federal officers. Get ready for the big surprise... nothing came of it. Why? Because it wasn't sexy or "important". If Joe Average does something "illegal" to John Q. Public, but it's not "on the radar" of crimes that the Feds are really concerned about, so to speak, it gets just about zero attention. I guaran-damn-tee you that if I tried to get a federal indictment against someone who compromised MY email account it would be completely impossible.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe the media is what he wants. (Score:4, Informative)
I do not think you know what you are talking about. Executive privilege is used TO RESIST SEARCH WARRANTS.
Yet the page you link to as proof says it can be used to resist search warrants "and other interventions by the legislative and judicial branches of government."
Maybe you should fully read links that you post backing up you point of view from start to finish in order to not comes across looking like an idiot.