Palin E-Mail Snoop Gets Year In Prison 417
netbuzz writes "David Kernell, whose prying into Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account caused an uproar two months before the 2008 presidential election, was today sentenced to a year and a day by a judge in Knoxville, Tenn. Kernell was convicted of misdemeanor computer fraud and felony obstruction of justice back in April. His attorney had argued for probation on the grounds that what Kernell did amounted to a prank that spun out of control."
As I recall (Score:2, Insightful)
It was guessing the answer to her Security Question that was publicly available on the internet. If that's "hacking" then I'm fucking Kevin Mitnick.
Computer Fraud (Score:1, Insightful)
Worse than regular fraud, because I don't understand computers.
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could have been worse (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's face it; he hacked the email account of a Vice Presidential candidate. Regardless of how one feels about Sarah Palin (I can't stand her myself...the things she says makes me want to slam my head in a file cabinet drawer) it's not rocket science to recognize that what he did is a bit more severe (and consequence-prone) than going after your typical person. He should consider himself lucky that he only got a year, really...I figured they'd do much worse.
Meanwhile, billionaire Mark Zuckerberg skates (Score:5, Insightful)
Mar. 5, 2010
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-connectu-2010-3 [businessinsider.com]
In this new, fake profile, he listed Cameron's height as 7'4", his hair color as "Ayran Blond," and his eye color as "Sky Blue." He listed Cameron's "language" as "WASP-y."
Next, Mark appears to have logged into the accounts of some ConnectU users and changed their privacy settings to invisible. The idea here was apparently to make it harder for people to find friends on ConnectU, thus reducing its utility. Eventually, Mark appears to have gone a step further, deactivating about 20 ConnectU accounts entirely...
The mistake this guy made... (Score:5, Insightful)
... was not being in the Federal government. If he had been, his actions would've been deemed legal.
It is all in who the victim is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
I gotta say, hacking a high-profile politician's email account (ESPECIALLY when they are running for vice president, which means everything of theirs is being watched 24/7) is a really stupid idea. There's pretty much no way you can get away with that nowadays...
Re:As I recall (Score:3, Insightful)
For better or worse, laws against computer hacking are generally phrased in terms of "unauthorized access" to computer resources, "unauthorized" meaning when you know or ought to know you have no right to them. The law isn't cognizant of how involved or intricate the legwork necessary to obtain access is. A similar situation obtains with the DMCA and its poorly worded prohibition of "circumvention" of "effective" anticopying measures. Is ROT-26 "effective" as a matter of law? What about ROT-13?
You might compare someone being charged with breaking and entering into a house, the door to which was secured with a strip of masking tape.
Holy shit a year? (Score:2, Insightful)
In Related News (Score:5, Insightful)
In related news, Sarah Palin is still on the loose, endangering all sanity as we know it.
Punishment based on victim, not crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Would he have received the same sentence if he had hacked the email of a random neighbour?
Re:Could have been worse (Score:4, Insightful)
After all a candidate is only a candidate and anyone whose email is hacked can have their reputation ruined for the next job interview or anything else.
If she was an actual vice president you could possibly attach some national security element to this but even that's a stretch, and giving these people extra protection will just promote the idea of government secrecy, big brother "we need to see your communication but you can't see ours" kind of thing. and there is no doubt in my mind she wouldn't fully back any kind of new mass surveillance initiative.
Re:Holy shit a year? (Score:2, Insightful)
Really? Breaking into someone's private email and then distributing what they found -- with clearly malicious intent -- is "such a small mistake" ?
Furthermore, when you say "He should have sent all the data he found to wiki leaks then burned his computer," that's exactly wrong! Had he not wiped his disk and tried (ineffectively!) to hide the evidence, he probably would have gotten substantially less punishment. In fact HIDING the evidence (obstruction of justice) is what got him the felony. The actual act was just a misdemeanor.
So in short, you're wrong bout everything!
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
I gotta say, hacking a high-profile politician's email account (ESPECIALLY when they are running for vice president, which means everything of theirs is being watched 24/7) is a really stupid idea. There's pretty much no way you can get away with that nowadays...
You think that when Sarah Palin became the candidate, that the government started monitoring traffic on her Yahoo account? That's not how this kid was caught, he was caught because he changed the password and posted it online.
And if it was my email hacked? (Score:5, Insightful)
What punishment would the guilty person get? I'll bet you London to brick it wouldn't even get to court.
One law for the power elite, and the rest of us can bugger off.
Re:Punishment based on victim, not crime (Score:2, Insightful)
Probably not, but he should.
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
It was guessing the answer to her Security Question that was publicly available on the internet. If that's "hacking" then I'm fucking Kevin Mitnick.
Most people's (snail) mail boxes are unlocked, but it's still mail fraud to go picking through them.
- RG>
Re:Then make O'Keefe a felon as well. (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? His "only crime was his political alignment?" Do you actually believe that? I'm personally glad we have laws that make it punishable to access other peoples accounts and spread their private information without permission. Right to privacy and all that.
Incidentally I'm not sure if you're missing the details or not, but the felony was obstruction of justice -- attempting to hide and destroy evidence (and so on). Had he not done that, he would have been fine (well not fine, he was still hit with a misdemeanor, but less of a big deal than a felony!)
I haven't followed O'Keefe closely at all -- what did he do that warrants a felony?
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
might not be hacking, but he still had no business going into her email
Re:Politically raised charges by Palin's folk. (Score:4, Insightful)
So are you claiming he didn't illegally access her account? This isn't a political thing, he clearly broke the law.
If he accessed your account, my account or Barack Obama's account, it'd still be a crime.
Re:Given that this is Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
Try an experiment. Create a new account and make some stupidass post in the first remotely political article that is either anti-republican or anti-democrat. See what happens!
Well, my point is, if you make that post and it's not a stupidass post, i.e. you're backing up your position with facts and you're not just regurgitating talking points, it probably won't end up mod-bombed no matter what position it takes. It might get slapped with a negative mod or three, but in the long run it will end up at least where it started and probably higher.
Re:Punishment based on victim, not crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Yea because people need to go to jail for crimes that hurt nobody? He "hacked" a single email account a handful of hours of community service and nothing on his record. There is nothing to show a pattern or even any real malice intent he guessed a trivial password for haha's.
Re:As I recall (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it somehow more illegal to trespass someone's house if they have 5 locks on their door vs only one? Why should it be more or less illegal to do something based on how difficult it is? It is the behavior that the effort allows that is being punished, either trespassing or accessing someone else's email without permission.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
He committed a crime, so he goes to jail.
With logic like that, I can see why your imprisonment rate is about ten times the world average.
Re:The mistake this guy made... (Score:1, Insightful)
If you want to look at it that way, murder is only murder because it doesn't have government sanction. Do it on your own and you're a monster, do it because the government told you to and you're a hero.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
>What damage is it you want to mitigate here?
He's taking space and other resources that are not available to a violent criminal. At best, he is raising the cost of incarcerating violent criminals. That's harm to society, to the economy, and weakens the value of a criminal justice system.
Palin's stupid password question (Score:1, Insightful)
The real joke is that this kid wasn't some computer genius on the contrary it was Sarah Palin's stupidity that should be sentenced to a year.
Her password question: What high school did you attend?
Answer: Wascilla High.
Palin is an idiot.
Re:The mistake this guy made... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As I recall (Score:3, Insightful)
You might compare someone being charged with breaking and entering into a house, the door to which was secured with a strip of masking tape.
Someone can be charged with breaking and entering. In fact, the door doesn’t need to be locked at all. If they even just open the door, they are breaking and entering. If the door is already open, they are only trespassing unless/until they steal something.
Re:Then pardon him already. (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama is also in favor of increased wiretapping and specifically Internet wiretaps. Would it then be okay to break into Obama's accounts?
Re:Punishment based on victim, not crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Holy shit a year? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Breaking into someone's private email and then distributing what they found -- with clearly malicious intent -- is "such a small mistake" ?
Compared to the crimes committed by the Bush administration, it's a very small mistake. Compared to the crimes committed by investment bankers, it's a very small mistake. Compared to the crimes committed by BP/Transocean/Halliburton/the MMS, it's a very small mistake.
I don't see anyone responsible for any of the above crimes facing any criminal punishment at all. Yet these crimes cost us hundreds of millions of dollars and cost many people their livelihoods, if not their lives. When people are getting away scot free with crimes of this magnitude, putting someone in jail for a little email hacking really does seem outlandish.
Re:As I recall (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, nothing ever came of that, did it? Sounds more like "shoot the messenger" to me.
Re:Holy shit a year? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Breaking into someone's private email and then distributing what they found -- with clearly malicious intent -- is "such a small mistake" ?
I gotta disagree there. I don't think his intent was malicious at all - his goal was to expose corruption. He was clearly partisan in his motives, but if that's all it takes to legally qualify for "malicious intent" then all of congress should be in jail too.
My understanding is that Palin only got away with it because the alaskan court ruled that the state law forbidding what she had done was too ambiguous. But the intent - keeping official government business communications on the record for accountability purposes - was clearly violated, even if the letter may not have been.
Re:Could have been worse (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if she were an actual vice president, there's no national security element unless she was breaking the law in precisely the manner she was as governor, using a private email account to prevent things from being on the record and potentially accessible to FOIA requests.
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
Thank you, someone else who gets it.
Crime is not about how hard it was for the perpetrator to commit it. Crime is about intent, or sometimes criminal negligence. "But the door was unlocked" is not, has never been, and should not be a legal defence.
Now, "intent" itself can sometimes be vague or fuzzy enough to leave room for doubt. You cannot be tried with trespassing on land that a reasonable person would not have known was off limits. And the balance of the law, the concept of innocence until guilt is proven, should favour the accused; if there is reasonable doubt, acquittal should be the outcome.
But that was not the case here. There was no doubt as to the accused's guilt, both in the crime itself and the attempted cover-up. Political angles aside, this would have been criminal no matter who the victim was, or what the perp's motive.
Re:It is all in who the victim is.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I would expect someone who shot a random 5 year old to get a worse sentence than someone who shot a random 30 year old because the former crime is far worse, despite the only difference being the victim.
Huh, I'd put it the other way around. Is this kind of like how clubbing a baby seal is worse than clubbing a baby raccoon or baby rat? I don't think clubbing any kind of animal is a good thing to do, but being cute or otherwise emotionally appealing doesn't make it worse or better. Do you have some other reasoning? The benefit to society of a 30 year old is higher because such a person is likely to have special skills that can make a contribution, while the 5 year old will have to be heavily invested in to reach that point (with high enough age that relationship reverses). In fact I bet fewer people are likely to shoot 5 year olds than 30 year olds, despite the fact that children are less capable of defending themselves, so that there in fact is more of a need for discouraging the shooting of 30 year olds. I'd put the two things as about equal in terms of deserving or needing punishment, but if there had to a distinction, shooting the 30 year old is worse because it is equally damaging to the victim and more damaging to society. I'm thinking you are a parent, is that true?
Re:Year and a day? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't do the crime if you can't afford to do the time.
Re:It is all in who the victim is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely don't understand your viewpoint.
Kernell increased the notoriety of the crime himself by trying to interrupt a very public political campaign. Contrary to your assertion, it isn't like Sarah Palin singled him out and sent her hounds after him. I'd be surprised if she was involved at all in the event beyond turning over evidence and cooperating with law enforcement.
Kernell cranked the system up to 11 trying to take down a vice presidential candidate of the US... and got burned. You break the law trying to subvert a presidential election and you should get your ass handed to you.
You might have a point if some criminal stole Sarah Palin's car without knowing who it belonged to then SHE turned the spotlight on him... but that wasn't the case at all. Kernell broke the law in such a way that brought national media attention to it. He has no one to blame but himself for the falling dominoes that he set into motion.
Re:Punishment based on victim, not crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably not.
1. When you commit a crime in an attempt to make a presidential election go your way, you bring a lot of media attention to your doorstep. The justice system will usually make sure to prosecute you fully when everyone is watching.
2. Hacking your neighbor's email affects your neighbor and a few other people. Impacting a presidential election with your unlawful actions affects a nation. Shouldn't the impact of your crime play a role in punishment?
Re:Could have been worse (Score:1, Insightful)
She respects my views and I respect hers
No you don't and no she doesn't. Respect implies agreement.
You simply both respect civility.
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
There's pretty much no way you can get away with that nowadays...
Pure unadulterated nonsense. Drive around town and find an open WiFi access point. Use an internet cafe. Use the TOR network. Hack a couple foreign computers (for some reason, Korea is especially easy), and bounce the connection through them. For best results, combine all of the above. There's pretty much no way you could NOT get away with it, unless you're a complete idiot. Which this guy obviously is since not only did he not bother to cover his tracks while breaking into the account, but he also didn't take any precautions when he released the information. He was just begging to be busted.
Re:Year and a day? (Score:2, Insightful)
Whats the point of costing us money for him to be "Punished"? How about letting him give restitution by teaching PC skills at a public school, pick up trash for so many hours. Why do we think locking someone in another cage is doing anything to help the victim?
Jail should be only for violent or particulary dangerous people, the rest of them we should be coming up with ways to restore the loss to the victims of these crimes.
Computer Trespass (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, fine -- throw this guy in jail for computer trespass.
But while you're at it, throw Sony in jail for their rootkit. Throw Starforce in jail for their rootkit. Throw the "ACORN pimp" in jail for his tampering with the phones in the Democratic office.
If you're going to apply a law, apply it consistently. The way it's being enforced now is way too arbitrary.
--Jeremy
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? The Gawker article in particular has plenty of screenshots showing government correspondence. Do you think an email from another government official title "veep talking points" is personal? What about a draft of a letter to Schwarzenegger about a tax? Is that also personal business? Why use an email account which is not required to be archived for government business? What about the emails asking how to hide communications between each other?
We both know there's no way of proving intent, but that's a hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence, youthink?
continued (curse the lack of editing) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Punishment based on victim, not crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course that's the opposite of what the Rethuglicans want, they prefer to applaud Palin's illegal usage of the account and complain about its exposure. Since it's their guy that makes everything A-OK, the only REAL crime is exposing their criminal actions.
Re:It is all in who the victim is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What I don't understand from the left side of American politics is how they pick these targets for political "assassination." Obama had substantial lead over McCain in polls and such from the beginning. I could see him winning with little effort, as long as he didn't screw things up himself.
So then McCain goes for a long shot VP choice, a woman, etc. Sarah wasn't much of a politician herself, some nobody from Alaska honestly. She came out saying your average Republican catch phrases, smaller governement, less taxes, etc. I still didn't see her as helping McCain all that much. Yet, from that moment, the left came out viciously against her, more so than they were against McCain. Who is she? She isn't anybody. Mayor/Governor in Alaska? That's not even a real state. That doesn't count. She doesn't know anything about the "real" America. McCain's old and going to die and she'll be King of the Land. Oh my, we're done fer now if they win. She's stupid too, look, she messed up two words in onne sentence! She's got too many kids. Look at that last one, she can't even breed right. Her daughter's pregnant and unwed, how's that for Republican "values" for ya.
This cycle, it was just like that with Christine O'Donnell. Again, she had little chance from the beginning. The other guy was ahead by ten or more points much of the time. Yet, the left came right out every day with the same visceral hate. A witch! A witch I tell ya! She's stupid. A duck is stupid. Therefore she's a witch! Then the week before election, they dig up a guy who "slept" with her after one night out at bars one Halloween some years ago. See, she's a slut. She'll sleep with anybody. Republicans and their stupid values. Oh, she only slept at the guy's apartment, no sex? Oh well, she's still a slut!
Meg Whitman. Well, that one was a little close, within five points at times. Then it's fine if Jerry's wife calls her a whore. She was one after all.
I think this kid got wound up in this extreme ferver to demonize their opponent to the point that he thinks he'll become a hero finding out Sarah's massive number of secrets that she's discussing with people in her emails. Honestly, what are you going to find? Photos from a family reunion? The secret plans of the Bildeburgers, Illuminati, etc? Still, why not target the actual political enemies for this sort of stuff? McCain, people in much closer elections your side might lose, etc?
Re:As I recall (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, using it to get around FOIA requests is a but misleading. It was never proven that was the reason. It could have been the result but the laws on it do not take the result as the reason automagically. It was argued by Palin and staff that it was a messup detailing that the blackberries used had both personal and government emails attached to them and by selecting a contact, it showed the name of the contact not the email address and it was simply a mistake that personal email addresses ended up being used. This was supported by numerous other politicians as well as businesses claiming they have realized the same problems in the past or present.
Stating the idea that the use was in order to to hide from FOIA requests and such accountability is nothing but speculation and inferred opinion. It could be but all official investigations into it determined that it was an accidental oversight caused by the complexity of having both accounts on the same phones. You may want to believe otherwise, but you shouldn't state your opinion as fact when it is little more then your opinion.
Re:Palin's stupid password question (Score:3, Insightful)
"She didn't decide what security questions Yahoo is going to use."
No, but she didn't have to use such an obvious answer. She could have made it simply impossible to answer by using unintelligible garbage. At least that way no random person could answer it.
Re:Punishment based on victim, not crime (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:As I recall (Score:3, Insightful)
The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable police searches. If a citizen committing an illegal act reports on another citizen, that may be sufficient information to start an investigation and perhaps get a search warrant - and the results of that are admissible in court. The Bill of Rights is much more concerned with limiting the power of government than limiting what people can do.
Re:As I recall (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, kinda. I mean, it's not "personal" but it's not "government business". That is, the purpose of the official accounts are to conduct state business through. But her running for another office (or maybe even re-running for governor) is actually done as Sarah Palin(R) not Gov. Sarah Palin.
Hell, remember the hell Gore got in for using his office phone to make a call about his campaign?