Category: Technology Author : JR Posted: September 17, 2008
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Sarah Palin’s Private E-Mails


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Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo Mail e-mails — which include official government business — have been hacked and posted online.

Infamous internet group “Anonymous” claims it gained access into Palin’s account, gov.palin @ yahoo.com, early this morning. It sent images of her inbox to WikiLeaks, which published them. The WikiLeaks site is currently unavailable, though it’s not clear if it’s been taken down or is just overwhelmed with traffic. We were able to grab a few of the emails below (click to enlarge):





A rep for the McCain-Palin campaign called the hack a “shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law.” He also said the evidence had been “turned over to the appropriate authorities.”

Palin has come under fire recently for using her Yahoo Mail account to conduct official government business. The Anchorage Daily News ran a report Monday that questioned whether that was part of a plan “to get around the public records law through broad exemptions or private e-mail accounts.”

Palin’s staff has maintained her use of the account is perfectly legal.

Editors note: the emails are posted for public interest only. The Inquisitr does not condone email hacking. We consider the screenshots to be fair use under law as they cover a public topic and such information is publicly available, even if the original methods used to obtain them were not legal



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  • Nice job on grabbing those before they vanished, Duncan!
  • Shawn
    was JR, I'm not long up, but thx none the less :-)
  • Todd
    Please tell me you did some sort of research to make sure the person emailing Palin is a public figure. Otherwise, you have just violated her privacy as well. Do you know if she's a minor? Does she face pressure's from her employer for supporting Palin? Until today, this was my favorite new blog. But this comes across as a very unthoughtful move.
  • JR
    Todd, the e-mails come from Palin's lieutenant governor (Sean Parnell) and from a member of one of her advisory boards (Amy McCorkell).
  • Palin has been criticized in recent days for using a personal e-mail account to conduct state business. An Alaska activist has filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking disclosure of e-mails from another Yahoo account Palin used, gov.sarah@yahoo.com.
    That account appears to have been linked to the one that was hacked. www.unclepayday.ca
  • Kevan
    Posting the illegally obtained e-mails of an elected government official is "fair use"? Really?

    This really disappoints me, as a reader, I would have thought that you wouldn't stoop to Gawker levels for traffic, and then hide behind "fair use".
  • Kevan
    I'm happy to take that on board. JR has my 100% support in making the call to publish this. Our interest was in being part of the conversation on a topic as it crossed both politics and tech (and you'll see my 4chan follow up as well in where this is heading), perhaps we could have done it better. Certainly though these sorts of posts aren't big traffic drivers for us (least based on our first 4 months) so I can promise you that traffic wasn't the biggest factor.

    In terms of fair use, taking a screenshot from a publicly available site does, at least within my understanding of copyright law, constitute fair use. In saying that in no way am I, nor the site condoning the act that saw these emails enter the public sphere. We're not hiding behind fair use, it's simply a case in fact, until I hear a convincing argument otherwise.
  • mollyfud
    Adding to the Conversation? What did you add to the conversation? Looks like every other post on the topic. I would have thought a better way to join the conversation is to take the high ground, not show the image and explain why it is so wrong!!!!

    There is still time to do the right thing though.
    Molly
    PS. An update is pretty lame in this issue.
  • I've already responded in a post.
  • mollyfud
    You mean the Editors note? Lame dude, Lame! How quickly the New Media
    has caught up to old media!!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Todd
    That's a relief JR, but I still don't think it was a good idea to post. I'm betting Ms. McCorkell's personal email is getting crushed right now for what she thought was a private conversation.
  • John Swift
    Her password was popcorn

    National Security: popcorn
  • lol
  • Andrew of Mixergy.com
    What about the URL in the address bar?
  • mollyfud
    Hey Andrew,
    I think the person may have be using a proxy to hide there identity. If you go to the Ctunnel website your find this comment/headline:
    Ctunnel is here to protect your anonymity online!
  • Andrew of Mixergy
    You're right Molly
  • Teri
    Your Site is disgusting and I DID NOT ENLARGE or even attempt to look at the content...You may not have broken a law by republishing these....but you are just as despicable!!!!
  • davidkudmip
    Anonymous is not a group of hackers - it's a leaderless collective of like-minded individuals, from all walks of life.

    http://www.enturbulation.org/press-media/faq
  • David Kernell, the 20-year-old son of Democratic Representative Mike Kernell of Tennessee, got popped. According to CNN (“Democratic lawmaker's son indicted in Palin hacking”), he reset the password and gained access to GOP VP candidate Palin's personal E-mail account. It is alleged that he read the contents, took a screenshot of her E-mail directory and obtained other personal information. The information that may have been compromised includes E-mail addresses and pictures of family members, one or more cell phone numbers of family members, family birthdates and more from Palin's address book. Interestingly, after turning himself in, David Kernell pleaded not guilty. He pleaded not guilty despite the fact that he (allegedly) took the information he hacked from Palin's personal account and posted it to a public Web site. Not only that, but he posted the new password he’d created, which would enable others to easily access Palin's E-mail themselves and view any of the contents. As a result, Kernell Junior may be subject to the heat of a five-year prison term, $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. That’s enough to turn anybody into a fluffy white piece of popcorn. At the maximum of $1,500 per loan, that bail would require about 167 individual payday loans to free that fluffy little popped grain treat from being overcooked by cellmates.
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  • tom
    The laws of the universe are simple: For every action there is an equal reaction; what goes around comes around; the way you treat other you will be treated; karma, the golden rule etc all apply. the Payday Loan Advocate is corrected about the experience of prison. You end up there because you screwed someone and now you'll reap many times over!I did a year in federal prison as an intern and these things are real. If you willing to violate others your time will come around! Simple, not hard to figure out!
  • paydayloanadvocate
    David Kernell is the 20-year-old son of Tennessee’s Democratic Representative Mike Kernell, and David got caught red-handed. Based on the CNN account “Democratic lawmaker's son indicted in Palin hacking,” David reset the password of GOP vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin’s personal e-mail account. David allegedly read the contents, took screenshots, and got a hold of other private information. Some of the information believed to be compromised includes Palin’s address book, photos of family and friends, contact phone numbers, and family birthdates among other things. Ironically, although David Kernell turned himself in, he pled not guilty. Why would he plead not guilty after he took the information he hacked from Palin’s personal account and posted it to a public website? Not only did David post Palin’s personal information to the public site, but he posted the new password he created, which made it possible for others to access and view Palin’s e-mail account. As a consequence, David Kernell could serve five years in jail, pay a $250,000 fine, and be subject to three years of supervised release. At the maximum of $1,500 per loan, that fine would require approximately 167 individual payday loans to free himself from the confines of prison

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  • You're right Molly
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