Is this not a bit over the top? Seems a bit harsh taking it this far, I am sure 100's of webmail accounts get hacked every day. I get the impression that the person who did this didn't really expect it to work and hadn't really planned out what they would do if it did.

Obviously this woman isn't the sharpest tool in the box, but anyone in the public eye foolish enough to use yahoo mail for anything important, and stupid enough to use secret questions and answers that any idiot can find on the internet, is asking for it to be honest.

The authorities should really be investigating why someone in this position was using a webmail address and avoiding the (monitored and archived) one they were supposed to be using.

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/palin-e-mail-ha.html

I havn't been back to the /b/ for sometime, but since when did they let namefags back in?

Anonymous doesn't need a name, god damn namefags - fbi - lol.

Chris : David?

David : Chris?

Chris : David?

David : She said she was 18 Chris!

Chris : Take a seat.

This is better then "No one messes with football!"

So much talk of anon - but still no research from the reg T_T it makes me sad.

Have you noticed that McCain has disappeared pretty much from the race? He did that 'responsible the Blackberry' thing, then Carly Fiorina said he wasn't good enough to be a CEO, and he just kind of stepped back into the shadows after that.

Take a look at his website:

http://www.johnmccain.com/

'In the news', leads with what *Obama* is doing, not McCain. Photos of the week shows mostly Palin, McCain is just set dressing to Palin.

So we're all Palin that and Palin that as though she's running for President, and the guy actually running for President just skulks away into the shadows.

In regards to Sarah Palin's email, there is no crime on her part. Innuendo seems the rule of the day across the web. She is not charged and no one with any IQ is making a charge. Until she is charged there is no crime. The knuckleheads on the web love pointing out a quote from her spokesperson [saying to someone else that they should use the yahoo! account] and that is all the knucklehead needs to say that a crime happened. There is nothing in the emails of any significance and no one with any legal jurisdiction has indicated to the contrary.

The greatest indicator that there is nothing to the email that would implicate Sarah Palin is that if there were red meat, MSNBC and the NYT would be all over this story. Until either launches into hyperbole I remain convinced the AP is leaving the clarification unsettled to keep a fishy stink to the story - an act typical of the AP when they don't like someone.

Whoever did the hack is the known criminal. Whether Sarah Palin did anything is not known and she should be given the benefit of the doubt.

US Campaign law specifically prohibits using official accounts for partisan purposes. If she had been using the accounts to conduct "official business" we would all know what that official business had been, because they would have been the lead on 6:00 news instead of that her account was compromised. The thugs from the Democrat party (notice the capital 'D' to distinguish it from the democrats we all are, which is to say electors of our representatives) figured they'd be able to slime their way into smearing an honorable woman. The feds should throw the book at them.

IF Kernell is the one who maliciously hacked into Palin's account, and then provided her private information to those who made it public, of course he should be held accountable.

The perp provided private pictures, email addresses, and phone numbers of her children. Can you imagine yourself doing this? I hope not! This is the kind of hate that party-ism creates. It overshadows racism and sexism in our culture today. I was struck by the girl in Colorado whose self proclaimed "liberal" professor gave all the students the assignment to write a nagative paper about Sarah Palin. When one student objected, the professor asked Republican students to raise their hands. Only five students raised their hands. (No way to tell how many were silently protesting) Some of the other students verbally attacked them with insults and profanity, only because they identified themselves as Republicans. This is the kind of get-in-their-face-and-shout-them-down ugliness that party-ism creates. Young people are being taught to hate people of a different party, and it leads to irrational hate crimes like this one.

@ Jon Teda: Doesn't matter if Palin committed a "crime" or not. She deserved to be called out in public for using a hotmail account for official business. That's an unacceptable way to get around accountability and public record rules.

It's sleazy, shabby, and exactly what you'd expect from someone trying to hide something - it's been proven that she uses her official email for lots of things...it's been proven that she can access her official email system from anywhere with a Internet access...why then does she play mix-n-match with her email?

@Chris: Murder is a proven precedent too! Does that mean it's OK to do it because someone else had done it?