back to article Feds search Palin hack suspect's flat

Federal investigators served a search warrant on a suspect in the Sarah Palin webmail hack case in the early hours of Sunday morning. They reportedly interrupted a student party to search the apartment of David Kernell, 20, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Reports of the raid itself remain confused amid reports that Kernell and his …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Why are the Feds...

    ...not going after Palin? Isn't using a public account for government business against the law? Has this kid exposed a greater crime?

  2. Luke

    Overkill?

    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.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmm

    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.

  4. Hud Dunlap
    Black Helicopters

    Black Mariah's

    These early morning raids are too reminiscent of the KGB arrests in the old soviet union. There is not reason to execute a search warrant like it is a raid on a terrorist camp.

  5. Marvin the Martian
    Flame

    Because they work day and night?

    So it's clear they just want to be annoying. The name has been circulated since a few hours after the hack. Do they choose to pay a visit when the trail is hot? No, they choose to do it on a weekend night hoping to find some marihuana and embarass a father-democrat rep.

    Well played, sir, well played.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    If only they did all hacks like this

    If only the FBI investigate all email hacks this way. Since she is running for vice presidency, they decide to go over the top and carry out a raid on some youth.

    Obviously the FBI have nothing better to do than to suck up to a potential vice president to get a promotion.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    McCain?

    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.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Backfire

    To be honest, this is just the kind of thing the Palin-McCain camp would wish for. They appeal to the generally techno-phobic voter anyway, and "E-mail system is unsafe" headlines will sound very good to them.

  9. Jon Teda

    Can some reporter set the record straight here...

    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.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    password

    The stories report that he changed the password to popcorn (and IIRC told one of Palin's staff what the new password was)... has anyone checked to see if it is still popcorn, or has been changed?

    I would check myself but I fear the feds are monitoring access attempts and I'm all to traceable!

    She's the sort of person who would use rot-13 encryption... and run it twice to be certain!

  11. Alan Fisher
    Alien

    New inmate of GITMO then?

    Hmm orange jumpsuit for the latest American Hating Destroyer of Freedom then? He'll be an Al Queda Terrorist by dinner time and have a million copies of the Quaran hidden in his sock drawer and plans to do somesuchthing of terrorist badness....

    of course they go so OTT because otherwise they have to lay the blame where it belongs and admit their security is pants and the fault is, vis a vis, their own....can't have that now can we?

  12. John Imrie
    Unhappy

    @Hud Dunlap

    Of cause there's is a reason to execute a search warrant like its a raid on a terrorist camp.

    1) Gets the cops overtime payments.

    2) Keeps the plebs in fear.

  13. Tom

    Perhaps you Brits should become a bit more familiar with US Campaign laws before making assumptions

    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.

  14. Paulette Charbonnet

    Looks like a hate crime!

    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.

  15. Chris iverson
    Black Helicopters

    RE: Why are the Feds...

    Normally you would be right however since every politician uses a personal account it has become the norm. So Palin was following the precedent that using a personal account is Ok.

  16. Solomon Grundy

    @Jon Teda and Chris Iverson

    @ 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?

  17. Pierre
    Thumb Up

    Pah. Lotsa morons here lately

    Let's "become a bit more familiar" with the facts:

    Some guy hacked into some gal's yahoo account. Nothing to see here, it happens, like, 2000 times a day and the feds or the SS don't feel like they have to do anything. Why are they taking the piss now? The brat should receive a solid slap on the wrist (like, community service), especially for being so stupid and careless, but that's it.

    Unless, of course, the account contains info related to state business (which the leaked snapshots tend to indicate, actually). In that case, the SS and FBI should be involved. But they should go after the GILF first.

    This guy did what Team America Republican Domination (TARD) does best: use questionable ways to get proof of mischief. If he had done such a thing to a suspected terr'ist (or to a Dem using a yahoo account for state business), he would have been a hero. But he attacked a TARD member. To Gitmo he goes then.

    BTW, Tom, I hope "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." was a joke. She does, the media exposed it, this "hack" kinda proved it, and you should prolly stop watching Faux News that much.

  18. Alan Fisher
    Black Helicopters

    Still an overreaction

    Just like that guy who "hacked" (read exploited lax security) the Pentagon.....in both cases it could have been someone REALLY MALICIOUS who'd done both, can you imagine?? They can so, instead of improving security, they're making an example of the perpetrator (who, don't get me wrong, should indeed be punished, as should all such people to my mind) so no-one dares do it again. However; they appear to have not closed the holes so the danger remains....it's easier to scapegoat that admit where the fault lies is what I can see here....

  19. JK
    Alert

    RE: Pah. Lotsa morons here lately

    They only investigate "important" crimes, e.g., those pertaining to "important" people.

    @Paulette Charbonnet:

    Please GTFO out of my country.

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