Sarah Palin prevails against her Democratic Harasser

Finally, somebody puts these thugs where they belong!!!

As someone who has had his own privacy crossed by Obama supporters, I am very happy for her.

Let's hope this will also be a wake up call to other Obama supporters: that you cannot plot to distort the views of others, and to slime and smear and stalk and harass opponents....without judicial retribution.

Complete article at link....

It serves the little punk right.

This was a criminal case. Sarah Palin was not a party to it. She therefore did not, in fact, prevail.

Anyway, the unauthorized access to a computer charge was open and shut.

There's just no way around that on the facts of the case.

The obstruction charge was probably similarly clear cut, with some combination of lying to investigators and trying to erase data from his computer at the heart of it. The government failed to prove its case on either of the charges that were actually in contention.

I'm not a lawyer, but wouldn't Sarah had to have at least initiated the process to get the ball rolling? Yes, the Secret Service and FBI took over, and then it was prosecuted by the government....but doesn't someone have to request to press charges first for the government to prosecute? Especially for something like this (as opposed to say murder, which would be automatic)?

Yep, they shut the door in his face. Good for Sarah.

I think it's wonderful that the FBI has nothing better to do than arrest kids for reading someone's email.

If only they'd do something about those rings of hackers and spyware authors who sell our private data at auction.

Maybe you should get the facts of the case correct first?

1) It seems that David Kernell had malicious intent behind hacking into her account. At least according to some reports, he hacked into her account because he wanted to find something that "would derail her campaign". Calling it just "reading someone's email" then is not just spin, but could in fact be considered a lie.

2) Kernell didn't just stop there. He also apparently posted the password at 4chan, allowing many other people to attempt access to the account before Yahoo locked it down.

3) Then he tried to erase the data from his computer when he realized what he had done. Much like the Obama "Hope" poster plagiarist Shepherd Fairey did, when he tried to destroy evidence and create false documents to cover up the real source (the AP's photo).

Obama supporters. Birds of a feather...

Maybe you should get that I don't care.

There's one reason why this guy got all this heat, and it ain't justice.

See, that argument doesn't make sense to me. Does the existence of larger crimes mean law enforcement should devote 100% of their resources to those, ignoring smaller crimes? Should our police departments refrain from running road patrols and citing people for speeding as long as there are still child molesters around?

I would prefer it if the police didn't act like highwaymen in the first place, so...

Maybe you shouldn't respond to the thread with your lies, and actually show that you don't care then?

Right. This guy is the victim.

Yeah, maybe a victim of his own stupidity perhaps. So co-opted by his stupidity he is, that ordinary measures of stupidity cannot even survey the universe of stupidity he inhabits.

I didn't say that.

Yes. I would prefer if police spent their time tracking down known criminals instead of looking for people to break the law.

No but you implied it. What else would "all this heat" mean?

After all if the heat is not deserved, if it is not justice, then he is being flamed without cause....meaning he is some sort of victim.

Well, as Liet pointed out, this was a criminal case.

So in this instance, they did track down a criminal.

Let the sentence fit the crime.

It's because he was dumb enough to do this from his own computer and pick a high profile public target, making sure the event would hit the news and that he'd be easily found out, thereby constraining prosecutorial discretion considerably. That's on the kid, not the police or prosecutors.

Whoa, did Liet just admit that Sarah Palin is a public target? Do you have her in your crosshairs, Liet? Ready to shoot her down, are you? Why are you trying to incite violence!!

Anyway, are you suggesting that it would it be any less of a crime if he hacked into some random person's account (not a public target) and from some remote location?

Also, he didn't have to wait for the news to make a big deal out of this. It seems that he blasted this on 4chan himself.

What really burns me is how this case is being portrayed in the media. Headlines have been screaming about how Kernell hacked into the account mainly because the term "hacker" strikes so much fear into the minds of the average American. Let's be clear on one thing: This guy was no hacker. He gained access to Palin's account by being able to consult online sources for the answers to her security questions. That's not hacking. That's one step below social engineering.

Because of how this story has been portrayed, the populace at large would rather dwell on the fear incited by the prospect of being hacked than the fact that an inept government official not only illegally conducted government business on a personal account in order to circumvent state record keeping laws, but did so in a manner that left the records of such business open to the sort of attack that Kernell conducted.

You tell me: Which is the scarier crime?

So basically, pissing off Sarah Palin can get you more jail time than most murderers.



Yeah, that's not bullshit at all.

Well, if your account is ever hacked, I suppose that means you won't care, right? It'll be okay that someone else takes over your account, messes with it and, for all intents and purposes, makes it their own and exposes everything you don't want exposed, right?

And you won't want the person caught, tried and convicted, because, after all, the guy/gal doing it won't be getting justice if they do get caught tried and convicted, right?

You really believe this is "justice?"

The punishment fits the crime here?

That's the maximum sentence for obstruction. In this case he won't be sentenced on obstruction at all; he'll be sentenced on the underlying crime with a minor adjustment for obstruction. The sentencing guidelines sentence as I read it would be 6-12 months assuming no prior history. (6 points for the offense of unauthorized access, +2 for disseminating information, +2 for obstructing investigation of the underlying crime = 10 points, 10 points and no history = 6-12 months (p. 402))

You only get sentenced for obstruction if you don't get convicted of the underlying crime, and to get 20 years you'd need to be a habitual criminal who obstructed a murder investigation or something similar.

Mayhaps, but it's pretty obvious they're planning on making an example of this guy.


I'm expecting them to push for the death penalty.

There's almost no discretion involved. Unless the prosecutors can prove extensive financial damage to bump up the sentence, which seems unlikely, that's it. If they push, it's for one year.

Reporters who report about statutory maximums without considering actual sentencing practices commit journalistic malpractice.

There is no way he gets anywhere near the maximum.

That's right. She's not the hurricane, just the eye of it. Christ, you are so transparent. She was after all the injured party in the case. It wasn't like this was some sort of frivolous civil dispute.

Should have had better account security.

Do you work for a credit card company?

Well, he was getting ready to make sure that she had no privacy of any kind.
What do you think should be done?
A slap on the wrist and "bad bad boy" and send him on his way?

And as I understand it, he was convicted on an obstruction of justice charge; that has a set sentence, IIRC.