09/18/2008
Sarah Palin's Hacked Email Account Raises Questions
Hackers the website Wikileaks said were from the group "Anonymous" hacked into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's private email address around midnight Tuesday. The screenshots and some of the emails, family photos, and address book were published on the Wikileaks site and Gawker.
An investigation of the matter began immediately:
"This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law. The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them,' the McCain campaign said in a statement. The Secret Service contacted The Associated Press on Wednesday and asked for copies of the leaked e-mails, which circulated widely on the Internet. The AP did not comply. The disclosure Wednesday raises new questions about the propriety of the Palin administration's use of nongovernment e-mail accounts to conduct state business. The practice was revealed months ago — prior to Palin's selection as a vice presidential candidate — after political critics obtained internal e-mails documenting the practice by some aides."
The hack, while it has been roundly condemned, has renewed questions about the Governor's activities online.
Slate: "The Yahoo breach does raise a few questions about Palin's e-mail habits. Why was she using Yahoo? Critics say she was taking a page from Karl Rove, who cooked up the idea of using an off-site e-mail address to confound investigations of his activities in the Bush administration."
Posted 8:25 AM EST by Andy Towle in Election 2008, News, Sarah Palin | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
Since enforcement of laws requiring transparency in government communications has been effectively co-opted by a partisan and resistant Attorney General and Congressional Committees, it is ethically correct for citizens to expose illegal activities and corruption wherever possible. It is then up to the citizenry to enforce through recall, impeachment and arrest.
Posted by: SleepDawg | Sep 18, 2008 8:34:56 AM
It's an absurdity that the McCain camp has asked that anyone in possession of these emails should destroy them. You can't destroy anything that has hit the internet.
Posted by: Patrick | Sep 18, 2008 8:44:32 AM
Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in 30 minute webcast on women's issues
as part of the Obama campaigns Women for the Change We Need Week of Action.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/
biden-clinton-chat-it-up_n_127345.html
Watching it, one can not but be reminded that we are sooooo much better than repubs.
:-)
------------------------------------
Mccain supporter and author Elizabeth Drew author of lovefest book "Citizen Mccain " where she likens him to such a maverick and a new teddy roosevelt = switches to Obama and says John Mccain "lost her"
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/
0908/13541.html
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Sep 18, 2008 8:57:01 AM
At least this proves that *someone* on the Republican ticket can use email... One out of two isn't bad, right?
Did any of the family photos show Russia in the background? I hear she can see it from her house!
Posted by: PD | Sep 18, 2008 9:06:05 AM
Not so fast. We either think hacking into someone else's account is ok or we do not. If the right started doing this to gay blogs or the people who run them we might think differently. - There was enough low-hanging fruit to nail the lady without doing this.
Posted by: interglossa | Sep 18, 2008 9:10:05 AM
Not so fast. We either think hacking into someone else's account is ok or we do not. If the right started doing this to gay blogs or the people who run them we might think differently. - There was enough low-hanging fruit to nail the lady without doing this.
Posted by: interglossa | Sep 18, 2008 9:10:41 AM
Gay blogs aren't trying to govern the most militarily powerful nation in the world. There's entirely too much privacy provided for politicians who've shown time and time again that the job should have little, if any, privacy so as to maintain something resembling transparency. Medical records, financial statements (spouses included), military records (that aren't deeply classified for whatever reason) should all be public record the second you throw your hat in the race.
They think it's okay to keep reams-thick dossiers on citizens, but it is absolutely crossing the line to do anything to invade their privacy. That's what's commonly referred to as a double-standard. The only difference is they have laws (that they wrote) backing them up and citizens just have whatever rights they give us. See the problem with that?
Sleepdawg's right. At this point, it becomes the citizens' responsibility to expose politicians however they can. The alternative is having someone like McCain and Palin in the White House.
Posted by: Iko | Sep 18, 2008 9:31:14 AM
Andy,
This is a new low. I watched the news all day yesterday in regards to this. Everyone agrees that no inappropriate emails were discovered. Emails between Palin and staff reveal no "secret" emails about government business were conducted.
It sounds like a desperate ploy from the left to create stories where nothing exists since they have nothing else to run on. The Left can only when this election by instilling fear into the country.
'Tis a pity that the Left engages in the activity for which they try to blame the Right. Shows that the Left is desperate to win at any costs no matter how low and dishonest they must sink.
Posted by: Honest | Sep 18, 2008 9:42:02 AM
Honest
Could you please be honest?
1- ANONYMOUS (same group going after scientology) revealed that they have many incriminating e-mails and are slowly releasing the e-mails to stir up interest, get publicity for their group, etc
2- Those damn pesky founding fathers of ours should have been law abiding citizens and NOT even touched those boxes of tea in Boston harbor that didn't belong to them, they should have respected king George's rights to ownership over america and not rebelled, etc
palin was conducting gov business on a non gov e-mail account and publicly encouraged all her staff to do the same to HIDE stuff
Posted by: Jimmyboyo | Sep 18, 2008 9:57:41 AM
Palin's looking more like Cheney every day! Maybe THAT's what makes her qualified to be VP?
Posted by: Kevinvt | Sep 18, 2008 10:27:05 AM
Once again, its ok if she does it but if someone else does it its wrong. From Wired:
Palin hacked a computer belonging to Randy Ruedrich, chairman of the Republican Party at the time and a fellow commissioner on Alaska's Oil and Gas Commission. She did it in order to uncover evidence of ethical wrongdoing on Ruedrich's part.
A noble motive, no doubt, but something that would still be considered illegal. That is, if you stopped reading there.
You have to go back to a 2004 article published in the Anchorage Daily News to discover that Palin was actually examining Ruedrich's computer at the behest of Alaska's assistant attorney general. The state was conducting an ethics investigation of Ruedrich and asked Palin to look in his office and on his computer for any evidence that might further that investigation.
Palin, as chairwoman of the Oil and Gas Commission and its ethics supervisor, was entitled to examine Ruedrich's computer since the computer was state property. According to the Anchorage Daily News, a technician who worked for the commission found a way around Ruedrich's password (presumably by simply using an administrative password -- hardly an example of hacking, by anyone's definition of the word) and recovered some files from his computer's trash bin. Palin found dozens of e-mails and documents on the computer that suggested an improper relationship between Ruedrich and oil companies, which she forwarded to the attorney general's office.
Ruedrich later admitted wrongdoing and paid a $12,000 fine.
I still think she's a hacker!
Posted by: James | Sep 18, 2008 11:11:52 AM
@HONEST,
honestly, whom do you think you are kidding?
the LEFT is willing to win at any cost!?
let's review:
mccain made a cynical and reckless choice with sarah palin, a woman whose checkered past is coming back to haunt her. she was a mayor of a village of under 7000 people, and she is a governor of a state whose population is less than many U.S. cities. how does that qualify her to be the one-heartbeat-away president of the united states?
and why his choice? because mccodger needed to counter his elderly image with a young person. and why a woman? to show that he is a "maverick", and to steal female votes from the democrats.
the repugs continue to show a disdain for the intelligence of average americans. what does palin have to reccomend her? she can field-dress a moose (that endears her to the NRA). she is for abstinence-only sex ed, while her daughter is getting sexed-up by her boyfriend (nevertheless, she is championed by the religious right).
let us be truly "honest", if the non-entity that is sarah palin were picked from obscurity by a democrat, the evangelicals would be bemoaning the lack of family values of a woman who popped out a down-syndrome baby and went back to work 4 days later, never-mind that her skank of a daughter is an unmarried, under-aged girl.
for your god's sake, HONEST, do not darken towleroad's door with your ridiculous presence. you are mentally outstripped here.
Posted by: nic | Sep 18, 2008 11:27:42 AM
Jimmyboyo,
where'd you hear that Anonymous has more emails to release?
Posted by: Nick | Sep 18, 2008 11:41:27 AM
This from a Republic? "This is a shocking invasion of the governor's privacy and a violation of law." Shocking! Shocking, I say! LOL! The laugh line of the day!
Posted by: TroyTooner | Sep 18, 2008 11:54:46 AM
I oppose Palin but this kind of invasive crap is ridiculous, no matter how you slice it.
Since when is it acceptable to hack an email account? Why don't you just break into her house and then scatter her belongings across a football field?
Fight Palin on the issues, and do so with class. Then we will WIN.
Posted by: Dan | Sep 18, 2008 11:57:47 AM
I've heard suggestions that the McCain camp released these to start another altercation regarding Palin and bring the attention back to her from the economy. Sounds plausible to me.
Posted by: Jersey | Sep 18, 2008 12:15:44 PM
Should be interesting to see what comes about with the Hacker stuff - could be a big issue in politics and unveil some nice topics.
Ha - weekly world news had a pretty funny take on the hacking.
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/?p=2780
Posted by: Leslie | Sep 18, 2008 12:17:03 PM
I can't believe that there are contributors who think that illegally hacking into e-mail programs is okay if the ends justifies the means. I can just imagine the squalor if they were on the receiving end of such tactics. I guess we're not a nation of laws, but rather, "stick it to those we hate."
If there are allegations of impropriety in terms of Palin's e-mails, there are laws and procedures that govern accessing the information legally. That's not nearly as sexy as hacking, of course, but do you really want to become what you profess to abhor?
Posted by: KJ | Sep 18, 2008 1:16:34 PM
So, does this mean Palin is a Scientologist? ;-)
Posted by: Shane | Sep 18, 2008 1:17:06 PM
I once thought my ex-boyfriend was cheating on me, so I hacked into his email account. Turns out I was right! Bastard.
Posted by: crispy | Sep 18, 2008 1:23:21 PM
Ha,ha,ha!
Oh, CRISPY, darlin', you have my sympathies. Ha ha ha. Oh, Lord, yes you do, po' darlin'.
He wasn't good enough for you anyway, CRISPY. (I can't stop laughing)
Was he cheatin' with a female? Oh, Lord. Ha ha ha. And did the police investigation of his demise ever center on you? Did you attend the funeral? If you did, you're fabulous!
Posted by: Derrick from Philly | Sep 18, 2008 1:30:55 PM
Palin's operatives probably did it themselves in order to raise a stink of sympathy and draw debate away from the banking crisis, the war, energy costs, troopergate, etc. The barracuda is an evangelical charlatan way way WAY out of the mainstream.
Posted by: Brian | Sep 18, 2008 2:01:38 PM
It was a big ol' mess, Derrick. I found out he had a Manhunt account, so I hacked into that too. Miss Thang wasn't too good at coming up with secure passwords... just like Gov. Palin apparently. You know just about everyone uses their childhood pet's name, right?
Anyways, I found out he was meeting up with guys he met online. I got my own apartment and moved out that weekend. It was the kick in the pants I needed to start looking into buying a place of my own, which I eventually did. Hooray, a happy ending!
I still don't speak to that slut though.
Posted by: crispy | Sep 18, 2008 2:14:21 PM
Apparently she doesn't know about encryption.
Posted by: anon | Sep 18, 2008 3:24:05 PM