once again the jokes write themselves...

It's kind of ironic to hear Republicans bleating about illicit invasion of privacy.

Also, what kind of idiot conducts official business with a Yahoo account?

I don't think anyone cares what Sarah Palin was emailing to her kids, but if you are conducting official business through your yahoo account you are ipso facto HIDING SOMETHING, and if that's the case, and you're busted, then you're busted.

Its not as though her yahoo account was hacked and we discovered she was governing elusively. We already knew from vaarious sources she used her yahoo account to purposely avoid accountability and if those were her intentions and it backfired I have no sympathy. Again, any truly personal emails should remailn personal and if they're not its a problem, but emails that are related to her duties as Governor are another story.

I just want to know two things:

* Did the emails contain lots of "lol's" and emoticons?

* Did the recipients of these emails click through to the advertisements inserted by Yahoo into the messages?

It would have been better if she used gmail. much more street cred than yahoo.

Originally posted by Mobius:
I don't think anyone cares what Sarah Palin was emailing to her kids, but if you are conducting official business through your yahoo account you are ipso facto HIDING SOMETHING, and if that's the case, and you're busted, then you're busted.

It's now being suggested that she is guilty of destroying evidence for deleting those accounts after they were found out…

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:

Originally posted by callat703:
Absolutely it is illegal, and I'm not saying they should have done it. But they DID do it, and showed her that her account is vulnerable. What about the people who could have hacked this account and never said a word?

all i can say is that whatever the reasons behind it, this is just another attempt by obama supporters to show how far they'll go to get their candidate elected. we can have a civil debate about whether or not using private email accounts is ethical, but to purposefully and willingly go about to hack into a person's private email account is not only illegal, but just wrong. have you guys no sense of decency?

Oh come on, really? Hackers don't care about politics. They care about hacking. That's why there aren't any political messages contained in what they released to the public, and they went out of their way to publish relatively innocuous emails that don't smear Sarah Palin. They just show that they were able to successfully perform a hack.

And don't question my decency. I've said that hacking is illegal and they shouldn't have done it. But if Sarah Palin - who, in case you've forgotten, is running for VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES - wasn't completely naive about internet security, she never would have given them a reason or a chance to hack into an account containing government information in the first place.

There is NO indication that anybody from the Obama campaign or anybody supporting Obama had anything to do with this, or that politics motivated the action.

If the same hackers had knowledge and access to a personal email account for Obama, Biden or McCain, I'm willing to bet they'd have done the exact same thing.

On another note, where the hell was the McCain camp on this? Do you think they knew she had a personal email account to use for government purposes? Do you think they would have let her keep that email account active once she entered the race if they HAD known? And if they DID let her keep that account active, what does that say about McCain's complicity in using private email for official purposes?

I agree with you that this IS an invasion of privacy, and an unfortunate one. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean Sarah Palin doesn't have to be accountable for what was in that email inbox. Once busted, you're busted.

Take this as an analogy. Let's say some people had broken into the governor's mansion in Alaska, and found the governor growing marijuana in the green house. They then took some photos that they released to the world. They didn't steal anything, and they left a note tied to the door saying that they should be more careful about security. Do you mean to imply that we would dismiss those photos and the issue because the photos were obtained illegally?

when you run for public office - and especially when you're running for the highest office in the land - you should expect additional scrutiny. the republicans have a track record of considering themselves above the rules, use of un-official e-mail accounts to conduct official business is par for the course. seriously folks, do we want another 4 years of such deceptions?

speaking of hiding information: John McCain's health records must be released. i haven't been following this story closely, but based on that video it appears that mccain hasn't provided enough info about his fitness to be president… and his fitness is in question.

Originally posted by callat703:
This trend continues:

Real Clear Politics Poll of Polls - 9.17

Today's Gallup poll has Obama up by 2 points. I may revise my prediction above and guess that Obama will be up 4-6 points going into the debates.

Hmmm….

http://www.gallup.com/poll/110473/Gallup-Daily-Obama-48-McCain-44.aspx

since when is guessing a password hacking?

Most hackers are narcissistic libertarians anyway.

this is the type of person who is going to determine the election outcome:

That sentiment is echoed by Beth Seidel, a factory worker in Cleveland who works the third shift so she can take her son to school and then to practices for the four sports he plays. Pausing recently at a Wal-Mart, she said: "Honestly, I don't know what to do. I really don't want to vote for McCain. You can tell he only cares about rich people. Sarah Palin wears glasses that cost $300. McCain's wife wears Gucci clothes. Which means they don't know anything about people like me." Into that stew of assumptions, she adds: "I hear that Obama's a Muslim. If he is a Muslim, that would be a problem, because the terrorists already attacked us." (He's not.)

Originally posted by They call me Doctor Doom.:
Also, what kind of idiot conducts official business with a Yahoo account?

she derserves what she gets.

And we want to trust Sarah Palin with the vice presidency?

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

"As detailed in the postings, the Palin hack didn't require any real skill. Instead, the hacker simply reset Palin's password using her birthdate, ZIP code and information about where she met her spouse – the security question on her Yahoo account, which was answered (Wasilla High) by a simple Google search.

The simplicity of the attack, of course, makes it no less illegal.

The hacker said that he read all of the e-mails in the Palin account and found "nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped. All I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governorâ?¦. And pictures of her family."

This kid is clearly an idiot who shouldn't have done this. But this is alarming that getting into her email was this simple.

Originally posted by callat703:


This kid is clearly an idiot who shouldn't have done this. But this is alarming that getting into her email was this simple.

Well isn't that more of an issue with Yahoo email security than with Sarah Palin?

Originally posted by Mobius:

Originally posted by callat703:


This kid is clearly an idiot who shouldn't have done this. But this is alarming that getting into her email was this simple.

Well isn't that more of an issue with Yahoo email security than with Sarah Palin?

If you're governor of a state and using that email address for official state business, are you really going to put something THIS simple as your security question? Maybe a better point - would you even USE a security question?

And the obvious point - don't use a freakin' Yahoo email address when you're governor or running for VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Yup, hacking is illegal. So is bypassing Alaska's laws regarding Government records and communications. So I'd call it even.

I don't know the details of Alaska law, but if you work for Uncle Sam and you're using personal email for work purposes and using sloppy password techniques, you can get fired… I imagine state laws are not unsimilar.

I've lost track of Palin scandals… apparently her eldest preggo daughter was known as "makeout queen" as early as 15 years old, and is a confirmed pothead.

Normally I'd say good on her (and you can sort of understand why Levi saw this party gal and decided he'd like to tap that – although weaseling your way into a guv'nor's daughter's knickers is likely a bad move whether Republican or Democrat). None of it would be anyone's business were it not for Republican sanctimony on these issues. If you're going to tell others how to live their lives, then I'd say your own personal life is fair game if it's not in sync with your preaching.

Originally posted by callat703:

Originally posted by Mobius:

Originally posted by callat703:


This kid is clearly an idiot who shouldn't have done this. But this is alarming that getting into her email was this simple.

Well isn't that more of an issue with Yahoo email security than with Sarah Palin?

If you're governor of a state and using that email address for official state business, are you really going to put something THIS simple as your security question? Maybe a better point - would you even USE a security question?

And the obvious point - don't use a freakin' Yahoo email address when you're governor or running for VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Well its two separate issues. If she's using Yahoo to circumvent government accountability than its all on her. And she sucks. But are there specific emails showing this? I'm not sure (didn't read them and haven't read stories). If there aren't then . . . well. . . she should have nothing to hide. I mean she's a clean living Christian raising a clean living Christian family . . . right??

this is my final post on this topic. . and the responses to my previous post here have simply re-inforced my belief about this election…..this is truly a sad day for democracy and freedom.

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
this is my final post on this topic. . and the responses to my previous post here have simply re-inforced my belief about this election…..this is truly a sad day for democracy and freedom.

that is rich

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
this is my final post on this topic. . and the responses to my previous post here have simply re-inforced my belief about this election…..this is truly a sad day for democracy and freedom.

haha. . . everything was right on target until yesterday.

Originally posted by Venerable Bede:
this is my final post on this topic. . and the responses to my previous post here have simply re-inforced my belief about this election…..this is truly a sad day for democracy and freedom.

it's reinforced mine too - that political fanboys and fangirls will stick by their party no matter what, including going against the party line. people will distort, ignore, try turning tables through vapid counter-accusations, feign indignation, refuse to discuss the issue, and generally do whatever it takes to maintain their core belief… everything except admit that the other side has a valid point.

sad day for democracy and freedom (of thought) indeed.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about.