Posted on 09/17/2008 3:10:55 PM PDT by americanophile
Gawker, a site best known for its catty observations about important subjects like celebrity clothing faux pas and stalker celebrity sightings, claims to have obtained screen shots from one of Sarah Palin's private Yahoo e-mail accounts.
Now, of course, Gawker isn't the New York Times, so it's only reasonable to be skeptical, but there are reasons to think this report is legitimate.
According to Gawker, numerous anonymous individuals managed to hack their way into one of Palin's private accounts, gov.palin@yahoo.com. This is a different e-mail than gov.sarah@yahoo.com, which Palin allegedly used to send work-related messages, including e-mails about her involvement in Troopergate. Both e-mail accounts have now apparently been deleted.
The screen shots Gawker includes of the hacked account suggests that it actually belonged to Palin. There are e-mails to Ivy Frye, a Palin aide, as well as to an address known to belong to Palin's husband, Todd. Need more evidence? There's also a cellphone number for Bristol Palin that seems to go to her voice-mail. There are pictures of Palin's family reportedly downloaded from the account. And as the Gawker post points out, "The public profile for the gov.palin address dates its last update to April of this year -- well before she became McCain's running mate. So if it's a hoax, it's a hoax that began long before anyone outside of Alaska cared about Palin."
However, those interested in the actual content of the e-mails may be disappointed. While the account may add to the speculation that Palin was conducting public business from a private account -- perhaps in an attempt to immunize herself from public records and disclosure laws -- Gawker's images offer up little in the way of newsworthy information. Gawker shows an e-mail in which Palin writes about her understanding of the role of the vice president and another in which she discusses a local radio talk show host. Not exactly items that will make or break a candidacy.
A McCain spokesman did not respond to a request for comment from Salon.
Update: The e-mail account was real. Rick Davis, John McCain's campaign manager, has issued this statement:
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 emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment.
More free Palin publicity that makes her look good and her detractors look like troglodytes.
OHMYGAAAWWWWD! They’re like TOTALLY a bunch of .. like .. twelve year olds!
Liberals .. they NEVER grow up (”stuck on Stupid!”)!
Ah, but by their way of thinking that’s “The Man” this is “The People” doing it.
Yes and no. The more ubiquitous electronic communication and hacking into those same forms of communication become, the greater the plausible deniability. If a hacker can break into the system, the same hacker can, theoretically, plant false data into the same system. Plus, the alleged “undying” nature of internet data will, imho, prove to be as fleeting as the initial reports about the indestructibility and immortal nature of CDs, which begin to lose data in as little as ten years, and which are more prone to skipping and scratches than LPs were.
Finally, the best way to be secure is to put things out in plain view, then obscure the real data with millions of bits of false data or “disinformation” (e.g., the “open source” approach to intelligence). It’s much easier to do than try and find a failsafe system, which is impossible, and no one can ever know what is real and what is false.
Gee, that's a lot like saying, the Democratic Underground isn't the Daily Kos, but...".
Yup, hypocrisy all right. And the MSM will totally ignore it.
The lefties’ unhealthy obsession with the Governor continues.
Having her email hacked will only make her a more sympathetic figure. People do care about invasion of privacy in this country. Yes, even for Republicans.
Just keep it up, you sonsabitches...
More of the same brass-knuckles, smash-mouth, take-no-prisoners tactics employed by the Clinton War Room, taken up a couple of notches....
This is getting very close to “annihilation strategy” - the other side is not merely to be taken down and defeated on the field, they are to be hunted down afterward, stripped of all possessions, humiliated, and only then summarily exiled or worse.
These people have been watching too many episodes of “24”.
Right, it would take too long to bust the hackers before election day, but couldn’t Palin initiate a civil case against Gawker and sue the hell out of them, not for hacking but for publicizing feloniously obtained material?
Probably not but would it not at least send a signal that might keep the damper on this sort of gambit in the future?
When they catch the culpret.
Email is funny stuff; every server that handles it has a complete record of where it came from, where it went through, and all the recepients.
Really?
Good to know.
Could get to be very interesting.
“These are the same liberals who don’t want the FBI looking at terrorists’ emails or listening to their phone calls.”
Isn’t liberal hypocrisy amazing?”
Yes it certainly is. I had an incident at work were two liberals who were so concerned with the right of privacy for criminals went through my desk looking for Lord knows what. I was furious. They couldn’t give me a reasonable explaination why my privacy was invaded.
Translation: Someone will be getting a visit from the Secret Service very soon.
Of course not, and Trigg’s not her baby either.
This is a felony committed in attacking a vp candidate. I would not want to be one of the guilty when the FBI and Secret Service find them.
Naw. Send them on a car ride with Ted Kennedy.
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