Posted on 09/18/2008 10:55:25 AM PDT by Pinkbell
It's not a great idea to run a government using Yahoo! e-mail accounts.
Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail habit of using a private account to communicate with aides echos the worst practices of the Bush administration, says one expert.
That's the word from experts, anyway, reacting to news that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo! e-mail had been hacked earlier this week. McCain's vice-presidential pick apparently used the accounts to communicate with key aides about government business.
The practice is dangerous, said experts, and can run counter to laws ensuring government is open and accountable -- a tough point for Palin, who has made "open government" a catchphrase of her political identity.
By using non-governmental email systems, "Your information is out there available, beyond the official mechanisms there to protect it," said Amit Yoran, the nation's first cybersecurity chief. Yoran is now CEO of Netwitness Corp., a computer security firm for government and private entities.
"When she's communicating about government programs, that information is not being protected with the typical precautions the government has put in place in its own risk management process," said Yoran.
Moreover, a hacked account could be used to falsify communications, noted Yoran – a point proven by one of the hackers, who used Palin's account to send a message to one of her assistants.
Two Yahoo! email accounts belonging to Palin were hacked early Tuesday by a group calling itself 'Anonymous'. Screen shots of her inbox were posted online, as well as a screenshot showing an email of an apparently personal nature from a Palin appointee to the governor.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
State of Alaska policy is that state employees must have a private email account for private matters, and only use the State’s email for official matters.
That obviously is what Sarah was doing.
That ABC expert doesn’t seem to know this.
Damn, these people are pathetic. I’m seething reading this article. They would have you believe that she used it for government business. This crap needs to be stopped!!
So does this mean that Ted Kennedy will ALSO be taken to task?
http://www.slate.com/id/2095770/
Memogate
The Judiciary Committee computer scandal is one gnarly sausage.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004, at 5:35 PM ET
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are holding their breath this week as they await a final report in “Memogate,” the dust-up over Senate Democrats’ strategy documents lifted by GOP staffers from a shared computer server. The documents were internal memos laying out tactics and objections to President Bush’s judicial nominees. Mostly, the committee has evinced bipartisan disgust at the act of downloading, studying, and then leaking these memos to the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times last November. But Senate Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, who launched the wide-ranging investigation, and GOP senators on the committee are being pummeled by conservative groups for letting their disgust at the way the memos were obtained override their obligation to behave like hysterical drama queens about their contents. Democrats on the committee have stepped into the drama-queen breach, demanding firings and criminal prosecutions over an incident Sen. Ted Kennedy has likened to Watergate.
Well, here’s the rub. I would recommend you check your belief that Palin is using Yahoo! for business. Why do you think that? What evidence have you actually seen? I’d wait before I accepted the DU version of events.
There was no govt documents here. They were family photo's and documents.
The Conservative Compendium - A Conservative Social Networking Site
The alphabet networks lie by omission all the time. What they “seem” to know isn’t always the ONLY thing they know.
They report/spin what/how they want to. They can always “clarify” the historical record days later. It is about perception, not facts.
My boiling point was reached weeks ago, and it just went up another dangerous several degrees. Is there no end to this Soviet style news? We used to battle Isvestia and Pravda, now our media emulate them, with the same end in mind. That end seems to be a one party rule, and the party, the Democrats.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izvestia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravda
1. What secret government information was found on these emails that would be detrimental to the State of Alaska if stolen and published nationally?
2. In the case of emails to “aides” - was the nature and tenor of the email that of a friend emailing a friend or was official Alaska state business discussed? If the former, please explain how you would reconcile her sending these emails on her Alaskan state email account, as using state email for personal use is strictly forbidden.
3. Please advise which emails hacked and published you believe the public had a right to see because her use of personal email violated any relevant Alaska “Sunshine” laws.
1. What secret government information was found on these emails that would be detrimental to the State of Alaska if stolen and published nationally?
2. In the case of emails to “aides” - was the nature and tenor of the email that of a friend emailing a friend or was official Alaska state business discussed? If the former, please explain how you would reconcile her sending these emails on her Alaskan state email account, as using state email for personal use is strictly forbidden.
3. Please advise which emails hacked and published you believe the public had a right to see because her use of personal email violated any relevant Alaska “Sunshine” laws.
The Story behind the Palin email hacking
There was NOTHING here. Ask yourselves a question. Do you REALLY think that if there was something here in these email boxes that the Drive By's wouldn't have put it out instantly???
THe only reason they're stooping to wheezing about not using a yahoo account for "official business" is because it's all they CAN talk about! BECAUSE THERE WAS NOTHING THERE!
The Conservative Compendium - A Conservative Social Networking Site
You can keep contacts and such in your Yahoo account if you want. Apparently, she does. Lesson learned; this too shall pass.
Except it appear that Palin did not use this personal account to conduct state business, so your comment doesn't seem to apply to her.
McCain can't use the a computer and Palin uses Yahoo email. Pretty serious issues. How can they run the country if they use Yahoo mail.
Yep, pretty serious stuff.
This wouldn't happen to be a whole bunch of smoke screens to draw people away from actual sane issues that were being uncovered before the Obummer/Biden popularity started to drop would it?
Naw, couldn't be.
Yep, pretty important issues all right.
Stop being an ass. It’s unprofessional (and dangerous) to correspond with your co-workers (that is what aides and campaign staff are...right? Right?) using free e-mail accounts from Yahoo. Do you think it’s okay that her e-mail got hacked? What if some confidential campaign documentation had been in there?
Fortunately, Governor Palin obviously has nothing to hide. That doesn’t place her above criticism.
Next, we will be getting stories about how the poor defenses of the Polish Army just invited the Nazi's over the border.
piytar isn’t being an ass... I think you are, you are trying to make something of nothing with this story!
It's Gore's fault - he invented the internet.
No confidential campaign information was in there! Why don’t we throw out a million hypotheticals while we’re at it?
Re: It’s unprofessional (and dangerous) to correspond with your co-workers (that is what aides and campaign staff are...right? Right?) using free e-mail accounts from Yahoo.
I would venture every professional person i the country has a free email account and they use it to comminicate with friends.
I think you are a distinct minority if you do not.
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