sarah palin flew all the way to knoxville, tn. to put a 22 yr. old in prison for hacking emails

he could get FIFTY years.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Sarah Palin has taken the stand at the trial of a former University of Tennessee student accused of hacking into her e-mail account.

Palin told jurors she was on the 2008 campaign trail in Michigan when she first learned from a news report that her e-mail had been hacked. She said the account and a Blackberry were the main ways she communicated with her

family while she was campaigning as the Republican vice presidential nominee.

David Kernell, the 22-year-old son of a Democratic Tennessee lawmaker, faces up to 50 years in prison if convicted of identity theft, mail fraud and two other felony charges.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jKaG9lu3DaZkgjDbJEwUUdTVPoAwD9F8RQ100

Next time, dude, kill someone and get your money's worth.

Beyond fucking stupid and excessive.

No he shouldn't go to prison for 50 years, but he did break the law.

as far as I can see, her attorneys have not inserted themselves into the case - perhaps I am searching in the wrong place?

for going after the fifity years, but as the du'er above pointed out, it's a federal case

Her lawyers have nothing to do with it; the case is brought by federal prosecutors. It's normal for prosecutors to demand the maximum sentence when they file their complaint; the sentencing can be negotiated down or decreased at appeal, but in cases where a light sentence is asked for and later revelations justify a heavier one, it's harder to get it revised upwards.

So the law provides for a sentence of up to 50 years, but realistically he'll get 8-15 and be out within 5 - this is my guess only, and includes the adjustments in the appeal process.

and no computer or Internet for a minimum of 1 year and 1 day.

Not YEARS.

And I daresay if she had anything of intelligence significance on her email the person who sent the idiot this info should be jailed as well.

This is some skewed justice system that we have. I can see him jail now. "What are you in for? Murder? Grand Theft? Treason?" "I hacked Sarah Palin's email."

50 years is ridiculous, but he deserves a slap on the wrist hard enough to make him think twice before doing it again. The e-mails he hacked might not be a big deal (I don't know one way or the other), but I don't like hackers, of any political affiliation or other motivation, invading the privacy of others.

Or did she just make them order her the right plane to fly in?

just like Palin's criminal spawn. The male one.

but getting 50 years for stupidity? Getting anything other than probation would be a travesty of "justice".

Jail time should be for violent and capital crimes -

I am reminded of the DeLorean case, wherein the DeLorean dealership in Cuyahoga county was selling DeLoreans on a balloon payment two-year trade-in using contracts authored by whatever DeLorean's son's name was. They sold to high school principals, a nun, single moms, and basically friends and family of the dealership.

Long story short, Dumbdumb DeLorean claimed his business manager duped him into not understanding the contract terms, and they brought suit against everyone they'd sold vehicles on that contract under felony, wire fraud, and because some of these people were living across the state line they were also brought up RICO statutes. Most of the ordinary people caught up in the dealership scam to show high volume sales ended up paying in both criminal and civil courts.

It was a disgusting misuse of law and misapplication of "justice" against the very people who had been duped by the dealership, to keep Junior Delorean from going to jail himself.

So, "identity theft", "mail fraud", what exactly were those laws written for? Certainly not for a stupid kid jacking an e-mail account. I'm almost certain the letter of the law can be twisted to make this trumped up irrelevant bullshit stick and destroy him.

Clearly it was wrong of Mr. Kernell to boldly go where few people stupider had gone before, but the shame is that it's just another shameful position for Sarah Palin to take considering how she would feel if it had been one of her brats that did something stupid, which they NEVER do. :eyes:

Chillbillies go home and kick a puppy or shoot a bear or something. The lower forty really doesn't want you - we have enough hillbillies of our own, and not the good kind.

Justice in the USA! :eyes:

How in the hell is this anywhere close to a fair judicial system.

Maybe he thinks he can get some sort of jury nullification

that's just the maximum possible sentence for those crimes. assuming he's found guilty, the actual sentence will almost certainly be much lower, and if it's not then it'll probably be lowered on appeal.I very much doubt he will spend longer than 5 years in prison.

But I do think that this red state, red county jury is likely to be dazzled by their Queen Bee being on the stand to the point that the defendant may not be able to get a fair trial.

Didn't the dude just guess her password or something?

I use my late wife's maiden name for a number of my casual accounts, I you researched me, you might be able to get into my news accounts etc. We all do it, even those of us who know better.

If you break into my house, that's burglary. But if I don't lock the door and you go in, it's still trespass. If he had hacked his way in in some clever fashion, then he'd be facing additional charges for accessing Yahoo's system administration in addition to Palin's account.

He just figured out her password and got in himself.

State attorney is running the case, not Palin's lawyers. Its a safe bet he was offered a deal of some sort and turned it down, presuming he is a first offender. He is taking a big risk for minimal if any upside.

Yeah, the kid was stupid and wrong, but if those were the criteria for imprisonment, Palin would have been locked up years ago.

I have no sympathy for kid.

2nd did....they are going after him...this is one of the reddest state in the country

But the people here suggesting that Palin is somehow wrong to go testify at the trial are such hypocrites. If it was reversed and some right winger had hacked into a dems email, many here would be perfectly fine with a 50 year prison sentence.

...wait until the defense gets to her this afternoon or tomorrow, and begins asking why she had state business running through an insecure webmail account.

Agreed that it is not relevant insofar as it affects the question of whether Kernell acted criminally in accessing her account. It would be just as illegal if her yahoo account contained nothing but messages like 'dinner at 8? xxx Todd'.

On the other hand, when she's saying that her email was full of Serious business and the prosecution is arguing that it increases the gravity of the offense, it seems legitimate for the defense to question why such sensitive information was so poorly protected - or rather, whether such poorly protected information could be as sensitive and important as the prosecution claims.

Like, say you entered an unlocked house, and stole a pile of costume jewelry before fleeing; and later it turned out that this included a real diamond necklace. you'd be guilty of trespass and theft, for sure. but it wouldn't be as bad as if you had trashed the place looking for the hidden safe and then forced your way in in search of that same diamond necklace.

Mind you, I see in news reports that in this particular county it's super right wing and Palin is extremely popular, so that's going to limit the defense's desire to probe her on the security issues :-/

Last I checked Palin did not have access to a classified email network and as a practical matter the free email servers are often better protected than government ones. However if you use passwords susceptible to a social engineering attack all the security measures are for naught (AKA Stupid is as stupid does)

seems as if the prosecution is avoiding the temptation to make it into a political issue, and we can expect a fairly light sentence. Palin's own comments after emerging from court were fairly mild.

This should have never gone to trial

Also, the prosecution would object on the grounds of relevance, and the judge would sustain, and that would be that.

:wtf:

Man, every goddam time there's a trial...

Look, ALL criminal statutes basically consist of a description of the crime, and what the maximum and/or minimum sentence for such a crime should be. Otherwise sentencing would be totally random. As well as the statutes, there are also sentencing guidelines to help judges decide what a sentence should be, based on past criminal history, severity of the offense and so on. (these used to be mandatory, leaving judges very little room for discretion; but the Supreme Court overturned that, for which you can thank Antonin Scalia, surprisingly enough).

So any time someone is charged with a crime and pulled into the court, the news is going report the maximum possible sentence they could get. If you get arrested for robbery, and the maximum sentence is 10 years, the papers (and usually the DA) will say you're facing a 10 year sentence. Now maybe you just shoved someone and took a quarter and ran away - not so serious, maybe you'll only actually get 3 months.

The 50 years here is not a 'WTF', it's just the total of the possible sentences for the 4 charges of identity theft, wire fraud, unauthorized access to a computer system and obstruction of justice. Now when the actual sentence comes down from the trial court and is reviewed by the appeal court, then you can 'wtf' if you think it's too heavy. But knowing that criminal law includes sentence terms...c'mon, that's civics 101. Everyone should know that stuff by the time they leave school.

I can't help feeling that if the kid was the offspring of a Republican and had 'hacked' into Joe Biden's personal mailbox, you'd be cheering the idea of a 50 year sentence or demanding he be executed for treason or something.

Way too high IMO.

BTW...thanks for the essay response to my one word post. You make me feel special :hi:

And I didn't mean to be snarky, but it does upset me when I see people confused by misinformation.

I don't understand why you think these possible sentences are 'way too high'. this particular guy will probably get a much lighter sentence, but wire fraud and obstruction of justice, to name but two, can be very serious crimes. Wire fraud could involve millions of dollars or more, while obstruction of justice could mean things like helping to cover up a murder. The high potential penalties exist because of the high potential for injustice of such acts.

You're right.

hypocritical biatch

Much like complaining about Obama using a teleprompter, which precludes her from using one, so she has to write notes on her hand. Such an idiot! I cannot imagine how stupid a person must be in order to be a Palin follower! Dangerously stupid, I would think.

Steal a trillion dollars...get a bonus? Makes a lot of sense, don't it?

But as a sometimes information assurance technician I got no love for teh haxxors.

And I work for the paper. It's our A1 lead story and centerpiece tomorrow, so read all about it on knoxnews.com. I hope I don't have to write the headline for it.