Hacking Palin

From the AP:

Hackers broke into the Yahoo! e-mail account that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin used for official business as Alaska's governor, revealing as evidence a few inconsequential personal messages she has received since John McCain selected her as his running mate.

"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.

Yes, you could look at it like that. Or you could look at it as a politically motivated illegal attack, and that the hackers should be put in jail. There is no difference between hacking someone's emails and posting them to the internet, and stealing letters from a person's mailbox and printing them in a newspaper.

The media spin on this is going to be interesting. Note that the AP "did not comply" with a Secret Service request for copies of the hacked emails, and nowhere in the article is the word "illegal" even mentioned except by McCain's spokesman. You'd think a proper piece of journalism would highlight the crime and its possible punishment. Think again. The media no doubt believe that the emails are already out there, so what the hell. Might as well use them to see if there's any "gotcha" moments. It's also interesting to see the AP use the word "disclosure" to describe criminal activity.

I'm beginning to get quite tired of the media saying that this is an all around dirty campaign. So far, I see a hell of lot of dirt going in only one direction. Still, the irony is rich. Earlier this week, the Obama campaign made a big deal about McCain not being able to use email (he can't type because of his war injuries, but why let that ruin a soundbite?). Now it's a big deal that Palin uses email too much.

The trashing and microscopic scrutiny of Sarah Palin will continue until a) she loses the VP bid, or b) she and McCain win the election. If that happens, she'll have at least four more years of this stuff to look forward to. Lucky her.

Photo: Wikipedia