FBI searches Kernell apt., roommates subpoenaed | ZDNet.com — There is something mildly funny about this fiasco. SO is this kid the one who also targeted Scientology? This should be fun to watch.

The FBI searched the apartment of David Kernell, the son of a Democratic Tennessee state representative, suspected of breaking into Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account. Three of his roommates could testify before a Chattanooga grand jury.

And, hey, once you’ve hacked the governor’s email (because, it’s clear, this account was used for official business; it wasn’t just her account for family photos) and the entire Internet has fingered you as the culprit, why not throw a party? Apparently that’s what Kernell was doing because the FBI broke up a party when they stopped by to serve the search warrant.


Dweeb Dad, Cannot be too Happy




  1. ubiquitous talking head says:

    What are you babbling about? I couldn’t find the exact law so I asked the poster.

    IANTP, but… from http://sunshinereview.org

    The Alaska Public Records Law (APRA) is a series of laws designed to guarantee that the public has access to public records of government bodies at all levels in Alaska. Statues 40.25.100 – 40.25.125 of the Alaska legislature define the law.

  2. Paddy-O says:

    #31 thanks a lot!

  3. bobbo says:

    #32–Paddy==a specific request rather than a general response eh? I apologize.

  4. RonD says:

    I won’t believe Palin has broken the law until I see a specific example of what government business she conducted using her private Yahoo account. ABC, NBC, CBS all make the charge, but do not cite any evidence.

  5. Big Red says:

    Anybody care to post any actual evidence that official business was taking place on the Yahoo account? I don’t mean talking conversationally or personally to someone else who was ‘in government’, I mean actual government business. I haven’t seen it yet, despite all of the accusations.

  6. Paddy-O says:

    #35 I tried by looking at the screen shots but I can’t find anything that violates the statute in question.

  7. gquaglia says:

    #35 I tried by looking at the screen shots but I can’t find anything that violates the statute in question.

    Haven’t you learned by now that the mere accusation of wrong doing is enough now a days when it come to bashing the right.

  8. James Hill says:

    #37 – You win. Liberals lose.

  9. #9 – Bobbo

    >>Same with violations of privacy–one level of
    >>illegality. If however it exposes government
    >>employee corruption==you should get a pass if
    >>not a reward.

    For once, Bobster, I agree with you.

    Anyone who thinks it’s OK to use personal freebie accounts to conduct classified government business obviously knows as much about technology as McBush.

    But hey, maybe that explains Palin’s apparently illegal use of a private email account for correspondence with her staff, the DPW, and drafts of letters to Schwarzenegger. She’s so stuck in the early 20th century that she just didn’t know!

    HAW!

    Yeah, she and McBush can lead the US to technological greatness in the 21st century.

  10. MikeN says:

    THis is a problem with Yahoo accounts. If you put in accurate info, you’re vulnerable to having someone else get in. If you don’t, you won’t remember the details if you should happen to forget your password.

  11. #40 – Insightful Mike

    >>THis is a problem with Yahoo accounts.

    That’s exactly why government officials (and most corporate employees) are prohibited from using a low-security system like Yahoo for conducting confidential business using those accounts.

    Too bad for Palin.

    Once the brouhaha over the partying Democrat’s kid and the FBI search dies down, Little Miss Sarah is going to have to answer some hard questions about just wtf she was doing.

    Unless the right-leaning media choose not to pursue the issue, and the Repubs can sweep it all under the carpet.

  12. bobbo says:

    Here is one source for Palin’s email. The second one posted is clearly state business. She does look and act like a Dick Cheney in training. Terrible government official, taking office as tribute rather than to serve.

    http://gawker.com/5051193/sarah-palins-personal-emails

  13. MildApplause says:

    Are government officials prohibited from conducting business over IM? Or Skype? Are there guidelines for when a conversation turns to business it has to be moved to a government mail server?

    Are conversations about government business only allowed to be conducted in government buildings? When such conversations take place by phone, are they only to take place over phones that are hardwired into government offices?

    What about conversations that take place over lunch? I guess the law says the lunch must take place in a government building’s cafeteria, or else you’re not allowed to talk about government business.

    This sounds like either one of those laws that got passed right when the internet was starting to get traction, or it’s a law that’s being misquoted rampantly.

  14. #44 – Mild

    Written correspondence (of which e-mail is a part) concerning official government business is governed by strict regulations to insure security and accountability.

    I guess if there were a conversation that started off as “whoa, I had sex with Todd last night and it was really great! I don’t know WHERE he learned that position!!” and ended up with the other (subordinate) goverment employee saying “I’m hooking up with Boris tonight, so I’ll probably be late for work” it could be viewed as benign, although in technical violation of the regulations.

    That doesn’t seem to be what went on here, though. There seems to be a concerted attempt, with malice aforethough, to circumvent the regulations governing conduct of official state business via written correspondence.

    Tsk, Sarah. And you were so cute.

  15. bobbo says:

    #43–Mustard. That is a scary read. Who the hell is Dahlia Lithwick?

    She can’t be more wrong when saying:
    “No fair arguing that Palin isn’t experienced enough to sit on the highest court of the land. What matters—far more than experience—is one’s unyielding moral certainty, relatability and gender.”

    I didn’t detect any sarcasm. Its a deep understanding of the constitution, not an antipathy towards it, that is required for SCOTUS===still lots of room for partisan bickering among the qualified.

  16. Paddy-O says:

    #45 “There seems to be a concerted attempt, with malice aforethough, to circumvent the regulations governing conduct of official state business via written correspondence.”

    Afraid your in for a disappointment. Read the statute in question, then read the emails that can be seen.

    She isn’t going to get in trouble.

  17. Montanaguy says:

    This continues to be much ado about nothing. There is not a speck of evidence that any of the Palin e-mails were official business. Show me any evidence of that. Don’t show screen shots of personal conversations; show me evidence of official government business happening on the Yahoo account. It ain’t happening.

  18. #46 – Bobbo

    >>Who the hell is Dahlia Lithwick?

    NPR? Al Franken Show? Slate? She’s got to be pulling our legs.

    Dahlia Lithwick is a senior editor at Slate. She writes “Supreme Court Dispatches” and “Jurisprudence” and has covered the Microsoft trial and other legal issues for Slate. Before joining Slate as a freelancer in 1999, she worked for a family law firm in Reno, Nevada. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, ELLE, The Ottawa Citizen, and The Washington Post.

    She was a regular guest on The Al Franken Show, and has been a guest columnist for the New York Times Op-Ed page. Lithwick, functioning in her role as Slate’s “legal correspondent,” frequently provides summaries of and commentary on current United States Supreme Court cases as a guest on National Public Radio’s newsmagazine Day to Day, which is co-produced by Slate.com. She received the Online News Association’s award for online commentary in 2001. She was recognized by a Legal Affairs magazine poll as one of the top 20 legal thinkers in America.

    Lithwick was born in Canada and she remains a Canadian citizen. She moved to the U.S. to study at Yale University, where she received a B.A. in English in 1990. As a student at Yale she debated on the APDA circuit. In 1990 she and partner Austan Goolsbee were runners up for National Debate Team of the Year. She went on to study law at Stanford University, where she received her J.D. in 1996 .

  19. #47 – O’Furniture

    >>Afraid your in for a disappointment. Read the
    >>statute in question, then read the emails
    >>that can be seen.

    The emails that can be seen”?? I don’t see any emails. I only see the inbox, containing damning headers from Alaska state employees.

    If you’ve read the emails, why not post a link to where they are. I’d like to read them, but Governor Palin has deleted them and the account.

    I just hope Yahoo backs up their shit, and they can be retrieved.

  20. #48 – Hanna

    >>This continues to be much ado about nothing.
    >>There is not a speck of evidence that any of
    >>the Palin e-mails were official business.

    Are you daft???

    There are e-mails from her underlings at the State Capitol, e-mails from the Alaska Department of Public Works, e-mails containing draft letters to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    The burden of proof is on HER. She’s been caught in a compromising situation, doing something she shouldn’t oughta been doing, and now she has some ‘splainin to do.

    And how about that DNA test for her and Trig? Did the results for that ever come in? HAW!!

    Too much smoke here for there not to be some fire.

    She’s going to become an albatross around McBush’s neck.

  21. Montanaguy says:

    #51 MooseTurd
    Obviously your rabies is kicking into high gear. Reread my post – then SHOW me one shred of concrete evidence that demonstrates a clear documentation that official government business took place on the Yahoo account. You are boring the shit out of me with your mindless, blind ideological, running-dog drivel. Kick out a fact now and then or an honest personal opinion, but not the brain-dead speculation that you parrot from dailykos.
    And resume your meds. You know the ADHD / bipolar meds you’re supposed to be on.. maybe that will prevent you from kicking out another one of your “nigger” analogies that make you look like a skanky creep. You represent the liberal left perfectly in that regard.

  22. #52 – Hannah M.

    You’re shitting me, right? Jerking my chain? You want a “shred” of evidence? RTFA!!! Messages from the DPW, from her aides, letters to Schwarzeneggar? Wtf do you THINK she was doing, talking about her appointment with the hair stylist? Jesus Christ. I really hope you’re just jerking my chain. Otherwise, I’m stunned that you can be so stupid and still exist.

    For some additional info, try the NY Times article:

    Her inner circle discussed the benefit of using private e-mail addresses. An assistant told her it appeared that such e-mail messages sent to a private address on a “personal device” like a BlackBerry “would be confidential and not subject to subpoena.” Ms. Palin and aides use their private e-mail addresses for state business. A campaign spokesman said the governor copied e-mail messages to her state account “when there was significant state business.”

    On Feb. 7, Frank Bailey, a high-level aide, wrote to Ms. Palin’s state e-mail address to discuss appointments. Another aide fired back: “Frank, this is not the governor’s personal account.” Mr. Bailey responded: “Whoops~!” “.

    Yeah, “whoops”, Frank. You got spanked there for using her FUCKING AUTHORIZED STATE EMAIL ADDY!!

    Can’t be having that shit subpoena’d now, can we??

    Sheesh.

    It’s only the cowardice of the mainstream media, who are afraid to dig more deeply into scandals like this, that’s responsible for this not being a shitstorm of a scandal that would cause her to withdraw.

    Wait until the rest of the iceberg emerges.

    Thomas Eagleton redux. Except this time around, there’s real dirt to be dug.

  23. eddie says:

    I have no doubt the many better educated blogers here know more about the law then I do. That being said. I am sitting in a gov office typing on a gov computer and I have to tell you we use a lot of “free” programs on the net. I live in a much bigger town then the one she was mayor of and I do not think my town is doing anything much differant then a lot of other towns and states. You would be suprised how some of the largest citys are run. IT wise anyway.

  24. #54 – Eddie

    >>I live in a much bigger town then the one
    >>she was mayor of

    Uh, she’s now GOVERNOR of Alaska, not mayor of E. Bumf&ck. It’s her actions as governor that are being called into question.

    >>I am sitting in a gov office typing on a gov
    >>computer and I have to tell you we use a lot
    >>of “free” programs on the net.

    Yeah, plenty of government and corporate employees uses “free” programs on the net.

    However, if you use a “free” non-governmental Yahoo e-mail account instead of your legitimate Alaska .gov e-mail with the EXPLICIT PURPOSE of communicating government business in a way that will be “immune” to subpoena…..well…that’s just criminal.

    What exactly are they talking about that they don’t want to be subpoena’d? Why do they think there would be a subpoena in the first place???

    Either she’s paranoid beyond our wildest dreams, or she’s doing something that would result in criminal charges if discovered.

    Al fin y al cabo, I don’t give a f&ck about the partying kid of the TN Democrat. Charge him, convict him, let him pay his debt to society, and move on. Nothing to see here.

    The more important question is WHAT KIND OF ACTIVITIES IS WANNABE PRESIDENT PALIN INVOLVED IN THAT WON’T STAND THE LIGHT OF DAY?

  25. Calin says:

    The burden of proof is on HER. She’s been caught in a compromising situation, doing something she shouldn’t oughta been doing, and now she has some ’splainin to do.

    Since when is the burden of proof on her? If you make accusations, the burden of proof is on YOU. Innocent until PROVEN guilty….not until ASSUMED guilty.

  26. Big Red says:

    #53
    Montana is right, you still haven’t produced any hardcopy or link to personal e-mail with government business. Everything uyou say is speculation or parroting someone elses speculation. Put up or shutup.

  27. Paddy-O says:

    Bill Clinton now a Sarah Palin fan.

  28. #57 – DelMonte’s Big Catsup

    >>Montana is right, you still haven’t produced
    >>any hardcopy or link to personal e-mail with
    >>government business.

    I’m afraid the ball is in Palin’s court, Big. Her personal e-mail has messages from her underlings at the State House, from the DPW, and what appear to be official government letters to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    Innocent gossip unrealted to government business? Perhaps, but unlikely.

    It’s easy as pie for her to debunk the idea by revealing the content of those e-mails.

    I await the revelation.

    I’m not holding my breath though, anymore than I’m holding my breath for the results of the DNA test showing that Trig is really HER son, and not Bristol’s.

    It’s crystal-clear that this gal has something to hide. And for someone who has a very good chance of becoming POTUS if elected (when McBush croaks), that’s just not good enough.

    She’s going to go through the same wringer that Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton went through, and we’ll see how clean she is when she comes out the other side.

  29. Paddy-O says:

    #59 Still grasping at straws huh? LOL

    Want to put any $ on whether this leads to charges?


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