Anonymous Hacks Palin's Email! | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 hidden)
It's not just sleazy (none / 0)
It's not just sleazy, it's illegal and a violation of her privacy.

Watergate? Nixon? FISA? Wire-tapping?

Don't make excuses for this or celebrate it.

by perdido619 on 09/17/2008 04:02:32 PM EST

Yes, it's sleazy (none / 0)
And 2 wrongs do not make a right.  I agree.  And the media is just as guilty by promoting this illegal activity.  Sarah Palin should be tried in a court of law if she did anything illegal.

BUT...

When a government refuses to honor subpeonas themselves and provides false testimony under oath, then they are only inviting people to be vigilantes. 

Anonymous can either be heros for exposing illegal activity or zeros for perpetuating lawlessness.

by TJD on 09/17/2008 04:31:56 PM EST

[ Parent ]
The Point (none / 0)
That's not the point.

To support this in any way morally validates both Nixon and Bush. It makes any complaint of Bush's illegal wire-tapping invalid.


The argument is that the law was circumvented because it was too cumbersome. This is EXACTLY Bush's moral justification for illegal wire-tapping, as well as suspension of habeus corpus.


Anonymous could anyone, not necessarily the same group that hacked Scientology, etc. Anonymous or someone else could have been someone paid by McCain Campaign people to do this, as it completely destroyed the case against her.

Heros? Are you kidding me?



by perdido619 on 09/17/2008 04:44:44 PM EST

[ Parent ]
i don't follow (none / 0)

How does this affect the case?

First, her deleting doesn't mean anything.  Its backed up on the yahoo servers.

Second, just because someone broke in and looked at it means nothing.

Its like saying the murder weapon you had a search warrant for was on my kitchen table and my neighbor looked in the window and saw it before you got it so now its inadmissable.  It makes no sense.

If anything, it gives investigators a road map for what e-mails to subpoena when.

Your argument would only be true if the prosectution did the breaking in.  Not a third party.

Otherwise every criminal in the world would just hire someone to break into their house to contaminate the evidence and they would get off.

by ProfRich on 09/17/2008 05:23:06 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Evidence (none / 0)
Here's why:

I mentioned before (although farther down the page) that the account may be backed up on Yahoo, but it's not certain that it is or for how long.

1) It gave her the opportunity to delete the account because it was insecure. She couldn't do this before because it would have been Obstruction.

2) The screenshots are inadmissable for 2 reasons.

A) They were illegally obtained. It doesn't matter that they were obtained through a third party. Beyond  evendentiary protocol, she has Fourth Amendment Rights, you can only obtain this kind of stuff through subpoena.

B) They're meaningless. The argument here is that they're simply screenshots of what are obstensibly Palin's e-mails, but they could be anything really. Fake account, photoshopped, etc. They're really just jpgs.


This isn't to say that they are necessarily fake, I wouldn't know, but that to try to present these as authentic, the jpgs themselves, would be problematic.



by perdido619 on 09/17/2008 05:55:17 PM EST

[ Parent ]
You misunderstand me (none / 0)

What you are saying would be true if "anonymous" was somehow related to the investigation.

You are conflating the two.

The investigators can still subpoena the files and Palin can back her e-mails up without deleting everything, which is a non-issue because Yahoo servers will still have all the info anyway.

The argument you are making is this.  If someone is trying to subpoena files I have in my home office and a different party breaks in and takes pictures of those files that somehow taints the evidence or taints the legitimate attempt to obtain the evidence.

It doesn't.  The points you are arguing only apply when the investigator does these things, not a third party.

If there is some legal reporting being done on this, please direct me to it.  

by ProfRich on 09/17/2008 10:53:14 PM EST

[ Parent ]
no no I'm not saying that (none / 0)
I'm not saying that since the hackers have tainted the evidence, that it now is inadmissible.

If Yahoo has the files, by all mean, they are completely valid as evidence - absolutely.


I'm saying that the screenshots posted on the internet aren't going to be admitted.


1) because they were obtained illegally, it doesn't matter who illegally obtained them.


It doesn't matter who hacked her e-mail, Anonymous or an official investigator, it's still illegal. You can't obtain evidence in this manner. If you could just obtain evidence through criminal acts, then why bother with legal mechanisms at all?

What Hubble was talking about earlier pertained to evidence siezed with illegal warrants due to processing errors, etc. But hacking and stealing information is a crime. It wouldn't matter if Anonymous is related to the investigation or not. This isn't a legal way to acquire evidence. If it was, then investigators would just hire people to steal evidence that they couldn't get fast enough through legal means.

2) There is no way for those screen shots to be authenticated. There's no way in Hell that these would ever allowed as evidence.


About your example:


Let's say someone broke into your office and took screen shots of open files that implicated you in a crime, local law enforcement might use the screen shots as probable cause to search your office and PC for evidence, but the screen shots themselves wouldn't be evidence.

Now let's say that someone sent the screen shots to the police, who didn't even bother searching your PC for evidence, they just arrested and prosecuted you using the screen shots.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

OK then, working from the previous example, lets say someone sent screen shots to the police that WEREN'T from files on your PC, and then the police arrested and prosecuted you using only the screen shots.

They need Palin's authenticated e-mail account straight from Yahoo, these screen shots might anger the public, but they won't be used as evidence in court.

And, again, I'm not saying that the account itself is tainted because it was hacked. I'm saying that these screen shots don't mean dick in court.

And now, because the account was hacked, she deleted both accounts, meaning that she CAN'T provide them with the accounts, and that's part of the obstruction claim. That's a bit of a load off.

None of this matters anyway, the investigation seems like it has been effectively stonewalled.

The obstruction investigation is getting some coverage now, so this might have put some pressure on Alaskan Republicans to continue. But as it stands, it's stalled until at least after the election.

I don't really care so much about Palin or her investigation. Stonewalling investigations is a fact of life for Republicans. I'm neither shocked nor outraged.

I just posted my take on the hacking issue, and apparently that opened a can-o-beans that I didn't expect.

i think what the hacking story and screen shots will do is to create more buzz about the investigation.
I think that it's an embarrassment to her and that it could cause the investigation move forward.

 It's a smoking gun for the public, but it won't make it to court.












by perdido619 on 09/18/2008 12:18:46 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Smoking Gun (none / 1)

I'm one of those who thinks this is a non-story.  Any benefit from the toils of hackers is an ill begotten gain.

But the biggest value of the investigation itself is information for the public who must choose the next President.  Any legal consequences within Alaska is less important.

by rbruck on 09/18/2008 12:46:59 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Agreed (none / 0)

by perdido619 on 09/18/2008 12:50:06 AM EST

[ Parent ]
Duh (none / 0)

You originally were saying this tainted and damaged the case against Palin.

I am saying it has no effect.

In fact, the only possible effect would be giving the investigators a subpoena roadmap.

If someone thought those screenshots had any business in an official investigation, then they are Palin-stupid.

by ProfRich on 09/18/2008 07:24:26 AM EST

[ Parent ]
I still think so (none / 0)
i still think that it damages the case against her, if there even will be a case.

I understand that the account should be backed up on a Yahoo server. But I suspect that it will be flushed before it can be examined.

That was one of the complaints about her using private accounts for state business - that Law dictates security, back-up procedures, and that deleted files be held for a certain length of time.

Yahooo doesn't keep this stuff forever, and I highly suspect that this stuff could either die a natural death or somehow disappear.

She's been asked to turn these accounts over to investigators, but has refused. They were subpoenaed, but the Alaska AG refuses to enforce it.

If she deleted the accounts, she almost certainly ran the risk of additional obstruction charges. By hacking one of the accounts, she was given a reasonable excuse to delete both of them, thusly avoiding additonal obstruction charges and possibly avoiding indictment for the original charges if any of these e-mails are incriminating.

Now, it remains to be seen whether or not the backed-up accounts will still exsist by the time the AG decides, if he ever does to enforce a subpoena requesting the files from Yahoo.

I have no idea how long they keep these files.

So, if it turns out that the files get dumped before the AG is forced to move on them, and that's not even certain, then the hackers have will have done her a huge favor, possibly saving her from indictment - who knows.

But I don't think anything's going to happen with that, the whole of the Alaskan GOP is stonewalling this, McCain lawyers are handling this, and her personal attorneys are funded by a group endowed by Dobson. Talk about surrounding the Queen.



by perdido619 on 09/18/2008 07:45:40 AM EST

[ Parent ]
More Useless Info (none / 0)
Yahoo data storage policy doesn't specify. It says:

"Please note that any information that we have copied may remain in back-up storage for some period of time after your deletion request"


http://info.yahoo.com/priva cy/us/yahoo/datastorage/

Useless

by perdido619 on 09/18/2008 08:03:35 AM EST

[ Parent ]
I was not making a conclusion, but (none / 0)
...only stating 2 potential viewpoints, just to be clear.

But this does differ from all of the other cases people are mentioning in that this hack was performed by private citizens that were not acting as agents of the police or any authority.  Sure, they broke the law, but I question all those who may say the evidence is not admissable. This was not the government tracking her emails, it was 'you and me" that gained access, albeit illegally. Maybe I watch too much Law and Order.

And another point is that the emails are not lost because she cancelled the account.  I am sure Yahoo has all of these files on backup servers or media.

To clarify my own personal opinion, I think that their breaking of the law is reprehensible and they should be jailed if caught.  However, if the law allows the admission of this evidence then it should be allowed in any proceedings. 

by TJD on 09/17/2008 06:56:38 PM EST

[ Parent ]
Yahoo (none / 0)
Right - if the account is backed up on some Yahoo server, then it's still fair game.


I wasn't saying that the account itself is not admissible as evidence just because it was hacked, but that these screenshots that have been posted are not admissible.

So, if there is a back-up of the account that can be preserved, then this can be subpoenaed. But the hacked stuff - the screenshots -  won't be able to be used in the event that the backed-up data is "lost" somehow.

People seem to think that this stuff - the hacked screenshots - are somehow evidence. They're not. That is, they can't be admitted as evidence against her in a Court.



by perdido619 on 09/17/2008 07:29:00 PM EST

[ Parent ]
fruit of the poisonous tree (none / 0)
Like any case, if investigators can convince the court that any evidence gathered from the illegal conduct would have been found in the course of a lawful investigation, it's still in play.

Law 101

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." John Stuart Mill

by Hubble on 09/17/2008 08:41:49 PM EST

[ Parent ]
OK - but this isn't a botched police raid (none / 0)
OK - what you posted is actually an exception to Fruit of the Poisonous Tree.

This doesn't apply to this case. And here's why:


What you posted is the inevitable discovery exception to the exclusionary rule. This applies to evidence seized by law enforcement that is tainted due to processing errors in warrants.

The idea is - do we admit evidence seized when there is a clerical error in the warrant, thus making the warrant invalid and the therefore the seizue illegal?  The ruling doesn't address "illegal" conduct, i.e., hacking or theft. The term "illegal" pertains to invalid warrants due to clerical errors, i.e., incorrect addresses, misspelled names, incorrect birthdates, etc.

Basically, what it means is, evidence obtained with an illegal warrant is still admissible if that evidence would have been obtained with a proper warrant. But even then, it's application isn't broad enough to include warrantless searches without probable cause, etc.

So, the inevitable discovery is a lot narrower than you're trying to apply it, there's nothing general about it.


But the jpgs wouldn't fly anyway, their authenticty can't be proven.













by perdido619 on 09/17/2008 10:27:09 PM EST

[ Parent ]
I agree (none / 0)
As curious as I am to know what's in her email, this was WAY out of bounds.  Not good, not good at all.

by pmdtrans on 09/17/2008 04:34:53 PM EST

[ Parent ]

Anonymous Hacks Palin's Email! | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 hidden)